Definition of a small core transcriptional circuit regulated by AML1-ETO

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Does drainage pay? Quantifying agricultural profitability associated with wetland drainage practices and canola production in Alberta

Conversion of wetlands in cultivated agricultural landscapes is one of the primary drivers of wetland loss in Alberta, Canada, despite a provincial wetland policy that prioritizes wetland avoidance. While other sectors of the agricultural industry have established initiatives to maintain wetlands, a common narrative within the conventional cropping sector is that wetland retention leads to lost acreage and overlap of crop inputs, and that there are financial benefits associated with wetland drainage. The objective of this research was to explicitly quantify crop productivity within drained wetland basins, in an effort to better understand the extent to which producers financially benefit from drainage practices. Working collaboratively with canola producers in central Alberta over the 2019 growing season, wetland basins within four quarter sections were mapped using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, and wetland basins with clear evidence of surface drainage were identified. Agricultural input and yield data provided by producers was then used to quantify profitability within each drained basin. Average profit for drained basins for each producer ranged between ? $145/acre and $76/acre, with an average of $55/acre across all operations. This is compared to an average profit of $203/acre for non-wetland areas across all operations. The results suggest that the financial benefits of drainage are highly variable, and for many drained basins, producers may experience financial losses that may be overlooked when profits are examined only at the field- or operation-level. While this study included a small number of operations, and was limited to one type of crop over a single growing season, the results still provide important insight into the extent to which producers benefit financially from the practice of wetland drainage.

     

Infection,Disease, and Biosocial Processes at the End of the Indus Civilization

In the third millennium B.C., the Indus Civilization flourished in northwest India and Pakistan. The late mature phase (2200-1900 B.C.) was characterized by long-distance exchange networks, planned urban settlements, sanitation facilities, standardized weights and measures, and a sphere of influence over 1,000,000 square kilometers of territory. Recent paleoclimate reconstructions from the Beas River Valley demonstrate hydro-climatic stress due to a weakened monsoon system may have impacted urban centers like Harappa by the end of the third millennium B.C. the impact of environmental change was compounded by concurrent disruptions to the regional interaction sphere. Climate, economic, and social changes contributed to the disintegration of this civilization after 1900 B.C. We assess evidence for paleopathology to infer the biological consequences of climate change and socio-economic disruption in the post-urban period at Harappa, one of the largest urban centers in the Indus Civilization. Bioarchaeological evidence demonstrates the prevalence of infection and infectious disease increased through time. Furthermore, the risk for infection and disease was uneven among burial communities. Corresponding mortuary differences suggest that socially and economically marginalized communities were most vulnerable in the context of climate uncertainty at Harappa. Combined with prior evidence for increasing levels of interpersonal violence, our data support a growing pathology of power at Harappa after 2000 B.C. Observations of the intersection between climate change and social processes in proto-historic cities offer valuable lessons about vulnerability, insecurity, and the long-term consequences of short-term strategies for coping with climate change.     

Impact of Male Circumcision on the HIV Epidemic in Papua New Guinea: A Country with Extensive Foreskin Cutting Practices

The degree to which adult medical male circumcision (MC) programs can reduce new HIV infections in a moderate HIV prevalence country like Papua New Guinea (PNG) are uncertain especially given the widespread prevalence of longitudinal foreskin cuts among adult males. We estimated the likely impact of a medical MC intervention in PNG using a mathematical model of HIV transmission. The model was age-structured and incorporated separate components for sex, rural/urban, men who have sex with men and female sex workers. Country-specific data of the prevalence of foreskin cuts, sexually transmitted infections, condom usage, and the acceptability of MC were obtained by our group through related studies. If longitudinal foreskin cutting has a protective efficacy of 20% compared to 60% for MC, then providing MC to 20% of uncut males from 2012 would require 376,000 procedures, avert 7,900 HIV infections by 2032, and require 143 MC per averted infection. Targeting uncut urban youths would achieve the most cost effective returns of 54 MC per HIV infection averted. These numbers of MC required to avert an HIV infection change little even with coverage up to 80% of men. The greater the protective efficacy of longitudinal foreskin cuts against HIV acquisition, the less impact MC interventions will have. Dependent on this efficacy, increasing condom use could have a much greater impact with a 10 percentage point increase averting 18,400 infections over this same period. MC programs could be effective in reducing HIV infections in PNG, particularly in high prevalence populations. However the overall impact is highly dependent on the protective efficacy of existing longitudinal foreskin cutting in preventing HIV.     

