Agriculture and Life sciences

In the present study, the effects of endogenous histamine in the ventral hippocampus on fear memory deficits induced by scopolamine were investigated as evaluated by step-through avoidance response in adult male rats. Bilateral ventral hippocampal injection of scopolamine (i.h., 2, 5 μg/site) significantly produced depressant effects on the active avoidance response in a dose-dependent manner. Histamine H 3 -antagonist clobenpropit (5, 10 μg/site) significantly ameliorated the fear memory deficits induced by scopolamine in a dose-dependent manner. Its procognitive effect was completely antagonized by immepip (10 μg/site), a selective histamine H 3 -agonist. Both histamine H 1 -antagonist pyrilamine and H 2 -antagonist cimetidine, also inhibited the procognitive effects of clobenpropit. Additionally, the procognitive effects of clobenpropit on the fear memory deficits induced by scopolamine were significantly potentiated by intraperitoneal (i.p.) injection of histidine, a precursor of histamine, but markedly reversed by i.h. injection of α-fluoromethylhistidine (FMH, 10 μg/site), a selective and potent histidine decarboxylase inhibitor. It is concluded that the increased endogenous histamine release in the ventral hippocampus ameliorates the scopolamineinduced fear memory deficits, and its action is mainly mediated by histamine presynaptic H 3 -receptors and postsynaptic H 1 -and H 2 -receptors.

Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA) is the most common genetic disease in childhood. SMA is generally caused by mutations inSMN1. The Survival of Motor Neurons (SMN) complex consists of SMN1, Gemins (2–8) and Strap/Unrip. We previously demonstratedsmn1andgemin5inhibited tissue regeneration in zebrafish. Here we investigated each individual SMN complex member and identifiedgemin3as another regeneration-essential gene. These three genes are likely pan-regenerative since they affect the regeneration of hair cells, liver and caudal fin. RNA-Seq and miRNA-Seq analyses reveal thatsmn1, gemin3, andgemin5are linked to a common set of genetic pathways, including the tp53 and ErbB pathways. Additional studies indicated all three genes facilitate regeneration by inhibiting the ErbB pathway, thereby allowing cell proliferation in the injured neuromasts. This study provides a new understanding of the SMN complex and a potential etiology for SMA and potentially other rare unidentified genetic diseases ...

Organic farming is a method of farming which is eco-friendly, uses biological management system to grow crops rather than depend on chemical and other synthetic materials. There is also a standard of certification which must be complied with in order to prove that the product is 'organic' especially for marketing purpose. Organic farming developed as a reaction to negative effects of modern industrialized agriculture in the twentieth century. Global organic movement can be divided into three distinct timeline – emergence, expansion and growth. It has seen a massive growth since the 1990s but organic farmland makes up only about 1% of the total agricultural land.
In Nepal, modern agriculture started with huge focus on use of chemical fertilizers leading to detrimental effects in soil fertility and the environment. Organic farming first appeared as a priority sector in official Government planning during the 10th five year plan in 2003. The main types of organic farming technology introduced in Nepal are for plant nutrient management, for insect pest management, for enhancement of productivity, and for resource conservation. Organic farming for smallholder rural farmers is still very new but there are plenty of opportunities. The chief opportunity is that many subsistence rural farmers have been practicing traditional organic farming because they have had no access to synthetic materials or the tools to pursue chemical farming. Another opportunity is that organic products have a price premium which will help poor rural farmers to increase household income. There is also huge global interest to invest in eco-friendly farming systems which could be opportunity for Nepali farmers. The market of organic products has been expanding rapidly both domestically and internationally which is another opportunity that the farmers have. In order to best capture these opportunities, several challenges need to be addressed. The main challenges that farmers suffer from are lack of basic technical knowledge, lack of proper and effective certification mechanism in the country, no clear Government policy, lack of appropriate market channel and infrastructure. Development of a national certification program, promotion of organic agriculture as a social movement, strengthening of existing legislation on organic farming, as well as social security for smallholder farmers who choose to pursue organic farming are recommended. The current organic farming market in Nepal should expand its own base in domestic market in addition to focusing on international export.

