Building development and roads: implications for the distribution of stone curlews across the Brecks

Background: Substantial new housing and infrastructure development planned within England has the potential to conflict with the nature conservation interests of protected sites. The Breckland area of eastern England (the Brecks) is designated as a Special Protection Area for a number of bird species, including the stone curlew (for which it holds more than 60% of the UK total population). We explore the effect of buildings and roads on the spatial distribution of stone curlew nests across the Brecks in order to inform strategic development plans to avoid adverse effects on such European protected sites. Methodology: Using data across all years (and subsets of years) over the period 1988 – 2006 but restricted to habitat areas of arable land with suitable soils, we assessed nest density in relation to the distances to nearest settlements and to major roads. Measures of the local density of nearby buildings, roads and traffic levels were assessed using normal kernel distance-weighting functions. Quasi-Poisson generalised linear mixed models allowing for spatial auto-correlation were fitted. Results: Significantly lower densities of stone curlew nests were found at distances up to 1500m from settlements, and distances up to 1000m or more from major (trunk) roads. The best fitting models involved optimally distance-weighted variables for the extent of nearby buildings and the trunk road traffic levels. Significance : The results and predictions from this study of past data suggests there is cause for concern that future housing development and associated road infrastructure within the Breckland area could have negative impacts on the nesting stone curlew population. Given the strict legal protection afforded to the SPA the planning and conservation bodies have subsequently agreed precautionary restrictions on building development within the distances identified and used the modelling predictions to agree mitigation measures for proposed trunk road developments

Financing methods for small-scale hardwood plantations in Queensland, Australia

Under Vision 2020, a target was set in 1997 for trebling the plantation area in Australia by the year 2020. Government subsidies and extension for plantation establishment have largely disappeared, hence forestry expansion is highly dependent on access to private finance. In the state of Queensland, plantation expansion has occurred predominantly through managed investment schemes and the joint venture scheme managed by Forestry Plantations Queensland, a government-owned corporation. Most of these plantings are relatively small-scale hardwood plantations, which are designed to replace the hardwood timber from the native forests that will be protected from further logging after 2024 under the South-East Queensland Regional Forestry Agreement. Views on financing methods for forestry expansion in Queensland were investigated through by an email survey of 12 forestry and finance professionals, followed by in-depth personal interviews of the same group of key informants. Some of the issues identified include lack of transparent information, inequitable taxation system between Managed Investment Scheme (MIS) companies and small-scale forest operators, the need for further R&D on all aspects of the industry, the potential impacts of carbon credit schemes on the industry, and the design of a strategic model for forestry investors. Participants took the view that adoption of a strategic alliance model would encourage further investment in small-scale forestry, arguing that this model could protect the interest of all the stakeholders through reducing investment risk and creating competitive advantage. The potential introduction of a carbon trading scheme also attracted interest from investors, who look for recognisable structures that may alleviate the risk of investing in an industry with which they are unfamiliar. The participants considered that further R&D should be the main focus for government participation in small-scale forestry

The regulatory mechanism of fungal elicitor-induced secondary metabolite biosynthesis in medical plants.

A wide range of external stress stimuli trigger plant cells to undergo complex network of reactions that ultimately lead to the synthesis and accumulation of secondary metabolites. Accumulation of such metabolites often occurs in plants subjected to stresses including various elicitors or signal molecules. Throughout evolution, endophytic fungi, an important constituent in the environment of medicinal plants, have known to form long-term stable and mutually beneficial symbiosis with medicinal plants. The endophytic fungal elicitor can rapidly and specifically induce the expression of specific genes in medicinal plants which can result in the activation of a series of specific secondary metabolic pathways resulting in the significant accumulation of active ingredients. Here we summarize the progress made on the mechanisms of fungal elicitor including elicitor signal recognition, signal transduction, gene expression and activation of the key enzymes and its application. This review provides guidance on studies which may be conducted to promote the efficient synthesis and accumulation of active ingredients by the endogenous fungal elicitor in medicinal plant cells, and provides new ideas and methods of studying the regulation of secondary metabolism in medicinal plants

Extensive Copy-Number Variation of Young Genes across Stickleback Populations

MM received funding from the Max Planck innovation funds for this project. PGDF was supported by a Marie Curie European Reintegration Grant (proposal nr 270891). CE was supported by German Science Foundation grants (DFG, EI 841/4-1 and EI 841/6-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript

Malaria control-two years' use of insecticide treated bednets compared with insecticide house spraying in KwaZulu-Natal

