MITOCHONDRIAL DNA POLYMORPHISMS AND FERTILITY IN BEEF CATTLE

Two regions of mitochondrial DNA, D-loop and ND-5 were characterized using polymerase chain reaction – restriction fragment length polymorphism (PCR-RFLP) involving 422 beef cattle of Hereford and composite breeds from Wokalup’s research station. ANOVA models (model I, II) were used to estimate associations between molecular haplotypes and quantitative traits. The phenotypic data used were records on calving rate, defined as the mean number of live calves born over four years, while the genotypic data used were the result of PCR-RFLP analysis in both regions of mitochondrial DNA using 7 restriction enzymes. The results of the present study have provided evidence that mitochondrial polymorphisms in the D-loop and ND-5 regions are associated significantly with fertility. This is the first report of a correlation between mitochondrial polymorphism in D-loop and ND-5 on fertility in beef cattle. Key words: PCR-RFLP, bovine mitochondrial DNA, D-loop, ND-5

Isoenzyme electrophoresis of 30 isolates of Giardia from humans and felines

Thirty isolates of Giardia duodenalis from humans and felines were compared by isoenzyme electrophoresis. Using 10 enzyme systems, 13 different zymodemes were distinguished. The majority of zymodemes could be divided into two groups: one group comprising human and feline isolates with worldwide geographic distribution; the other group containing human isolates restricted to Western Australia. A number of isolates showed multiple-banded patterns and the genetic significance of these findings is discussed. The marked heterogeneity of G. duodenalis demonstrated in this study is considered in relation to the epidemiology of giardiasis. The findings are consistent with felines serving as a reservoir of infection to humans

Preconditioning of weighted H(div)-norm and applications to numerical simulation of highly heterogeneous media

In this paper we propose and analyze a preconditioner for a system arising from a finite element approximation of second order elliptic problems describing processes in highly het- erogeneous media. Our approach uses the technique of multilevel methods and the recently proposed preconditioner based on additive Schur complement approximation by J. Kraus (see [8]). The main results are the design and a theoretical and numerical justification of an iterative method for such problems that is robust with respect to the contrast of the media, defined as the ratio between the maximum and minimum values of the coefficient (related to the permeability/conductivity).Comment: 28 page

Social workers in community care practice: Ideologies and interactions with older people

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website through the link below. Copyright @ 2008 The Authors.Since the inception of the NHS and Community Care in 1990, there has been a proliferation of studies examining its implementation at the front line. Considerable attention has been aimed at understanding how it is that social work practitioners, charged with the responsibility to implement community care recommendations for older people, are doing so in a challenging care environment. How a practitioner's ideological frame of reference may impact on his/her practice interactions remains relatively unanswered. However, the course by which professional ideology matures and then directs practice would appear to both complex and multifaceted. The outcome is one that may render the professional both powerful and political, and one that may leave the older care recipient both vulnerable and stigmatized. This paper explores community care practice with older people, emphasizing the ideological underpinnings in practice and their influence on practice interactions. Social work practitioners working on older people's teams in two contrasting communities in England were interviewed to discuss their assessment and care management interactions with older people. Using grounded theory and Goffman's theoretical constructs within frame analysis, a conceptual model for practice emerged, reinforcing that practitioners' understandings of social events, anchored in government and professional discourse and individual perceptions about older people, enabled them to organize and influence the interaction to lead to a professionally determined outcome. The routine work of assessment and care management became very powerful in absence of strategic intention by the practitioner. A move to more strategic behaviour occurred when practice dilemmas required practitioners to intervene, informed by their professionally based values juxtaposed against those supported within official discourse. The findings provide an insight into how social work practitioners manage to deliver community care in a complex environment. The outcomes also reinforce the need for practitioners to develop an understanding of how they construct their social realities, as this may impact on the experience of community care for older people

Factors influencing the development and carbohydrate metabolism of Echinococcus granulosus in dogs

Echinococcus granulosus adult worms, 35 days postinfection, were measured for dispersion in the intestines of 10 dogs, a range of morphological characters, and the excreted end products of carbohydrate catabolism following 4 hr incubation in vitro. Most worms were found in the proximal sections of the small intestine, but the pattern of dispersion differed between dogs. Worm development varied both between dogs and between different regions of the small intestine of individual dogs. Overall there was a high level of variability with no simple patterns. Worm metabolism was related to worm development and, also independently, to local population density within the intestine. Larger, more mature worms produced less lactate and, at higher densities. worms tended to produce more acetate and succinate (pathways with a higher energy yield than lactate) and less ethanol. Thus, both more developed worms and high population density are associated with a shift from cytosolic to mitochondrial metabolism. The variation between worm populations along the small intestine along with the observed variation between worm populations from sibling dogs infected with genetically identical parasites suggests that the local host environment has a significant effect on parasite development

