Potential impacts of climate change on veterinary medicinal residues in livestock produce: An island of Ireland perspective

Residues of veterinary medicines are a food safety issue regulated by European legislation. The occurrence of animal diseases necessitating application of veterinary medicines is significantly affected by global and local climate changes. This review assesses potential impacts of climate change on residues in food produced on the island of Ireland. Use of various classes of veterinary drugs in light of predicted local climate change is reviewed with particular emphasis on anthelmintic drugs and consideration is given to residues accumulating in the environment. Veterinary medicine use is predicted to increase as disease burdens increase due to varied climate effects. Locally relevant mitigation and adaptation strategies are suggested to ensure climate change does not adversely affect food safety via increasing drug residues.

''We are an island”: Geographical Imagery in Accounts of Citizenship, Civil Society, and National Identity in Scotland and in England

In this article we question recent psychological approaches that equate the constructs of citizenship and social identity and which overlook the capacity for units of governance to be represented in terms of place rather than in terms of people. Analysis of interviews conducted in England and Scotland explores how respondents invoked images of Britain as “an island” to avoid social identity constructions of nationality, citizenship, or civil society. Respondents in Scotland used island imagery to distinguish their political commitment to British citizenship from questions relating to their subjective identity. Respondents in England used island imagery to distinguish the United Kingdom as a distinctive political entity whilst avoiding allusions to a common or distinctive identity or character on the part of the citizenry. People who had moved from England to Scotland used island imagery to manage the delicate task of negotiating rights to social inclusion in Scottish civil society whilst displaying recognition of the indigenous population’s claims to distinctive national culture and identity.

Evaluating conditions for transboundary marine spatial planning: Challenges and opportunities on the island of Ireland

Transboundary cooperation is viewed as an essential element of Marine Spatial Planning (MSP). While much of the MSP literature focuses on the need for, and benefits of, transboundary MSP, this paper explores the political and institutional factors that may facilitate the effective transition to such an approach. Drawing on transboundary planning theory and practice, key contextual factors that are likely to expedite the transition to transboundary MSP are reviewed. These include: policy convergence in neighbouring jurisdictions; prior experience of transboundary planning; and good working relations amongst key actors. Based on this review, an assessment of the conditions for transboundary MSP in the adjoining waters of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is undertaken. A number of recommendations are then advanced for transboundary MSP on the island of Ireland, including, the need to address the role of formal transboundary institutions and the lack of an agreed legal maritime boundary. The paper concludes with some commentary on the political realities of implementing transboundary MSP.

DNA methylation subgroups and the CpG island methylator phenotype in gastric cancer: a comprehensive profiling approach

BACKGROUND: Methylation-induced silencing of promoter CpG islands in tumor suppressor genes plays an important role in human carcinogenesis. In colorectal cancer, the CpG island methylator phenotype (CIMP) is defined as widespread and elevated levels of DNA methylation and CIMP+ tumors have distinctive clinicopathological and molecular features. In contrast, the existence of a comparable CIMP subtype in gastric cancer (GC) has not been clearly established. To further investigate this issue, in the present study we performed comprehensive DNA methylation profiling of a well-characterised series of primary GC.

METHODS: The methylation status of 1,421 autosomal CpG sites located within 768 cancer-related genes was investigated using the Illumina GoldenGate Methylation Panel I assay on DNA extracted from 60 gastric tumors and matched tumor-adjacent gastric tissue pairs. Methylation data was analysed using a recursively partitioned mixture model and investigated for associations with clinicopathological and molecular features including age, Helicobacter pylori status, tumor site, patient survival, microsatellite instability and BRAF and KRAS mutations.

RESULTS: A total of 147 genes were differentially methylated between tumor and matched tumor-adjacent gastric tissue, with HOXA5 and hedgehog signalling being the top-ranked gene and signalling pathway, respectively. Unsupervised clustering of methylation data revealed the existence of 6 subgroups under two main clusters, referred to as L (low methylation; 28% of cases) and H (high methylation; 72%). Female patients were over-represented in the H tumor group compared to L group (36% vs 6%; P = 0.024), however no other significant differences in clinicopathological or molecular features were apparent. CpG sites that were hypermethylated in group H were more frequently located in CpG islands and marked for polycomb occupancy.

CONCLUSIONS: High-throughput methylation analysis implicates genes involved in embryonic development and hedgehog signaling in gastric tumorigenesis. GC is comprised of two major methylation subtypes, with the highly methylated group showing some features consistent with a CpG island methylator phenotype.

The impact of climate change on existing and emerging microbial threats across the food chain: an island of Ireland perspective

The Agri-Food and aquaculture industries are vital to the economy of the island of Ireland with a gross annual output that is expected to double in the future. Identifying and understanding the potential influences of the anticipated climate variables on microorganisms that cause foodborne diseases, and their impact on these local industries, are essential. Investigating and monitoring foodborne pathogens and factors that influence their growth, transmission, pathogenesis and survival will facilitate assessment of the stability, security and vulnerability of the continuously evolving and increasing complex local food supply chain.

Holocene landscape intervention and plant food production strategies in island and mainland Southeast Asia

In the areas adjacent to the drowned Pleistocene continent of Sunda – present-day Mainland and Island SE Asia – the Austronesian Hypothesis of a diaspora of rice cultivators from Taiwan ∼4200 years ago has often been linked with the start of farming. Mounting evidence suggests that these developments should not be conflated and that alternative explanations should be considered, including indigenous inception of complex patterns of plant food production and early exchange of plants, animals, technology and genes. We review evidence for widespread forest disturbance in the Early Holocene which may accompany the beginnings of complex food-production. Although often insubstantial, evidence for incipient and developing management of rainforest vegetation and of developing complex relationships with plants is present, and early enough to suggest that during the Early to mid-Holocene this vast region was marked by different approaches to plant food production. The trajectory of the increasingly complex relationships between people and their food organisms was strongly locally contingent and in many cases did not result in the development of agricultural systems that were recognisable as such at the time of early European encounters. Diverse resource management economies in the Sunda and neighbouring regions appear to have accompanied rather than replaced a reliance on hunting and gathering. This, together with evidence for Early Holocene interaction between these neighbours, gives cause for us to question some authors continued adherence to a singular narrative of the Austronesian Hypothesis and the ‘Neolithisation’ of this part of the world. It also leads us to suggest that the forests of this vast region are, to an extent, a cultural artefact.

Discussion and debate: Reflections on Pleistocene Island Occupation

Editorial Note: Within a 48-hour period during January 2014, the JMA co-editors received two papers—those of Curtis Runnels and Thomas P. Leppard printed above—that, quite fortuitously, each addressed the topic of Mediterranean island colonization by archaic hominins, albeit from radically different perspectives. Neither author was aware of the other’s paper, nor has either article subsequently been revised to take account of the other. Realizing the widespread current interest in this subject and the possibility for productive debate prompted by such variant approaches, we commissioned three sets of comments and invited Runnels and Leppard to respond. We are pleased to publish this discussion around questions of great importance for our understanding of the earliest insular prehistory of the Mediterranean, and with significant implications reaching well beyond it.

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27.2 (2014) 255-278