The biosurfactant viscosin produced by Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 aids spreading motility and plant growth promotion

Food security depends on enhancing production and reducing loss to pests and pathogens. A promising alternative to agrochemicals is the use of plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR), which are commonly associated with many, if not all, plant species. However, exploiting the benefits of PGPRs requires knowledge of bacterial function and an in-depth understanding of plant-bacteria associations. Motility is important for colonization efficiency and microbial fitness in the plant environment, but the mechanisms employed by bacteria on and around plants are not well understood. We describe and investigate an atypical mode of motility in Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 that was revealed only after flagellum production was eliminated by deletion of the master regulator fleQ. Our results suggest that this ‘spidery spreading’ is a type of surface motility. Transposon mutagenesis of SBW25ΔfleQ (SBW25Q) produced mutants, defective in viscosin production, and surface spreading was also abolished. Genetic analysis indicated growth-dependency, production of viscosin, and several potential regulatory and secretory systems involved in the spidery spreading phenotype. Moreover, viscosin both increases efficiency of surface spreading over the plant root and protects germinating seedlings in soil infected with the plant pathogen Pythium. Thus, viscosin could be a useful target for biotechnological development of plant growth promotion agents.

Tripodal molecules for the promotion of phosphoester hydrolysis

A series of low molecular weight tripodal amide/histidine-containing compounds (1–2) have been synthesised and shown to increase the rate of bis-(p-nitrophenyl) phosphate (BNPP) and soman (GD) breakdown in buffered aqueous solution.

Railway promotion in Victorian Britain: engineering triumph or waste of capital?

A key issue in UK railway history is whether the railway system was an efficient response to the traffic requirements of the economy. The UK railway system was constructed entirely by private enterprise with minimal state subsidies. This chapter considers whether the railway system was 'over-built' because the government ignored the advice of the Railway Committee of the Board of Trade. The chapter suggests that the system was over-built by about 35 per cent. The causes of this over-building are investigated and are found to be mainly social and political failures arising from distrust between MPs and civil servants and public pressure on local MPs to ensure that their constituencies were well served by railways.

Roman barrows and their landscape context: a GIS case study at Bartlow, Cambridgeshire

This paper examines the landscape context of the Bartlow Hills, a group of large Romano-British barrows that were excavated in the 1840s but have been largely neglected since. GIS is employed to test whether it was possible to view the mounds from nearby roads, barrows and villas. Existing research on provincial barrows, and especially their landscape context, and some recent relevant applications of GIS are reviewed. We argue that barrows are active and symbolically charged statements about power and identity. The most striking pattern to emerge from the GIS analysis is a focus on display to a local rather than a transient audience.

Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology, Department of Archaeology, University of Reading

The Proceedings of the Ninth Annual Conference of the British Association for Biological Anthropology and Osteoarchaeology (BABAO) held at the University of Reading in 2007. Contents: 1) A life course perspective of growing up in medieval London: evidence of sub-adult health from St Mary Spital (London) (Rebecca Redfern and Don Walker); 2) Preservation of non-adult long bones from an almshouse cemetery in the United States dating to the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries (Colleen Milligan, Jessica Zotcavage and Norman Sullivan); 3) Childhood oral health: dental palaeopathology of Kellis 2, Dakhleh, Egypt. A preliminary investigation (Stephanie Shukrum and JE Molto); 4) Skeletal manifestation of non-adult scurvy from early medieval Northumbria: the Black Gate cemetery, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Diana Mahoney-Swales and Pia Nystrom); 5) Infantile cortical hyperostosis: cases, causes and contradictions (Mary Lewis and Rebecca Gowland); 6) Biological Anthropology Tuberculosis of the hip in the Victorian Britain (Benjamin Clarke and Piers Mitchell); 7) The re-analysis of Iron Age human skeletal material from Winnall Down (Justine Tracey); 8) Can we estimate post-mortem interval from an individual body part? A field study using sus scrofa (Branka Franicevec and Robert Pastor); 9) The expression of asymmetry in hand bones from the medieval cemetery at Écija, Spain (Lisa Cashmore and Sonia Zakrezewski); 10) Returning remains: a curator’s view (Quinton Carroll); 11) Authority and decision making over British human remains: issues and challenges (Piotr Bienkowski and Malcolm Chapman); 12) Ethical dimensions of reburial, retention and repatriation of archaeological human remains: a British perspective (Simon Mays and Martin Smith); 13) The problem of provenace: inaccuracies, changes and misconceptions (Margaret Clegg); 14) Native American human remains in UK collections: implications of NAGPRA to consultation, repatriation, and policy development (Myra J Giesen); 15) Repatriation – a view from the receiving end: New Zealand (Nancy Tayles).

