DUAL MARKETING AND THE DECISIONS FACING WESTERN CANADIAN FARMERS FOR WHEAT AND BARLEY MARKETING: A BRIEF TO THE WESTERN GRAIN MARKETING PANEL

Crop Production/Industries, Marketing,

Nutritional composition of browse and diets fed to ungulates at the Breeding Centre for Endangered Arabian Wildlife

Captive browsing ruminants are particularly susceptible to gastrointestinal disorders, and inappropriate diets are an underlying factor. This study investigated the nutritional composition of browse and pelleted feedstuffs used in an Arabian facility and compared nutrient intake against current recommendations for exotic ungulates. Additionally, retrospective evaluation of post-mortem findings with regard to gastrointestinal pathologies was conducted (n = 497). Samples of browse from seven species of locally cultivated plants, as well as three brands of pelleted feeds, were submitted for laboratory analysis. Following a five-day feed intake study, nutrient intake was calculated. Only moderate variation was seen among browse species’ composition compared to previous reports. However, significant variation occurred between plant fractions (stem, leaves and seed pods) for neutral detergent fibre and several minerals. Browse comprised over half of the metabolisable energy (ME) intake of Arabian tahr (rabitragus jayakari), but only 11% of ME for Arabian gazelle (Gazella gazella cora) and Dorcas gazelle (G. gazella dorcas). However, no relationship could be detected between gastrointestinal disease and browse provision in these species. No nutrient deficiencies were identified, but the Arabian tahr diet exceeded the recommended amount of crude protein, and both gazelle diets provided excess iron, manganese, copper and zinc. These mineral excesses are the subject of on-going investigations in order to better balance the diets offered. Moreover, the high starch content of pelleted diets evaluated in the current study (22-29%, on a dry matter basis) indicates that a reduction in the proportional provision of pellets would improve the diet suitability, particularly for the gazelles. This study highlights a number of areas for potential improvement, although further research is required to fully understand the implications of these findings

Information sharing and credit : firm-level evidence from transition countries

We investigate whether information sharing among banks has affected credit market performance in the transition countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, using a large sample of firm-level data. Our estimates show that information sharing is associated with improved availability and lower cost of credit to firms. This correlation is stronger for opaque firms than transparent ones and stronger in countries with weak legal environments than in those with strong legal environments. In cross-sectional estimates, we control for variation in country-level aggregate variables that may affect credit, by examining the differential impact of information sharing across firm types. In panel estimates, we also control for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity at the firm level, as well as for changes in macroeconomic variables and the legal environment

Consumer credit information systems: A critical review of the literature. Too little attention paid by lawyers?

This paper reviews the existing literature on consumer credit reporting, the most extensively used instrument to overcome information asymmetry and adverse selection problems in credit markets. Despite the copious literature in economics and some research in regulatory policy, the legal community has paid almost no attention to the legal framework of consumer credit information systems, especially within the context of the European Union. Studies on the topic, however, seem particularly relevant in view of the establishment of a single market for consumer credit. This article ultimately calls for further legal research to address consumer protection concerns and inform future legislation

Evaluating the impact of accounting for coral cover in large‐scale marine conservation prioritizations

Aim Mega‐diverse coral reef ecosystems are declining globally, necessitating conservation prioritizations to protect biodiversity and ecosystem services of sites with high functional integrity to promote persistence. In practice however, the design of marine‐protected area (MPA) systems often relies on broad classifications of habitat class and size, making the tacit assumption that all reefs are of comparable condition. We explored the impact of this assumption through a novel, pragmatic approach for incorporating variability in coral cover in a large‐scale regional spatial prioritization plan. Location The Coral Triangle. Methods We developed a spatially explicit predictive model of hard coral cover based on freely available macro‐ecological data to generate a complete regional map of coral cover as a proxy for reef condition. We then incorporate this information in spatial conservation prioritization software Marxan to design an MPA system that meets specific conservation objectives. Results We discover prioritizations using area‐based representation of reef habitat alone may overestimate the conservation benefit, defined as the amount of hard coral cover protected, by up to 64%. We find substantial differences in conservation priorities and an overall increase in habitat quality metrics when accounting for predicted coral cover. Main conclusions This study shows that including habitat condition in a large‐scale marine spatial prioritization is feasible within time and resource constraints, and calls for increased implementation, and evaluation, of such ecologically relevant planning approaches to enhance potential conservation effectiveness

Adjunctive selective estrogen receptor modulator increases neural activity in the hippocampus and inferior frontal gyrus during emotional face recognition in schizophrenia