This paper examines whether there is a presence of the Matthew Effect in development programs run by the governmental and non-governmental sector in Nepal. The Matthew Effect is a social phenomenon by which the relatively ‘elite’ of any community are benefitting more than others, thus creating a bigger divide between the rich and the poor. More specifically, the paper examines whether the national development plans and non-governmental development projects are creating an environment that is fostering more inequality.

Horticulture is an important subsector of agriculture. Fruit farming in industrial scale is a relatively new concept in Nepal. But success of some of the established orchards has shown that it has immense potential. Due to the wide climatic variation and geography, we can grow different types of fruits. There is a wide demand of fresh fruits both inside and outside the country. Besides consuming raw fruit, we can also setup processing industries to consume the seasonal surpluses. It is advisable in our context to establish small scale industries in rural areas rather than big ones in urban areas. This help in income generation in rural area, de-centralization and equal distribution of development. The small scale industries require less capital cost, less sophisticated equipments and can do with less skilled manpower also. We are still in a developing stage regarding fruit processing industries so there are many challenge and obstacles in the path. Effort and participation from all sector i.e. local (farmer, producer etc.), private, public and government can make a significant impact in developing small scale fruit processing industries.

Using James Joyce’s novel Ulysses as an example and case study, I will review Constructivist theories of nature and problems of environmental representation in literature.  Metaphor and mimesis ultimately complicate environmental representation through the creation of natural kinds in literature.  Different definitions of “naturalness” link my critique of idealized nature to the writings of Adorno and Horkeimer on scientific classification and the total domination of nature as commodity.  This will allow us to address the tension that exists, historically, between nature as an aesthetic object, and the emergent meaning of natural use value, utility, and of natural resources within a capitalist system of exchange.  The recognition and perception of fictional environments relies on systems of signification.  This leads to the troubling persistence of environmental determinism, in theory and in fiction, and underscores the power of affective environments.  In the process, I will consider how “lost” historical spaces are located alongside imagined environments—dreams of country, of homeland, and of nation within the Irish literary conscience.

Although Derek Mahon’s most recent published work, his 2008 collection Life on Earth, was received as an important example of ecopoetry, his engagement with problematic and outdated ecological theories suggest an idiosyncratic understanding of the environment today. However, Mahon has expressed acute anxiety about the impact of human activity on the environment for several decades. His status as a “homeless” writer, whose poetry explores difficulty living in place—dwelling—makes him an unusual candidate for ecocritical study. Likewise, his signature poetic settings (degraded and abandoned spaces, waste ground) can seem, initially, far removed from nature. Mahon’s work challenges the typical focus on place in ecocriticism and Irish Studies; his identity as an outsider has important implications when we consider what it means to be one with, or outside of nature. His identity as an exile from the Northern Protestant community is contrasted implicitly with the existential removal of humans from the natural world, and the non-human from a world thoroughly changed by human activity and irreversibly altered by the human presence. Mahon blurs ontological boundaries, probing the distinction between what is natural or unnatural, alive or insensitive, biotic or abiotic. His early collections cultivate a sensitivity to and regard for the non-human through his expressed interest in the numinous and his willingness to lend subjectivity to the non-human (and even the non-living). This represents a radical challenge to poetic anthropocentrism, although Mahon does not attempt to disguise the pretension of trying to suppress the human perspective through poetic form and language. Instead, he foregrounds the failure of a philosophy of language to articulate a non- human reality. He challenges whether human/non-human is the central dichotomy frustrating real awareness of the world, and in the process, unsettles the politics of anthropocentric objectivity. In this way, Mahon asks what it means to exist outside of the human experience within a human environment.