Objectives. The objective of this study was to produce data indicating whether insecticide-treated bednets should replaced insecticide house spraying as a malaria control method in South Africa. We report 2 years of preliminary data on malaria incidence comparing areas receiving insecticidetreated bednets and those subjected to house spraying in northern KwaZulu-Natal.Design, setting and subjects. In order to measure significant reductions in malaria incidence between the two interventions, a geographical information system (GIS) was used to identify and create seven pairs of geographical blocks (areas) in the malaria high-risk areas of Ndumu and Makanis in Ingwavuma magisterial district, KwaZulu-Natal. Individual blocks were then randomly allocated to either insecticide-treated bednets or house spraying with  deltamethrin. Malaria cases were either routinely recorded by surveillance agents at home or were reported to the nearest health facility.Results and conclusions. The results show that 2 years' use of insecticide-treated bednets by communities in Ndumu and Makanis, KwaZulu-Natal, significantly reduced the malaria incidence both in 1997 (rate ratio (RR) = 0.879, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.80- 0.95, P = 0.04) and in 1998 (RR = 0.667, CI 0.61 - 0.72, P= 0.0001). Using a t-test, these significant reductions were further confirmed by an assessment of the rate of change between 1996 and 1998, showing a 16% reduction in malaria incidence in blocks using  treated bednets and an increase of 45% in sprayed areas (t =2.534, P = 0.026 (12 df)). In order to decide whether bednets should replace house spraying in South Africa, we need more data on the efficacy of treated bednets, their long-term acceptability and the cost of the two interventions

Applying a new concept of embedding qualitative research: An example from a quantitative study of carers of people in later stage dementia

BACKGROUND: Qualitative methods are increasingly included in larger studies to provide a richer understanding of people's experience. This paper explores the potential of using a novel approach to embedded qualitative design as part of an observational study examining the effectiveness of home support for people in later stage dementia in England. The method involved collecting and analysing unsolicited conversational comments made by participants as they completed standardised measures. An evaluation of the method is presented using the voices of participants to illustrate its potential. METHODS: The conversations of 17 carers recruited to an observational study were audio recorded to gather commentary made while completing a structured interview. Data were interrogated using thematic analysis to investigate the feasibility of conducting an embedded qualitative study, the potential richness of the material and participants' reactions to formal questioning and participating in research. RESULTS: The findings revealed that qualitative data were available from this approach. Analysis generated three themes from carers: conflicting carer emotions; the importance of maintaining normality and agency within day-to-day life; and tensions between these desires and making use of formal services. Important issues for carers were revealed establishing the benefit of using the method. The advantages of exploiting unsolicited conversation included enhancing understanding of people's lived experience, reducing participant burden in research and easing the process of data collection. In addition, it provided an opportunity to evaluate individuals' experience of the research process. CONCLUSIONS: The findings demonstrate how unsolicited comments during structured interviews may appear incidental but can reveal important aspects of living with dementia. The method also emphasised methodological challenges for research in dementia, including the influence and impact of the research context. Further research is required to evaluate the method with other groups including people with dementia themselves

Securing the Anthropocene? International Policy Experiments in Digital Hacktivism: A Case Study of Jakarta

This article analyses security discourses that are beginning to self-consciously take on board the shift towards the Anthropocene. Firstly, it sets out the developing episteme of the Anthropocene, highlighting the limits of instrumentalist cause-and-effect approaches to security, increasingly becoming displaced by discursive framings of securing as a process, generated through new forms of mediation and agency, capable of grasping inter-relations in a fluid context. This approach is the methodology of hacking: creatively composing and repurposing already existing forms of agency. It elaborates on hacking as a set of experimental practices and imaginaries of securing the Anthropocene, using as a case study the field of digital policy activism with the focus on community empowerment through social-technical assemblages being developed and applied in ‘the City of the Anthropocene’: Jakarta, Indonesia. The article concludes that policy interventions today cannot readily be grasped in modernist frameworks of ‘problem solving’ but should be seen more in terms of evolving and adaptive ‘life hacks’

Functional impact and evolution of a novel human polymorphic inversion that disrupts a gene and creates a fusion transcript

Since the discovery of chromosomal inversions almost 100 years ago, how they are maintained in natural populations has been a highly debated issue. One of the hypotheses is that inversion breakpoints could affect genes and modify gene expression levels, although evidence of this came only from laboratory mutants. In humans, a few inversions have been shown to associate with expression differences, but in all cases the molecular causes have remained elusive. Here, we have carried out a complete characterization of a new human polymorphic inversion and determined that it is specific to East Asian populations. In addition, we demonstrate that it disrupts the ZNF257 gene and, through the translocation of the first exon and regulatory sequences, creates a previously nonexistent fusion transcript, which together are associated to expression changes in several other genes. Finally, we investigate the potential evolutionary and phenotypic consequences of the inversion, and suggest that it is probably deleterious. This is therefore the first example of a natural polymorphic inversion that has position effects and creates a new chimeric gene, contributing to answer an old question in evolutionary biology