Molecular weight determination of component I of the blood serum of diethylstilbestrol-treated cockerels

Call number: LD2668 .T4 1965 S535Master of Scienc

Decline in an Atlantic Puffin population : evaluation of magnitude and mechanisms

Funding: This study was funded annually by Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust (www.fairislebirdobs.co.uk) with contributions from the Joint Nature Conservation Committee (jncc.defra.gov.uk). Funding was received from these two sources by Fair Isle Bird Observatory from 1986 to 2013. The Joint Nature Conservation Committee and Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust supplied guidance on study design, data collection, analyses, preparation of the manuscript and the decision to publish.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Quantifying full phenological event distributions reveals simultaneous advances, temporal stability and delays in spring and autumn migration timing in long-distance migratory birds

Acknowledgements We thank all Fair Isle Bird Observatory staff and volunteers for help with data collection and acknowledge the foresight of George Waterston and Ken Williamson in instigating the observatory and census methodology. We thank all current and previous directors of Fair Isle Bird Observatory Trust for their contributions, particularly Dave Okill and Mike Wood for their stalwart support for the long-term data collection and for the current analyses. Dawn Balmer and Ian Newton provided helpful guidance on manuscript drafts. We thank Ally Phillimore and two anonymous referees for helpful comments. This study would have been impossible without the Fair Isle community's invaluable support and patience over many decades, which is very gratefully acknowledged. WTSM and JMR designed and undertook analyses, wrote the paper and contributed to data collection and compilation, MB contributed to analysis and editing, all other authors oversaw and undertook data collection and compilation and contributed to editing.Peer reviewedPostprin

The Longitudinal Relationship Between Satisfaction with Transitional Care and Social and Emotional Quality of Life Among Chronically Ill Adolescents

This study aimed to identify the relationship between satisfaction with transitional care and quality of life of chronically ill adolescents over time. This longitudinal study included adolescents with type I diabetes, juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), and neuromuscular disorders (NMD). At baseline 138 respondents (response rate 31 %) filled in a questionnaire and 188 about 1 year later (response rate 43 %). Analysis of variance showed that adolescents with diabetes reported the highest physical quality of life, followed in order by those with NMD and JIA (p ≤ 0.01). Adolescents with diabetes reported the highest social quality of life, followed in order by those with JIA and NMD (both at p ≤ 0.001). Univariate analyses showed that satisfaction with transitional care at T0 was significantly related to emotional and physical quality of life at T1 (both at p ≤ 0.05). At T1, satisfaction with transitional care was significantly related to the emotional, physical, and social domains of quality of life (all at p ≤ 0.001). Multiple regression analyses revealed that satisfaction with transitional care at T1 was related to emotional (β -0.20; p ≤ 0.05) and social (β -0.35; p ≤ 0.01) quality of life domains over time. This indicates that lower gap scores, which measured differences between 'best care' and 'current care,' are associated with better social and emotional quality of life in this sample of adolescents. Satisfaction with transitional care and social and emotional quality of life are related over time

Survey of the quality of experimental design, statistical analysis and reporting of research using animals

For scientific, ethical and economic reasons, experiments involving animals should be appropriately designed, correctly analysed and transparently reported. This increases the scientific validity of the results, and maximises the knowledge gained from each experiment. A minimum amount of relevant information must be included in scientific publications to ensure that the methods and results of a study can be reviewed, analysed and repeated. Omitting essential information can raise scientific and ethical concerns. We report the findings of a systematic survey of reporting, experimental design and statistical analysis in published biomedical research using laboratory animals. Medline and EMBASE were searched for studies reporting research on live rats, mice and non-human primates carried out in UK and US publicly funded research establishments. Detailed information was collected from 271 publications, about the objective or hypothesis of the study, the number, sex, age and/or weight of animals used, and experimental and statistical methods. Only 59% of the studies stated the hypothesis or objective of the study and the number and characteristics of the animals used. Appropriate and efficient experimental design is a critical component of high-quality science. Most of the papers surveyed did not use randomisation (87%) or blinding (86%), to reduce bias in animal selection and outcome assessment. Only 70% of the publications that used statistical methods described their methods and presented the results with a measure of error or variability. This survey has identified a number of issues that need to be addressed in order to improve experimental design and reporting in publications describing research using animals. Scientific publication is a powerful and important source of information; the authors of scientific publications therefore have a responsibility to describe their methods and results comprehensively, accurately and transparently, and peer reviewers and journal editors share the responsibility to ensure that published studies fulfil these criteria

Group interventions to improve health outcomes : a framework for their design and delivery

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Loss of Miro1-directed mitochondrial movement results in a novel murine model for neuron disease.

