Catch Shares in Action: Peruvian Anchoveta Northern-Central Stock Individual Vessel Quota Program

The Peruvian Anchoveta Northern-Central Stock Individual Vessel Quota Program is a catch share program that manages the largest volume fishery in the world. The goals of the program were focused on the economic improvement of the fishery through reduction of fleet capacity and lengthening of the fishing season. Additional biological and social goals were identified and seen as vital to ensure program success. Key design elements include restrictions on transferability to help limit consolidation and an industrysponsored social fund to assist with crew retirement and labor transition. To reflect the short-lived nature of anchoveta, management is structured into two fishing seasons per year. Each year, a five million metric ton reserve of anchoveta biomass is set aside to promote long term stock health

Implementing Pasteur's vision for rabies elimination: the evidence base and the needed policy actions

It has been 129 years since Louis Pasteur's experimental protocol saved the life of a child mauled by a rabid dog, despite incomplete understanding of the etiology or mechanisms by which the miracle cure worked (1). The disease has since been well understood, and highly effective vaccines are available, yet Pasteur's vision for ridding the world of rabies has not been realized. Rabies remains a threat to half the world's population and kills more than 69,000 people each year, most of them children (2). We discuss the basis for this neglect and present evidence supporting the feasibility of eliminating canine-mediated rabies and the required policy actions

One health: a concept led by Africa, with global benefits

Titus Mlengeya Kamani and others argue that Africa is well positioned and equipped to conduct and benefit from an integrated approac

Evidence from Cameroon reveals differences in the genetic structure and histories of chimpanzee populations

The history of the genus Pan is a topic of enduring interest. Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) are often divided into subspecies, but the population structure and genetic history of chimpanzees across Africa remain unclear. Some population genetics studies have led to speculation that, until recently, this species constituted a single population with ongoing gene flow across its range, which resulted in a continuous gradient of allele frequencies. Chimpanzees, designated here as P. t. ellioti, occupy the Gulf of Guinea region that spans southern Nigeria and western Cameroon at the center of the distribution of this species. Remarkably, few studies have included individuals from this region, hindering the examination of chimpanzee population structure across Africa. Here, we analyzed microsatellite genotypes of 94 chimpanzees, including 32 designated as P. t. ellioti. We find that chimpanzees fall into three major populations: (i) Upper Guinea in western Africa (P. t. verus); (ii) the Gulf of Guinea region (P. t. ellioti); and (iii) equatorial Africa (P. t. troglodytes and P. t. schweinfurthii). Importantly, the Gulf of Guinea population is significantly different genetically from the others, sharing a last common ancestor with the populations in Upper Guinea similar to 0.46 million years ago (mya) and equatorial Africa similar to 0.32 mya. Equatorial chimpanzees are subdivided into up to three populations occupying southern Cameroon, central Africa, and eastern Africa, which may have constituted a single population until similar to 0.10-0.11 mya. Finally, occasional hybridization may be occurring between the Gulf of Guinea and southern Cameroon population

Immunoglobulin G fragment crystallizable glycosylation after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation is dissimilar to donor profiles

Immunoglobulin G (IgG) fragment crystallizable (Fc) N-glycosylation has a large influence on the affinity of the antibody for binding to Fcγ-receptors (FcγRs) and C1q protein, thereby influencing immune effector functions. IgG Fc glycosylation is known to be partly regulated by genetics and partly by stimuli in the microenvironment of the B cell. Following allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT), and in the presence of (almost) complete donor chimerism, IgG is expected to be produced by, and glycosylated in, B cells of donor origin. We investigated to what extent IgG glycosylation in patients after transplantation is determined by factors of the donor (genetics) or the recipient (environment). Using an IgG subclass-specific liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry method, we analyzed the plasma/serum IgG Fc glycosylation profiles of 34 pediatric patients pre-HSCT and at 6 and 12 months post-HSCT and compared these to the profiles of their donors and age-matched healthy controls. Patients treated for hematological malignancies as well as for non-malignant hematological diseases showed after transplantation a lower Fc galactosylation than their donors. Especially for the patients treated for leukemia, the post-HSCT Fc glycosylation profiles were more similar to the pre-HSCT recipient profiles than to profiles of the donors. Pre-HSCT, the leukemia patient group showed as distinctive feature a decrease in sialylation and in hybrid-type glycans as compared to healthy controls, which both normalized after transplantation. Our data suggest that IgG Fc glycosylation in children after HSCT does not directly mimic the donor profile, but is rather determined by persisting environmental factors of the host