The rise of urban tourism in Havana since 1989

This article looks at the development of urban tourism in Havana, Cuba, in the period since the collapse of state socialism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. It provides an interesting case study of the adoption of an outward-oriented state development policy in the context of a socialist state. The dramatic rise of urban-based tourism in Havana since 1989 is described, followed by a review of the socio-economic impacts of such tourism. These include: income generation; job creation; the rise of the informal economy, including crime and prostitution; increased migration to the primary city, along with spatial concentration on the coastal strip, and associated environmental impacts. In conclusion, the article considers the fat that the promotion of tourism has returned Havana to some of the conditions that existed in the city Socialist Revolution in 1959.

Health Benefits of Organic Food: effects of the environment

Public concern over impacts of chemicals in plant and animal production on health and the environment has led to increased demand for organic produce, which is usually promoted and often perceived as containing fewer contaminants, more nutrients, and being positive for the environment. These benefits are difficult to quantify, and potential environmental impacts on such benefits have not been widely studied. This book addresses these key points, examining factors such as the role of certain nutrients in prevention and promotion of chronic disease, potential health benefits of bioactive compounds in plants, the prevalence of food-borne pesticides and pathogens and how both local and global environmental factors may affect any differences between organic and conventionally produced food. This book is an essential resource for researchers and students in human health and nutrition, environmental science, agriculture and organic farming. Main Contents 1. Organic farming and food systems: definitions and key characteristics. 2. The health benefits of n-3 fatty acids and their concentrations in organic and conventional animal-derived foods. 3. Environmental impacts on n-3 content of foods from ruminant animals. 4. Health benefits and selenium content of organic vs conventional foods. 5. Environmental impacts concerning the selenium content of foods. 6. Contaminants in organic and conventional food: the missing link between contaminant levels and health effects. 7. Mycotoxins in organic and conventional foods and effects of the environment. 8. Human pathogens in organic and conventional foods and effects of the environment. 9. What does consumer science tell us about organic foods? 10. The beneficial effects of dietary flavonoids: sources, bioavailability and biological functions. 11. Environmental regulation of flavonoid biosynthesis. 12. Nitrates in the human diet. 13. Impacts of environment and management on nitrate in vegetables and water. 14. Effects of the environment on the nutritional quality and safety of organically produced foods: Round-up and summary.

The social life of ruins: sites of memory and the politics of a Zimbabwean periphery

This article explores conflicts over a series of ruins located within Zimbabwe's flagship National Park. The relics have long been regarded as sacred places by local African communities evicted from their vicinity, and have come to be seen as their ethnic heritage. Local intellectuals' promotion of this heritage was an important aspect of a defensive mobilization of cultural difference on the part of a marginalized minority group. I explore both indigenous and colonial ideas about the ruins, the different social movements with which they have been associated and the changing social life they have given the stone relics. Although African and European ideas sometimes came into violent confrontation - as in the context of colonial era evictions - there were also mutual influences in emergent ideas about tribe, heritage and history. The article engages with Pierre Nora's notion of 'sites of memory', which has usefully drawn attention to the way in which ideas of the past are rooted and reproduced in representations of particular places. But it criticizes Nora's tendency to romanticize pre-modern 'memory', suppress narrative and depoliticize traditional connections with the past. Thus, the article highlights the historicity of traditional means of relating to the past, highlighting the often bitter and divisive politics of traditional ritual, myth, kinship, descent and 'being first'. It also emphasizes the entanglement of modern and traditional ideas, inadequately captured by Nora's implied opposition between history and memory. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Promoting sustainability: Efficacy and adoption of tobacco-based insecticides in Nigeria

The promotion of technologies seen to be aiding in the attainment of agricultural sustainability has been Popular amongst Northern-based development donors for many years. One of these, botanical insecticides (e.g., those based on neem, Pyrethrum and tobacco) have been a particular favorite as they are equated with being 'natural' and hence less damaging to human health and the environment. This paper describes the outcome of interactions between one non-government organisation (NGO), the Diocesan Development Services (DDS), based in Kogi State, Nigeria, and a major development donor based in Europe that led to the establishment of a programme designed to promote the Virtues of a tobacco-based insecticide to small-scale farmers. The Tobacco Insecticide Programme (TIP) began in the late 1980s and ended in 200 1, absorbing significant quantities of resource in the process. TIP began with exploratory investigations of efficacy on the DDS seed multiplication farm followed by stages of researcher-managed and farmer-managed on-farm trials. A survey in 2002 assessed adoption of the technology by farmers. While yield benefits from using the insecticide were nearly always positive and statistically significant relative to an untreated control, they were not as good as commercial insecticides. However, adoption of the tobacco insecticide by local farmers was poor. The paper discusses the reasons for poor adoption, including relative benefits in gross margin, and uses the TIP example to explore the differing power relationships that exist between donors, their field partners and farmers. (C) 2004 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.