Reducing acrylamide precursors in raw materials derived from wheat and potato

A review of agronomic and genetic approaches as strategies for the mitigation of acrylamide risk in wheat and potato is presented. Acrylamide is formed through the Maillard reaction during high-temperature cooking, such as frying, roasting, or baking, and the main precursors are free asparagine and reducing sugars. In wheat flour, acrylamide formation is determined by asparagine levels and asparagine accumulation increases dramatically in response to sulfur deprivation and, to a much lesser extent, with nitrogen feeding. In potatoes, in which sugar concentrations are much lower, the relationships between acrylamide and its precursors are more complex. Much attention has been focused on reducing the levels of sugars in potatoes as a means of reducing acrylamide risk. However, the level of asparagine as a proportion of the total free amino acid pool has been shown to be a key parameter, indicating that when sugar levels are limiting, competition between asparagine and the other amino acids for participation in the Maillard reaction determines acrylamide formation. Genetic approaches to reducing acrylamide risk include the identification of cultivars; and other germplasm in which free asparagine and/or sugar levels are low and the manipulation of genes involved in sugar and amino acid metabolism and signaling. These approaches are made more difficult by genotype/ environment interactions that can result in a genotype being "good" in one environment but "poor" in another. Another important consideration is the effect that any change could have on flavor in the cooked product. Nevertheless, as both wheat and potato are regarded as of relatively high acrylamide risk compared with, for example, maize and rice, it is essential that changes are achieved that mitigate the problem.

Integrating constructive feedback in personalised e-learning

When using e-learning material some students progress readily, others have difficulties. In a traditional classroom the teacher would identify those with difficulties and direct them to additional resources. This support is not easily available within e-learning. A new approach to providing constructive feedback is developed that will enable an e-learning system to identify areas of weakness and provide guidance on further study. The approach is based on the tagging of learning material with appropriate keywords that indicate the contents. Thus if a student performs poorly on an assessment on topic X, there is a need to suggest further study of X and participation in activities related to X such as forums. As well as supporting the learner this type of constructive feedback can also inform other stakeholders. For example a tutor can monitor the progress of a cohort; an instructional designer can monitor the quality of learning objects in facilitating the appropriate knowledge across many learners.

Farming and food production and development in the Shropshire Hills Environmentally Sensitive Area, 1997-2008

European agricultural and environmental policy has evolved considerably over the last 15 years. In this paper the changes in farm businesses in an Environmentally Sensitive Area in England are evaluated based on two surveys with the same farmers at the start and end of this period. The rate of participation in the environmental scheme had increased significantly at a time when Government led goals in this area had developed and become more output focussed. A combination of policy, market and animal health status changes had encouraged a number to leave cattle production, and though remaining with stock and grass they had decided against any extensive development in the direction of pluriactivity – with or without Government encouragement. This left the future of this group in some uncertainty given that two significant forms of financial support, the environmental scheme and the Hill Farm Allowance, were due to close.

Confucius, constructivism and the impact of continuing professional development on teachers of English in China

In this article we explore issues around the sustainability and appropriateness of professional development for secondary teachers of English in China offered by overseas providers from the perspective of teachers who completed courses at the University of Reading between 2003 and 2010. We start by offering an overview of English teaching in China. We then describe the collection and analysis of interviews and focus groups discussions involving former participants, their teaching colleagues and senior management, as well as classroom observation. Evidence is presented for changes in teachers’ philosophies of education directly attributable to participation in the courses; for improved teacher competencies (linguistic, cultural and pedagogical) in the classroom; and for the ways in which returnees are undertaking new roles and responsibilities which exploit their new understandings. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for both providers and sponsors of CPD for English language teachers. We conclude that the recognition of English as an essential element in the modernisation of China, together with the growing awareness of the weaknesses of traditional approaches to the teaching of the language, has opened up new spaces for dialogue concerning pedagogy and professional practice. It is clearly important, however, that new approaches to the teaching of English are presented in a way which allows teachers to decide which elements should be incorporated into their teaching and how.

Ensuring the right to the city: pro-poor housing, urban development and tenure legalization in São Paulo, Brazil

São Paulo is one of Latin America’s most modern and developed cities, yet around one-third of its 10 million inhabitants live in poor-quality housing in sub-standard settlements. This paper describes the response of the São Paulo municipal government that took office in 2001. Through its Secretariat of Housing and Urban Development, it designed a new policy framework with a strong emphasis on improving the quantity and quality of housing for low-income groups. Supported by new legislation, financial instruments and partnerships with the private sector, the mainstays of the new policy are integrated housing and urban development, modernization of the administrative system, and public participation in all decision-making and implementation processes. The programmes centre on upgrading and legalizing land tenure in informal settlements, and regeneration of the city centre. The new focus on valuing the investments that low-income groups have already made in their housing and settlements has proved to be more cost-effective than previous interventions, leading to improvements on an impressive scale.