Shared Cultural History as a Predictor of Political and Economic Changes among Nation States

Political and economic risks arise from social phenomena that spread within and across countries. Regime changes, protest movements, and stock market and default shocks can have ramifications across the globe. Quantitative models have made great strides at predicting these events in recent decades but incorporate few explicitly measured cultural variables. However, in recent years cultural evolutionary theory has emerged as a major paradigm to understand the inheritance and diffusion of human cultural variation. Here, we combine these two strands of research by proposing that measures of socio-linguistic affiliation derived from language phylogenies track variation in cultural norms that influence how political and economic changes diffuse across the globe. First, we show that changes over time in a country’s democratic or autocratic character correlate with simultaneous changes among their socio-linguistic affiliations more than with changes of spatially proximate countries. Second, we find that models of changes in sovereign default status favor including socio-linguistic affiliations in addition to spatial data. These findings suggest that better measurement of cultural networks could be profoundly useful to policy makers who wish to diversify commercial, social, and other forms of investment across political and economic risks on an international scale.     

Zn(II)-induced dimerization of human carbonmonoxy hemoglobin

Binding of Zn(II) to the carbon monoxide complex of human hemoglobin was shown by equilibrium sedimentation and sedimentation velocity experiments at pH 7.0 to induce the dissociation of liganded tetramers to dimers but not to monomers. These results provide direct confirmation of previous kinetic and gel filtration experiments (R. D. Gray, (1980) J. Biol. Chem.255, 1812–1818) that Zn(II) binding to liganded hemoglobin produces a change in aggregation state of liganded hemoglobin.     

“Cut them,not me” the refrain as National Forum holds wrap-up consultation

The gap between the ideal and the reality of medicare was evident at two recent national conferences. One was the wrap-up consultation of the National Forum on Health, at which it was evident that Canadians are devoted to government-sponsored medicare and want to maintain the status quo. The other, the National Health Care Policy Summit cosponsored by the CMA, indicated that business and health care leaders are concerned that medicare will not survive unless the private sector plays a bigger role. The two conferences, which offered two opinions and two solitudes, indicate that the National Forum faces a daunting challenge as it prepares to issue its final report at the end of the year.     

Polymerase chain reaction amplification of the flaA gene for the rapid identification of Listeria spp.

The polymerase chain reaction was used to amplify specifically a 448 base pair internal fragment of the fla A gene from bacteria belonging to the genus Listeria. This gene encodes for the flagellin protein and allowed specific genus discrimination between other commonly found Gram-positive and Gram-negative bacteria and all Listeria spp. with the exception of Jonesia denitrificans.     

Metabolic effects of radiation induced rat insulinoma at pancreatic, hepatic and subscapular transplantation sites

Metabolic effects of 3 different sites of transplantation of cultured tumour cells from a radiation induced insulinoma (28 X 10(6) viable cells per rat) were examined in 15-18 weeks old male NEDH rats. Subscapular implantation consistently produced a highly vascularised encapsulated tumour associated with hyperinsulinaemia, hyperphagia and hypoglycaemia by 21 days, which progressed to fatal neuroglycopaenic coma at 37 +/- 3 days (mean +/- SEM). Implantation of tumour cells into the hepatic portal vein resulted in a multilobular hepatic tumour in two out of nine rats, with hyperinsulinaemia and fatal hypoglycaemia by 49-54 days. Irregularities of glucose homeostasis were observed in a further three rats by 62 days. Intrapancreatic implantation consistently produced a similar tumour to that observed at the subscapular site. Implantation into the pancreas produced the most rapid onset of hyperinsulinaemia, hyperphagia and hypoglycaemia, with survival for only 28 +/- 3 days. The results demonstrate an important effect of transplantation site on the function and metabolic consequences of the NEDH rat insulinoma.