National and Provincial Influences on Public Sector Pay: Northern Ireland after 1945

This article examines the national and regional pressures in Northern Ireland in the post-war period for parity in public sector pay with the rest of the UK. Northern Ireland had a devolved legislature and government within the UK from 192 1 and was constitutionality in all essentially federal relationship with the rest of the UK. However, the Stormont Government chose to use legislative devolution to minimize policy differences with the rest of the UK. The article highlights the national industrial relations environment as the backdrop for provincial developments in pay setting. It establishes the important role Played by the Social Services Agreement negotiated with the Labour Government at Westminster in triggering the principle of parity in public sector pay in the early post-war years. The principle of pay parity subsequently became a benchmark for regional trade union coercive comparisons in collective bargaining across the devolved public sector. The article highlights the Policy relevance of these developments both to the UK Treasury and to devolved Governments in the UK, as they address the issue of regional public sector pay.

The impact of the summer 2007 forest fires in Greece: Recent environmental mobilizations, cyber-activism and electoral performance

This report circumambulates around the environmental issue, examining mobilizations in favour of public access to the seafront and protest events against the recent devastating forest fires. By framing this discussion within existing scholarly contributions on related dimensions of the environmental issue (environmental consciousness, grassroots environmental contestation) in Southern Europe in general and Greece in particular, it suggests that the environmental mobilization dynamic in Greece has been infused with a new, global, mobilizing resource that offers new avenues to evaluate the potency of Greek civil society. Finally, the article discusses the results of the 2007 national elections and ponders the chances of political ecology becoming a permanent feature of Greek parliamentary politics.

Dual-task interference: Attentional and neurophysiological influences

Performing two tasks simultaneously often degrades performance of one or both tasks. While this dual-task interference is classically interpreted in terms of shared attentional resources, where two motor tasks are performed simultaneously interactions within primary motor cortex (i.e., activity-dependent coupling) may also be a contributing factor. In the present study TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) was used to examine the contribution of activity-dependent coupling to dual-task interference during concurrent performance of a bimanual coordination task and a discrete probe reaction time (RT) task involving the foot. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed that activity-dependent coupling within the leg corticomotor pathway was greater during dual-task performance than single-task performance, and this was associated with interference on the probe RT task (i.e., increased RT). Experiment 3 revealed that dual-task interference occurred regardless of whether the dual-task involved two motor tasks or a motor and cognitive task, however activity-dependent coupling was present only when a dual motor task was performed. This suggests that activity-dependent coupling is less detrimental to performance than attentional processes operating upstream of the corticomotor system. Finally, while prioritising the RT task reduced, but did not eliminate, dual-task interference the contribution of activity-dependent coupling to dual-task interference was not affected by task prioritisation. This suggests that although activity-dependent coupling may contribute to dual motor-task interference, attentional processes appear to be more important. It also suggests that activity-dependent coupling may not be subject to modulation by attentional processes. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Probed serial recall in Williams syndrome: Lexical influences on phonological short-term memory

Williams syndrome is a genetic disorder that, it has been claimed, results in an unusual pattern of linguistic strengths and weaknesses. The current study investigated the hypothesis that there is a reduced influence of lexical knowledge on phonological short-term memory in Williams syndrome. Fourteen children with Williams syndrome and 2 vocabulary la matched control groups, 20 typically developing children and 13 children with learning difficulties, were tested on 2 probed serial-recall tasks. On the basis of previous findings, it was predicted that children with Williams syndrome would demonstrate (a) a reduced effect of lexicality on the recall of list items, (b) relatively poorer recall of list items compared with recall of serial order, and (c) a reduced tendency to produce lexicalization errors in the recall of nonwords. in fact, none of these predictions were supported. Alternative explanations for previous findings and implications for accounts of language development in Williams syndrome are discussed.

Can we characterise ‘openness’ in the Holocene palaeoenvironmental record? Modern analogue studies of insect faunas and pollen spectra from Dunham Massey deer park and Epping Forest, England

This paper examines the degree to which tree-associated Coleoptera (beetles) and pollen could be used to predict the degree of ‘openness’ in woodland. The results from two modern insect and pollen analogue studies from ponds at Dunham Massey, Cheshire and Epping Forest, Greater London are presented. We explore the reliability of modern pollen rain and sub-fossil beetle assemblages to represent varying degrees of canopy cover for up to 1000m from a sampling site. Modern woodland canopy structure around the study sites has been assessed using GIS-based mapping at increasing radial distances as an independent check on the modern insect and pollen data sets. These preliminary results suggest that it is possible to use tree-associated Coleoptera to assess the degree of local vegetation openness. Additionally, it appears that insect remains may indicate the relative intensity of land use by grazing animals. Our results also suggest most insects are collected from within a 100m to 200m radius of the sampling site. The pollen results suggest that local vegetation and density of woodland in the immediate area of the sampling site can have a strong role in determining the pollen signal.