Cooperative patronage: The National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi in Kasungu District

This paper estimates the determinants of farmers’ decisions to join a rural producer organisation, the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association of Malawi (NASFAM), in Kasungu District. Data for the study were collected in June and August 2003 using household-level questionnaires and stratified random sampling, where strata were membership status and gender. Probit analysis of 250 farmers shows that off-farm sources of income, distance of the farmer’s household from Kasungu District centre, age of the farmer, tobacco farming, education, household level land holding and gender determined the decision to join NASFAM. These results suggest that farmers should be informed of the potential benefits of participating in rural development efforts, and that rural communication and information infrastructure should be improved so as to reduce the costs of information access and transactions in general, if participation in organisations such as NASFAM is to be enhanced.

Survival analysis of cereal crop variety innovations in the UK

This paper explores the changing survival patterns of cereal crop variety innovations in the UK since the introduction of plant breeders’ rights in the mid-1960s. Using non-parametric, semi-parametric and parametric approaches, we examine the determinants of the survival of wheat variety innovations, focusing on the impacts of changes to Plant Variety Protection (PVP) regime over the last four decades. We find that the period since the introduction of the PVP regime has been characterised by the accelerated development of new varieties and increased private sector participation in the breeding of cereal crop varieties. However, the increased flow of varieties has been accompanied by a sharp decline in the longevity of innovations. These trends may have contributed to a reduction in the returns appropriated by plant breeders from protected variety innovations and may explain the decline of conventional plant breeding in the UK. It may also explain the persistent demand from the seed industry for stronger protection. The strengthening of the PVP regime in conformity with the UPOV Convention of 1991, the introduction of EU-wide protection through the Community Plant Variety Office and the introduction of royalties on farm-saved seed have had a positive effect on the longevity of protected variety innovations, but have not been adequate to offset the long term decline in survival durations.

Inheritance, access to resources and poverty in Serer families in Senegal

This research explores the relationship between inheritance, access to resources and the intergenerational transmission of poverty among the Serer ethnic group in rural and urban environments in Senegal. In many Sub-Saharan African countries, customary law excludes women from owning and inheriting assets, such as land and property. Yet, assets controlled by women often result in increased investments in the next generation's health, nutrition and schooling and reduce the intergenerational transmission of poverty. Qualitative research with 60 participants in Senegal reveals the important role that land, housing and financial assets may play in building resilience to household shocks and interrupting the intergenerational transmission of poverty. However, the protection afforded by these assets was often dependent on other factors, including human, social and environmental capital. The death of a spouse or parent had major emotional and material impacts on many Serer families. The inheritance and control of assets and resources was strongly differentiated among family members along lines of gender, age and generation. Younger widows and their children were particularly vulnerable to chronic poverty. Although inheritance disputes were rare, the research suggests they are more likely between co-wives in polygamous unions and their children, particularly in urban areas. In addition to experiencing economic and health-related shocks, many interviewees were exposed to a range of climate-related risks and environmental pressures which increased their vulnerability. Family members coped with these shocks and risks by diversifying livelihoods, migrating to urban areas and other regions for work, participating in women's co-operatives and associations and developing supportive social networks with extended family and community members. Policies and practices that may help to alleviate poverty, safeguard women's and young people's inheritance and build resilience to financial, health-related and environmental shocks and risks include: - Social protection measures targeted towards poor widows and orphaned children, such as social and cash transfers to pay for basic needs including food, healthcare and children's schooling. - Micro-finance initiatives and credit and savings schemes, alongside training and capacity-building targeted to women and young people to develop income-generation activities and skills. - Free legal advice, support and advocacy for women and young people to pursue inheritance claims through the legal system. - Raising awareness about women's and children's legal rights and working with government and community and religious leaders to tackle discriminatory inheritance practices and contradictions caused by legal pluralism. - Increasing women's control of land and access to inputs, enhancing their business, organisational, and leadership skills and promoting civic participation in local, regional and national decision-making processes. - Improving access to basic services in rural areas, particularly healthcare, building the quality of education and promoting girls' access to education - Enhancing agricultural production and providing more employment opportunities, apprenticeships and vocational training for young people, particularly in rural areas.

