Intellectual challenge is as necessary as breathing: an interview with Laurence Wright

Professor Laurence Wright is Director of the Institute for the Study of English in Africa at Rhodes University. In 2009, he will have completed 25 years of research, teaching and scholarship at Rhodes University and this interview marks the occasion. A Rhodes Scholar and a Commonwealth Scholar, he studied at the universities of Rhodes, Warwick and Oxford. He is also Honorary Life President of the Shakespeare Society of Southern Africa. He has published widely in literary studies and is the Managing Editor of two academic journals as well as of the poetry magazine New Coin. He currently serves on the Council of the English Academy and is a co-opted member of the English National Language Body. He has taken a broad interest in the role of English in this country, ranging from language policy and teacher education matters, to archival research and the role of the humanities in public life. I thought that it would be worthwhile to interview him as his knowledge of literature is substantial, while his incisive and engaging thoughts on a range of topics are worth hearing. The interview was conducted intermittently by email between July and October, 2008

Chandra and XMM-Newton Observations of the Double Cluster Abell 1758

Abell 1758 was classified as a single rich cluster of galaxies by Abell, but a ROSAT observation showed that this system consists of two distinct clusters (A1758N and A1758S) separated by approximately 8\arcmin (a projected separation of 2 Mpc in the rest frame of the clusters). Only a few galaxy redshifts have been published for these two clusters, but the redshift of the Fe lines in the Chandra and XMM-Newton spectra shows that the recessional velocities of A1758N and A1758S are within 2,100 km s$^{-1}$. Thus, these two clusters most likely form a gravitationally bound system, but our imaging and spectroscopic analyses of the X-ray data do not reveal any sign of interaction between the two clusters. The Chandra and XMM-Newton observations show that A1758N and A1758S are both undergoing major mergers. A1758N is in the late stages of a large impact parameter merger between two 7 keV clusters. The two remnant cores have a projected separation of 800 kpc. Based on the measured pressure jumps preceding the two cores, they are receding from one another at less than 1,600 km s$^{-1}$. The two cores are surrounded by hotter gas ($\mathrm{kT}=9$--12 keV) that was probably shock heated during the early stages of the merger. The gas entropy in the two remnant cores is comparable with the central entropy observed in dynamically relaxed clusters, indicating that the merger-induced shocks stalled as they tried to penetrate the high pressure cores of the two merging systems.Each core also has a wake of low entropy gas indicating that this gas was ram pressure stripped without being strongly shocked (abridged). (A copy of the paper with higher resolution images is available at http://asc.harvard.edu/~lpd/a1758.ps).Comment: paper plus 13 figure

OCIS Public Goods Tool Development

There has recently been an increase in interest amongst policy-makers in the question of whether farming provides a “public good” beyond the simple production of food, which justifies support from, for instance, EU agricultural policy. Benefits such as an improved environment or better water quality can be perceived to be public goods. It is the provision of these sorts of benefits which may be used in the future to justify continued support of the agricultural sector through subsidies. Given the current level of interest in this topic Natural England, with the approval of Defra, through OCIS (Organic Conversion Information Service), wished to create a tool which could be used by an advisor or an informed land owner to assess the public good provided by a/their farm. Thus, the OCIS Public Good Tool was developed

Elucidating the functional role of CD38 in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

