“Style City” How London became a Fashion Capital

The book explains and explores in a critical as well as a celebratory way the birth of today’s London Designer identity and the evolution of London Fashion Week. It starts in the mid-Seventies when the cultural recognition of British fashion designers scarcely existed. It covers the rise of Vivienne Westwood, John Galliano, Katharine Hamnett and many others who were to become household names. But at the same time, it relates the persistent failure of the British government and the clothing industry to respond to successive opportunities, leaving designers to create an industry for themselves. It ends with British designers established worldwide and London Fashion Week as one of the world’s four premier fashion events

GPR54-Dependent Stimulation of Luteinizing Hormone Secretion by Neurokinin B in Prepubertal Rats

Kisspeptin, neurokinin B (NKB) and dynorphin A (Dyn) are coexpressed within KNDy neurons that project from the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus (ARC) to GnRH neurons and numerous other hypothalamic targets. Each of the KNDy neuropeptides has been implicated in regulating pulsatile GnRH/LH secretion. In isolation, kisspeptin is generally known to stimulate, and Dyn to inhibit LH secretion. However, the NKB analog, senktide, has variously been reported to inhibit, stimulate or have no effect on LH secretion. In prepubertal mice, rats and monkeys, senktide stimulates LH secretion. Furthermore, in the monkey this effect is dependent on kisspeptin signaling through its receptor, GPR54. The present study tested the hypotheses that the stimulatory effects of NKB on LH secretion in intact rats are mediated by kisspeptin/GPR54 signaling and are independent of a Dyn tone. To test this, ovarian-intact prepubertal rats were subjected to frequent automated blood sampling before and after intracerebroventricular injections of KNDy neuropeptide analogs. Senktide robustly induced single LH pulses, while neither the GPR54 antagonist, Kp-234, nor the Dyn agonist and antagonist (U50488 and nor-BNI, respectively) had an effect on basal LH levels. However, Kp-234 potently blocked the senktide-induced LH pulses. Modulation of the Dyn tone by U50488 or nor-BNI did not affect the senktide-induced LH pulses. These data demonstrate that the stimulatory effect of NKB on LH secretion in intact female rats is dependent upon kisspeptin/GPR54 signaling, but not on Dyn signaling

Public engagement in Malawi through a health-talk radio programme ‘Umoyo nkukambirana’: A mixed-methods evaluation

Radio is an effective source of health information in many resource poor countries. In Malawi, 53% of households own radios however few radio programmes in Malawi focus on health issues in the context of medical research. An interactive health-talk radio programme ‘Umoyo nkukambirana’ was introduced by Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Programme on a national radio station. The aim was to increase awareness of health and medical research, and improve engagement between researchers, healthcare workers and the public. The content and presentation were developed through participatory community consultations. Focus Group Discussions were conducted with established Radio Listening Clubs whilst quantitative data was collected using toll free FrontlineSMS to explore national response. A total of 277 to 695 SMS (Median: 477) were received per theme. The majority of SMS were received from men (64%) and mainly from rural areas (54%). The programme improved knowledge of medical research, health and dispelled misconceptions. This study suggests that the radio may be an effective means of increasing the exposure of men to health information in resource poor settings

Evaluation of Asthma Control by Physicians and Patients: Comparison with Current Guidelines

BACKGROUND:Current asthma consensus guidelines recommend a series of criteria for determining whether asthma is controlled. It is not known whether physicians are using these criteria to assess treatment needs and how effective such assessments are compared with patient assessment of asthma control

Predicting Key Grassland Characteristics from Hyperspectral Data

A series of experiments were conducted to measure and quantify the yield, dry matter content, sugars content, and nitrates content of grass intended for ensilement. These experiments took place in the East Midlands of Ireland during the Spring, Summer, and Autumn of 2019. A bespoke sensor rig was constructed; included in this rig was a hyperspectral radiometer that measured a broad spectrum of reflected natural light from a circular spot approximately 1.2 m in area. Grass inside a 50 cm square quadrat was manually collected from the centre of the circular spot for ground truth estimation of the grass qualities. Up to 25 spots were recorded and sampled each day. The radiometer readings for each spot were automatically recorded onto a laptop that controlled the sensor rig, and ground truth measurements were made either on-site or within 24 h in a wet chemistry laboratory. The collected data was used to build Partial Least Squares Regression (PLSR) predictive models of grass qualities from the hyperspectral dataset, and it was found that substantial relationships exist between the spectral reflectance from the grass and yield (r2 = 0.62), dry matter % (r2 = 0.54), sugar content (r2 = 0.54) and nitrates (r2 = 0.50). This shows that hyperspectral reflectance data contains substantial information about key grass qualities and can form part of a broader holistic data-driven approach to provide accurate and rapid predictions to farmers, agronomists, and agricultural contractors