Gathering evidence of the sexual exploitation of children and young people: a scoping exercise

The government commissioned this scoping exercise to provide insight into the progress being made to challenge the perpetrators of child sexual exploitation, to report on emerging good practice and to identify the barriers and challenges that local partnerships are facing. The government’s coordinated prostitution strategy responded to the evidence submitted in response to the consultation document, Paying the Price, and recognised that abusers seek out vulnerable children and young people, offering what appears to be affection and friendship. The reality can be that they are manipulated to become so dependent on their abusers that they can be coerced into sexual activity. Research also shows that young people often become sexually exploited as a result of long term social exclusion, poverty and deprivation and that there are complex relationships between sexual exploitation and ‘risk factors’ such as problem drug and alcohol use, poor mental and physical health and previous experiences of abuse. It also shows that boys and young men can be affected as well as girls and young women. Many local partnerships have built up considerable experience in safeguarding victims and developing strategies to help them to move on from exploitative relationships in safety and security

Surface: Selective Observation of Data in a Subantarctic Landscape

This contribution to the Art and Light Project emerged from a science/art collaboration with Janice Lord, plant evolutionary biologist and senior lecturer in the Department of Botany at the University of Otago. A hut book entry led to Janice’s nighttime fieldwork, which revealed the Campbell Island weta’s “novel and unexpected” nocturnal contribution to biotic pollination of subantarctic megaherbs

Diversity of Flower-visiting Bees and their Pollen Loads on a Wildflower Seed Farm in Montana

During a two-year survey on a wildflower seed farm in southcentral Montana, we collected ∼50 species of bees from 18 genera in sweep samples on cultivated wildflowers and weeds. The two cultivated plant species most intensively sampled attracted different assemblages of bee visitors. Slender white prairie clover (Dalea candida) attracted 27 species, 94% of visitors being Apis mellifera (73%), Lasioglossum spp., Colletes phaceliae, and Bombus spp. Prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) attracted 20 species, the majority being Halictus rubicundus and three Melissodes species; only 3% of visitors to this plant were A. mellifera, despite the fact that the coneflower field was closer to an apiary than were the prairie clover fields. Other apparently non-random plant-bee associations included A. mellifera onOnobrychis viciaefolia, Bombus spp. on Astragalus cicer, and Halictus ligatus and aMelissodes sp. on Symphyotrichum chilensis. Analysis of pollen loads suggests high flower constancy for A. mellifera, Bombus spp., and many of the native solitary bee species foraging on cultivated plants. The low numbers of honey bees on certain plants suggest that native, non-managed bees of such genera as Bombus, Melissodes, Halictus, and Lasioglossum may be critical for plant species for which honey bees show relatively low preference (especially when highly-preferred species such as D. candida are abundant)

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

Poetry With People With Dementia: An Evaluation of a Two Year Project Engaging in Poetry Activities With Older People in Residential and Nursing Homes.

This paper is a summary of an evaluation of the first two years of a three year poetry project for older people with dementia. The project was set up with a poet in residence who mentored six poets to deliver poetry activities to older people and those with dementia in residential and care homes in Herefordshire. The project was developed and run by the Courtyards Hereford. The evaluation was undertake through the use of questionnaires that were given to staff and carers undertaking training workshops and the poets, staff and carers in the homes who facilitated the activities and finally by the residents who took part in the project. The main findings were that participants that responded to the questionnaire for staff and carers it had increased confidence and assisted them in gaining more knowledge about the residents, whilst for residents it had a number of positive effects including enhanced communication, increased self-esteem and enhanced self-worth whilst making them feel less isolated

Congenital Stationary Night Blindness in the Dog: Common Mutation in the RPE65 Gene Indicates Founder Effect

Purpose: To clone and characterize the canine RPE65 cDNA from normal dog, examine for mutations, and establish if the mutation identified in Swedish briard dogs with retinal dystrophy is present in dogs of the same breed that originated from the United States and other countries, and are affected with congenital stationary night blindness. Methods: Fifteen briard dogs were studied, of which 10 were affected with csnb, and five were clinically normal. In addition, we tested samples from four Swedish dogs, and samples from a briard affected with progressive retinal atrophy. RPE65 cDNA was cloned a from retinal cDNA library by PCR, and from canine retina by RT-PCR. ERG and morphology were used to characterize csnb. Results: The normal RPE65 cDNA spans 1724 nucleotides (GenBank accession number AF084537), and includes 1602 nucleotides of coding sequence; the deduced amino acid sequence shares 98%, 97%, and 93% identity with homologous human, bovine, and rat sequences, respectively. A homozygous four nucleotide (AAGA) deletion, representing nucleotides 487-490 of wildtype RPE65 sequence, was found only in csnb and retinal dystrophy affected dogs; heterozygous animals had normal and mutant alleles. The mutation produces a frameshift, causing a deduced mistranslation with a premature stop codon. The mutation causes retinal dysfunction and RPE accumulation of lipid vacuoles. Conclusions: Identification of the same mutation in csnb and retinal dystrophy confirms the molecular identity of the two disorders. A common mutation in dogs derived from different countries suggests a founder effect causing the propagation of a common mutant allele in the population at risk

