“Other Diplomacies” and the Making of Canada-Asian Relations: An Interdisciplinary Conversation

How have societal interactions constituted Canada-Asia relations historically and up to the present? What understandings of Canada-Asia relations emerge if we focus on the diverse connections between Asian and Canadian societies at multiple levels rather than solely on state-to-state interactions? These questions were the starting point for a March 15, 2012 workshop organized by the York Centre for Asian Research (YCAR) with support from the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. The workshop brought together scholars as well as practitioners from a range of disciplines (see Appendix 1). Discussions centered on preliminary case studies of Canada-Asia societal interactions in the realms of business, education, culture, migration and diaspora, labour markets, scholarly and technical experts, and NGOs and across local, national and transnational spaces, and the everyday realm. The goal was to begin to identify important research questions and empirical evidence that could illuminate the contemporary character of Canada-Asia societal connections and their wider implications. The workshop also explored the concept of “other diplomacies”, which workshop organizers Susan Henders and Mary Young (Forthcoming, 2012) offered as an analytical tool for framing the study of Canada-Asia societal interactions. This paper offers selected highlights from the day-long workshop conversation

An Australian twin study of cannabis and other illicit drug use and misuse, and other psychopathology

Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug throughout the developed world and there is consistent evidence of heritable influences on multiple stages of cannabis involvement including initiation of use and abuse/dependence. In this paper, we describe the methodology and preliminary results of a large-scale interview study of 3,824 young adult twins (born 1972–1979) and their siblings. Cannabis use was common with 75.2% of males and 64.7% of females reporting some lifetime use of cannabis while 24.5% of males and 11.8% of females reported meeting criteria for DSM-IV cannabis abuse or dependence. Rates of other drug use disorders and common psychiatric conditions were highly correlated with extent of cannabis involvement and there was consistent evidence of heritable influences across a range of cannabis phenotypes including early (≤15 years) opportunity to use (h(2) = 72%), early (≤16 years) onset use (h(2) = 80%), using cannabis 11+ times lifetime (h(2) = 76%), and DSM abuse/dependence (h(2) = 72%). Early age of onset of cannabis use was strongly associated with increased rates of subsequent use of other illicit drugs and with illicit drug abuse/dependence; further analyses indicating that some component of this association may have been mediated by increasing exposure to and opportunity to use other illicit drugs

Взаимодействие ОАО «Гомсельмаш» с учреждениями высшего образования при организации практического обучения студентов

This paper aims to improve our understanding of how and where global supply-chains linkconsumers of agricultural and forest commodities across the world to forest destruction in tropicalcountries. A better understanding of these linkages can help inform and support the design ofdemand-side interventions to reduce tropical deforestation. To that end, we map the link betweendeforestation for four commodities (beef, soybeans, palm oil, and wood products) in eight casecountries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Indonesia,Malaysia, and Papua New Guinea) to consumption, through international trade. Although few,the studied countries comprise a large share of the internationally traded volumes of the analyzedcommodities: 83% of beef and 99% of soybean exports from Latin America, 97% of global palmoil exports, and roughly half of (official) tropical wood products trade. The analysis covers theperiod 2000-2009. We find that roughly a third of tropical deforestation and associated carbonemissions (3.9 Mha and 1.7 GtCO2) in 2009 can be attributed to our four case commodities in oureight case countries. On average a third of analyzed deforestation was embodied in agriculturalexports, mainly to the EU and China. However, in all countries but Bolivia and Brazil, exportmarkets are dominant drivers of forest clearing for our case commodities. If one excludes Brazilianbeef on average 57% of deforestation attributed to our case commodities was embodied in exports.The share of emissions that was embodied in exported commodities increased between 2000 and2009 for every country in our study except Bolivia and Malaysia.Working Paper 384</p

Evaluation of multiple displacement amplification in a 5 cM STR genome-wide scan

Multiple displacement amplification (MDA) has emerged as a promising new method of whole genome amplification (WGA) with the potential to generate virtually unlimited genome-equivalent DNA from only a small amount of seed DNA. To date, genome-wide high marker density assessments of MDA–DNA have focussed mainly upon suitability for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping applications. Suitability for short tandem repeat (STR) genotyping has not been investigated in great detail, despite their inherent instability during DNA replication, and the obvious challenge that this presents to WGA techniques. Here, we aimed to assess the applicability of MDA in STR genotyping by conducting a genome-wide scan of 768 STR markers for MDAs of 15 high quality genomic DNAs. We found that MDA genotyping call and accuracy rates were only marginally lower than for genomic DNA. Pooling of three replicate MDAs resulted in a small increase in both call rate and genotyping accuracy. We identified 34 STRs (4.4% of total markers) of which five essentially failed with MDA samples, and 29 of which showed elevated genotyping failures/discrepancies in the MDAs. We emphasise the importance of DNA and MDA quality checks, and the use of appropriate controls to identify problematic STR markers

Highly cost-efficient genome-wide association studies using DNA pools and dense SNP arrays

Genome-wide association (GWA) studies to map genes for complex traits are powerful yet costly. DNA-pooling strategies have the potential to dramatically reduce the cost of GWA studies. Pooling using Affymetrix arrays has been proposed and used but the efficiency of these arrays has not been quantified. We compared and contrasted Affymetrix Genechip HindIII and Illumina HumanHap300 arrays on the same DNA pools and showed that the HumanHap300 arrays are substantially more efficient. In terms of effective sample size, HumanHap300-based pooling extracts >80% of the information available with individual genotyping (IG). In contrast, Genechip HindIII-based pooling only extracts ∼30% of the available information. With HumanHap300 arrays concordance with IG data is excellent. Guidance is given on best study design and it is shown that even after taking into account pooling error, one stage scans can be performed for >100-fold reduced cost compared with IG. With appropriately designed two stage studies, IG can provide confirmation of pooling results whilst still providing ∼20-fold reduction in total cost compared with IG-based alternatives. The large cost savings with Illumina HumanHap300-based pooling imply that future studies need only be limited by the availability of samples and not cost

Do national strategies under the UN biodiversity and climate conventions address agricultural commodity consumption as deforestation driver?

