Quality matters : electoral outcomes and democratic health in Africa

Includes bibliographical references (p. 59-61).In December 2007, Kenyans went to the polls to elect a president, Member of Parliament, and local councillor. As citizens who had most recently voted out one of Africa's longest standing "Big Men," in Daniel Arap Moi, there was an understandable level of excitement and enthusiasm from citizens to exercise their vote once again, as well as from the rest of world which was eager to uphold Kenya as a model of African democracy. Unfortunately as the polls closed five days later; the Kenyan Electoral Commission had been disgraced, the two main political parties were mired in ballot stuffing accusations, and violence had engulfed Nairobi, Kisumu, and the Rift Valley. While the flawed election led to an irreplaceable loss of life and severely damaged the nation's economy and reputation, it is unclear whether this flawed election would diminish Kenyan's democratic health and progress towards democratic consolidation. Indeed, recent and compelling social science evidence suggests that flawed elections do not necessarily hinder democratic development in Africa, and thus the greatest indication of Kenya's democratic progress was simply that the election was held. However, as a witness to Kenya's 2007 election, I feared that Kenya's democratic progress would be severely impeded as people voiced their discontent with elections, voting, political parties, and most importantly, democracy itself. In an attempt to determine if in fact flawed elections have a long-term detrimental impact on democratic health and consolidation I investigate the relationship between the "freeness and fairness," of elections {or electoral quality} and two indicators of democratic health: {1} popular perceptions of democratic supply and {2} popular demand for democracy. "Supply," is measured as popular satisfaction with the way democracy works plus the recognition of living in a democracy. "Demand," is measured as support for democracy plus rejection of three forms of authoritarianism, military rule, one man rule and one party rule. These indicators are aggregate measures taken from responses to Afrobarometer surveys, and have been utilized previously to assess citizen's views of democracy and the prospects for democratic growth and consolidation. Using three rounds of Afrobarometer surveys I analyze data from 18 countries and 33 elections in Africa between 1996 and 2005, using both elections and countries as the unit of analysis. The empirical results demonstrate that there is a strong correlation between electoral quality and perceived supply of democracy, but no correlation between electoral quality and the current level of demand. In other words electorates tend to see electoral outcomes as the preeminent event in determining how satisfied they are with democracy, but do not directly link the outcome of the most recent election to their support for democracy. Although the level of electoral quality did not directly correlate with the level of demand, further analysis showed that flawed elections on average negatively influence both supply and demand. Free and Fair elections, on the other hand, had a much smaller but positive influence on supply and demand. Taken together, there is compelling evidence to suggest that electoral outcomes do shape people's perception and support for democracy. If in fact citizen opinion and support for democracy is critical to democratic consolidation than this research finds that flawed elections can significantly impede democratic growth and retard the consolidation process

Revealing indigenous Indonesian traditional medicine: anti-infective agents

Indonesia is rich in medicinal plants which the population has used traditionally from generation to generation for curing diseases. Our interest in the treatment of infectious diseases has lead to the investigation of traditional Indonesian treatments. In this review, we present a comprehensive review of ethnopharmacologically directed screening in Indonesian medicinal plants to search for new anti-viral, antimalarial, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agents. Some potent drug leads have been isolated from Indonesian medicinal plants. Further research is still required for the lead development as well as the search for new bioactive compounds from the enormous medicinal plant resources

Fungi and algae co-occur in snow: an issue of shared habitat or algal facilitation of heterotrophs?

Citation: Brown, S. P., Olson, B., & Jumpponen, A. (2015). Fungi and algae co-occur in snow: an issue of shared habitat or algal facilitation of heterotrophs? Arctic Antarctic and Alpine Research, 47(4), 729-749. doi:10.1657/aaar0014-071Late season alpine snows are often colonized by psychrophilic snow algae that may provide a source of nutrients for microbes. Such late season snows are a harsh environment, but support a diverse and complex fungal community. We used culture independent methods (Illumina MiSeq) to test if the presence of snow algae influences fungal communities. We compared algae-colonized snows to adjacent (3 m distant) noncolonized snows in a paired experimental design. Our data indicate that several fungi are locally enriched in algae colonized snows. Although many such fungi were basidiomycetous yeasts, our analyses identified a large number of snow-borne members of phylum Chytridiomycota. While the ecology and function of these Chytridiomycetes remain unclear, we hypothesize that their enrichment in the algal patches suggests that they depend on algae for nutrition. We propose that these chytrids are important components in snow ecosystems, highlighting the underestimation of their diversity and importance. Taken together, our data strongly indicate that fungal communities are heterogeneous in snow even among adjacent samples. Further, fungal and algal communities may be influenced by similar environmental drivers resulting in their co-occurrence in snow

