The potential of community fish refuges (CFRs) in rice field agro-ecosystems for improving food and nutrition security in the Tonle Sap region

The fisheries sector in Cambodia contributes 8%–12% to national GDP and 25% - 30% to agricultural GDP, with an estimated 4.5 million people involved in fishing and associated trades. Fish and other aquatic animals are important food sources, contributing an estimated national average of 60% - 70% of total animal protein intake. Of the 2013 total fish production, 550,000 metric tons were harvested from freshwater habitats, of which rice field fisheries and small-scale family fisheries contributed approximately 20%. The productivity and value of rice field fisheries to households in rural Cambodia has been highlighted in a number of previous studies. The Fisheries Administration of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries plans to increase productivity from rice field fisheries and aquaculture at an annual rate of 15% to maintain supply for a growing population. This report draws mainly on the baseline and monitoring data from the Rice Field Fisheries Enhancement Project (RFFEP) during its implementation between 2012 and 2014. Reference is also made to the Fish on Farms project to highlight the relative contribution of fish from small-scale aquaculture compared to wild-caught fish

A characterization of community fish refuge typologies in rice field fisheries ecosystems

In rural Cambodia, fish is a source of food and income to millions of people. However, there has been a real threat to fish populations in natural wetlands due to the degradation of aquatic biodiversity and habitat, illegal fishing, increase of population and demand for fish, and the use of harmful pesticides for agriculture. The Rice Field Fisheries Enhancement Project (RFFEP) seeks to rebuild and protect the fish populations through innovative methods. The project works with communities to sustainably strengthen the rice field fisheries near their villages by improving protected habitats called "community fish refuges". This handbook characterizes rice field fisheries that are connected to community fish refuges. Community fish refuges are designated fish conservation areas promoted by the Fisheries Administration of the Royal Cambodian Government. It also examines the characteristics of rain-fed rice field ecosystems that are connected to community fish refuges in order to further refine descriptive criteria and better understand potential benefits and management strategies

The Intervisions cliniques continuing medical education program: A forum for exchange and mutual knowledge development between general practitioners and psychiatrists

Objective This article presents the Intervisions cliniques program, a continuing Medical Education (CME) initiative for psychiatrists and general practitioners which uses case discussion to foster the acquisition of mental health care knowledge. Method This project is a case study, using qualitative methods. An operational model of Intervisions Cliniques was drawn for analysis. Data mainly come from the program-related literature, direct observation and interviews with 9 key actors, assembled in 2 groups of promoters and participants of the program. Findings The findings help to define the context and vision in which the Intervisions cliniques program was set up and implemented, to identify the perceived benefits and disappointments with regard to the program. Set up in the Canadian public managed care system and university-affiliated hospital, the Intervisions cliniques program helps to create lines of communication and privileged exchanges between general practitioners and psychiatrists as well as to foster mutual knowledge and a crosscutting and interactive view within a shared clinical territory. Several benefits noted by the participants and the organizing committee demonstrate the importance and multimodal effects of this type of initiative. The case-discussion format used as a CME method meets the training needs of general practitioners and is widely appreciated. However, the pressing needs expressed by the general practitioners with regard to improving shared mental health care still pose many challenges. Conclusions Making the link with the duties of responding psychiatrists, who are now funded in Québec, seems to be part of the solution. Maintaining and disseminating the Intervisions Cliniques program will require provincial-wide system implementation strategies to train psychiatrist, support them and regional managers to monitor the quality of this innovative practice within a public managed care system. Clinical implications • In the context of Continuing Medical Education (CME), case discussions are valued because they help to address the full complexity of clinical situations. • In the development of shared mental health care, direct contacts between general practitioners and psychiatrists are an optimal way to foster mutual knowledge and a crosscutting and interactive view within a shared clinical territory. • The Intervisions cliniques program contributes to shared mental health care and is a CME strategy that should be reproduced. Limitations • The operational model presented cannot identify all the links which unite the structures, processes and effects of the Intervisions cliniques program. • Interviews with local and regional managers would have helped to better determine all the issues involved in maintaining and generalizing the Intervisions cliniques program. • Clinical examples illustrating experiences of shared mental health care following participation in the Intervisions cliniques program would have helped to better determine what contribution the Intervisions cliniques program has made to shared mental health care

Oncogenic B-RAFV600E Signaling Induces the T-Box3 Transcriptional Repressor to Repress E-Cadherin and Enhance Melanoma Cell Invasion

Approximately 50% of melanomas require oncogenic B-RAFV600E signaling for proliferation, survival, and metastasis, and the use of highly selective B-RAF inhibitors has yielded remarkable, although short-term, clinical responses. Reactivation of signaling downstream of B-RAF is frequently associated with acquired resistance to B-RAF inhibitors, and the identification of B-RAF targets may therefore provide new strategies for managing melanoma. In this report, we applied whole-genome expression analyses to reveal that oncogenic B-RAFV600E regulates genes associated with epithelial–mesenchymal transition in normal cutaneous human melanocytes. Most prominent was the B-RAF-mediated transcriptional repression of E-cadherin, a keratinocyte–melanoma adhesion molecule whose loss is intimately associated with melanoma invasion and metastasis. Here we identify a link between oncogenic B-RAF, the transcriptional repressor Tbx3, and E-cadherin. We show that B-RAFV600E induces the expression of Tbx3, which potently represses E-cadherin expression in melanocytes and melanoma cells. Tbx3 expression is normally restricted to developmental embryonic tissues and promoting cell motility, but it is also aberrantly increased in various cancers and has been linked to tumor cell invasion and metastasis. We propose that this B-RAF/Tbx3/E-cadherin pathway has a critical role in promoting the metastasis of B-RAF-mutant melanomas

Context and Crowding in Perceptual Learning on a Peripheral Contrast Discrimination Task: Context-Specificity in Contrast Learning

Perceptual learning is an improvement in sensitivity due to practice on a sensory task and is generally specific to the trained stimuli and/or tasks. The present study investigated the effect of stimulus configuration and crowding on perceptual learning in contrast discrimination in peripheral vision, and the effect of perceptual training on crowding in this task. 29 normally-sighted observers were trained to discriminate Gabor stimuli presented at 9° eccentricity with either identical or orthogonally oriented flankers with respect to the target (ISO and CROSS, respectively), or on an isolated target (CONTROL). Contrast discrimination thresholds were measured at various eccentricities and target-flanker separations before and after training in order to determine any learning transfer to untrained stimulus parameters. Perceptual learning was observed in all three training stimuli; however, greater improvement was obtained with training on ISO-oriented stimuli compared to CROSS-oriented and unflanked stimuli. This learning did not transfer to untrained stimulus configurations, eccentricities or target-flanker separations. A characteristic crowding effect was observed increasing with viewing eccentricity and decreasing with target-flanker separation before and after training in both configurations. The magnitude of crowding was reduced only at the trained eccentricity and target-flanker separation; therefore, learning for contrast discrimination and for crowding in the present study was configuration and location specific. Our findings suggest that stimulus configuration plays an important role in the magnitude of perceptual learning in contrast discrimination and suggest context-specificity in learning

The influence of spatial orientation on the perceived path of visual saltatory motion

Visual saltation is the illusory mislocalization that occurs when multiple elements are rapidly presented to two peripheral locations; mislocalized elements appear to fill in the intermediate space. We investigated the influence of element orientation on the path of illusory saltatory motion. Experiment 1 showed that congruence in element orientation at the two locations (horizontal-horizontal or vertical-vertical) produced rectilinear saltation, while incongruent orientations (verticalhorizontal or horizontal-vertical) elicited curvilinear saltation consistent with rigid rotation around a common point. In curvilinear saltation, mislocalized elements were perceived with an intermediate orientation. Experiment 2 showed that the perceived shape of the motion path was directly dependent on the salience of orientation information. In Experiment 3, we showed that the circular path of curvilinear saltation (induced by orientation incongruence) is altered by background motion (wedge-shaped regions of inward and outward moving dots) that overlaps only with the inter-element space. An ellipsoid path, where the major axis corresponds to the mislocalized element overlapping with outward motion and the minor axis corresponds to the mislocalized element overlapping with inward motion, is produced. These findings reveal that the interpretation of visual saltation arises from high-level computations in which the percept is derived through an interaction of form and motion

Nucleotide Sequence Analysis of 77.7 kb of the Human V[beta] T-Cell Receptor Gene Locus: Direct Primer-Walking Using Cosmid Template DNAs

The nucleotide sequence of 77.7 kb from the human T-cell receptor [beta]-chain locus was determined directly from three overlapping cosmid clones using the primer-walking approach. Computer-aided analyses of this sequence reveal the presence of at least 11 genic regions that are closely related to the human T-cell receptor [beta] variable region (TCRBV) gene family. These include five germline sequences that have previously been determined, V[beta]21.2, V[beta]8.1, V[beta]8.2, V[beta]8.3, and V[beta]16, and four whose sequences have partially been determined at the mRNA level, V[beta]6, V[beta]23, V[beta]12.2, V[beta]24. The two remaining V[beta] Tcr-related sequences have eluded discovery by cDNA and RT-PCR cloning and genomic blot hybridization methods. These two V[beta] Tcr-related genes lack >75% nucleotide sequence identity with any other V[beta] Tcr gene member and therefore, by convention, are referred to as new subfamily members V[beta]25 and V[beta]26. This lack of shared identity with other subfamily members explains why they were not detected by hybridization. The promoter regions of these V[beta] Tcr genes contain the conserved Tcr decamer element located between 80 and 110 bp 5' of the translation start site, generally near a putative TATAA promoter element. Our sequence analysis also reveals that a 3.3-kb duplication unit was involved in the recombination event that produced the closely related V[beta]8.1 and 8.2 gene subfamily members. This sequenced region of the V[beta] locus contains an average number of repetitive DNA elements (21 Alu, three L1, three MER, and three retrovirus-related elements).Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/31701/1/0000637.pd

The nucleotide sequences of the 3’ terminal regions of papaya ringspot virus strains W and P

The sequences of cDNA clones encoding most of the NI b protein, the coat protein and the 3 ' untranslated region of papaya ringspot virus (PRV) strains W and P have been determined. The open reading frame of P strain PRV was confirmed by amino acid analysis. Nucleotide sequence comparisons of these strains show that they share a 98-2 % identity in their NI b gene regions and a 97-7 % identity in their coat protein genes. The sequences of these two strains are distinct from other potyvirus types, confirming their classification as two strains of the same virus. The NI b amino acid sequence possesses conserved amino acids characteristic of RNA-dependent RNA polymerases. Comparison of the coat protein amino acid sequence with those of other potyviruses shows perfectly conserved amino acids which may have functional significance