In this study, I applied a range of techniques in an attempt to enhance our knowledge of the role that CD38 plays in the pathogenesis of CLL. Investigation of a number of techniques to genetically modify the CLL cells led to the development of a lentiviral transduction system that was able to induce a marked increase in the ectopic expression of CD38 on the CLL cell surface. Subsequent molecular analysis identified changes in gene expression which may enhance disease progression. The pro-angiogenic growth factor VEGF and the DNA mismatch repair protein Msh6 were both identified as candidates for further investigation. This work also highlighted the challenges and limitations involved in using a lentiviral knock-in system and led to the design of experiments utilising CD31-expressing co-cultures to stimulate CD38 on the CLL cell surface. The CD31-expressing co-culture system induced survival within the CLL sample compared to cells incubated with the control, non-transfected co-culture. Increased proliferation was illustrated through the incorporation of BrdU and induction of the cell cycle protein Ki-67. Multi-colour flow cytometry was employed to observe the expression of surface and intracellular molecules which may be involved in CLL cell activation and signalling. Changes in the phenotype of the CLL cells were consistently observed which support the notion that these cells can be activated in vitro and can thereby enhance B-cell receptor signalling. Specifically, CD 19, CD38 and the aberrantly expressed tyrosine kinase Zap-70 were all induced following incubation with CD31-expressing co-culture. This is the first time that a lentiviral transduction system has been developed which efficiently expresses CD38 in a CLL cell population with little cell death. The work carried out in this project also highlights the importance of using co-culture to stimulate CD38 on the surface of the CLL cells in vitro. The novel findings within this project have given insight into some of the mechanisms of CD38 signalling, provided direction for future work and highlight the potential of CD38 as a therapeutic target in CLL.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Assessing the public goods provided by organic agriculture: lessons learned from practice

The role of farms as providers of public goods has long been recognised, and measuring performance in this area is of increasing interest to policy makers, in light of the approaching Common Agricultural Policy reform. The Organic Research Centre has been working on this topic in recent years, through the development of sustainability assessment tools. The latest outcome from this process is a ‘Public Goods’ assessment tool, developed through a Natural England funded project which aimed to evaluate the benefits accruing from organic management and entering into an Organic Entry Level Stewardship (OELS) agreement. This paper describes the development of the Public Goods (PG) tool, and what has been learned in the process

Elucidating the functional role of CD38 in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia

In this study, I applied a range of techniques in an attempt to enhance our knowledge of the role that CD38 plays in the pathogenesis of CLL. Investigation of a number of techniques to genetically modify the CLL cells led to the development of a lentiviral transduction system that was able to induce a marked increase in the ectopic expression of CD38 on the CLL cell surface. Subsequent molecular analysis identified changes in gene expression which may enhance disease progression. The pro-angiogenic growth factor VEGF and the DNA mismatch repair protein Msh6 were both identified as candidates for further investigation. This work also highlighted the challenges and limitations involved in using a lentiviral knock-in system and led to the design of experiments utilising CD31-expressing co-cultures to stimulate CD38 on the CLL cell surface. The CD31-expressing co-culture system induced survival within the CLL sample compared to cells incubated with the control, non-transfected co-culture. Increased proliferation was illustrated through the incorporation of BrdU and induction of the cell cycle protein Ki-67. Multi-colour flow cytometry was employed to observe the expression of surface and intracellular molecules which may be involved in CLL cell activation and signalling. Changes in the phenotype of the CLL cells were consistently observed which support the notion that these cells can be activated in vitro and can thereby enhance B-cell receptor signalling. Specifically, CD 19, CD38 and the aberrantly expressed tyrosine kinase Zap-70 were all induced following incubation with CD31-expressing co-culture. This is the first time that a lentiviral transduction system has been developed which efficiently expresses CD38 in a CLL cell population with little cell death. The work carried out in this project also highlights the importance of using co-culture to stimulate CD38 on the surface of the CLL cells in vitro. The novel findings within this project have given insight into some of the mechanisms of CD38 signalling, provided direction for future work and highlight the potential of CD38 as a therapeutic target in CLL

Modelling the production impacts of a widespread conversion to organic agriculture in England and Wales

We assess the production impacts of a 100% conversion to organic agriculture in England and Wales using a large-scale linear programming model. The model includes a range of typical farm structures, scaled up across the available land area, with the objective of maximising food production. The effects of soil and rainfall, nitrogen(N)supply/offtakeandlivestockfeeddemandareaccounted for.Resultsrevealmajorreductionsinwheat and barley production, whilst the production of minor cereals such as oats and rye increase. Monogastric livestock and milk production also decreased considerably, whilst beef and sheep numbers increased. Vegetable production was generally comparable to that under conventional farming. Minimising the area of fertility building leys and/or improving rates of N fixation increased the food supply from organic agriculture at the national level. The total food output, in terms of metabolisable energy, was 64% of that under conventional farming. This would necessitate substantial increases in food imports, with corresponding expansion of cultivated agricultural land overseas. Significant changes in diet and reductions in food waste would be required to offset the production impacts of a 100% conversion to organic farming

