The Costs and Returns of Scottish Potato Production

The gross and net margins for a representative sample of 53 Scottish potato producers classed as "Seed" (>80% of area grown for seed), "Ware" (>80% of area grown for Ware) and "Mixed" for the rest were obtained for the 1999 growing season according to the methodology of MAFF (1990,1999). The farms were arable. Yields were average but for seed growers for whom tuber number in the seed size is more important. Prices were the lowest for six years variable costs were high and gross margins are above the best for cereals. However fixed costs excluding seasonally rented land are considerable leaving negative net margins. Potato price fluctuates widely. Prices were high in 1998. Applying these prices to the 1999 data left good net margins. Average prices still left reasonable net margins. Break-even prices were £85/t for ware and £200/t for seed, which were not reached in three of the last six years. These results show the considerable investment in both fixed and variable costs and risk for this important Scottish crop.Crop Production/Industries,

"A Freedom Transcending Mere Materiality": Catch-22, Temporality, Trauma, and Responsibility

This article explores the relationship between temporality, trauma and responsibility in the novel Catch-22. Borrowing from psychoanalytic theories of the drive, I develop a reading of the temporality of trauma in general, and as related to the drives. This involves a delayed-reaction, non-linear articulation of the trauma that is intimately linked in Catch-22 to the ways in which Yossarian is exposed to threats to his bodily integrity. In response to an exposure of the finitude of his bodily subjectivity, an initially passive attitude is engendered in Yossarian in response to his traumatic "primal scene," the death of Snowden. This article is concerned with demonstrating how Yossarian ultimately surpasses this sense of passivity and finitude in order to take responsibility for his own trauma and the fantasies surrounding it. Whilst the drives and trauma might be seen as ex-trinsic factors that serve to limit or curtail subjective agency, with a more nuanced understanding of the drives, trauma, and finitude itself, we can see in Catch-22 an example of the paradoxical freedom that is manifested in Yossarian in relation to his symptom. The manifest sense of responsibility that Yossarian owns to is, however, matched by a latent responsibility that is not broached in the text. The final part of this article shows how, in comparison with Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, Catch-22 elides further responsibilities that are left latent within the text. As such, the comparison between the two texts dramatises the contradictions and ambivalences involved in the act of representing war

Taxonomic assessment of two pygopodoid gecko subspecies from Western Australia

Abstract Subspecies designations for herpetofauna in Western Australia were largely coined in the 20th century where rigorous evolutionary concepts to species were not consistently applied. Rather, subspecies tended to designate geographic populations of similar-looking taxa to nominate forms, usually differing in size, pattern or colour and, at best, a few scalation differences. Here we re-evaluate two pygopodoid taxa from Western Australia using a combination of published and original genetic data coupled with a reassessment of morphology. We review these differences in light of an integrative taxonomic approach that looks to find multiple independent lines of evidence to establish the evolutionary independence of populations. For the pygopod species Pletholax gracilis, we found consistent diagnostic characters (e.g. body size, visibility of ear opening, scalation) and a deep genetic divergence between the two subspecies. We therefore raise each subspecies to full species: P. gracilis and P. edelensis. The two subspecies of the carphodactylid gecko Nephrurus wheeleri were also assessed, and we found strong genetic and morphological evidence (e.g. body size, scalation, pattern) to raise these to full species: N. wheeleri and N. cinctus. By revisiting Storr’s morphological insights and newly acquired genetic evidence, in addition to a thorough re-examination of morphological traits, our study provides a robust foundation to raise Storr’s morphological subspecies into full species based upon multiple lines of evidence. Such an approach applied to other subspecies in the Australian herpetofauna also may result in revised taxonomies

Identification of Carbohydrate Metabolism Genes in the Metagenome of a Marine Biofilm Community Shown to Be Dominated by Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes

Polysaccharides are an important source of organic carbon in the marine environment and degradation of the insoluble and globally abundant cellulose is a major component of the marine carbon cycle. Although a number of species of cultured bacteria are known to degrade crystalline cellulose, little is known of the polysaccharide hydrolases expressed by cellulose-degrading microbial communities, particularly in the marine environment. Next generation 454 Pyrosequencing was applied to analyze the microbial community that colonizes and degrades insoluble polysaccharides in situ in the Irish Sea. The bioinformatics tool MG-RAST was used to examine the randomly sampled data for taxonomic markers and functional genes, and showed that the community was dominated by members of the Gammaproteobacteria and Bacteroidetes. Furthermore, the identification of 211 gene sequences matched to a custom-made database comprising the members of nine glycoside hydrolase families revealed an extensive repertoire of functional genes predicted to be involved in cellulose utilization. This demonstrates that the use of an in situ cellulose baiting method yielded a marine microbial metagenome considerably enriched in functional genes involved in polysaccharide degradation. The research reported here is the first designed to specifically address the bacterial communities that colonize and degrade cellulose in the marine environment and to evaluate the glycoside hydrolase (cellulase and chitinase) gene repertoire of that community, in the absence of the biases associated with PCR-based molecular techniques

On the importance of sycamore seedlings and other lessons learned along the way: : a conversation with Dr. Ian Edwards

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Truth as Relationship: The Psychology of E. Graham Howe

Dr. Eric Graham Howe (d. 1975) was one of the most important psychologists in early 20th century Britain. Yet, for the most part, his work is relatively unknown. Howe was unjustly dismissed by the psychoanalytic community of his time. Howe was not only left out of the history of psychoanalysis, but also the history of psychology. Because of Howe\u27s uninhibited eclecticism, because both the psychoanalytic and psychological literatures have ignored his work, and because he contributed to his own posthumous neglect, it was necessary to write a comprehensive survey of Howe\u27s writings. Such a survey demonstrated the depth of his thought, as well as addressed, for example, his ambivalent relationships with Freud, Jung and their followers; his relationship to existential phenomenology; and his relationship to Asian philosophy. Howe utilized existential phenomenology and Asian philosophy to elucidate the nature of his ambivalence as well as to critique the doctrinaire approach of many analytically oriented psychotherapists of his day. Moreover, Howe took hold of the very spirit of his ambivalence as a means to propel him toward a profound exploration of the human psyche, an exploration that often led him outside the realms of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. In Part II, Howe was situated in relation to the better-known psychodynamic theorists, i.e., Freud, Adler, Jung, Winnicott, and Suttie, as well as Laing, via Daniel Burston\u27s typology of psychoanalytic theorists. Extensive discussions of Howe\u27s views on depression, the inferiority complex, the psychology of love, and the psychology of the self were also provided. Part III demonstrated Howe\u27s remarkable ability to bring together Psychoanalysis, Jungian psychology, the Wisdom Traditions, Esoteric Philosophy, and Existential-Phenomenology to form a truly integrated view of man, as well as a form of psychotherapy that treats what Howe called, the whole man. This work constituted the first attempt to provide a comprehensive overview and critical appraisal of Howe\u27s thought, an appraisal that was long overdue

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis of Geological and Biogeological Specimens of Relevance to the ExoMars Mission

H.G.M.E., I.H., and R.I. acknowledge the support of the STFC Research Council in the UK ExoMars programme. J.J. and P.V. acknowledge the support of the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic (210/10/0467) and of the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic (MSM0021620855).Peer reviewedPublisher PD