The State of Sustainable Markets 2017 - Statistics and Emerging Trends

Voluntary sustainability standards are in the mainstream, and no longer a novelty for niche markets. This second global report outlines data on area, production volume and producers for 14 major sustainability standards across bananas, cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm oil, soybeans, cane sugar, tea and forestry products. The report is based on a partnership with the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the International Institute of Sustainable Development. The data can help shape decisions of policymakers, producers and businesses, working to address systemic labour and environmental challenges through certified sustainable production

On-orbit servicing commercial opportunities with security implications

The On-Orbit Servicing (OOS) working group discussed legal and political implications of developing a commercial OOS industry. The group considered the benefits that OOS and Active Debris Removal (ADR) can offer the satellite industry, as well as potential disadvantages for international relations between space faring nations. To gain an accurate perspective of stakeholders involved in such a process, the OOS working group held a mock hearing for OOS licensing, with members of the working group assigned to represent stakeholders. Working group members presented their cases at a simulated domestic regulatory panel, constructed of members representing various government ministers, to fully explore stakeholder views. The mock hearings explored the challenges faced by OOS and ADR entrepreneurs as well as the benefit of regulation. The groups highlighted recommendations to ensure the practicality of OOS and determine how best to encourage licensing and regulation of such activities, as summarised below. 1. The United Nations (UN) should provide regulatory guidelines for OOS and ADR. 2. Government agencies should license OOS. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has taken responsibility for licensing commercial space transportation in the United States and this should be extended to OOS/ADR missions to enable short-term advancement prior to further UN regulation. 3. Government should support OOS and ADR development to ensure continued demand. This includes leading by example on government satellites and potential launch levies to enable on-going ADR funding. 4. All stakeholders should prevent weaponisation of space through transparency of operations. 5. Nations should initiate international cooperation on ADR. OOS and ADR will ensure sustainable use of satellites, particularly in LEO and GEO, for the coming decades. It is through transparency, economic stimulation and close monitoring that such endeavours will be successful

Survival And Development Of Larval Odonates (Anisoptera) And Female Oviposition Site Choice In Response To Predatory Fish

The reproductive success of many aquatic insects is highly dependent on where they deposit their eggs. Not all habitats are created equal. Some are more favorable than others for larval development. Therefore it would be evolutionarily advantageous for an ovipositing female to differentiate between them and choose the most suitable for her offspring’s survival. Numerous studies have shown that many species with complex life-cycles representing a diverse array of taxonomic groups sort themselves non-randomly among habitat patches on the basis of perceived habitat quality. In the case of dragonflies, insufficient evidence exists to support the hypothesis that this group can assess relevant indicators of patch quality and use those cues to select habitat. I conducted a series of experiments to investigate what effects a predatory fish, the green sunfish (Lepomis cyanellus), had on larval dragonfly performance and development and adult female habitat selection behavior. Developmental studies were performed to determine the degree of consumptive and non-consumptive effects of L. cyanellus and how they affect survival and other fitness correlates of larval dragonflies. I found that larval survival is significantly affected by the presence of uncaged L. cyanellus, but not affected by caged L. cyanellus. Caged L. cyanellus did not have an effect on fitness correlates, suggesting larvae are not capable of detecting fish. I examined whether female dragonflies actively avoid ovipositing in sites containing predatory fish which potentially inflict significant fitness costs via offspring predation. Results indicated that female adults of three comspecies of dragonflies did not discern between habitat patches based on the presence or absence of fish predators. This suggests that members of this group either rely on a bet-hedging or risk-spreading strategy, utilize a form of philopatry, or the presence of fish predators may not be an important factor for odonates in oviposition site selection. There is a mismatch between the results of the oviposition and development experiments, suggesting there is much more to learn about how dragonflies select habitat for their offspring, how their decisions affect aquatic community assembly, and how these can be used to inform conservation efforts designed to protect threatened odonate species

A phantom for the study of positional brain shift

Positional brain shift (PBS) is the term given to the displacement of the brain which occurs upon surgical reorientation of the head and presents as one of the many sources of targeting error in high precision neurosurgery. Due to the impracticality of imaging humans in non-standard positions, however, there is currently insufficient information for surgeons to utilize in order to mitigate against PBS in surgical planning. To better characterise PBS, a novel synthetic model (phantom) of the brain-skull system was developed, comprising hydrogel brain (inc. imaging beads) with water filled ventricle cavity, elastomer dural septa, water filled subarachnoid space, and plastic skull. This phantom was validated by simulating the supine to prone PBS event and mechanically tuning the phantom’s hydrogel brain such that the general magnitude of shift (measured through CT imaging) matched that reported in human MRI studies. Using this phantom, brain shift characterisation was performed for a discrete representation of the continuous spectrum of possible positional transitions in neurosurgery. Here, brain shift was measured across eight positional transitions at 44 locations within the brain. Eight novel PBS maps were produced as a result of this study, with mean brain shift ranging between 0.39 and 0.94 mm and the standard deviation of shift within each PBS map ranging between 0.12 and 0.44 mm. The greatest shift was found upon transition from the supine to elevated right decubitus position, with a shift of 2 mm being measured in the left parietal lobe. Importantly, it was found that, a) clinically significant brain shift took place across all transitions and, b) clinically significant variability took place between the brain shift patterns of individual transitions at the local level. Together these findings further highlight the need for the consideration of PBS in surgical planning and strongly suggest that versatile parametric software are likely needed to account for the variable shifting of neurosurgical targets. The developed phantom has allowed for novel insights into an event otherwise difficult to study in humans. With further developments, it is believed that the phantom can be used to study other similarly problematic events, such as trauma