The Impact of Climate Change on Historic Interiors

It is widely understood that the environment is critical for the preservation of historic collections and interiors, if the environment is unsuitable it can create an increased risk of damage. In historic houses collections are usually on open display, and the room environment often has little control thus it is vulnerable to changes in the outdoor environment. The future outdoor environment is projected to change so the aim of this work has been to develop a widely applicable model to investigate the potential impact of climate change on historic interiors. A simple transfer function has been used to predict indoor temperature and relative humidity. The method is widely applicable and easily transferable between unheated buildings. It has been shown that it is important to assess each location and room on an individual basis. The method has been coupled with future climate output, from both the UKCP09 weather generator and the Hadley model, where data has been downscaled. The high resolution climate output allows for projections of future indoor environment. Future temperature is projected to increase in unheated historic houses around the UK and across Europe, although less than outdoors. Annual average relative humidity is largely unchanged in the future. Damage functions are used to determine the impact of the future indoor environment on materials. Typically temperature driven damage such as chemical degradation of paper and silk and insect pest activity increase in the future, whereas damage driven by relative humidity, such as salt transitions, depends upon the location assessed. In general risk of mould growth increases, and dimensional changes to wood decrease. The significance of future changes is an important consideration, requiring some further work. Annual averages are shown to hide seasonal changes, thus it is important to assess these, which can impact upon management strategies. At Knole it is projected that the summer humidity will decrease and the winter humidity increase slightly, which raises the risk of mould growth. The application of conservation heating has been shown to be less effective in future, but is still an effective strategy, although dehumidification may become more appropriate in some locations. The future energy use of conservation heating has a negligible change. There are a number of inherent uncertainties associated with the models used here. Specifically with climate modelling, future emissions are unknown and the physical processes of the climate are not fully understood. There is a statistical error associated with the transfer function, and the damage functions also have a number of related uncertainties. It is important to consider these when assessing future indoor projections. The results allow for long term planning by collection managers, to prepare for the impact of climate change, thus preserving heritage for future generations

Supporting Evidence Based Interventions: Causes and extent of reproductive loss and mortality of domestic ruminants in Tanzania

Improving productivity of livestock systems by reducing mortality, including reproductive losses, is a priority investment area. Data on the incidence and aetiology of livestock mortality, reproductive losses, and their impact on productivity in sub-Saharan Africa are required in order to prioritize interventions but are still very limited. The overarching objective of SEBI-Tz is to develop intervention strategies to control diseases causing mortality and reproductive loss in livestock in Tanzania. The project will do this by: a) collating and analysing Tanzanian mortality and reproductive loss data found in the literature and other data sources; b) screening existing livestock serum samples to determine the range of abortigenic pathogens that livestock are exposed to; c) analysing linked household survey data to determine the frequency of livestock reproductive losses and associations with pathogen exposure; d) establishing a livestock abortion surveillance platform to investigate cases of reproductive loss and to determine the prevalence of abortigenic agents in such cases; e) carrying out an economic assessment to determine the costs associated with reproductive loss and costs of the strategies used by farmers to mitigate these losses; f) designing and evaluating cost-effective and locally  appropriate intervention strategies. SEBI-Tz was launched in March 2017 and the first phase will complete in August 2019. We will present preliminary mortality data, cross-sectional household survey data illustrating the impact of reproductive losses across a range of livestock keeping settings, and results emanating from the first year of the abortion surveillance platform. Key words: livestock, mortality, abortion, reproductive loss, Tanzani

Magnetic resonance imaging and the development of vascular targeted treatments for cancer.

The main subject of the work presented in this thesis is the further development of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a non-invasive method of investigating tumour microcirculation. Two different MR techniques were used: dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE)-MRI and Blood Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD)-MRI. Intravital microscopy was used to help interpret BOLD-MRI results. The ultimate aims were to determine whether MRI methods could be relied upon to define a drug as having vascular disrupting activity and to develop techniques to predict the effectiveness of vascular disruptive agents (VDA). In DCE-MRI, tissue enhancement is continuously monitored over several minutes after intravenous injection of contrast medium. Modelling of contrast agent kinetics generates quantitative parameters related to tissue blood flow rate and permeability, e.g. Ktrans (transfer constant). In a clinical study, patients had DCE-MRI examinations before and 24 hours after cytotoxic chemotherapy to establish whether any acute ami-vascular effects could be detected. No acute reductions in Ktrans were seen. In this project, the acute effects of the VDA, combretastatin A-4-phosphate, were investigated using DCE-MRI in SW1222 tumours in mice. Responses were seen both at a clinically relevant dose and at higher doses, and a dose-response relationship established. BOLD-MRI can detect changes in oxygenation and blood flow within tumours using deoxygenated haemoglobin as an intrinsic contrast agent. Tumours contain a variable proportion of immature vessels, which may explain differential sensitivity to VDAs. In this project, BOLD-MRI was used to assess tumour vessel maturity using consequent vasoreactivity to angiotensin II and carbon dioxide (as air-5%C02 or as carbogen) in an animal model. Intravital microscopy was used to directly observe response to these agents in mouse window chambers. Results suggest that response to vasoactive agents is useful for assessing vascular maturity in tumours but that more sensitive non-invasive imaging methods than BOLD-MRI are required for clinical use