Comparing the Seed Cotton and Wheat Marketing Chains in Sindh

This paper contrasts the operation of seed cotton and wheat marketing systems in Sindh. Analysis of marketing margins indicates that the private sector cotton marketing chain appears to be working efficiently, given the many adverse aspects of its socioeconomic environment. There is evidence that higher domestic prices resulting from alignment with world markets have been transmitted through the marketing chain to producers, and that production has increased. In contrast to cotton, the government continues to be heavily involved in wheat procurement and storage, with private traders usually acting as intermediaries between the Food Department and the grower. Despite expensive involvement of the same private traders as in cotton, the wheat market is characterised by bureaucratic failure and rent-seeking behaviour, leading to stagnation of incentives and production. For cotton, the primary recommendations are to sustain liberalisation of the market and to support the developing beneficial model of private competition through improvements in communications and transport infrastructure. The practical means to improve the grading of cotton lint and seed cotton should also be developed and promoted to provide incentives for higher quality output. For wheat, the main recommendations are to liberalise farmgate prices, reduce the state’s role in procurement, and privatise government godowns. Research is needed on how this might best be achieved, with attention to the conditions necessary for private financing of storage activities, and to ways of minimising price and supply fluctuations. The impact of higher flour prices on poor consumers also needs to be addressed.

Comprehensive translational assessment of human-induced pluripotent stem cell derived cardiomyocytes for evaluating drug-induced arrhythmias

Induced pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes (iPSC-CM) hold promise for assessment of drug-induced arrhythmias and are being considered for use under the comprehensive in vitro proarrhythmia assay (CiPA). We studied the effects of 26 drugs and 3 drug combinations on 2 commercially available iPSC-CM types using high-throughput voltage-sensitive dye and microelectrode-array assays being studied for the CiPA initiative and compared the results with clinical QT prolongation and torsade de pointes (TdP) risk. Concentration-dependent analysis comparing iPSC-CMs to clinical trial results demonstrated good correlation between drug-induced rate-corrected action potential duration and field potential duration (APDc and FPDc) prolongation and clinical trial QTc prolongation. Of 20 drugs studied that exhibit clinical QTc prolongation, 17 caused APDc prolongation (16 in Cor.4U and 13 in iCell cardiomyocytes) and 16 caused FPDc prolongation (16 in Cor.4U and 10 in iCell cardiomyocytes). Of 14 drugs that cause TdP, arrhythmias occurred with 10 drugs. Lack of arrhythmic beating in iPSC-CMs for the four remaining drugs could be due to differences in relative levels of expression of individual ion channels. iPSC-CMs responded consistently to human ether-a-go-go potassium channel blocking drugs (APD prolongation and arrhythmias) and calcium channel blocking drugs (APD shortening and prevention of arrhythmias), with a more variable response to late sodium current blocking drugs. Current results confirm the potential of iPSC-CMs for proarrhythmia prediction under CiPA, where iPSC-CM results would serve as a check to ion channel and in silico modeling prediction of proarrhythmic risk. A multi-site validation study is warranted

Transient conditions for biogenesis on low-mass exoplanets with escaping hydrogen atmospheres

Exoplanets with lower equilibrium temperatures than Earth and primordial hydrogen atmospheres that evaporate after formation should pass through transient periods where oceans can form on their surfaces, as liquid water can form below a few thousand bar pressure and H2-H2 collision-induced absorption provides significant greenhouse warming. The duration of the transient period depends on the planet size, starting H2 inventory and star type, with the longest periods typically occurring for planets around M-class stars. As pre-biotic compounds readily form in the reducing chemistry of hydrogen-rich atmospheres, conditions on these planets could be favourable to the emergence of life. The ultimate fate of any emergent organisms under such conditions would depend on their ability to adapt to (or modify) their gradually cooling environment.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Icaru

Queer Teachers in Catholic Schools: Cosmic Perceptions of an Easter People

Queer-teacher lives aren’t easy! They experience isolation and bifurcation of their lives on a daily basis. How much more difficult must life be for these teachers in the theologically heteronormative context of the Catholic school? Yet, these teachers remain educators in these institutions, sensing goodness in what they are doing and in the future of these schools. Inspired by this interesting reality of tension, this study asks two important questions. First, how do queer teachers understand their identities as constructed in a Catholic school? Secondly, it wants to know what action teachers will take when they have come to an answer about their constructed identities. This dissertation incorporates queer studies, liberation theology, and critical pedagogy into a bricolage theory to fully address the intersectional lives of its participants. With a methodological approach informed by the ethics of culturally responsive research, this participatory action research begins from a moment of dialogical praxis towards the hope of social engagement. Crafted as a retreat in which queer educators share their stories of working in these institutions, this unique research incorporates the participants into the analysis process as essential actors in understanding the meaning of their own lives. The study reveals the perceptions of queer teachers about the ways that schools make meaning of their role in the educational environment as well as how they make meaning of their lives. Three major themes, “doing queer,” “being queer,” and “enforcing queer” show that these teachers are part of a complex reality in which their identities and performances in Catholic schools are dictated by the pull and push of fear enforced x through many channels in the Catholic school. These themes also show that teachers are actively making new meaning about themselves and acting in ways that seek to dismantle oppression in their institutions. The study also reveals a vibrant spirituality which emerges from the daily experience of being queer in a Catholic school. Geared towards social justice, this spirituality invites us to reimagine that work for social justice may mean pushing into oppression through a paschal victimhood which transforms institutions fundamentally from within