Forest conversion in the tropics is increasingly driven by global demand for agricultural forest-risk commoditiessuch as soy, beef, palm oil and timber. In order to be effective, future forest conservation policies should includemeasures targeting both producers (the supply side) and consumers (the demand side) to address commodity-driven deforestation. Whereas the UN Conventions on Biodiversity (CBD) and Climate Change (UNFCCC) do notmake reference to this driving factor, here we explore whether and how recent national strategies by memberstates to the Conventions acknowledge the role of agricultural commodities in tropical deforestation. A textanalysis of 139 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) to climate change mitigation and 132National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) shows that the general trade-offbetween nationaldevelopment aspirations and forest conservation is commonly acknowledged. However, only few strategies linkdeforestation to commodity production and consumption, whereas most documents do not mention this topic.This lack of reference to a key driver of tropical deforestation limits the prospects of safeguarding tropical forestsfor biodiversity and climate change mitigation purposes as part of the two UN Conventions, and might jeopardisetheir overall effectiveness.Thesefindings were complemented by a content analysis of INDCs, NBSAPs and REDD+ documents fromeight case countries affected by commodity-driven deforestation. We investigated whether this driver is ac-knowledged in the national strategies, and which policy measures are suggested to address forest loss fromagricultural commodities. We found that six case countries mention agricultural commodities as deforestationdriver in their REDD+ documents, whereas the biodiversity and climate change strategies were silent on thetopic. Policy measures targeting commodity production were suggested in four REDD+ strategies, ranging fromincentive payments, sustainable agricultural practices and land-use planning to demand-side approaches such ascertification and the promotion of sustainable lifestyles.One conclusion from this exercise is that UN member states seem not to consider climate and biodiversitynational plans the adequate forum to discuss detailed forest conservation approaches. We argue that in order toincrease effectiveness, strategies under the UN Conventions should take commodity-driven deforestation intoaccount, through measures that address both the producer and the consumer side. Do national strategies under the UN biodiversity and climate conventions address agricultural commodity consumption as deforestation driver?. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320845988_Do_national_strategies_under_the_UN_biodiversity_and_climate_conventions_address_agricultural_commodity_consumption_as_deforestation_driver [accessed Apr 24 2018]

TINITALY/01: a new Triangular Irregular Network of Italy

A new Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the natural landforms of Italy is presented. A methodology is discussed to build a DEM over wide areas where elevation data from non-homogeneous (in density and accuracy) input sources are available. The input elevation data include contour lines and spot heights derived from the Italian Regional topographic maps, satellite-based global positioning system points, ground based and radar altimetry data. Owing to the great heterogeneity of the input data density, the DEM format that better preserves the original accuracy is a Triangular Irregular Network (TIN). A Delaunay-based TIN structure is improved by using the DEST algorithm that enhances input data by evaluating inferred break-lines. Accordingly to this approach, biased distributions in slopes and elevations are absent. To prevent discontinuities at the boundary between regions characterized by data with different resolution a cubic Hermite blending weight S-shaped function is adopted. The TIN of Italy consists of 1.39×109 triangles. The average triangle area ranges from 12 to about 13000 m2 accordingly to different morphologies and different sources. About 50% of the model has a local average triangle area <500 m2. The vertical accuracy of the obtained DEM is evaluated by more than 200000 sparse control points. The overall Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) is less than 3.5 m. The obtained national-scale DEM constitutes an useful support to carry out accurate geomorphological and geological investigations over large areas. The problem of choosing the best step size in deriving a grid from a TIN is then discussed and a method to quantify the loss of vertical information is presented as a function of the grid step. Some examples of DEM application are outlined. Under request, an high resolution stereo image database of the whole Italian territory (derived from the presented DEM) is available to browse via internet

Fine mapping of variants associated with endometriosis in the WNT4 region on chromosome 1p36

Genome-wide association studies show strong evidence of association with endometriosis for markers on chromosome 1p36 spanning the potential candidate genes WNT4, CDC42 and LINC00339. WNT4 is involved in development of the uterus, and the expression of CDC42 and LINC00339 are altered in women with endometriosis. We conducted fine mapping to examine the role of coding variants in WNT4 and CDC42 and determine the key SNPs with strongest evidence of association in this region. We identified rare coding variants in WNT4 and CDC42 present only in endometriosis cases. The frequencies were low and cannot account for the common signal associated with increased risk of endometriosis. Genotypes for five common SNPs in the region of chromosome 1p36 show stronger association signals when compared with rs7521902 reported in published genome scans. Of these, three SNPs rs12404660, rs3820282, and rs55938609 were located in DNA sequences with potential functional roles including overlap with transcription factor binding sites for FOXA1, FOXA2, ESR1, and ESR2. Functional studies will be required to identify the gene or genes implicated in endometriosis risk

Assessing barriers and solutions to financing adaptation projects in Africa : report

Except Southern Africa, funding requests for adaptation activities in all African regions far exceed funding received. Many of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in Africa have yet to submit national plans for adaptation activities, and are poorly positioned to access funding for adaptation. This paper details barriers to financial support for adaptation initiatives, with recommendations for improving access to funds. Among others: improve the use of existing data and analytical tools; establish national finance coordination committees; involve adaptation practitioners in project design; mainstream adaptation into national budgets; explore links with mitigation finance and other types of finance other than grants