Background: Solanum commersonii is a wild potato species that exhibits high tolerance to both biotic and abiotic stresses and has been used as a source of genes for introgression into cultivated potato. Among the interesting features of S. commersonii is resistance to the bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum, one of the most devastating bacterial diseases of crops. Results: In this study, we used deep sequencing of S. commersonii RNA (RNA-seq) to analyze the below-ground plant transcriptional responses to R. solanacearum. While a majority of S. commersonii RNA-seq reads could be aligned to the Solanum tuberosum Group Phureja DM reference genome sequence, we identified 2,978 S. commersonii novel transcripts through assembly of unaligned S. commersonii RNA-seq reads. We also used RNA-seq to study gene expression in pathogen-challenged roots of S. commersonii accessions resistant (F118) and susceptible (F97) to the pathogen. Expression profiles obtained from read mapping to the S. tuberosum reference genome and the S. commersonii novel transcripts revealed a differential response to the pathogen in the two accessions, with 221 (F118) and 644 (F97) differentially expressed genes including S. commersonii novel transcripts in the resistant and susceptible genotypes. Interestingly, 22.6% of the F118 and 12.8% of the F97 differentially expressed genes had been previously identified as responsive to biotic stresses and half of those up-regulated in both accessions had been involved in plant pathogen responses. Finally, we compared two different methods to eliminate ribosomal RNA from the plant RNA samples in order to allow dual mapping of RNAseq reads to the host and pathogen genomes and provide insights on the advantages and limitations of each technique. Conclusions: Our work catalogues the S. commersonii transcriptome and strengthens the notion that this species encodes specific genes that are differentially expressed to respond to bacterial wilt. In addition, a high proportion of S. commersonii-specific transcripts were altered by R. solanacearum only in F118 accession, while phythormone-related genes were highly induced in F97, suggesting a markedly different response to the pathogen in the two plant accessions studied.

Several breeding programs are under way to introduce resistance to bacterial wilt caused by Ralstonia solanacearum in solanaceous crops. The lack of screening methods allowing easy measurement of pathogen colonization and the inability to detect latent (i.e., symptomless) infections are major limitations when evaluating resistance to this disease in plant germplasm. We describe a new method to study the interaction between R. solanacearum and potato germplasm that overcomes these restrictions. The R. solanacearum UY031 was genetically modified to constitutively generate light from a synthetic luxCDABE operon stably inserted in its chromosome. Colonization of this reporter strain on different potato accessions was followed using life imaging. Bacterial detection in planta by this nondisruptive system correlated with the development of wilting symptoms. In addition, we demonstrated that quantitative detection of the recombinant strain using a luminometer can identify latent infections...

Ralstonia solanacearum is a soil and water-borne pathogen that can infect a wide range of plants and cause the devastating bacterial wilt disease. To successfully colonize a host, R. solanacearum requires the type III secretion system (T3SS), which delivers bacterial effector proteins inside the plant cells. HrpG is a central transcriptional regulator that drives the expression of the T3SS and other virulence determinants. hrpG transcription is highly induced upon plant cell contact and its product is also post-transcriptionally activated by metabolic signals present when bacteria are grown in minimal medium (MM). Here, we describe a transcriptional induction of hrpG at early stages of bacterial co-culture with plant cells that caused overexpression of the downstream T3SS effector genes. This induction was maintained in a strain devoid of prhA, the outer membrane receptor that senses bacterial contact with plant cells, demonstrating that this is a response to an unknown signal. Induction was unaffected after disruption of the known R. solanacearum pathogenicity regulators, indicating that it is controlled by a non-described system. Moreover, plant contact-independent signals are also important in planta, as shown by the hrpG induction triggered by apoplastic and xylem extracts. We also found that none of the amino acids or sugars present in the apoplast and xylem saps studied correlated with hrpG induction. This suggests that a small molecule or an environmental condition is responsible for the T3SS gene expression inside the plants. Our results also highlight the abundance and diversity of possible carbon, nitrogen and energy sources likely used by R. solanacearum during growth in planta.