Demand, supply and willingness-to-pay for extension services in an emerging-market setting

Although it may be wholly inappropriate to generalize, the most important resource available to a subsistence household is the total amount of time that its members have available to spend in productive enterprises. In this context, services that minimize the time that it takes to perform productive activities are valuable to the household. Consequently the household is willing to relinquish quantities of other resources in exchange for quantities of the time-saving service. These simple observations motivate a search for the values that subsistence households place on time-saving services. This search is especially important when it is realized that extension services promote productivity, enhance the surplus-generating potential of the household and can, as a consequence, promote immersion into markets that are currently constrained by thinness and instability. In this capacity, extension visitation has the potential to overcome one of the principal impediments to economic development, namely lack of density of market participation. In this article, we consider this issue in the context of a rich data set on milk-market participation by small-holder dairy producers in the Ethiopian highlands.

Bayesian estimation of the double hurdle model in the presence of fixed costs

We present a model of market participation in which the presence of non-negligible fixed costs leads to random censoring of the traditional double-hurdle model. Fixed costs arise when household resources must be devoted a priori to the decision to participate in the market. These costs, usually of time, are manifested in non-negligible minimum-efficient supplies and supply correspondence that requires modification of the traditional Tobit regression. The costs also complicate econometric estimation of household behavior. These complications are overcome by application of the Gibbs sampler. The algorithm thus derived provides robust estimates of the fixed-costs, double-hurdle model. The model and procedures are demonstrated in an application to milk market participation in the Ethiopian highlands.

Exploring identities and cultures in inter-professional education and collaborative professional practice

Although the concept of multi-agency working has been pursued and adopted as the most appropriate way to improve child care provision and health workforces in recent years, both in the UK and more globally, research suggests that participation in such work can be problematic. This article examines current developments in inter-professional education and collaborative professional practice. Drawing on desk research across the fields of Education, Health and Social Care, it applies a critical lens to re-examine inter-professional working using well-established concepts of profession, identity, culture, career, and training/work transitions. The article uses theoretical hooks to look for similarities and differences in the promotion of inter-professionality across the Education, Health and Social Care sectors, alongside those which occur within each. It looks towards a re-invigoration of knowledge creation and application through research. This is viewed as especially urgent in times of fragmentation, transformation, and arguably, disintegration, in the services its professional and academic educators and workers seek to serve.

Transaction costs, information technologies and the choice of marketplace among farmers in Northern Ghana

Using a transactions costs framework, we examine the impact of information and communication technologies (mobile phones and radios) use on market participation in developing country agricultural markets using a novel transaction-level data set of Ghanaian farmers. Our analysis of the choice of markets by farmers suggests that market information from a broader range of markets may not always induce farmers to sell in more distant markets; instead farmers may use broader market information to enhance their bargaining power in closer markets. Finally, we find weak evidence on the impact of using mobile phones in attracting farm gate buyers.

Changes in the distribution of red foxes (Vulpes vulpes) in urban areas in Great Britain: findings and limitations of a media-driven nationwide survey

Urbanization is one of the major forms of habitat alteration occurring at the present time. Although this is typically deleterious to biodiversity, some species flourish within these human-modified landscapes, potentially leading to negative and/or positive interactions between people and wildlife. Hence, up-to-date assessment of urban wildlife populations is important for developing appropriate management strategies. Surveying urban wildlife is limited by land partition and private ownership, rendering many common survey techniques difficult. Garnering public involvement is one solution, but this method is constrained by the inherent biases of non-standardised survey effort associated with voluntary participation. We used a television-led media approach to solicit national participation in an online sightings survey to investigate changes in the distribution of urban foxes in Great Britain and to explore relationships between urban features and fox occurrence and sightings density. Our results show that media-based approaches can generate a large national database on the current distribution of a recognisable species. Fox distribution in England and Wales has changed markedly within the last 25 years, with sightings submitted from 91% of urban areas previously predicted to support few or no foxes. Data were highly skewed with 90% of urban areas having <30 fox sightings per 1000 people km-2. The extent of total urban area was the only variable with a significant impact on both fox occurrence and sightings density in urban areas; longitude and percentage of public green urban space were respectively, significantly positively and negatively associated with sightings density only. Latitude, and distance to nearest neighbouring conurbation had no impact on either occurrence or sightings density. Given the limitations associated with this method, further investigations are needed to determine the association between sightings density and actual fox density, and variability of fox density within and between urban areas in Britain.