Estrogen has been implicated in the development and course of schizophrenia with most evidence suggesting a neuroprotective effect. Treatment with raloxifene, a selective estrogen receptor modulator, can reduce symptom severity, improve cognition and normalize brain activity during learning in schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia are especially impaired in the identification of negative facial emotions. The present study was designed to determine the extent to which adjunctive raloxifene treatment would alter abnormal neural activity during angry facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia. Twenty people with schizophrenia (12 men, 8 women) participated in a 13-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover trial of adjunctive raloxifene treatment (120 mg per day orally) and performed a facial emotion recognition task during functional magnetic resonance imaging after each treatment phase. Two-sample t-tests in regions of interest selected a priori were performed to assess activation differences between raloxifene and placebo conditions during the recognition of angry faces. Adjunctive raloxifene significantly increased activation in the right hippocampus and left inferior frontal gyrus compared with the placebo condition (family-wise error, P<0.05). There was no significant difference in performance accuracy or reaction time between active and placebo conditions. To the best of our knowledge, this study provides the first evidence suggesting that adjunctive raloxifene treatment changes neural activity in brain regions associated with facial emotion recognition in schizophrenia. These findings support the hypothesis that estrogen plays a modifying role in schizophrenia and shows that adjunctive raloxifene treatment may reverse abnormal neural activity during facial emotion recognition, which is relevant to impaired social functioning in men and women with schizophrenia

Vaccines against toxoplasma gondii : challenges and opportunities

Development of vaccines against Toxoplasma gondii infection in humans is of high priority, given the high burden of disease in some areas of the world like South America, and the lack of effective drugs with few adverse effects. Rodent models have been used in research on vaccines against T. gondii over the past decades. However, regardless of the vaccine construct, the vaccines have not been able to induce protective immunity when the organism is challenged with T. gondii, either directly or via a vector. Only a few live, attenuated T. gondii strains used for immunization have been able to confer protective immunity, which is measured by a lack of tissue cysts after challenge. Furthermore, challenge with low virulence strains, especially strains with genotype II, will probably be insufficient to provide protection against the more virulent T. gondii strains, such as those with genotypes I or II, or those genotypes from South America not belonging to genotype I, II or III. Future studies should use animal models besides rodents, and challenges should be performed with at least one genotype II T. gondii and one of the more virulent genotypes. Endpoints like maternal-foetal transmission and prevention of eye disease are important in addition to the traditional endpoint of survival or reduction in numbers of brain cysts after challenge

Plasmodium falciparum metacaspase PfMCA-1 triggers a z-VAD-fmk inhibitable protease to promote cell death.

Activation of proteolytic cell death pathways may circumvent drug resistance in deadly protozoan parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania. To this end, it is important to define the cell death pathway(s) in parasites and thus characterize proteases such as metacaspases (MCA), which have been reported to induce cell death in plants and Leishmania parasites. We, therefore, investigated whether the cell death function of MCA is conserved in different protozoan parasite species such as Plasmodium falciparum and Leishmania major, focusing on the substrate specificity and functional role in cell survival as compared to Saccharomyces cerevisae. Our results show that, similarly to Leishmania, Plasmodium MCA exhibits a calcium-dependent, arginine-specific protease activity and its expression in yeast induced growth inhibition as well as an 82% increase in cell death under oxidative stress, a situation encountered by parasites during the host or when exposed to drugs such as artemisins. Furthermore, we show that MCA cell death pathways in both Plasmodium and Leishmania, involve a z-VAD-fmk inhibitable protease. Our data provide evidence that MCA from both Leishmania and Plasmodium falciparum is able to induce cell death in stress conditions, where it specifically activates a downstream enzyme as part of a cell death pathway. This enzymatic activity is also induced by the antimalarial drug chloroquine in erythrocytic stages of Plasmodium falciparum. Interestingly, we found that blocking parasite cell death influences their drug sensitivity, a result which could be used to create therapeutic strategies that by-pass drug resistance mechanisms by acting directly on the innate pathways of protozoan cell death

Essential versus accessory aspects of cell death: recommendations of the NCCD 2015

Cells exposed to extreme physicochemical or mechanical stimuli die in an uncontrollable manner, as a result of their immediate structural breakdown. Such an unavoidable variant of cellular demise is generally referred to as ‘accidental cell death’ (ACD). In most settings, however, cell death is initiated by a genetically encoded apparatus, correlating with the fact that its course can be altered by pharmacologic or genetic interventions. ‘Regulated cell death’ (RCD) can occur as part of physiologic programs or can be activated once adaptive responses to perturbations of the extracellular or intracellular microenvironment fail. The biochemical phenomena that accompany RCD may be harnessed to classify it into a few subtypes, which often (but not always) exhibit stereotyped morphologic features. Nonetheless, efficiently inhibiting the processes that are commonly thought to cause RCD, such as the activation of executioner caspases in the course of apoptosis, does not exert true cytoprotective effects in the mammalian system, but simply alters the kinetics of cellular demise as it shifts its morphologic and biochemical correlates. Conversely, bona fide cytoprotection can be achieved by inhibiting the transduction of lethal signals in the early phases of the process, when adaptive responses are still operational. Thus, the mechanisms that truly execute RCD may be less understood, less inhibitable and perhaps more homogeneous than previously thought. Here, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death formulates a set of recommendations to help scientists and researchers to discriminate between essential and accessory aspects of cell death