Further Development of Methodologies for Sustainability Assessment and Monitoring in Organic/Ecological Agriculture

In recent years there has been a great deal of interest in assessing the sustainability of agriculture in terms of its social, environmental and economic impact and a number of indicators and tools are used. Measurements take place at the farm or product level and indicators can be outcome related e.g. number of butterfly species present, or management related e.g. percentage of fields with margins growing wildflowers to attract butterflies. Given its underlying ethos, the organic/ecological agriculture sector should aim to be at the forefront of sustainability. The development of assessment approaches and recent discussions within the movement have identified continuous improvement towards best practice in sustainability to be one of the important features of the new direction. Positive effects in such areas as ‘environment’ are seen as one of the most important reasons for the financial support given to the organic sector, and as one of the reasons for consumers’ willingness to pay a premium for organic food. This project aimed to provide practical recommendations on the suitability of the available sustainability assessment frameworks, themes, tools and indicators for the organic sector and to help consider and further develop sustainability assessment approaches. A review of tools, indicators, themes and sustainability assessment methods was carried out. The opinions of organisations and individuals from within the organic sector were obtained through an international workshop and an online survey. Synergies and trade-offs between indicators were investigated using the database of FiBL’s SMART sustainability assessment tool to investigate the relationships between themes. Results from the project have illustrated that choosing the most promising indicators for the organic sector needs to be driven by the importance of the sustainability theme as well as using a suitable method. Choosing indicators solely on the basis of desirable goals may lead to a subjective and non-transparent indicator selection which cannot be externally verified. On the other hand, assessing the quality of indicators alone appears to be too much driven by method and the choice of tools will also need to be influenced by data availability and/or cost of data collection. The inclusion of indicators that assess areas within social sustainability and good governance (e.g. corporate social responsibility) should be encouraged within existing tools. This development should build on recent frameworks provided by, for instance the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO and OECD (e.g. SAFA, guidelines on social LCA, DFID Sustainable Livelihoods Framework). Indicator development should also consider stakeholder views and perspectives (perhaps using, for example, the European Innovation Partnership Programme to contact stakeholders) and decide on threshold values that indicate poor, acceptable and good performance. The assessment of synergies and trade-offs has illustrated that farms with good performance with regards to governance are likely to have positive performance on most environmental, social and economic aspects. This highlights the importance of good corporate management at the farm level. Further work on synergies and trade-offs using samples of farms is urgently required. In addition, trade-offs between the economic dimension on the one hand and the environmental and social dimensions on the other hand, may need to be accepted at farm level. There is scope, however, for these to be addressed by policy makers, to help the farmers set the right priorities. Substantial trade-offs also exist within the environmental dimension (for example between greenhouse gas emissions and animal welfare) which might be more difficult to resolve. Priorities need to be set depending on the specific context of the farm. Areas of sustainability that are perceived by those within the organic sector as being potential strengths were identified. These could be harnessed in terms of communicating the benefits of organic production. These key strengths include biodiversity, ecosystem diversity, soil quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Although such key strengths may seem obvious to those working within the sector and for several there is some good scientific evidence available, it is likely that the benefits are not widely-known or publicised and that further development of the evidence base is required

The challenges of teaching in a general practice setting

An attractive strategy to meet the increasing need for medical education is teaching in community general practice. General practice will be in a position to meet and sustain this need only if various conditions are met, including: Teaching is undertaken in general practice at all levels of medical education (medical student, postgraduate years 1-3 and GP vocational training); Standards and quality of teaching are maintained while the number of sites involved increases; Further Australian research is conducted into innovative models of general practice teaching and their cost-effectiveness; and Appropriate remuneration and infrastructure is available to support practices and general practitioners involved in teaching.Rod Pearce, Caroline O Laurence, Linda E Black and Nigel Stock