The triphenylmethane dye brilliant blue G is only moderately effective at inhibiting amyloid formation by human amylin or at disaggregating amylin amyloid fibrils, but interferes with amyloid assays; Implications for inhibitor design.

The development of inhibitors of islet amyloid formation is important as pancreatic amyloid deposition contributes to type-2 diabetes and islet transplant failure. The Alzheimer's Aβ peptide and human amylin (h-amylin), the polypeptide responsible for amyloid formation in type-2 diabetes, share common physio-chemical features and some inhibitors of Aβ also inhibit amyloid formation by h-amylin and vice versa. Thus, a popular and potentially useful strategy to find lead compounds for anti-amylin amyloid agents is to examine compounds that have effects on Aβ amyloid formation. The triphenylmethane dye, brilliant blue G (BBG, Sodium;3-[[4-[(E)-[4-(4-ethoxyanilino)phenyl]-[4-[ethyl-[(3-sulfonatophenyl)methyl]azaniumylidene]-2-methylcyclohexa-2,5-dien-1-ylidene]methyl]-N-ethyl-3-methylanilino]methyl]benzenesulfonate) has been shown to modulate Aβ amyloid formation and inhibit Aβ induced toxicity. However, the effects of BBG on h-amylin have not been examined, although other triphenylmethane derivatives inhibit h-amylin amyloid formation. The compound has only a modest impact on h-amylin amyloid formation unless it is added in significant excess. BBG also remodels preformed h-amylin amyloid fibrils if added in excess, however BBG has no significant effect on h-amylin induced toxicity towards cultured β-cells or cultured CHO-T cells except at high concentrations. BBG is shown to interfere with standard thioflavin-T assays of h-amylin amyloid formation and disaggregation, highlighting the difficulty of interpreting such experiments in the absence of other measurements. BBG also interferes with ANS based assays of h-amylin amyloid formation. The work highlights the differences between inhibition of Aβ and h-amylin amyloid formation, illustrates the limitation of using Aβ inhibitors as leads for h-amylin amyloid inhibitors, and reinforces the difficulties in interpreting dye binding assays of amyloid formation

A General Overview of Multi-objective Multiple-participant Decision Making for Flood Management

Decision-making problems in water resources are often associated with multiple objectives and multiple stakeholders. To enable more effective and acceptable decision outcome, it is required that more participation is ensured in the decision making process. This is particularly relevant for flood management problems where the number of stakeholders could be very large. Although application of multi-objective decision-making tools in water resources is very wide, application with the consideration of multiple stakeholders is much more limited. The solution methodologies adapted for multi-objective multi-participant decision problems are generally based on aggregation of decisions obtained for individual decision makers. This approach seems somewhat inadequate when the number of stakeholders is very large, as often is the case in flood management. The present study has been performed to have an overview of existing solution methodologies for multi-objective decision making approaches in water resources. Decision making by single and multiple stakeholders has been considered under both deterministic and uncertain conditions. It has been found that the use of fuzzy set theory to represent various uncertainties associated with decision making situations under multi-objective multiple-participant environment is very promising. Coupled with multi-objective methods (e. g. compromise programming and goal programming), fuzzy approach has also the ability to support group decisions, to reflect collective opinions and conflicting judgments.https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/wrrr/1003/thumbnail.jp

Increasing zinc levels in phytase-supplemented diets improves the performance and nutrient utilization of broiler chickens

Three hundred and thirty-six day-old Ross-308 male broiler chicks were used in a 35-day trial to investigate the effect of different concentrations of dietary Zn and phytase on broiler performance and energy utilization. Twelve day-old birds were used for the initial slaughter group to provide baseline body compositional data, while the remaining 324 birds were randomly distributed to six experimental diets. The treatments consisted of a 3 x 2 factorial arrangement with three levels of Zn (low, mid, and high; 30, 40, and 50 mg/kg, respectively) and two levels (0, 500 FTU/kg) of microbial phytase. Each dietary treatment was fed to 6 cages (9 birds/cage). Low Zn diet significantly decreased feed intake and body weight gain at days 1-24. Phytase supplementation improved body weight gain at d 24, irrespective of Zn level. The digestibility of P was improved in birds fed high-Zn diet with phytase supplementation, and the reverse was the case for Fe and Zn digestibility. High dietary Zn increased the Zn and Fe deposition in liver. The activity of AP, Ca-ATPase and Mg-ATPase in the jejunum was high in the phytase supplemented mid-level Zn diet. Phytase supplemented to the mid and high level Zn diets significantly improved most energy utilization parameters. This result indicate that the Zn concentrations used in this study were not inhibitory to phytase activity and broiler performance. Therefore, it can be concluded that dietary zinc level in phytase-supplemented diets could be increased up to 50 mg/kg without any negative effect on phytase-mediated broiler response.Keywords: Bone quality, net energy, nutrient utilizatio