Steroids Do Not Prevent Photoreceptor Degeneration in the Light-Exposed T4R Rhodopsin Mutant Dog Retina Irrespective of AP-1 Inhibition

PURPOSE. AP-1 has been proposed as a key intermediate linking exposure to light and photoreceptor cell death in rodent light-damage models. Inhibition of AP-1 associated with steroid administration also prevents light damage. In this study the role of steroids in inhibiting AP-1 activation and/or in preventing photoreceptor degeneration was examined in the rhodopsin mutant dog model. METHODS. The dogs were dark adapted overnight, eyes dilated with mydriatics; the right eye was light occluded and the fundus of the left eye photographed (∼15–17 overlapping frames) with a fundus camera. For biochemical studies, the dogs remained in the dark for 1 to 3 hours after exposure. Twenty-four hours before exposure to light, some dogs were treated with systemic dexamethasone or intravitreal/subconjunctival triamcinolone. AP-1 DNA-binding activity was determined by electrophoresis mobility shift assay (EMSA) and phosphorylation of c-Fos and activation of ERK1/2 were determined by immunoblot analyses. The eyes were collected 1 hour and 2 weeks after exposure to light, for histopathology and immunocytochemistry. RESULTS. Inhibition of AP-1 activation, and phosphorylation of ERK1/2 and c-Fos were found after dexamethasone treatment in light-exposed T4R RHO mutant dog retinas. In contrast, increased AP-1 activity and phosphorylation of c-Fos and ERK1/2 were found in triamcinolone-treated mutant retinas. Similar extensive rod degeneration was found after exposure to light with or without treatment, and areas with surviving photoreceptor nuclei consisted primarily of cones. Only with systemic dexamethasone did the RPE cell layer remain. CONCLUSIONS. Intraocular or systemic steroids fail to prevent light-induced photoreceptor degeneration in the T4R RHO dog retina. Finding that systemic dexamethasone prevents AP-1 activation, yet does not prevent retinal light damage, further supports the hypothesis that AP-1 is not the critical player in the cell-death signal that occurs in rods

Managing CO2 storage resources in a mature CCS future

This paper summarises the potential for surface and subsurface interactions which might occur during CO2 storage operations. We discuss possible options for managing these interactions to provide timely storage capacity, illustrated with a regional case study from the Southern North Sea. The case study evaluates storage site options to provide storage capacity for CO2 supplied to the region until 205

Green and bear it? IMPLEMENTING MARKET-BASED POLICIES FOR IRELAND’S ENVIRONMENT. Proceedings of a Conference held on 10 May, 2001

While concern for the natural environment continues to be widely professed, it is often unmatched by a willingness to take action. Green intentions are discouraged by the burdens that effective policies would impose. But are these burdens real or imagined, or necessarily either? If there are better ways to take action, why are they not taken? This volume addresses the challenge, as perceived, to “green and bear it”

Linkage Disequilibrium Mapping in Domestic Dog Breeds Narrows the Progressive Rod-Cone Degeneration Interval and Identifies Ancestral Disease-Transmitting Chromosome

Canine progressive rod–cone degeneration (prcd) is a retinal disease previously mapped to a broad, gene-rich centromeric region of canine chromosome 9. As allelic disorders are present in multiple breeds, we used linkage disequilibrium (LD) to narrow the ∼6.4-Mb interval candidate region. Multiple dog breeds, each representing genetically isolated populations, were typed for SNPs and other polymorphisms identified from BACs. The candidate region was initially localized to a 1.5-Mb zero recombination interval between growth factor receptor-bound protein 2 (GRB2) and SEC14-like 1 (SEC14L). A fine-scale haplotype of the region was developed, which reduced the LD interval to 106 kb and identified a conserved haplotype of 98 polymorphisms present in all prcd-affected chromosomes from 14 different dog breeds. The findings strongly suggest that a common ancestor transmitted the prcd disease allele to many of the modern dog breeds and demonstrate the power of the LD approach in the canine model