2,037 research outputs found
Making Sustainable Agriculture Real in CAP 2020: The Role of Conservation Agriculture
Europe is about to redefine its Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) for the near future. The question is whether this redefinition is more a fine-tuning of the existing CAP or whether thorough changes can be expected. Looking back to the last revision of CAP the most notable change is, undoubtedly, the concern about EU and global food security. The revival of the interest in agricultural production already became evident during the Health Check as a consequence of climbing commodity prices in 2007/08. It is therefore no surprise that “rising concerns regarding both EU and global food security” is the first topic to appear in the list of justifications for the need for a CAP reform. Other challenges mentioned in this list such as sustainable management of natural resources, climate change and its mitigation, improvement of competitiveness to withstand globalization and rising price volatility, etc., while not new are considered worthwhile enough to be maintained and reappraised
Implications of subcutaneous or intravenous delivery of trastuzumab: further insight from patient interviews in the PrefHer study
BACKGROUND: The 2 Cohort randomised PrefHer trial examined the preferences of HER2+ve primary breast cancer patients for intravenous (IV) or subcutaneous (SC) delivery of trastuzumab via a Single Injectable Device (SID) or hand-held syringe (HHS). The novel approach and design of the study permitted an in-depth exploration of patients' experiences, the impact that different modes of delivery had on patients' well-being and implications for future management. METHODS: The preferences, experiences and general comments of patients in the PrefHer study were collected via specific semi-structured interview schedules. Exploratory analyses of data were conducted using standard methodology. The final question invited patients to make further comments, which were divided into 9 thematic categories - future delivery, compliments, time/convenience, practical considerations, pain/discomfort, study design, side-effects, psychological impact, and perceived efficacy. RESULTS: 267/467 (57%) patients made 396 additional comments, 7 were neutral, 305 positive and 86 negative. The three top categories generating the largest number of comments were compliments and gratitude about staff and being part of PrefHer (75/396; 19%), the potential future delivery of SC trastuzumab (73/396; 18%), and practical considerations about SC administration (60/396; 15%). CONCLUSIONS: Eliciting patient preferences about routes of administration of drugs via comprehensive interviews within a randomised cross-over trial yielded rich and important information. The few negative comments made demonstrated a need for proper staff training in SC administration Patients were grateful to have been part of the trial, and would have liked to continue with SC delivery. The possibility of home administration in the future also seemed acceptable. EUDRACT NUMBER: 2010-024099-25
Combined plasmonic and dielectric rear reflectors for enhanced photocurrent in solar cells
A doubling of the photocurrent due to light trapping is demonstrated by the combination of silvernanoparticles with a highly reflective back scatterer fabricated by Snow Globe Coating on the rear of a 2 μm polycrystalline silicon thin film solar cell. The binder free high refractive index titania particles can overcome light losses due to transmission. Modelling indicates that adding plasmonicnanoparticles to the back scatterer widens the angular distribution of scattered light such that over 80% of long wavelength light is scattered outside the Si/air loss cone and trapped in the cell, compared to 30% for the titania alone.This project was funded by the Austrian Science Fund
(FWF): J-2979, the Australian Research Council and the
Australian Solar Institute
Local Understandings of Soil Fertility, Rainfall and Conservation Agriculture in Laikipia, Kenya: A Qualitative Analysis.
Conservation Agriculture (CA) is mostly referred to in the literature as having three
principles at the core of its identity: minimum soil disturbance, permanent organic soil
cover and crop diversity. This farming package has been described as suitable to improve
yields and livelihoods of smallholders in semi-arid regions of Kenya, which since the colonial
period have been heavily subjected to tillage. Our study is based on a qualitative approach
that followed local meanings and understandings of soil fertility, rainfall and CA in Ethi
and Umande located in the semi-arid region of Laikipia, Kenya. Farm visits, 53 semistructured
interviews, informal talks were carried out from April to June 2015. Ethi and
Umande locations were part of a resettlement programme after the independence of Kenya
that joined together people coming from different farming contexts. Since the 1970–80s,
state and NGOs have been promoting several approaches to control erosion and boost soil
fertility. In this context, CA has also been promoted preferentially since 2007. Interviewees
were well acquainted with soil erosion and the methods to control it. Today, rainfall amount
and distribution are identified as major constraints to crop performance. Soil fertility is
understood as being under control since farmers use several methods to boost it (inorganic
fertilisers, manure, terraces, agroforestry, vegetation barriers). CA is recognised to deliver
better yields but it is not able to perform well under severe drought and does not provide
yields as high as ‘promised’ in promotion campaigns. Moreover, CA is mainly understood as
“cultivating with chemicals”, “kulima na dawa”, in kiswahili. A dominant view is that CA
is about minimum tillage and use of pre-emergence herbicides. It is relevant to reflect about
what kind of CA is being promoted and if elements like soil cover and crop rotation are
given due attention. CA based on these two ideas, minimum tillage and use of herbicides,
is hard to stand as a programme to be promoted and up-scaled. Therefore CA appears not
to be recognised as a convincing approach to improve the livelihoods in Laikipia
Policy and Institutional Support for CA Development (Examples from Europe, Africa, Asia)
Policy and Institutional Support for CA Development (Examples from Europe, Africa, Asia
Mobilizing Greater Crop and Land Potentials Sustainably
The supply side of the food security engine is the way we farm. The current engine of
conventional tillage farming is faltering and needs to be replaced. This presentation will address
supply side issues of agriculture to meet future agricultural demands for food and industry using
the alternate no-till Conservation Agriculture (CA) paradigm (involving no-till farming with
mulch soil cover and diversified cropping) that is able to raise productivity sustainably and
efficiently, reduce inputs, regenerate degraded land, minimise soil erosion, and harness the flow
of ecosystem services. CA is an ecosystems approach to farming capable of enhancing not only
the economic and environmental performance of crop production and land management, but also
promotes a mindset change for producing ‘more from less’, the key attitude towards sustainable
production intensification. CA is now spreading globally in all continents at an annual rate of 10
Mha and covers some 157 Mha of cropland.
