Beacons of Excellence in Stress Prevention

NoThis report describes the work of Robertson Cooper Ltd and UMIST to identify good practice in stress prevention and then identify organisations within the UK that could be called beacons of excellence in comparison to this model. Part one of this report summarises and draws conclusions from all of the substantive academic studies on stress prevention over the last decade and uses this information, as well as advice gained from a panel of international experts, to develop a comprehensive stress prevention model. Part two of the report uses this model to describe examples of stress prevention practices that Robertson Cooper Ltd has identified within a wide range of UK organisations. Case studies are presented for each aspect of the good practice model. Examples of real documentation and organisational practice are presented.Health and Safety Executive (HSE

Designation of certain filamentous fungal genes identified by molecular cloning.

In a recent review entitled The structure and organization of nuclear genes of filamentous fungi (Gurr et al., 1987) we gave conventional designations to certain hitherto undesignated genes of filamentous fungi

The Impact of Shape on the Perception of Euler Diagrams

Euler diagrams are often used for visualizing data collected into sets. However, there is a significant lack of guidance regarding graphical choices for Euler diagram layout. To address this deficiency, this paper asks the question `does the shape of a closed curve affect a user's comprehension of an Euler diagram?' By empirical study, we establish that curve shape does indeed impact on understandability. Our analysis of performance data indicates that circles perform best, followed by squares, with ellipses and rectangles jointly performing worst. We conclude that, where possible, circles should be used to draw effective Euler diagrams. Further, the ability to discriminate curves from zones and the symmetry of the curve shapes is argued to be important. We utilize perceptual theory to explain these results. As a consequence of this research, improved diagram layout decisions can be made for Euler diagrams whether they are manually or automatically drawn

Economic and physical determinants of the global distributions of crop pests and pathogens

Crop pests and pathogens pose a significant and growing threat to food security, but their geographical distributions are poorly understood. We present a global analysis of pest and pathogen distributions, to determine the roles of socioeconomic and biophysical factors in determining pest diversity, controlling for variation in observational capacity among countries. Known distributions of 1901 pests and pathogens were obtained from CABI. Linear models were used to partition the variation in pest species per country amongst predictors. Reported pest numbers increased with per capita gross domestic product (GDP), research expenditure and research capacity, and the influence of economics was greater in micro-organisms than in arthropods. Total crop production and crop diversity were the strongest physical predictors of pest numbers per country, but trade and tourism were insignificant once other factors were controlled. Islands reported more pests than mainland countries, but no latitudinal gradient in species richness was evident. Country wealth is likely to be a strong indicator of observational capacity, not just trade flow, as has been interpreted in invasive species studies. If every country had US levels of per capita GDP, then 205 +/- 9 additional pests per country would be reported, suggesting that enhanced investment in pest observations will reveal the hidden threat of crop pests and pathogens

A role for random, humidity-dependent epiphytic growth prior to invasion of wheat by Zymoseptoria tritici

This is the final version of the article.Available from Elsevier via the doi in this record.Zymoseptoria tritici causes Septoria leaf blotch of wheat. The prevailing paradigm of the Z. tritici-wheat interaction assumes fungal ingress through stomata within 24–48 h, followed by days of symptomless infection. This is extrapolated from studies testing the mode of fungal ingress under optimal infection conditions. Here, we explicitly assess the timing of entry, using GFP-tagged Z. tritici. We show that early entry is comparatively rare, and extended epiphytic growth possible. We test the hypotheses that our data diverge from earlier studies due to: i. random ingress of Z. tritici into the leaf, with some early entry events; ii. previous reliance upon fungal stains, combined with poor attachment of Z. tritici to the leaf, leading to increased likelihood of observing internal versus external growth, compared to using GFP; iii. use of exceptionally high humidity to promote entry in previous studies. We combine computer simulation of leaf-surface growth with thousands of in planta observations to demonstrate that while spores germinate rapidly on the leaf, over 95% of fungi remain epiphytic, growing randomly over the leaf for ten days or more. We show that epiphytic fungi are easily detached from leaves by rinsing and that humidity promotes epiphytic growth, increasing infection rates. Together, these results explain why epiphytic growth has been dismissed and early ingress assumed. The prolonged epiphytic phase should inform studies of pathogenicity and virulence mutants, disease control strategies, and interpretation of the observed low in planta growth, metabolic quiescence and evasion of plant defences by Zymoseptoria during symptomless infection.HF, CE, WK and SG were funded by BBSRC grant: and JC by a BSPP summer studentship

Cliophysics: Socio-political Reliability Theory, Polity Duration and African Political (In)stabilities

Quantification of historical sociological processes have recently gained attention among theoreticians in the effort of providing a solid theoretical understanding of the behaviors and regularities present in sociopolitical dynamics. Here we present a reliability theory of polity processes with emphases on individual political dynamics of African countries. We found that the structural properties of polity failure rates successfully capture the risk of political vulnerability and instabilities in which 87.50%, 75%, 71.43%, and 0% of the countries with monotonically increasing, unimodal, U-shaped and monotonically decreasing polity failure rates, respectively, have high level of state fragility indices. The quasi-U-shape relationship between average polity duration and regime types corroborates historical precedents and explains the stability of the autocracies and democracies.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

Crosslinked Polypeptide Films via RAFT-Mediated Continuous Assembly of Polymers

Polypeptide coatings are a cornerstone in the field of surface modification due to their widespread biological potential. As their properties are dictated by their structural features, subsequent control thereof using unique fabrication strategies is important. Herein, we report a facile method of precisely creating densely crosslinked polypeptide films with unusually high random coil content through continuous assembly polymerization via reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (CAP‐RAFT). CAP‐RAFT was fundamentally investigated using methacrylated poly‐l‐lysine (PLLMA) and methacrylated poly‐l‐glutamic acid (PLGMA). Careful technique refinement resulted in films up to 36.1±1.1 nm thick which could be increased to 94.9±8.2 nm after using this strategy multiple times. PLLMA and PLGMA films were found to have 30–50 % random coil conformations. Degradation by enzymes present during wound healing reveals potential for applications in drug delivery and tissue engineering