Participatory epidemiology of endemic diseases in West African cattle - Ethnoveterinary and bioveterinary knowledge in Fulani disease control.

Fulani pastoralists in Nigeria lack adequate access to good quality veterinary services and often resort to treating their animals themselves. There are several negative aspects to this, including poor treatment outcomes, misuse of veterinary drugs and subsequent resistance, and further barriers to good relations between pastoralists and veterinary services. A participatory epidemiology survey was undertaken in Fulani communities, to examine their ability to diagnose and treat bovine diseases.

Direct methods: a paradox with regard to the convergence of random phase trials toward solutions.

A frustrating observation, based on an R(min) variance analysis within the `shake and bake' framework of direct methods phasing, is described. The variance of R(min) can on occasion identify large subsets of phases that have a significantly lower mean phase error than the entire direct methods phase set of otherwise unsuccessful phasing trials for which the overall phase error occasionally dips below 75 or 80°. This is the first time, other than for a handful of Σ1 phase indications in optimal situations, that a priori phase estimates have been attained for large numbers of E values, prior to solving the structure.

Relaxation of the resolution requirements for direct-methods phasing.

Shake-and-bake phasing methods have permitted the ab initio solution of crystal structures containing more than 1000 independent non-H light atoms (C, N, O). The success of these procedures is critically dependent upon having diffraction data measured to at least 1.2 Å resolution.

Rational genomics I: antisense open reading frames and codon bias in short-chain oxido reductase enzymes and the evolution of the genetic code.

The short-chain oxidoreductase (SCOR) family of enzymes includes over 6000 members, extending from bacteria and archaea to humans. Nucleic acid sequence analysis reveals that significant numbers of these genes are remarkably free of stopcodons in reading frames other than the coding frame, including those on the antisense strand. The genes from this subset also use almost entirely the GC-rich half of the 64 codons.

Structure of gramicidin D-RbCl complex at atomic resolution from low-temperature synchrotron data: interactions of double-stranded gramicidin channel contents and cations with channel wall.

Gramicidin D (gD) is a naturally occurring ionophoric antibiotic that forms membrane channels specific for monovalent cations. The crystal structure of the RbCl complex of gD has been determined at 1.14 A resolution from low-temperature (100 K) synchrotron-radiation data with a final R of 16%.