LANDSAT-2 imagery for enhancing coastal processes

There are no author-identified significant results in this report

Population, sexual and reproductive health, rights and sustainable development: forging a common agenda.

This article suggests that sexual and reproductive health and rights activists seeking to influence the post-2015 international development paradigm must work with sustainable development advocates concerned with a range of issues, including climate change, environmental issues, and food and water security, and that a way of building bridges with these communities is to demonstrate how sexual and reproductive health and rights are relevant for these issues. An understanding of population dynamics, including urbanization and migration, as well as population growth, can help to clarify these links. This article therefore suggests that whether or not sexual and reproductive health and rights activists can overcome resistance to discussing "population", become more knowledgeable about other sustainable development issues, and work with others in those fields to advance the global sustainable development agenda are crucial questions for the coming months. The article also contends that it is possible to care about population dynamics (including ageing and problems faced by countries with a high proportion of young people) and care about human rights at the same time. It expresses concern that, if sexual and reproductive health and rights advocates do not participate in the population dynamics discourse, the field will be left free for those for whom respecting and protecting rights may be less of a priority

Reticulation, Data Combination, and Inferring Evolutionary History: An Example from Danthonioideae (Poaceae)

We explore the potential impact of conflicting gene trees on inferences of evolutionary history above the species level. When conflict between gene trees is discovered, it is common practice either to analyze the data separately or to combine the data having excluded the conflicting taxa or data partitions for those taxa (which are then recoded as missing). We demonstrate an alternative approach, which involves duplicating conflicting taxa in the matrix, such that each duplicate is represented by one partition only. This allows the combination of all available data in standard phylogenetic analyses, despite reticulations. We show how interpretation of contradictory gene trees can lead to conflicting inferences of both morphological evolution and biogeographic history, using the example of the pampas grasses, Cortaderia. The characteristic morphological syndrome of Cortaderia can be inferred as having arisen multiple times (chloroplast DNA [cpDNA]) or just once (nuclear ribosomal DNA [nrDNA]). The distributions of species of Cortaderia and related genera in Australia/New Guinea, New Zealand, and South America can be explained by few (nrDNA) or several (cpDNA) dispersals between the southern continents. These contradictions can be explained by past hybridization events, which have linked gains of complex morphologies with unrelated chloroplast lineages and have erased evidence of dispersals from the nuclear genome. Given the discrepancies between inferences based on the gene trees individually, we urge the use of approaches such as ours that take multiple gene trees into accoun

On the influence of tree size on the climate–growth relationship of New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis): insights from annual, monthly and daily growth patterns

Many tree-ring-based climate reconstructions are based on the assumption that the climate reaction of trees is independent of their size. Here, we test this assumption for New Zealand kauri (Agathis australis), one of the longest tree ring-based proxies for the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). The most recent kauri chronology contains a large amount of archaeological material, e.g. timber for which the original tree size is often unknown. We analyzed the climate–growth relationship of different-sized kauri in a pristine forest using different temporal scales, i.e. annually, monthly and daily data on tree growth and climate conditions. Trees of different life stages exhibited approximately the same seasonal growth peaks during austral spring (October and November). The dormancy period overlaps with the period where weekly air temperature maxima are below ca. 17–18 °C, and where the corresponding daily minima are below ca. 8 °C. However, both correlation functions between annual growth and seasonal climate as well as Kalman filter regressions between daily growth and climate conditions suggest an influence of tree size on the climate–growth relationship for kauri. Smaller trees (DBH < 40 cm) contain weaker climate signals than larger trees. Therefore, the precautionary stripping of near-pith material (first 20 cm) from kauri chronologies may result in more uniform responses to climate forcing and thus enhance the reliability of long-term climate reconstructions

Differential effects of nutritional folic acid deficiency and moderate hyperhomocysteinemia on aortic plaque formation and genome-wide DNA methylation in vascular tissue from ApoE-/- mice