Building an evidence base for adult safeguarding?: problems with the reliability and validity of adult safeguarding databases

This article considers current adult safeguarding policy guidelines for England, which require local authorities to collect adult safeguarding data for the purposes of research and service development. It then moves on to report some of the findings from an evaluation of adult safeguarding in one English local authority, focussing on how the adult safeguarding database was populated from case records and how the resultant data was utilised. It found that, although the annual number of adult safeguarding alerts more than tripled between 2002 and 2008, this clear evidence of an increase in workload had not resulted in increased resource allocation. The evaluation further noted that only half of the designated ‘adult safeguarding managers’ who were interviewed were able to correctly define the meanings of the recommended terms under which adult safeguarding outcomes are recorded, i.e. ‘substantiated’, ‘not substantiated’ and ‘not determined’. Changes to the terminology used to record the outcomes of safeguarding investigations are proposed as one of a number of measures to enable the creation of valid and reliable information upon which to base future practice developments, including allocation of resources. Ke

On the edge of a new frontier: Is gerontological social work in the UK ready to meet twenty-first-century challenges?

This article is available open access through the publisher’s website. Copyright @ 2013 The Authors.This article explores the readiness of gerontological social work in the UK for meeting the challenges of an ageing society by investigating the focus on work with older people in social work education and the scope of gerontological social work research. The discussion draws on findings from two exploratory studies: a survey of qualifying master's programmes in England and a survey of the content relating to older people over a six-year period in four leading UK social work journals. The evidence from master's programmes suggests widespread neglect of ageing in teaching content and practice learning. Social work journals present a more nuanced picture. Older people emerge within coverage of generic policy issues for adults, such as personalisation and safeguarding, and there is good evidence of the complexity of need in late life. However, there is little attention to effective social work interventions, with an increasingly diverse older population, or to the quality of gerontological social work education. The case is made for infusing content on older people throughout the social work curriculum, for extending practice learning opportunities in social work with older people and for increasing the volume and reporting of gerontological social work research.Brunel Institute for Ageing Studie

Fish out of water: Aquatic parasites in a drying world

Although freshwater ecosystems are among the most diverse and endangered in the world, little attention has been paid to either the importance of parasitic disease as a threatening process for freshwater organisms, or the co-extinction risk of freshwater parasites. In this review, we use theoretical and empirical studies of host/parasite interactions to examine these issues, particularly with respect to the threat posed by climate change to fish and parasite communities in intermittent rivers. Intermittent rivers are those that cease to flow at any point in time or space, with isolated pools providing ecological refuges for freshwater biota between streamflow events. Intermittent rivers are the dominant river type in arid, semi-arid and Mediterranean regions; areas of the world that have experienced dramatic decreases in streamflow as a result of climate change. Reduced streamflow decreases the number, size and connectivity of refuge pools in intermittent rivers, with important consequences for free-living aquatic organisms, particularly fishes, and their parasitic fauna. As a result of more frequent and sustained periods of no flow, parasite diversity within refuge pools is expected to decrease, with a concomitant increase in the prevalence and intensity of those parasite species which do survive, particularly host generalists. Decreased connectivity between refuge pool communities should increase the spatial modularity of host/parasite interactions, leading to a greater structuring of host and parasite communities along the river. This increases the probability of species loss (for both hosts and their parasites), as local extinctions cannot be reversed by colonisation from other localities

A randomised controlled trial of a care home rehabilitation service to reduce long-term institutionalisation for elderly people

Objectives: to evaluate the effect of a care home rehabilitation service on institutionalisation, health outcomes and service use. Design: randomised controlled trial, stratified by Barthel ADL index, social service sector and whether living alone. The intervention was a rehabilitation service based in Social Services old people's homes in Nottingham, UK. The control group received usual health and social care. Participants: 165 elderly and disabled hospitalised patients who wished to go home but were at high risk of institutionalisation (81 intervention, 84 control). Main outcome measures: institutionalisation rates, Barthel ADL index, Nottingham Extended ADL score, General Health Questionnaire (12 item version) at 3 and 12 months, Health and Social Service resource use. Results: the number of participants institutionalised was similar at 3 months (relative risk 1.04, 95% confidence intervals 0.65–1.65) and 12 months (relative risk 1.23, 95% confidence intervals 0.75–2.02). Barthel ADL Index, Nottingham Extended ADL score and General Health Questionnaire scores were similar at 3 and 12 months. The intervention group spent significantly fewer days in hospital over 3 and 12 months (mean reduction 12.1 and 27.6 days respectively, P < 0.01), but spent a mean of 36 days in a care home rehabilitation service facility. Conclusions: this service did not reduce institutionalisation, but diverted patients from the hospital to social services sector without major effects on activity levels or well-being