Adoption and scaling out: strategies and experiences of the Forages for Smallholders Project

The Forages for Smallholders Project (FSP), convened by the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), started in 1995 to move research on tropical forages from the experiment stations to farmers’ fields, which created scope for evaluating the potential of improved forages in smallholder farming systems in Asia. The target farming systems were those in upland areas. The FSP now operates in six countries in Southeast Asia through national partners

Aluminum toxicity in wheat (Triticum aestivum Vill., host)

Wheat varieties of differential tolerance to Al were used in a series of nutrient solution experiments to study the inhibitory effects of Al on growth and nutrient uptake. The pH and the Al and P concentrations were rigorously maintained to prevent the confounding effects of Al and P precipitation and separate effects of pH. For wheat, the inhibitory effect of Al on root elongation was more detrimental to plant growth than inhibition of nutrient uptake. The factors determining onset of inhibition of root elongation appear to be Al concentration, Al valency state and pH. For a fixed Al concentration, toxicity increased with an increase in pH from 4 to 4.5. This may be a function of both an increased ratio of A1OH²⁺ to A1³⁺ and of an increased ion uptake due to an increase in pH. Aluminum inhibition of Mg uptake into shoots and roots was marked at low effective Mg solution concentrations. Uptake of Ca and Mn were also inhibited to a lesser extent by Al at constant pH and in the absence of inhibition of root elongation. However, Al inhibition of nutrient uptake was generally of less magnitude than that due to an equivalent change in H⁺ concentration. Separate effects of Al on inhibition of root elongation and nutrient uptake are best understood by considering the different sites at which the separate effects take place; inhibition of root elongation results from the entry of Al into the meristematic tissue to inhibit cell division while inhibition of nutrient uptake can be explained as the effect of external Al on the region of vacuolated tissue. A preliminary study was made of the nature of inheritance of Al inhibition of root elongation. The difference in tolerance between moderately tolerant and sensitive varieties appears to be controlled by a single dominant gene. Soil experiments confirmed the varietal differences of tolerance to Al observed in nutrient solution and genetic studies. The use of varieties of differential tolerance to Al facilitated the recognition of a response to liming as due to a lowering of exchangeable Al in the soil

Public health ethics: informing better public health practice

Public health ethics has emerged and grown as an independent discipline over the last decade. It involves using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health. In this paper, we distinguish public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics. We then discuss issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions. We conclude that the explicit and systematic consideration of ethical issues will, and should, become central to every public health worker\u27s daily practice

Rapid and simple comparison of messenger RNA levels using real-time PCR

Real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) constitutes a significant improvement over traditional end-point PCR, as it allows the quantification of starting amounts of nucleic acid templates, in real-time. However, quantification requires validation through numerous internal controls and standard curves. We describe in this paper a simple protocol which uses real-time PCR to compare mRNA levels of a gene of interest between different experimental conditions. Comparative real-time PCR can be a relatively low-cost method and does not require sequence-specific fluorescent reporters. Moreover, several genes from a set of experiments can be assessed in a single run. Thus, in addition to providing a comparative profile for the expression of a gene of interest, this method can also provide information regarding the relative abundance of different mRNA species

Neptunyl(VI) centred visible LMCT emission directly observable in the presence of uranyl(VI)

Room temperature detection of neptunyl(VI) LMCT emission in a coordination compound and in the presence of uranyl(VI) is reported for the first time. Differences in the excitation profiles of the complexes enable spectral editing so either exclusively neptunyl(VI) or uranyl(VI) emission is observed or a sum of the two

The Photostroller: supporting diverse care home residents in engaging with the world

The Photostroller is a device designed for use by residents of a care home for older people. It shows a continuous slideshow of photographs retrieved from the FlickrTM image website using a set of six predefined categories modified by a tuneable degree of ‘semantic drift’. In this paper, we describe the design process that led to the Photostroller, and summarise observations made during a deployment in the care home that has lasted over two months at the time of writing. We suggest that the Photostroller balances constraint with openness, and control with drift, to provide an effective resource for the ludic engagement of a diverse group of older people with each other and the world outside their home

Public health ethics: informing better public health practice

Public health ethics has emerged and grown as an independent discipline over the last decade. It involves using ethical theory and empirical analyses to determine and justify the right thing to do in public health. In this paper, we distinguish public health ethics from clinical ethics, research ethics, public health law and politics. We then discuss issues in public health ethics including: how to weigh up the benefits, harms and costs of intervening; how to ensure that public health interventions produce fair outcomes; the potential for public health to undermine or promote the rights of citizens; and the significance of being transparent and inclusive in public health interventions. We conclude that the explicit and systematic consideration of ethical issues will, and should, become central to every public health worker\u27s daily practice

Regulation of CHK1 inhibitor resistance by a c-Rel and USP1 dependent pathway

Previously, we discovered that deletion of c-Rel in the Em-Myc mouse model of lymphoma results in earlier onset of disease, a finding that contrasted with the expected function of this NF-κB subunit in B-cell malignancies. Here we report that Em-Myc/cRel−/− cells have an unexpected and major defect in the CHK1 pathway. Total and phospho proteomic analysis revealed that Em-Myc/cRel−/− lymphomas highly resemble wild-type (WT) Em-Myc lymphomas treated with an acute dose of the CHK1 inhibitor (CHK1i) CCT244747. Further analysis demonstrated that this is a consequence of Em-Myc/cRel−/ − lymphomas having lost expression of CHK1 protein itself, an effect that also results in resistance to CCT244747 treatment in vivo. Similar down-regulation of CHK1 protein levels was also seen in CHK1i resistant U2OS osteosarcoma and Huh7 hepatocellular carcinoma cells. Further investigation revealed that the deubiquitinase USP1 regulates CHK1 proteolytic degradation and that its down-regulation in our model systems is responsible, at least in part, for these effects. We demonstrate that treating WT Em-Myc lymphoma cells with the USP1 inhibitor ML323 was highly effective at reducing tumour burden in vivo. Targeting USP1 activity may thus be an alternative therapeutic strategy in MYC-driven tumours