To feed a world population growing by up to 160 people per minute, with >90% of them in developing countries, will require an astonishing increase in food production. Forecasts call for wheat to become the most important cereal in the world, with maize close behind; together, these crops will account for Ϸ80% of developing countries' cereal import requirements. Access to a range of genetic diversity is critical to the success of breeding programs. The global effort to assemble, document, and utilize these resources is enormous, and the genetic diversity in the collections is critical to the world's fight against hunger. The introgression of genes that reduced plant height and increased disease and viral resistance in wheat provided the foundation for the ''Green Revolution'' and demonstrated the tremendous impact that genetic resources can have on production. Wheat hybrids and synthetics may provide the yield increases needed in the future. A wild relative of maize, Tripsacum, represents an untapped genetic resource for abiotic and biotic stress resistance and for apomixis, a trait that could provide developing world farmers access to hybrid technology. Ownership of genetic resources and genes must be resolved to ensure global access to these critical resources. The application of molecular and genetic engineering technologies enhances the use of genetic resources. The effective and complementary use of all of our technological tools and resources will be required for meeting the challenge posed by the world's expanding demand for food.
Primary Purpose. The objective of this retrospective observational cohort study was to compare the effectiveness of darbepoetin alfa with that of epoetin alfa in patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia using data from noncontemporaneous chart audits conducted at a community-based oncology practice.Materials and Methods. For the first chart audit, data were collected from consecutive patients with nonmyeloid malignancies with diagnoses of chemotherapyinduced anemia and hemoglobin levels ≤10.5 g/dl who were receiving concurrent chemotherapy and had at least 5 weeks of visits from July-September 2000. After therapeutic substitution of darbepoetin alfa for epoetin alfa for all patients with chemotherapy-induced anemia, data were collected from consecutive darbepoetin alfatreated patients with diagnoses of chemotherapy-induced anemia and at least 8 weeks of visits from June-October
(darbepoetin alfa was approved in July 2002).Results. Most (86%) of the 212 epoetin alfa-treated patients had received an initial dose of 40,000 U once weekly, and most (85%) of the 196 darbepoetin alfatreated patients had received a fixed dose of either 100 µg once weekly (49%) or 200 µg every 2 weeks (36%). At 8 weeks, the mean change in hemoglobin level was 1.1 g/dl for the darbepoetin alfa patient group and 1.0 g/dl for the epoetin alfa patient group.Discussion. Utilization, dose escalation rates, and clinical outcomes were considered comparable for the darbepoetin alfa and epoetin alfa patient groups.Conclusions. Darbepoetin alfa, 100 µg once weekly or 200 µg every 2 weeks, appears to be as effective as epoetin alfa, 40,000 U once weekly, for the treatment of chemotherapy-induced anemia in the clinical practice setting. The Oncologist 2004;9: 451-458
At present, the predominant form of agriculture is based on the interventionist approach, in which most aspects of the production system are controlled by technological interventions (such as soil tilling, curative pest and weed control with agrochemicals) and the application of synthetic mineral fertilisers for plant nutrition. However, there are now many production systems with a predominantly ecosystem approach, underpinned by healthy soils, and characterised as "Conservation Agriculture", that are not only effective in producing food and other raw materials economically, but also more sustainable in terms of environmental impacts. Their further development and spread merit deeper support with the development of suitable policies, funding, research, technologies, knowledgediffusion, and institutional arrangements.
Developments in improving the world's three most important staple food crops—maize, wheat, and rice—are reviewed. A discussion of the origins and diffusion of maize and wheat and farmers' early plant breeding efforts is followed by an overview of the rise of the private sector in maize breeding, the development of international agricultural research, the Green Revolution in wheat and rice, the development of hybrid rice, and recent (1960-2000) achievements in international maize breeding research. Promising new tools for breeding improved food crops in developing countries are reviewed, including genomics and genetic engineering. Issues that will concern plant breeders—especially those focusing on the needs of developing countries—in years to come are discussed, including the rise of the private sector, intellectual property protection, and globalisation. The paper concludes with some thoughts on how plant breeding has changed in the course of the past century and must adapt to the needs of the present century.
Cooperation in a public goods game has been studied extensively to find the conditions for sustaining the commons, yet the effect of asymmetry between agents has been explored very little. Here we study a game theoretic model of cooperation for pest control among farmers. In our simple model, each farmer has a paddy of the same size arranged adjacently on a line. A pest outbreak occurs at an abandoned paddy at one end of the line, directly threatening the frontier farmer adjacent to it. Each farmer pays a cost of his or her choice to an agricultural collective, and the total sum held by the collective is used for pest control, with success probability increasing with the sum. Because the farmers' incentives depend on their distance from the pest outbreak, our model is an asymmetric public goods game. We derive each farmer's cost strategy at the Nash equilibrium. We find that asymmetry among farmers leads to a few unexpected outcomes. The individual costs at the equilibrium do not necessarily increase with how much the future is valued but rather show threshold behavior. Moreover, an increase in the number of farmers can sometimes paradoxically undermine pest prevention. A comparison with a symmetric public goods game model reveals that the farmer at the greatest risk pays a disproportionate amount of cost in the asymmetric game, making the use of agricultural lands less sustainable.
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