Defective mitochondrial distribution in neurons is proposed to cause ATP depletion and calcium-buffering deficiencies that compromise cell function. However, it is unclear whether aberrant mitochondrial motility and distribution alone are sufficient to cause neurological disease. Calcium-binding mitochondrial Rho (Miro) GTPases attach mitochondria to motor proteins for anterograde and retrograde transport in neurons. Using two new KO mouse models, we demonstrate that Miro1 is essential for development of cranial motor nuclei required for respiratory control and maintenance of upper motor neurons required for ambulation. Neuron-specific loss of Miro1 causes depletion of mitochondria from corticospinal tract axons and progressive neurological deficits mirroring human upper motor neuron disease. Although Miro1-deficient neurons exhibit defects in retrograde axonal mitochondrial transport, mitochondrial respiratory function continues. Moreover, Miro1 is not essential for calcium-mediated inhibition of mitochondrial movement or mitochondrial calcium buffering. Our findings indicate that defects in mitochondrial motility and distribution are sufficient to cause neurological disease

Gender equality and religion:a multi-faith exploration of young adults’ narratives

This paper presents findings from research on young adults in the UK from diverse religious backgrounds. Utilizing questionnaires, interviews, and video diaries it assesses how religious young adults understood and managed the tensions in popular discourse between gender equality as an enshrined value and aspirational narrative, and religion as purportedly instituting gender inequality. We show that, despite varied understandings, and the ambivalence and tension in managing ideal and practice, participants of different religious traditions and genders were committed to gender equality. Thus, they viewed gender-unequal practices within their religious cultures as an aberration from the essence of religion. In this way, they firmly rejected the dominant discourse that religion is inherently antithetical to gender equality

'On the Wet Side of the Womb’:The construction of mothers in anti-abortion activism in England and Wales

Across the UK, there has been an increase in anti-abortion activism outside abortion clinics. The activism deployed includes explicitly religious activities such as ‘prayerful witnessing’ and ‘pavement counselling’, which aim to discourage women from entering clinics. This article stems from a wider ethnographic study of public activism over abortion to determine what claims about motherhood are being made within these debates. Two arguments are presented. First, how women’s role as mothers is central and essentialised in anti-abortion discourses, with the body of the mother often disappearing as activists seek to erode the distinction between a foetus and a baby by constructing pregnancy as a foetal environment. Motherhood is constructed as ‘natural’ and sacred, therefore abortion must be damaging because it destroys women’s ‘natural’ position. Second, the article argues that although the activists’ arguments are always religiously framed, their activism takes place in a largely secular context, meaning that they have to find ways of appealing to secular audiences. This leads to a complex interrelationship between secular and religious discourses, where theological viewpoints sit alongside ‘scientific’ claims to buttress activists’ views. This article explores how the presence and absence of mothers within activists’ narratives is due to the tensions between religiously based understandings of motherhood, and the need to appeal to a secular audience

Teleost Growth Factor Independence (Gfi) Genes Differentially Regulate Successive Waves of Hematopoiesis

Growth Factor Independence (Gfi) transcription factors play essential roles in hematopoiesis, differentially activating and repressing transcriptional programs required for hematopoietic stem/progenitor cell (HSPC) development and lineage specification. In mammals, Gfi1a regulates hematopoietic stem cells (HSC), myeloid and lymphoid populations, while its paralog, Gfi1b, regulates HSC, megakaryocyte and erythroid development. In zebrafish, gfi1aa is essential for primitive hematopoiesis; however, little is known about the role of gfi1aa in definitive hematopoiesis or about additional gfi factors in zebrafish. Here, we report the isolation and characterization of an additional hematopoietic gfi factor, gfi1b. We show that gfi1aa and gfi1b are expressed in the primitive and definitive sites of hematopoiesis in zebrafish. Our functional analyses demonstrate that gfi1aa and gfi1b have distinct roles in regulating primitive and definitive hematopoietic progenitors, respectively. Loss of gfi1aa silences markers of early primitive progenitors, scl and gata1. Conversely, loss of gfi1b silences runx-1, c-myb, ikaros and cd41, indicating that gfi1b is required for definitive hematopoiesis. We determine the epistatic relationships between the gfi factors and key hematopoietic transcription factors, demonstrating that gfi1aa and gfi1b join lmo2, scl, runx-1 and c-myb as critical regulators of teleost HSPC. Our studies establish a comparative paradigm for the regulation of hematopoietic lineages by gfi transcription factors.Stem Cell and Regenerative Biolog