The power of shell rapping influences rates of eviction in hermit crabs

Hermit crabs fight for ownership of shells, and shell exchange may occur after a period of shell rapping, involving the initiating or attacking crab bringing its shell rapidly and repeatedly into contact with the shell of the noninitiator or defender, in a series of bouts. The temporal pattern of rapping contains information about the motivation and/or relative resource holding potential (RHP) of the initiator and acts as a repeated signal of stamina. Here we investigated the role of the force with which the rapping is performed and how this is related to the temporal pattern of rapping by rubberizing the external surface of shells. Initiators that are prevented from rapping with their usual level of force persist with the activity for longer over the whole encounter but use fewer raps per bout and are less likely to effect an exchange than those supplied with control shells. The fact that the force of rapping affects the likelihood of a crab being victorious suggests that either the force of rapping contains information about motivation or RHP or that force directly affects noninitiators, reducing their ability to maintain an adequate grip on their shells. The data suggest that shell rapping is an agonistic signal rather than one that provides information useful to the noninitiator, as has been suggested by the negotiation model of shell exchange.

Molecular cloning and deduced organization of the pHpG/CNP precursor from the venom of the African forest viper, Atheris squamigera

The discovery that the hypotensive sequela of envenomation by the South American viper, Bothrops jararaca, was mediated by peptides, represented a milestone in drug discovery research that led to the introduction of ACE inhibitors. These bradykinin-potentiating peptides (BPPs) have been found in the venoms of many species of viper and molecular cloning of biosynthetic precursors has revealed that each encodes several different BPPs in tandem with a single copy of a C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP) located at the C-terminus. Venoms of the African forest vipers (Atheris) have been poorly studied possibly because they do not represent a major danger to humans. However, initial studies have indicated that they contain some of the “classical” protein toxins of viper venoms and a novel class of peptide, the polyglycine/polyhistidine (pGpH) peptides. These peptides occur in several molecular forms with different numbers of repetitive glycine and histidine repeats. We have cloned the biosynthetic precursor of A. squamigera pGpH peptides from a venom-derived cDNA library and have confirmed that a single copy of CNP is located at the C-terminus and additionally that, like BPPs in other vipers, pGpH peptides are encoded in tandem within this single precursor. Solid phase peptide synthesis of pGpH peptides has proven to be extremely difficult but is progressing and acquisition of synthetic replicates of each peptide is a necessary prerequisite for systematic pharmacological characterisation as establishment of a biological function for these peptides remains elusive. pGpH peptides may prove to play a role as fundamental as that of the BPPs.

Biological influences on inter- and intraspecific isotopic variability among paired chondrostome fishes

This study aimed at examining resource partitioning both at the inter- and intraspecific levels between paired chondrostome fishes: Chondrostoma nasus, the nase, C. toxostoma, the sofie, and their hybrid. The study was performed in the south of France and concerned a main river (the Durance River) and a tributary (the Buech River). In these rivers, C. nasus was an introduced species, originating in central Europe, and C. toxostoma was an endemic congener, in the south of France. Stable isotope analysis was used to analyse trophic and spatial niches. Isotopic differences indicated that individuals from the three taxa (C. nasus, C. toxostoma and their hybrid) have different spatial origins. At the interspecific level, the different chondrostomes originating from the Buech River showed a high level of trophic niche overlap. At the intraspecific level, nase individuals originating from the different spatial origins showed a resource polymorphism; differences in morphology were associated with variation in behaviour and life history traits. Their coexistence was a likely outcome of resource polymorphism. This study provides an example of the importance of considering the link between intra- and interspecific interactions to gain an understanding of the mechanisms driving the coexistence of species-pairs. (C) 2010 Academie des sciences. Published by Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Cannabinoid Receptor influences Chromatin Remodelling in Mouse Spermatids by affecting Content of Transition Protein 2 mRNA and Histone Replacement

Marijuana smokers and animals treated with ?9-tetrahydrocannabinol, THC, the principal component of marijuana, show alterations of sperm morphology suggesting a role for cannabinoids in sperm differentiation and/or maturation. Since the cannabinoid receptor 1 (CNR1) activation appears to play a pivotal role in spermiogenesis, the developmental stage where DNA is remodeled, we hypothesized that CNR1 receptors might also influence chromatin quality in sperm. We used Cnr1 null mutant (Cnr1-/-) mice to study the possible role of endocannabinoids on sperm chromatin during spermiogenesis. We demonstrated that CNR1 activation regulated chromatin remodeling of spermatids by either increasing Tnp2 levels or enhancing histone displacement. Comparative analysis of WT, Cnr1+/- and Cnr1-/- animals suggested the possible occurrence of haploinsufficiency for Tnp2 turnover control by CNR1, while histone displacement was disrupted to a lesser extent. Further, flow cytometry analysis demonstrated that the genetic loss of Cnr1 decreased sperm chromatin quality and was associated with sperm DNA fragmentation. This damage increased during epididymal transit, from caput to cauda. Collectively, our results show that the expression/activity of CNR1 controls the physiological alterations of DNA structure during spermiogenic maturation and epididymal transit. Given the deleterious effects of sperm DNA damage on male fertility, we suggest that the reproductive function of marijuana users may also be impaired by deregulation of the endogenous endocannabinoid system.