The Frail Agony of Grace: Story, Act, and Sacrament in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy

Although scholars have widely acknowledged the prevalence of religious reference in the work of Cormac McCarthy, no studies have yet paid any adequate attention to the most pervasive religious trope in all his works: the image of sacrament, and in particular, of eucharist. I contend that a thorough and appropriately informed study of sacrament in the work of Cormac McCarthy can uniquely illuminate his whole body of writing and I undertake that study in this dissertation. Two things are obvious in the work of Cormac McCarthy: that these novels attempt to establish some sort of moral system in light of metaphysical collapse, and that they are often adorned with sacramental imagery. My argument is that these two facts can and do intelligibly speak to one another, and that a particular theological understanding of sacrament demonstrates how. By reading McCarthy alongside postmodern accounts of action, identity, subjectivity, and narration, I show how he exploits Christian theology in order to locate the value of human acts and relations in a sacramentally immanent way. This is not to claim McCarthy for theology, but it is to assert that McCarthy generates an account of what goodness might look like in a death-ridden world through reference to the theological tradition of sacrament. I begin by addressing the scope and source of McCarthy’s violence. In Blood Meridian and No Country for Old Men I read McCarthy as following Nietzsche in scorning an ascetic ideal that locates the value of life beyond life. The ideas of reason and fate in Nietzsche as they develop in Adorno and Arendt is then studied in these same novels. Arendtian ideas of action deeply influence my reading of Suttree next, and this lead into a study of storytelling in the three novels of the border trilogy which is again deeply indebted to Arendtian notions of narration. Last, I look to contemporary theology and The Road for examples of sacrament that can cohere these various themes under a single sign and establish the grounds for a postmodern morality

Dissecting the Genetic Diversity of USDA Cowpea Germplasm Collection Using Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR-Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Markers

Cowpea (Vigna unguiculata L. Walp) is an important grain legume crop of the subtropics, particularly in West Africa, where it contributes to the livelihoods of small-scale farmers. Despite being a drought-resilient crop, cowpea production is hampered by insect pests, diseases, parasitic weeds, and various abiotic stresses. Genetic improvement can help overcome these limitations, and exploring diverse cowpea genetic resources is crucial for cowpea breeding. This study evaluated the genetic diversity of 361 cowpea accessions from the USDA core collection for the species using 102 Kompetitive Allele Specific PCR (KASP) single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers. A total of 102 KASP-SNP was validated in the germplasm panel, and 72 showed polymorphism across the germplasm panel. The polymorphism information content (PIC) of all SNPs ranged from 0.1 to 0.37, with an average of 0.29, while the mean observed heterozygosity was 0.52. The population structure revealed three distinct populations that clustered into two major groups after phylogenetic analysis. Analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) indicated greater genetic variation within populations than among populations. Although cowpea generally has a narrow genetic diversity, the accessions used in this study exhibited considerable variation across geographical regions, sub-species, and improvement status. These results indicated that the selected KASP genotyping assay can provide robust and accurate genotyping data for application in the selection and management of cowpea germplasm in breeding programs and genebanks

A new ERA? Electronic records in ambulances: a research programme.

In order to support the continued shift to out of hospital care, ambulance clinicians need to be able to decide which patients will benefit from being left at home, refer to alternative care providers, and ensure that appropriate patient information is passed on to them. Technology can help in a number of ways. Firstly, apps and referral tools can aid decision-making at the scene. Secondly, technology can facilitate the transfer of patient information to ambulance clinicians at the scene or even before arrival, e.g. by sharing information on past contacts with a GP, or on a DNACPR directive. Thirdly, it can support real time remote sharing of information so that, for example, an ED consultant can advise about the appropriate conveyance and care decisions while the patient is still at home. Fourthly, it can support the easy transfer of patient information to other care providers like GPs. Finally, electronic records can make data more readily available for audit, research and evaluation (Morrison et al., 2014). Data can be used in future research to inform service improvements, as well as providing ambulance services with a valuable store of information to run automated clinical and management reports, as well as defending against medico-legal action

Multiple Property Tolerance Analysis for the Evaluation of Missense Mutations

Computational prediction of the impact of a mutation on protein function is still not accurate enough for clinical diagnostics without additional human expert analysis. Sequence alignment-based methods have been extensively used but their results highly depend on the quality of the input alignments and the choice of sequences. Incorporating the structural information with alignments improves prediction accuracy. Here, we present a conservation of amino acid properties method for mutation prediction, Multiple Properties Tolerance Analysis (MuTA), and a new strategy, MuTA/S, to incorporate the solvent accessible surface (SAS) property into MuTA. Instead of combining multiple features by machine learning or mathematical methods, an intuitive strategy is used to divide the residues of a protein into different groups, and in each group the properties used is adjusted