Establishment of a core cassava germplasm collection in Thailand

The Thai cassava production and processing industry heavily depends on the export market, mainly the European Economic Community (EEC). With the anticipated removal of the preferential tariff treatment of Thai tapioca to the EEC, a lower level of importation and/or lower prices for Thai cassava products are imminent. Thai government policy is to reduce the cassava-planted area and help farmers increase productivity. In response to this situation, higher yielding cultivars with higher starch content in the roots are required. A promising approach to achieving this goal is to create broad genetic variability by introducing cassava germplasm from abroad, and recombining desirable characters into new high-yielding varieties. In the near future, 600 accessions, comprising the CIAT cassava core collection, will be introduced to Thailand in the form of in vitro culture. This will make available to Asian cassava breeders a good representation of the total genetic diversity found in cassava. These accessions will be subcultured to increase the number of plants per accession. Several plants will be evaluated in the field and field data collected. At least 2 ha will be required for this purpose. In order to provide security of planting material during the establishment period, five test tubes of each clone will be routinely maintained under minimal growth conditions in the laboratory, using Roca`s method. After about 5 years these accessions will be available to other national breeding programs and exchanged by means of in vitro plantlet

Feline cerebral phaeohyphomycosis associated with Cladosporium bantianum

The brain of an 18-month-old cat that died after developing incoordination and circling had massive hyphal invasion, inflammatory cells, reactive neuroglial cells and liquefactive necrosis. Culture on Sabouraud's dextrose agar at 28 deg yielded a greyish black, velvety fungus with long chains of yellow-brown, oval to elliptical conidia. Identification of C. bantianum was based on abundant, dematiaceous, septate mycelium in the brain and the chains of conidia in culture

Physicians' working conditions and job satisfaction: does hospital ownership in Germany make a difference?

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>A growing number of German hospitals have been privatized with the intention of increasing cost effectiveness and improving the quality of health care. Numerous studies investigated what possible qualitative and economic consequences these changes issues might have on patient care.</p> <p>However, little is known about how this privatization trend relates to physicians' working conditions and job satisfaction. It was anticipated that different working conditions would be associated with different types of hospital ownership. To that end, this study's purpose is to compare how physicians, working for both public and privatized hospitals, rate their respective psychosocial working conditions and job satisfaction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The study was designed as a cross-sectional comparison using questionnaire data from 203 physicians working at German hospitals of different ownership types (private for-profit, public and private nonprofit).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The present study shows that several aspects of physicians' perceived working conditions differ significantly depending on hospital ownership. However, results also indicated that physicians' job satisfaction does not vary between different types of hospital ownership. Finally, it was demonstrated that job demands and resources are associated with job satisfaction, while type of ownership is not.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This study represents one of a few studies that investigate the effect of hospital ownership on physicians work situation and demonstrated that the type of ownership is a potential factor accounting for differences in working conditions. The findings provide an informative basis to find solutions improving physicians' work at German hospitals.</p