The Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Nutrition: The South African Child Support Grant

In light of research that has argued that the income elasticity of nutrition is low, the goal of a new generation of cash transfer programmes to boost the nutrition of poor families' children may seem surprising. This observation applies especially to South Africa's unconditional Child Support Grant (CSG), in which cash grants are made to families with no strings attached. However, in contrast to the market-generated income increases that identified low nutritional elasticities in the earlier studies, the income increases generated by the South African cash transfers are almost exclusively assigned to women. Taking advantage of a slow programme rollout that created exogenous variation in the extent of CSG treatment received by beneficiaries in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, this Working Paper utilizes the continuous treatment method of Hirano and Imbens (2004) to estimate the impact of these transfers on child nutrition as measured by child height-for-age. Large dosages of CSG treatment early in life are shown to significantly boost child height. Drawing on the best estimates in the literature, these estimated height gains in turn suggest large adult earnings increases for treated children and a discounted rate of return on CSG payments of between 160 per cent and 230 per cent.Nutrition, cash transfers, continuous treatment estimator, South Africa, poverty

Determinación de unidades de vegetación a través de mapeo participativo en comunidades del Valle del Bermejo (San Juan) como estrategia para el manejo y la conservación del bosque nativo

La experiencia se desarrolló de 2012 a 2013 en localidades rurales del Dpto. Caucete, SanJuan. Se enmarcó en el proyecto interinstitucional “Manejo sustentable y participativo de los bosques nativos en el Valle del Bermejo, San Juan", en el contexto de la ley 26631 de bosque nativo. El objetivo de la experiencia fue zonificar con los pobladores locales los recursos forestales maderables y no maderables de su área, como así también los usos del suelo vinculados a los mismos, para generar cartografía temática. Se pretende que los mapas generados sirvan como punto de partida para el manejo de los recursos naturales desde una perspectiva de desarrollo local, con vistas al ordenamiento territorial del área. Se realizaron 10 talleres en total, con la presencia de técnicos y pobladores locales. Se digitalizó la información y se realizó un mapa de las unidades de vegetación identificadas; además, estos datos se volcaron en dos cartillas y un manual sobre manejo y conservación del bosque.Fil: Inojosa, M.. Universidad Nacional de San JuanFil: Gaviorno, M.. Universidad Nacional de San JuanFil: Agüero, L.. Universidad Nacional de San JuanFil: Martinelli, M.. Universidad Nacional de San Jua

Long-term behaviour of Nb and Cr nitrides nanostructured coatings under steam at 650°C. Mechanistic considerations.

There is an increasing demand for steam power plants to operate in super-critical conditions i.e. temperatures in excess of 600°C. Under these conditions creep resistant ferritic steels oxidize and therefore require coatings in order to last. Physical vapor deposition and especially High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering deposited CrN/NbN nano-scale multilayer coatings with a 2.45 Cr/Nb ratio showed excellent performance when exposed to 650 °C in pure steam environment up to 2,000 h. However the role of Nb in offering protection is unclear. In order to study the long term behaviour of this type of coatings as well as to determine the influence of Nb on their oxidation resistance, a CrN/NbN coating with a 1.16 Cr/Nb ratio was studied for 12,650 h. The coating is hard, well adhered and resistant to environmental corrosion, which are properties required in particular for coatings to be applied on turbine blades. The coating also protects P92 from steam oxidation at 650º C, however coating growth defects influence significantly the oxidation resistance. The long-time exposure allowed to study the protection/ degradation mechanisms provided by this type of ceramic coatings. It was found that oxide nodules grow due to the presence of coating defect originated from substrate defects. Moreover, the higher Nb CrN/NbN coating slowly oxidizes, consuming the coating to a large extent after 12,650 h. As a result, protective oxides containing Cr and Nb are developed, remaining well attached to the substrate for at least the test duration, and preventing further substrate oxidation by steam. Interestingly, thin voids present in the as deposited coating self-heal by forming Cr rich oxides, which block steam to reach the substrate

The Permanent Effects of Recessions on Child Health: Evidence from Peru

We explore the permanent effects that recessions have on health-related outcomes of mothers and children in Peru. To account for possible self-selection in giving birth during recessions, we compare the infant mortality rates of siblings born in different phases of the economic cycle. A 1 percent decline in GDP per capita is associated with an increase in infant mortality rates between 0.30 and 0.39 percent. We find evidence that recessions also have a negative effect on long-term health measures for surviving children. The additional negative effect found on prenatal care suggests that the permanent effects start while children are in-utero.economic crises, early childhood development, health, Peru

Genetic transformation of Vitis vinifera L. cvs Thompson Seedless and Chardonnay with the pear PGIP and GFP encoding genes