Low folate intake is associated with vascular disease. Causality has been attributed to hyperhomocysteinemia. However, human intervention trials have failed to show the benefit of homocysteine-lowering therapies. Alternatively, low folate may promote vascular disease by deregulating DNA methylation. We investigated whether folate could alter DNA methylation and atherosclerosis in ApoE null mice. Mice were fed one of six diets (n = 20 per group) for 16 weeks. Basal diets were either control (C; 4% lard) or high fat (HF; 21% lard and cholesterol, 0.15%) with different B-vitamin compositions: (1) folic acid and B-vitamin replete, (2) folic acid deficient (−F), (3) folic acid, B6 and B12 deficient (−F−B). −F diets decreased plasma (up to 85%; P < 0.05), whole blood (up to 70%; P < 0.05), and liver folate (up to 65%; P < 0.05) and hepatic SAM/SAH (up to 80%; P < 0.05). −F−B diets reduced plasma (up to 76%; P < 0.05), whole blood (up to 72%; P < 0.05), and liver B12 (up to 39%; P < 0.05) and hepatic SAM/SAH (up to 90%; P < 0.05). −F increased homocysteine 2-fold, while −F−B increased homocysteine 3.6- and 6.8-fold in the C and HF groups (P < 0.05). Plaque formation was increased 2-fold (P < 0.0001) in mice fed a HF diet. Feeding a HF–F diet increased lesion formation by 17% (P < 0.05). There was no change in 5-methyldeoxycytidine in liver or vascular tissue (aorta, periadventitial tissue and heart). These data suggest that atherogenesis is not associated with genome-wide epigenetic changes in this animal model

Access to recreational physical activities by car and bus : an assessment of socio-spatial inequalities in mainland Scotland

Obesity and other chronic conditions linked with low levels of physical activity (PA) are associated with deprivation. One reason for this could be that it is more difficult for low-income groups to access recreational PA facilities such as swimming pools and sports centres than high-income groups. In this paper, we explore the distribution of access to PA facilities by car and bus across mainland Scotland by income deprivation at datazone level. GIS car and bus networks were created to determine the number of PA facilities accessible within travel times of 10, 20 and 30 minutes. Multilevel negative binomial regression models were then used to investigate the distribution of the number of accessible facilities, adjusting for datazone population size and local authority. Access to PA facilities by car was significantly (p<0.01) higher for the most affluent quintile of area-based income deprivation than for most other quintiles in small towns and all other quintiles in rural areas. Accessibility by bus was significantly lower for the most affluent quintile than for other quintiles in urban areas and small towns, but not in rural areas. Overall, we found that the most disadvantaged groups were those without access to a car and living in the most affluent areas or in rural areas

Effect of increasing fruit and vegetable intake by dietary intervention on nutritional biomarkers and attitudes to dietary change : a randomised trial

This work was funded by The Scottish Government Rural and Environmental Science and Analytical Sciences Division (RESAS) and supported by the Rank Prize Funds.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Uninterested youth? Young people's attitudes towards party politics in Britain

Following the outcome of the 2001 and 2005 General Elections, when the numbers of abstainers outweighed the numbers of Labour voters on both occasions, much attention has focused upon the state of British democracy and how to enthuse the electorate, especially young people. While the government is exploring ways to make the whole process of voting easier, it may be failing to tackle the real problem - that youth appear to find the business of politics uninviting and irrelevant. This paper examines data derived from a nationwide survey of over 700 young people in order to shed light on what lies at the heart of young people's apparent disengagement from formal politics in Britain - political apathy or a sense of political alienation. The findings reveal that they support the democratic process, but are sceptical of the way the British political system is organised and led, and are turned off by politicians and the political parties. However, there is no uniform youth orientation to politics, and the data indicate that views differ according to social class, educational history, and also gender. However both ethnicity and region of the country in which young people live seem to have little influence in structuring political attitudes and behaviour

Justifications-on-demand as a device to promote shifts of attention associated with relational thinking in elementary arithmetic

Student responses to arithmetical questions that can be solved by using arithmetical structure can serve to reveal the extent and nature of relational, as opposed to computational thinking. Here, student responses to probes which require them to justify-on-demand are analysed using a conceptual framework which highlights distinctions between different forms of attention. We analyse a number of actions observed in students in terms of forms of attention and shifts between them: in the short-term (in the moment), medium-term (over several tasks), and long-term (over a year). The main factors conditioning students´ attention and its movement are identified and some didactical consequences are proposed