Stabilisation Agriculture: Reviewing an Emerging Concept with Case Studies from Afghanistan and Iraq

Stabilisation Agriculture has been defined as a focus on enhancing the ecological and social resilience of agricultural communities to withstand and respond to adverse conditions in countries affected by disasters, ranging from climate events to conflict and complex emergencies. However, in this review paper, rather than taking a broad disaster risk management approach to the topic, a focus is made on the nexus between agriculture, food security and conflict. Food insecurity, for example, can trigger instability and conflict, leading to the collapse of agricultural infrastructure, the loss of farm labour, and local farming knowledge through loss of life and forced migration. This cycle becomes endemic and reinforcing, often resulting in chronic food shortages and eventually conflict-driven famine. Hence, why an emphasis on post-conflict "stabilisation" is made in this examination of the emerging concept of Stabilisation Agriculture. Case studies from Afghanistan and Iraq are used to illustrate the benefits of elevating agriculture as a critical response tool in post-conflict and stabilisation settings, and following a subsequent discussion that explores the critical synergies in this emerging field, a redefined definition of Stabilisation Agriculture is proposed along with recommendations for future development through policy inclusion and mainstreaming, post-conflict programming and applied research

Researching together:a collaborative research volunteer scheme and its student-staff partnership evaluation

This case study outlines a university-wide programme that brings together staff and undergraduate students in co-research projects. They argue that successful student-staff partnerships require a structured approach, clear communication about expectations and roles and due care taken with respect to power imbalances. If done successfully, programmes like this increase competence and confidence aiding students now, and in the future

Protecting Expert Advice for the Public: Promoting Safety and Improved Communications

The drivers of the harassment and intimidation of researchers are complex, widespread, and global in their reach and were being studied across many disciplines even before COVID-19. This policy briefing reviews some of the scholarship on this wide-ranging problem but focuses on what can be done to help ensure that Canadians fully benefit from the work of Canada’s researchers while also preserving the security and safety of those researchers. It identifies policies and actions that can be implemented in the near term to gather information on the problem, better frame public research communications, and ensure that mechanisms are readily available to support researchers who are threatened. The policy briefing is concerned with researchers, but these behaviours are also harming journalists, politicians, public health communicators, and many others more fully in the public eye than researchers. Some recommendations here may help to address this wider problem

Construction of probabilistic event trees for eruption forecasting at Sinabung volcano, Indonesia 2013-14

Eruptions of Sinabung volcano, Indonesia have been ongoing since 2013. Since that time, the character of eruptions has changed, from phreatic to phreatomagmatic to magmatic explosive eruptions, and from production of a lava dome that collapsed to a subsequent thick lava flow that slowly ceased to be active, and later, to a new lava dome. As the eruption progressed, event trees were constructed to forecast eruptive behavior six times, with forecast windows that ranged from 2. weeks to 1. year: November 7-10, December 12-14, and December 27, 2013; and January 9-10, May 13, and October 7, 2014. These event trees were successful in helping to frame the forecast scenarios, to collate current monitoring information, and to document outstanding questions and unknowns. The highest probability forecasts closely matched outcomes of eruption size (including extrusion of the first dome), production of pyroclastic density currents, and pyroclastic density current runout distances. Events assigned low probabilities also occurred, including total collapse of the lava dome in January 2014 and production of a small blast pyroclastic density current in February 2014

The DNA Landscape: Development and Application of a New Framework for Visual Communication about DNA

Learning molecular biology involves using visual representations to communicate ideas about largely unobservable biological processes and molecules. Genes and gene expression cannot be directly visualized, but students are expected to learn and understand these and related concepts. Theoretically, textbook illustrations should help learners master such concepts, but how are genes and other DNA-linked concepts illustrated for learners? We examined all DNA-related images found in 12 undergraduate biology textbooks to better understand what biology students encounter when learning concepts related to DNA. Our analysis revealed a wide array of DNA images that were used to design a new visual framework, the DNA Landscape, which we applied to more than 2000 images from com-mon introductory and advanced biology textbooks. All DNA illustrations could be placed on the landscape framework, but certain positions were more common than others. We mapped figures about “gene expression” and “meiosis” onto the landscape framework to explore how these challenging topics are illustrated for learners, aligning these outcomes with the research literature to showcase how the overuse of certain representations may hinder, instead of help, learning. The DNA Landscape is a tool to promote research on visual literacy and to guide new learning activities for molecular biology

Osteocyte-Specific Deletion of the α2δ1 Auxiliary Voltage Sensitive Calcium Channel Subunit