Livestock, vulnerability, and poverty dynamics in India

The focus of this study is to identify the livelihood activities that produce the major share of household income as well as to identify the livelihood pathways and strategies, and the role of livestock in these activities and strategies over a six year period. The paper is organized as follows. Section one is Introduction; Section 2 describes the methodology and data. Section 3 examines the extent of movements into and out of poverty amongst the sample households. Sections 4 and 5 describe the extent of destitution, vulnerability, viability and sustainability in connection with livelihood pathways. Section 6 examines the factors associated with economic/poverty status. Section 7 summarises the role of livestock in these livelihood connections. Finally, the paper draws some policy conclusions and recommendations and discusses the future direction of research

Targeting reactive oxygen species (ROS) to combat the age-related loss of muscle mass and function.

The loss of muscle mass and function with age, termed sarcopenia, is an inevitable process, which has a significant impact on quality of life. During ageing we observe a progressive loss of total muscle fibres and a reduction in cross-sectional area of the remaining fibres, resulting in a significant reduction in force output. The mechanisms which underpin sarcopenia are complex and poorly understood, ranging from inflammation, dysregulation of protein metabolism and denervation. However, there is significant evidence to demonstrate that modified ROS generation, redox dis-homeostasis and mitochondrial dysfunction may have an important role to play. Based on this, significant interest and research has interrogated potential ROS-targeted therapies, ranging from nutritional-based interventions such as vitamin E/C, polyphenols (resveratrol) and targeted pharmacological compounds, using molecules such as SS-31 and MitoQ. In this review we evaluate these approaches to target aberrant age-related ROS generation and the impact on muscle mass and function

Livestock and poverty reduction in India: findings from the ODI Livelihood Options Project

This paper is based on data collected under the Livelihood Options Project, a three year DFID funded policy study located in the Indian States of Andhra Pradesh (AP) and Madhya Pradesh (MP). The purpose of this project is to identify factors promoting or impeding diversification out of low productivity livelihoods, and identify the policy changes necessary to support upward trajectories and prevent downward ones. It explores the role of livestock in rural livelihoods and its potential to assist people in escaping poverty using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Main topics of discussion include economic importance of livestock; macro level trends in AP and MP; and variations in income and livestock keeping. Three study findings are presented. These are Broad patters-lists livestock and farmer category, and livestock types by caste categories; Who keeps what and why? This finding discusses overviews of Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh and discusses goats as an increasingly popular accumulative option. The last Study finding - Does livestock provide a useful coping mechanism to vulnerable households and individuals - outlines migration and livestock case studies, and village accounts of livestock keeping patterns. The paper ends with conclusion and policy implications

The Rise of the Social Business in Emerging Economies: A New Paradigm of Development

Social business has emerged as a sustainable and innovative means to solve emerging social problems. Although it is gaining momentum, there is a paucity of studies on the drivers of social business models and its key success factors. Drawing on a systematic literature review and an in-depth analysis of 31 social businesses in Bangladesh, the study presents eight key drivers and four success factors for a sustainable social business model. The findings show eight key drivers for social business models including customer centricity, quality, social needs, latent demands, incidental gains, innovation through partnerships, inspirations from initiatives and collaborative eco-systems. The findings also report four critical success factors including social goals, collaboration, simplicity and start from home. Overall, this study discusses the scope of developing and sustaining social business models for empowerment, quality of life and economic growth in emerging economies

Drought and vulnerability of livestock in India

This study examines the dynamics of livestock keeping in recent years when occurrence of droughts was severe; the function of livestock in reducing the vulnerability to shocks and stresses to which the poor are exposed; and the relationship between migration and aspects of livestock keeping in the context of drought and vulnerability. The discussion paper is organized as follows: Following the executive summary, Section 2 introduces the paper giving its background. Section 3 describes the methodology. Section 4 presents an overview of livestock keeping and poverty. Section 5 describes the dynamics of livestock keeping in two subsections. Section 6 analyzes livestock sales due to major expenses in three years. The relationship between migration income and livestock keeping is examined in Section 7. The paper concludes with Section 8, where implications are discussed. Questionnaire for 2005 panel re-survey and qualitative assessment of the impact of commercial poultry farms on backyard poultry production and additional tabulation are included in the appendices. The report is primarily based on the 2005 re-survey data supplemented by data collected from 2001-02 survey as well as qualitative method