Transgenic plants of Vitis vinifera L. cvs. Chardonnay and Thompson Seedless expressing the β-glucuronidase gene (GUS) and either the pear polygalacturonase inhibiting protein gene (PGIP) or the green fluorescent protein gene (GFP) were produced via somatic embryogenesis. Various media and culture conditions were tested in order to develop an efficient transformation method. Best results were obtained when embryogenic callus was initiated from anthers cultured on PIV medium and maintained in PT medium. Embryogenic lines of the rootstocks Saint George, 110 Richter and Freedom and from inflorescence primordia of Chardonnay and 110 Richter were also established using the same media. Inoculation with 109 cells·ml-1 Agrobacterium resulted in a higher number of selected calli than cultures inoculated with 107 or 108 cells·ml-1. Plants were regenerated in a modified WP medium from up to 46 % of the selected callus. Approximately 80 % of the lines expressed GUS and either PGIP or GFP but a low correlation was found between β-glucuronidase and polygalacturonase inhibiting protein activities.

A comparative analysis of chromosome pairing at metaphase I in interspecific hybrids between durum wheat (Triticum turgidum L.) and the most widespread Aegilops species.

Homoeologous metaphase I (MI) associations in hybrids between durum wheat and its wild allotetraploid relatives Aegilops neglecta, Ae. triuncialis and Ae. ventricosa have been characterized by a genomic in situ hybridization procedure that allows simultaneous discrimination of A, B and wild species genomes. Earlier results in equivalent hybrids with the wild species Ae. cylindrica and Ae. geniculata have also been considered to comparatively assay the MI pairing pattern of the durum wheat × Aegilops interspecific combinations more likely to occur in nature. The general picture can be drawn as follows. A and B wheat genomes pair with each other less than the 2 wild constituent genomes do in any of the hybrid combinations examined. Interspecific wheat-wild associations account for 60–70% of total MI pairing in all hybrids, except in that derived from Ae. triuncialis, but the A genome is always the wheat partner most frequently involved in MI pairing with the wild homoeologues. Hybrids with Ae. cylindrica, Ae. geniculata and Ae. ventricosa showed similar reduced levels of MI association and virtually identical MI pairing patterns. However, certain recurrent differences were found when the pattern of homoeologous pairing of hybrids from either Ae. triuncialis or Ae. neglecta was contrasted to that observed in the other durum wheat hybrid combinations. In the former case, a remarkable preferential pairing between the wild species constituent genomes Ut and Ct seems to be the reason, whereas a general promotion of homoeologous pairing, qualitatively similar to that observed under the effect of the ph1c mutation, appears to occur in the hybrid with Ae. neglecta. It is further discussed whether the results reported here can be extrapolated to the corresponding bread wheat hybrid combination

Evaluación de impacto de la jornada escolar completa

Los bajos niveles de aprendizaje de los adolescentes en el Perú demandan la identificación de políticas educativas que logren, efectivamente, mejorar estos niveles y cerrar brechas. Este reporte presenta la evaluación de impacto de una ambiciosa política educativa, la Jornada Escolar Completa (JEC), que se empezó a implementar en el año escolar del 2015 en mil escuelas secundarias de todo el país. Se encuentra que en su primer año, la JEC ha mejorado los niveles de aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Utilizando la Evaluación Censal de Estudiantes del 2do año de secundaria se muestra que, en matemáticas, donde los resultados son inobjetables, la JEC aumentó el rendimiento académico entre 14% y 23% de un desvío estándar. Los resultados están por encima de los efectos hallados en intervenciones similares en América Latina y están entre los más altos encontrados a nivel mundial incluyendo intervenciones alternativas a la expansión de la jornada escolar. A partir de las reglas de selección para las escuelas de la JEC se muestra que la metodología utilizada para evaluar la intervención permite una estimación rigurosa a través de una regresión discontinua, cuyos supuestos son validados con los datos. Una serie de pruebas muestran que los efectos hallados en matemáticas son robustos más no así los de comunicación, donde también se encuentran resultados positivos, pero menores y menos estables. Los impactos son mayores en los colegios ubicados en los distritos más pobres. A nivel de alumnos, no se encuentran diferencias por sexo pero aquellos con mejores rendimientos en primaria se benefician más de la JEC. La JEC no cambió el esfuerzo de los padres ni maestros. Sin embargo, se encuentra que los alumnos tienen menos confianza en sí mismos en el área de comunicación, pero no en matemáticas

Evaluación de la Jornada Escolar Completa

Ponencia presentada en: 1er. Seminario Internacional Jornada Escolar Completa Secundaria, Lima, 7-8 de julio de 2016.Los impactos de la Jornada Escolar Completa en corto plazo son positivos en matemáticas: se incrementa el puntaje en general, aumenta la probabilidad de tener puntaje satisfactorio, estos resultados son robustos a varias especificaciones. Los efectos para comunicación son menores y más sensibles. Los efectos son positivos en ambos extremos de la distribución (según mapa de pobreza) pero mayores en los colegios ubicados en distritos con más recursos. No se observan cambios en el comportamiento de padres ni maestros