Ruling out a host-range expansion as the cause of the unpredicted non-target attack on tagasaste (Chamaecytisus proliferus) by Bruchidius villosus

Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius) is a woody shrub of European origin that is an invasive weed in New Zealand. Bruchidius villosus was released in New Zealand in 1986 as a biological control agent of Scotch broom, after tests indicated that it was specific to this species. However, in 1999, B. villosus was discovered developing in the seeds of an unpredicted host, tagasaste or tree lucerne (Chamaecytisus proliferus). Although the original choice tests carried out in quarantine failed to predict acceptance of C. proliferus by ovipositing females, the current population in New Zealand clearly finds this species an acceptable host. An investigation of the original host-testing procedures revealed a number of possible limitations in the tests conducted in the 1980s. Concerns that a host-range expansion might have occurred in a weed biological control agent led to this study in which beetles from the original population (Silwood Park, United Kingdom) were reimported and the original handling and host choice tests were replicated. Despite showing a strong preference for Scotch broom, the beetles tested in this study accepted C. proliferus for oviposition. These results allow us to rule out the possibility that a hostrange expansion has occurred

An institutional analysis of 'power within' local governance: a Bazaari tale from Pakistan

Power dynamics in local governance have profound implications for the outcomes of processes of political decentralisation within developing countries. Attempts to improve participation and service delivery through strengthened local and regional governance have been frustrated by the inability to understand and transform the relationship between power and formal and informal institutions. Through a theoretically informed empirical study of the relationship between power and institutions within local governance, this paper addresses this challenge through developing the notion of ‘power within’. Analysis of Batkhela Bazaar in the Malakand district in Pakistan reveals distinct fields of power relating to the market, political representation and local administration, and the evolving interactions between institutions within and across these fields. Results demonstrate how these fields of power, and the agents operating within them, actively shape the interaction between formal and informal institutions of local governance in a process of contiguous evolution. Understanding of ‘power within’ prompts revised thinking on how best to harness emergent institutional forms to promote progressive and inclusionary local governance and develop more effective state decentralization programmes

Authorship Ethics

Accessed 42,090 times on https://pareonline.net from November 13, 1999 to December 31, 2019. For downloads from January 1, 2020 forward, please click on the PlumX Metrics link to the right

Review of the Palaearctic species of Ismaridae Thomson, 1858 (Hymenoptera: Diaprioidea)

This is an open access article, available to all readers online, published under a Creative Commons BY-NC-ND license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. The attached file is the published version of the article

Group I aptazymes as genetic regulatory switches

BACKGROUND: Allosteric ribozymes (aptazymes) that have extraordinary activation parameters have been generated in vitro by design and selection. For example, hammerhead and ligase ribozymes that are activated by small organic effectors and protein effectors have been selected from random sequence pools appended to extant ribozymes. Many ribozymes, especially self-splicing introns, are known control gene regulation or viral replication in vivo. We attempted to generate Group I self-splicing introns that were activated by a small organic effector, theophylline, and to show that such Group I aptazymes could mediate theophylline-dependent splicing in vivo. RESULTS: By appending aptamers to the Group I self-splicing intron, we have generated a Group I aptazyme whose in vivo splicing is controlled by exogenously added small molecules. Substantial differences in gene regulation could be observed with compounds that differed by as little as a single methyl group. The effector-specificity of the Group I aptazyme could be rationally engineered for new effector molecules. CONCLUSION: Group I aptazymes may find applications as genetic regulatory switches for generating conditional knockouts at the level of mRNA or for developing economically viable gene therapies

Helix movement is coupled to displacement of the second extracellular loop in rhodopsin activation

The second extracellular loop (EL2) of rhodopsin forms a cap over the binding site of its photoreactive 11-cis retinylidene chromophore. A crucial question has been whether EL2 forms a reversible gate that opens upon activation or acts as a rigid barrier. Distance measurements using solid-state 13C NMR spectroscopy between the retinal chromophore and the β4 strand of EL2 show that the loop is displaced from the retinal binding site upon activation, and there is a rearrangement in the hydrogen-bonding networks connecting EL2 with the extracellular ends of transmembrane helices H4, H5 and H6. NMR measurements further reveal that structural changes in EL2 are coupled to the motion of helix H5 and breaking of the ionic lock that regulates activation. These results provide a comprehensive view of how retinal isomerization triggers helix motion and activation in this prototypical G protein-coupled receptor. © 2009 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved

Informal economic activities and deprived neighbourhoods.

This report reviews the relative advantages and disadvantages of some types of informal activity to people in deprived neighbourhoods. It cites ways to incentivise and support people who can move from informal to formal status

Color adjectives, standards, and thresholds: an experimental investigation

Are color adjectives (“red”, “green”, etc.) relative adjectives or absolute adjectives? Existing theories of the meaning of color adjectives attempt to answer that question using informal (“armchair”) judgments. The informal judgments of theorists conflict: it has been proposed that color adjectives are absolute with standards anchored at the minimum degree on the scale, that they are absolute but have near- midpoint standards, and that they are relative. In this paper we report two experiments, one based on entailment patterns and one based on presupposition accommodation, that investigate the meaning of scalar adjectives. We find evidence confirming the existence of subgroups of the population who operate with different standards for color adjectives. The evidence of interpersonal variation in where standards are located on the relevant scale and how those standards can be adjusted indicates that the existing theories of the meaning of color adjectives are at best only partially correct. We also find evidence that paradigmatic relative adjectives (“tall”, “wide”) behave in ways that are not predicted by the standard theory of scalar adjectives. We discuss several different possible explanations for this unexpected behavior. We conclude by discussing the relevance of our findings for philosophical debates about the nature and extent of semantically encoded context sensitivity in which color adjectives have played a key role