Today global agriculture produces enough food to feed three times the current population of
7.21 billion. In 1976, when the world population was 4.15 billion, world food production far
exceeded the amount necessary to feed that population. However, our urban and industrialised
lifestyle leads to wastage of food of some 30%-40%, as well as waste of enormous amount of
energy and protein while transforming crop-based food into animal-derived food; we have a
higher proportion of people than ever before who are obese; we continue to degrade our
ecosystems including much of our agricultural land of which some 400 Mha is reported to be
abandoned due to severe soil and land degradation; and yields of staple cereals appear to have
stagnated. These are signs of unsustainability at the structural level in the society, and it is at the
structural level, for both supply side and demand side, that we need transformed mind sets about
production, consumption and distribution.
CA not only provides the possibility of increased crop yields for the low input smallholder
farmer, it also provides a pro-poor rural and agricultural development model to support
agricultural intensification in an affordable manner. For the high output farmer, it offers greater
efficiency (productivity) and profit, resilience and stewardship. For farming anywhere, it
addresses the root causes of agricultural land degradation, sub-optimal ecological crop and land
potentials or yield ceilings, and poor crop phenotypic expressions or yield gaps.
As national economies expand and diversify, more people become integrated into the economy
and are able to access food. However, for those whose livelihoods continue to depend on
agriculture to feed themselves and the rest of the world population, the challenge is for agriculture
to produce the needed food and raw material for industry with minimum harm to the environment
and the society, and to produce it with maximum efficiency and resilience against abiotic and
biotic stresses, including those arising from climate change. There is growing empirical and
scientific evidence worldwide that the future global supplies of food and agricultural raw
materials can be assured sustainably at much lower environmental and economic cost by shifting
away from conventional tillage-based food and agriculture systems to no-till CA-based food and
agriculture systems. To achieve this goal will require effective national and global policy and
institutional support (including research and education)
TBLR1 regulates the expression of nuclear hormone receptor co-repressors
BACKGROUND: Transcription is regulated by a complex interaction of activators and repressors. The effectors of repression are large multimeric complexes which contain both the repressor proteins that bind to transcription factors and a number of co-repressors that actually mediate transcriptional silencing either by inhibiting the basal transcription machinery or by recruiting chromatin-modifying enzymes. RESULTS: TBLR1 [GenBank: NM024665] is a co-repressor of nuclear hormone transcription factors. A single highly conserved gene encodes a small family of protein molecules. Different isoforms are produced by differential exon utilization. Although the ORF of the predominant form contains only 1545 bp, the human gene occupies ~200 kb of genomic DNA on chromosome 3q and contains 16 exons. The genomic sequence overlaps with the putative DC42 [GenBank: NM030921] locus. The murine homologue is structurally similar and is also located on Chromosome 3. TBLR1 is closely related (79% homology at the mRNA level) to TBL1X and TBL1Y, which are located on Chromosomes X and Y. The expression of TBLR1 overlaps but is distinct from that of TBL1. An alternatively spliced form of TBLR1 has been demonstrated in human material and it too has an unique pattern of expression. TBLR1 and the homologous genes interact with proteins that regulate the nuclear hormone receptor family of transcription factors. In resting cells TBLR1 is primarily cytoplasmic but after perturbation the protein translocates to the nucleus. TBLR1 co-precipitates with SMRT, a co-repressor of nuclear hormone receptors, and co-precipitates in complexes immunoprecipitated by antiserum to HDAC3. Cells engineered to over express either TBLR1 or N- and C-terminal deletion variants, have elevated levels of endogenous N-CoR. Co-transfection of TBLR1 and SMRT results in increased expression of SMRT. This co-repressor undergoes ubiquitin-mediated degradation and we suggest that the stabilization of the co-repressors by TBLR1 occurs because of a novel mechanism that protects them from degradation. Transient over expression of TBLR1 produces growth arrest. CONCLUSION: TBLR1 is a multifunctional co-repressor of transcription. The structure of this family of molecules is highly conserved and closely related co-repressors have been found in all eukaryotic organisms. Regulation of co-repressor expression and the consequent alterations in transcriptional silencing play an important role in the regulation of differentiation
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