Capacity development in agricultural research for development

This paper reviews the current policies and programmes of EIARD members in relation to capacity development and makes recommendations on future directions. The main issues and recommendations will be incorporated into a policy brief in which specific policy options or guidelines will be presented. The goal of EIARDs strategy is to reduce poverty (i.e. MDGs); to promote economic growth, food security, and sustainable management of natural resources in developing & emerging economy countries and to contribute to global development issues and knowledge generation. The purpose of this study on capacity development for ARD is to contribute to these objectives by carrying out a broad-scale mapping exercise of current capacity development programmes in EIARD member countries. It identifies some specific initiatives which illustrate different aspects of capacity development and which are representative for a range of different EIARD members. To this end also initiatives from EIARD countries which recently started to support programmes for capacity strengthening in ARD are included

Miljøovervåkning av marine ressurser

Denne rapporten er basert på et opphold på øya Mausundvær i september 2015. Mausund er et gammelt lokalsamfunn basert på fiske. I tillegg til tradisjonelt fiske, er fiskeoppdrett også en vesentlig næringsvei på øya i dag. Under årets ekskursjon ble det fisket fisk og krabber som det ble tatt prøver av. Det ble sjekket verdier av kadmium, bly, arsen og kvikksølv, og sammenlignet opp mot grenseverdier. Resultatene viser at verdiene for kadmium og kvikksølv har økt, mens de har minket for bly og arsen.

Influenza A(H1N1) Oseltamivir Resistant Viruses in the Netherlands During the Winter 2007/2008

Background: Antiviral susceptibility surveillance in the Netherlands was intensified after the first reports about the emergence of influenza A(H1N1) oseltamivir resistant viruses in Norway in January, 2008. Methods: Within the existing influenza surveillance an additional questionnaire study was performed to retrospectively assess possible risk factors and establish clinical outcome of all patients with influenza virus A(H1N1) positive specimens. To discriminate resistant and sensitive viruses, fifty percent inhibitory concentrations for the neuramidase inhibitors oseltamivir and zanamivir were determined in a neuraminidase inhibition assay. Mutations previously associated with resistance to neuramidase inhibitors and M2 blockers (amantadine and rimantadine) were searched for by nucleotide sequencing of neuraminidase and M2 genes respectively. Results: Among 171 patients infected with A(H1N1) viruses an overall prevalence of oseltamivi resistance of 27% (95% CI: 20-34%) was found. None of influenza A(H1N1) oseltamivir resistant viruses tested was resistant against amantadine or zanamivir. Patient characteristics, underlying conditions, influenza vaccination, symptoms, complications, and exposure to oseltamivir and other antivirals did not differ significantly between patients infected with resistant and sensitive A(H1N1) viruses. Conclusion: In 2007/2008 a large proportion of influenza A(H1N1) viruses resistant to oseltamivir was detected. There were no clinical differences between patients infected with resistant and sensitive A(H1N1) viruses. Continuous monitoring of the antiviral drug sensitivity profile of influenza viruses is justified, preferably using the existing sentinel surveillance, however, complemented with data from the more severe end of the clinical spectrum. In order to act timely on emergencies of public health importance we suggest setting up a surveillance system that can guarantee rapid access to the latter. (aut. ref.

KRAB-Induced Heterochromatin Effectively Silences PLOD2 Gene Expression in Somatic Cells and is Resilient to TGFβ1 Activation

