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Starch is one of the most important plant products to man. It is an essential component of food providing a large proportion of the daily calorific intake and is important in non-food uses such as in adhesives. However, while much is known about the chemistry and pathways of synthesis for starch, there are major gaps in this knowledge so that it is not possible to modify the quantity or quality of starch produced by plants in a predictable way. While yield has improved markedly over the last century it is no longer improving faster than the growth in population and, at the same time, farmers' incomes in Europe have been falling, especially in the UK. Thus, production, even in Europe, is not much greater than demand. In the western world an increasing amount of the harvested crop is processed and, therefore, the quality of the raw product becomes an increasingly important issue. There is, therefore, an increasing need to combine the modern mathematical modelling tools with modern biochemical tools and the modern science of genomics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Response rates to surveys are declining and this threatens the validity and generalisability of their findings. We wanted to determine whether paper quality influences the response rate to postal surveysMethods: A postal questionnaire was sent to all members of the British Society of Gynaecological Endoscopy (BSGE). Recipients were randomised to receiving the questionnaire printed on standard quality paper or high quality paper.Results: The response rate for the recipients of high quality paper was 43/195 (22%) and 57/194 (29%) for standard quality paper (relative rate of response 0.75, 95% CI 0.33-1.05, p = 0.1Conclusion: The use of high quality paper did not increase response rates to a questionnaire survey of gynaecologists affiliated to an endoscopic society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]