The infection of plants by hemibiotrophic pathogens involves a complex and highly regulated transition from an initial biotrophic, asymptomatic stage to a later necrotrophic state, characterized by cell death. Little is known about how this transition is regulated, and there are conflicting views of the significance of the plant hormones jasmonic acid (JA) and salicylic acid (SA) in the different phases of infection. To provide a broad view of the hemibiotrophic infection process from the plant perspective, we surveyed the transcriptome of tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) during a compatible interaction with the hemibiotrophic oomycete P. infestans during three infection stages: biotrophic, the transition from biotrophy to necrotrophy and necrotrophic phase. Nearly 10,000 genes corresponding to proteins in approximately 400 biochemical pathways showed differential transcript abundance during the three infection stages, revealing a major reorganization of the plant metabolism, including...

Hemibiotrophic plant pathogens, such as the oomycete Phytophthora infestans, employ a biphasic infection strategy, initially behaving as biotrophs where minimal symptoms are exhibited by the plant, and subsequently as necrotrophs, feeding on dead plant tissue. The regulation of this transition and the breadth of molecular mechanisms that modulate plant defenses are not well understood, although effector proteins secreted by the pathogen are thought to play a key role. We examined the transcriptional dynamics of P. infestans in a compatible interaction with its host tomato (Solanum lycopersicum), at three infection stages: biotrophy; the transition from biotrophy to necrotrophy; and necrotrophy. The expression data suggested a tight temporal regulation of many pathways associated with suppression of plant defense mechanisms and pathogenicity, including the induction of putative cytoplasmic and apoplastic effectors. Twelve of these were experimentally evaluated to determine their abil...

I was fortunate to have Dr. William Fry as my mentor, who taught me through his own example, the enthusiasm, discipline and responsibility of being an excellent scientist and a great human being. I am grateful to him and Mrs. Barbara for the warm feeling of having a family in Ithaca. I would like to thank all of the professors who have contributed to my development as a scientist,

An eight-terminal tapped tee fiber distribution system was constructed using six single-mode fiber access couplers. Data transmission at a 500 Mbit/s rate was demonstrated with a maximum thruput loss of -27 dB. Transmission and coupling fraction data for the couplers are given as well as throughput loss measurements for the data bus. Predicted bus capacity with this type of coupler is up to 15 terminals at 500 Mbits/s with a bit error rate of 10 to the -9.

In the Luangwa Valley, Zambia, persistent poverty and hunger present linked challenges to rural development and biodiversity conservation. Both household coping strategies and larger-scale economic development efforts have caused severe natural resource degradation that limits future economic opportunities and endangers ecosystem services. A model based on a business infrastructure has been developed to promote and maintain sustainable agricultural and natural resource management practices, leading to direct and indirect conservation outcomes. The Community Markets for Conservation (COMACO) model operates primarily with communities surrounding national parks, strengthening conservation benefits produced by these protected areas. COMACO first identifies the least food-secure households and trains them in sustainable agricultural practices that minimize threats to natural resources while meeting household needs. In addition, COMACO identifies people responsible for severe natural reso...

a b s t r a c t Conservation agriculture (CA) changes soil properties and processes compared to conventional agriculture. These changes can, in turn, affect the delivery of ecosystem services, including climate regulation through carbon sequestration and greenhouse gas emissions, and regulation and provision of water through soil physical, chemical and biological properties. Conservation agriculture can also affect the underlying biodiversity that supports many ecosystem services. In this overview, we summarize the current status of the science, the gaps in understanding, and highlight some research priorities for ecosystem services in conservational agriculture. The review is based on global literature but also addresses the potential and limitations of conservation agriculture for low productivity, smallholder farming systems, particularly in Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia. There is clear evidence that topsoil organic matter increases with conservation agriculture and with it o...

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC) is an evolutionarily conserved endogenous mechanism whereby short periods of non-lethal exposure to hypoxia alleviate damage caused by subsequent ischemia reperfusion (IR). Pharmacologic targeting has suggested that the mitochondrial ATP-sensitive potassium channel (mK ATP ) is central to IPC signaling, despite its lack of molecular identity. Here, we report that isolated Caenorhabditis elegans mitochondria have a mK ATP channel with the same physiologic and pharmacologic characteristics as the vertebrate channel. Since C. elegans also exhibit IPC, our observations provide a framework to study the role of mK ATP in IR injury in a genetic model organism.