Epigenetic editing, an emerging technique used for the modulation of gene expression in mammalian cells, is a promising strategy to correct disease-related gene expression. Although epigenetic reprogramming results in sustained transcriptional modulation in several in vivo models, further studies are needed to develop this approach into a straightforward technology for effective and specific interventions. Important goals of current research efforts are understanding the context-dependency of successful epigenetic editing and finding the most effective epigenetic effector(s) for specific tasks. Here we tested whether the fibrosis- and cancer-associated PLOD2 gene can be repressed by the DNA methyltransferase M.SssI, or by the non-catalytic Krüppel associated box (KRAB) repressor directed to the PLOD2 promoter via zinc finger- or CRISPR-dCas9-mediated targeting. M.SssI fusions induced de novo DNA methylation, changed histone modifications in a context-dependent manner, and led to 50%-70% reduction in PLOD2 expression in fibrotic fibroblasts and in MDA-MB-231 cancer cells. Targeting KRAB to PLOD2 resulted in the deposition of repressive histone modifications without DNA methylation and in almost complete PLOD2 silencing. Interestingly, both long-term TGFβ1-induced, as well as unstimulated PLOD2 expression, was completely repressed by KRAB, while M.SssI only prevented the TGFβ1-induced PLOD2 expression. Targeting transiently expressed dCas9-KRAB resulted in sustained PLOD2 repression in HEK293T and MCF-7 cells. Together, these findings point to KRAB outperforming DNA methylation as a small potent targeting epigenetic effector for silencing TGFβ1-induced and uninduced PLOD2 expression

Differential diagnosis in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy clinical and molecular aspects

Kennedy disease is caused by an enlarged trinucleotide repeat sequence within the androgen receptor gene. We report here seven male patients with a benign motor neuron syndrome highly analogous to Kennedy disease but with a normal trinucleotide repeat

A identidade maya-poqomchi’ guatemalteca em suas manifestações espirituais e religiosas

Guatemala es un país caracterizado por una diversidad cultural considerable. Entre los más de veinte grupos mayas que pueblan su geografía, los poqomchi´es que habitan en Alta y Baja Verapaz han mantenido gran parte de su idiosincrasia particular, heredada de los antiguos mayas. El principal objeto de este artículo es analizar los aspectos más destacados de la espiritualidad y religiosidad poqomchi´, como herencia del pueblo maya del que proceden y producto tanto de la interacción con otros colectivos mayas cercanos como del sincretismo como respuesta de supervivencia. Para ello, nos basaremos en la observación sistemática y participante y la entrevista, para llegar a la conclusión de cómo aún en la actualidad los principales rasgos de la espiritualidad poqomchi´ continúan vigentes, no exentos de la influencia de los pueblos con los que comparte espacio.Guatemala is a country of considerable cultural diversity. Among the more than twenty Mayan groups that populate its territory, the Poqomchi´ who inhabit Alta and Baja Verapaz have preserved a great deal of their particular idiosyncrasy inherited from the ancient Maya. The main purpose of this article is to analyze the most important aspects of Poqomchi´ spirituality and religiosity as the legacy of the ancient Maya from whom they descend, as well as a product both of their constant interaction with other Mayan groups and syncretism as a survival mechanism. For this purpose, it is based on systematic participant observation and interviews which have led to conclude that the main features of Poqomchi´ spirituality remain alive even today, although not free from the influence of the peoples with whom they share space.A Guatemala é um país caracterizado por uma diversidade cultural considerável. Entre os mais de 20 grupos maias que povoam sua geografia, os poqomchi’es que habitam na Alta e Baixa Verapaz têm mantido grande parte de sua idiossincrasia, herdada dos antigos maias. O principal objetivo deste artigo é analisar os aspectos mais destacados da espiritualidade e religiosidade poqomchi’, como herança do povo maia do qual procedem e produto tanto da interação com outros grupos maias próximos quanto do sincretismo como resposta de sobrevivência. Para isso, tomaremos como base a observação sistemática e participante e a entrevista para chegar à conclusão de como ainda na atualidade os principais traços da espiritualidade poqomchi’ continuam vigentes, não isentos da influência dos povos com os quais compartilham espaço.Este artículo es el resultado de las investigaciones etnográficas llevadas a cabo por el investigador dentro del grupo HUM 556 (Universidad de Huelva, España), Mundialización e Identidad, y forma parte de una investigación sobre la esencia identitaria, los procesos de preservación cultural y transculturación de los pueblos mayas de Guatemala

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe