The extent that certain dairy farmer attitudes and behaviors are associated with farm business profitability

The way in which farm managers' attitudes, personality, behavior, values, and sociodemographic characteristics influence farm business performance is, at best, only partially understood. The study reported here expands on this understanding by analyzing the attitudes and personal attributes of 80 dairy farmers in Great Britain in relation to the profitability over 3 yr of their farm businesses. Business goals, temperament, purchasing behavior, and having a growth mindset toward the business were found to be associated with profitability. A linear regression model consisting of 5 variables related to the above was presented that predicts 34% of the observed variation in profitability. Each of these variables were questions related to the participants' personal attitudes or beliefs. Other assessed variables, such as specific husbandry behaviors or practices, or management practices and sociodemographic characteristics, did not warrant inclusion in the final model. These results uniquely contribute to understanding how the attitudes, personality, behaviors, and attributes of dairy farmers are associated with, and thus likely to influence, the profitability of their farm businesses

'Education, education, education' : legal, moral and clinical

This article brings together Professor Donald Nicolson's intellectual interest in professional legal ethics and his long-standing involvement with law clinics both as an advisor at the University of Cape Town and Director of the University of Bristol Law Clinic and the University of Strathclyde Law Clinic. In this article he looks at how legal education may help start this process of character development, arguing that the best means is through student involvement in voluntary law clinics. And here he builds upon his recent article which argues for voluntary, community service oriented law clinics over those which emphasise the education of students

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Assessing the potential for the uptake of on-farm anaerobic digestion for energy production in England

We report on an assessment of the potential for energy production from on-farm anaerobic digestion (AD) in England based on findings from a survey of farmers where it was found that around 40% of 381 respondents might install AD on their farms. These ‘possible adopters’ tended to have large farms and might together utilise some 6560 ha of land for feedstock production along with the wastes from some 12,000 beef and dairy cattle and 9000 pigs. When raised to the national level, such a level of AD activity would produce around 3.5 GWh of electricity. This approximates to just 0.001% of national electricity generation. Further, there are considerable perceived barriers to the widespread adoption of AD on farms in England; these include the high capital costs of installing AD and doubts about the economic returns being high enoug

Assessing the potential for the uptake of on-farm anaerobic digestion for energy production in England

We report on an assessment of the potential for energy production from on-farm anaerobic digestion (AD) in England based on findings from a survey of farmers where it was found that around 40% of 381 respondents might install AD on their farms. These 'possible adopters' tended to have large farms and might together utilise some 6560 ha of land for feedstock production along with the wastes from some 12,000 beef and dairy cattle and 9000 pigs. When raised to the national level, such a level of AD activity would produce around 3.5 GWh of electricity. This approximates to just 0.001% of national electricity generation. Further, there are considerable perceived barriers to the widespread adoption of AD on farms in England; these include the high capital costs of installing AD and doubts about the economic returns being high enough.Anaerobic digestion Farm businesses Electricity generation