Context: Skeletal unloading due to disuse, disease, or aging increases bone loss and the risk of skeletal fracture. Conversely, mechanical loading is anabolic to the skeleton, promoting skeletal integrity through increased bone formation. As calcium influx is the first measurable response of bone cells to mechanical stimuli, voltage sensitive calcium channels (VSCCs) play a critical role in bone formation. Given VSCC activity is influenced by its auxiliary α2δ1 subunit, regulating the gating kinetics of the channel’s pore-forming (α1) subunit and forward trafficking of VSCCs to cell membranes, the α2δ1 subunit may govern anabolic bone responses. Objective & Design: We hypothesized that osteocyte-specific α2δ1 deletion in a mouse model would impair skeletal development, decrease bone formation and mechanosensitivity. Methods: Generation of an osteocyte-specific α2δ1 knockout was accomplished by crossing mice (C57BL/6) harboring LoxP sequences flanking Cacna2d1, the gene encoding α2δ1, with mice expressing Cre recombinase under the control of the Dmp1 (10Kb) promoter (Cacna2d1fl/fl, Dmp1-Cre+). To assess skeletal phenotype and mechanosensitivity, longitudinal whole body and site-specific DXA, in vivo μCT (10wk old), and two weeks of tibial loading (16wks) will be conducted before femurs are collected at 20 wks for mechanical testing, ex vivo μCT, and quantitative histomorphometry. Results & Conclusion: Preliminary analyses show no differences in whole body or site-specific BMD and BMC values between mice over time, suggesting osteocyte-specific α2δ1 deletion may not influence skeletal development. However, key differences in mechanosensitivity following tibial loading are expected given the potential role of α2δ1 in mechanically-induced bone formation

Rapid weed adaptation and range expansion in response to agriculture over the past two centuries

North America has experienced a massive increase in cropland use since 1800, accompanied more recently by the intensification of agricultural practices. Through genome analysis of present-day and historical samples spanning environments over the past two centuries, we studied the effect of these changes in farming on the extent and tempo of evolution across the native range of the common waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus), a now pervasive agricultural weed. Modern agriculture has imposed strengths of selection rarely observed in the wild, with notable shifts in allele frequency trajectories since agricultural intensification in the 1960s. An evolutionary response to this extreme selection was facilitated by a concurrent human-mediated range shift. By reshaping genome-wide diversity across the landscape, agriculture has driven the success of this weed in the 21st century

Stringent Specificity in the Construction of a GABAergic Presynaptic Inhibitory Circuit

SummaryGABAergic interneurons are key elements in neural coding, but the mechanisms that assemble inhibitory circuits remain unclear. In the spinal cord, the transfer of sensory signals to motor neurons is filtered by GABAergic interneurons that act presynaptically to inhibit sensory transmitter release and postsynaptically to inhibit motor neuron excitability. We show here that the connectivity and synaptic differentiation of GABAergic interneurons that mediate presynaptic inhibition is directed by their sensory targets. In the absence of sensory terminals these GABAergic neurons shun other available targets, fail to undergo presynaptic differentiation, and withdraw axons from the ventral spinal cord. A sensory-specific source of brain derived neurotrophic factor induces synaptic expression of the GABA synthetic enzyme GAD65 – a defining biochemical feature of this set of interneurons. The organization of a GABAergic circuit that mediates presynaptic inhibition in the mammalian CNS is therefore controlled by a stringent program of sensory recognition and signaling

The 700-1500 cm-1 region of the S1 (A1-B-2) state of toluene studied with resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI), zero-kinetic-energy (ZEKE) spectroscopy,and time-resolved slow-electron velocity-map imaging (tr-SEVI) spectroscopy

We report (nanosecond) resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI), (nanosecond) zero-kinetic-energy (ZEKE) and (picosecond) time-resolved slow-electron velocity map imaging (tr-SEVI) spectra of fully hydrogenated toluene (Tol-h8) and the deuterated-methyl group isotopologue (α3-Tol-d3). Vibrational assignments are made making use of the activity observed in the ZEKE and tr-SEVI spectra, together with the results from quantum chemical andprevious experimental results.Here, we examine the 700–1500 cm−1 region of the REMPI spectrum, extending our previous work on the region ≤700 cm−1. We provide assignments for the majority of the S1 and cation bands observed, and in particular we gain insight regarding a number of regions where vibrations are coupled via Fermi resonance. We also gain insight into intramolecular vibrational redistribution in this molecule