Transdisciplinary Research in Practice: Lessons from Participatory, Folklore and Community-Supported Approaches in the Greater American West

Rapid social and ecological changes on global rangelands amplify the challenges to achieving biodiversity conservation, rural economic viability and social well-being, and rangeland sustainability. These dynamics create a need for transdisciplinary science that is inclusive of ecological, sociological, and participatory approaches in order to rebuild meaningful working relationships between scientists, ranchers and managers, and other rangeland stakeholders. In real application, however, transdisciplinary science faces numerous social, ethical, and logistical challenges, including the question of how the work might benefit rangeland stakeholders. Our objective is to advance rangeland researchers’ toolbox for meaningful engaged research by describing three lessons from transdisciplinary projects in the rangeland contexts of the United States. These include the need for 1) ranch-scale, long-term participatory management experiments; 2) folklore and oral history methods and 3) community-supported social-ecological research that creates credible science that can be communicated out to non-ranching decision-makers. These examples illustrate the nuances of transdisciplinary research, reciprocity, and useable knowledge creation in complex rangeland social-ecological contexts

Detection of multiple H(3) receptor affinity states utilizing [(3)H]A-349821, a novel, selective, non-imidazole histamine H(3) receptor inverse agonist radioligand

1. A-349821 is a selective histamine H(3) receptor antagonist/inverse agonist. Herein, binding of the novel non-imidazole H(3) receptor radioligand [(3)H]A-349821 to membranes expressing native or recombinant H(3) receptors from rat or human sources was characterized and compared with the binding of the agonist [(3)H]N-α-methylhistamine ([(3)H]NαMH). 2. [(3)H]A-349821 bound with high affinity and specificity to an apparent single class of saturable sites and recognized human H(3) receptors with 10-fold higher affinity compared to rat H(3) receptors. [(3)H]A-349821 detected larger populations of receptors compared to [(3)H]NαMH. 3. Displacement of [(3)H]A-349821 binding by H(3) receptor antagonists/inverse agonists was monophasic, suggesting recognition of a single binding site, while that of H(3) receptor agonists was biphasic, suggesting recognition of both high- and low-affinity H(3) receptor sites. 4. pK(i) values of high-affinity binding sites for H(3) receptor competitors utilizing [(3)H]A-349821 were highly correlated with pK(i) values obtained with [(3)H]NαMH, consistent with labelling of H(3) receptors by [(3)H]A-349821. 5. Unlike assays utilizing [(3)H]NαMH, addition of GDP had no effect on saturation parameters measured with [(3)H]A-349821, while displacement of [(3)H]A-349821 binding by the H(3) receptor agonist histamine was sensitive to GDP. 6. In conclusion, [(3)H]A-349821 labels interconvertible high- and low-affinity states of the H(3) receptor, and displays improved selectivity over imidazole-containing H(3) receptor antagonist radioligands. [(3)H]A-349821 competition studies showed significant differences in the proportions and potencies of high- and low-affinity sites across species, providing new information about the fundamental pharmacological nature of H(3) receptors

Scripture and reform

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