A community of clones: Snow algae are diverse communities of spatially structured clones

Citation: Brown, S. P., Ungerer, M. C., & Jumpponen, A. (2016). A community of clones: Snow algae are diverse communities of spatially structured clones. International Journal of Plant Sciences, 177(5), 432-439. doi:10.1086/686019Premise of research. Snow algae are cosmopolitan and often colonize late-season snowpacks. These snow algae do not occur in isolation; rather, visible algal blooms consist of multispecies communities. Although several of these common snow algae have been characterized taxonomically, their inter- and intraspecific diversity remains unknown. Further, the phylogeographic and biogeographic structuring of snow algal species is poorly understood. Methodology. Algal communities were censused by sequencing the variable internal transcribed spacer 2 locus using Illumina MiSeq. We further analyzed two of the most common and abundant algal operational taxonomic units (OTUs) for biogeographic haplotype diversity. Pivotal results. Our data show that the communities are diverse and taxonomically broad (orders: Chlamydomonadales [74% of OTUs], Microthamniales [20% OTUs], and Chlorellales [6% OTUs]). We demonstrate that the two most common species (best nucleotide basic local alignment search tool match to Coenochloris sp. and Chlamydomonas sp.) have distinct haplotype distributions locally and regionally. Each sampled algal colony was dominated by one and only one haplotype, with negligible intraspecific haplotype diversity. Conclusions. Our results suggest that snow algae are communities of clones within a discrete patch yet are heterogeneous across the landscape. Thus, these communities are likely structured via strong priority effects, intense kin competition, and dispersal limitations. © 2016 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved

Studi Literatur Tentang Berbagai Macam Sertifikasi Di Dunia Konstruksi

Saat ini sertifikasi di dunia konstruksi sangatlah diperlukan oleh para Project Manager khususnya yang bekerja di bidang konsruksi. Hal ini dikarenakan dengan mengikuti sertifikasi yang tepat akan sangat membantu bagi kemajuan karir Project Manager tersebut. Penelitian yang dilakukan pada tugas akhir ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui seberapa banyak manfaat yang akan didapatkan oleh Project Manager dengan mengikuti sertifikasi di dunia konstruksi. Metodologi yang dipergunakan adalah pengumpulan data survei dari internet dan analisa data survei. Berdasarkan hasil dari studi literatur tentang berbagai macam sertifikasi tersebut, dipilih 5 asosiasi sertifikasi untuk dibandingkan. Adapun ke-5 asosiasi tersebut adalah IPMA, PMI, PRINCE2, IAMPI dan ASTTI. Asosiasi sertifikasi IPMA, PRINCE2 dan PMI merupakan asosiasi sertifikasi yang paling banyak diikuti oleh Project Manager dibanding dengan asosiasi sertifikasi IAMPI dan ASTTI. Hal ini dikarenakan asosiasi sertifikasi IPMA, PRINCE2 dan PMI merupakan asosiasi sertifikasi yang berskala Internasional dan memiliki daerah jangkauan serta pengaruh dan manfaat secara globa

Inferring Memory Map Instructions

We describe the problem of inferring a set of memory map instructions from a reference trace, with the goal of minimizing the number of such instructions as well as the number of unreferenced but mapped storage locations. We prove the related decision problem NP-complete. We then present and compare the results of two heuristic approaches on some actual traces

Mixed-Initiative Activity Planning for Mars Rovers

One of the ground tools used to operate the Mars Exploration Rovers is a mixed-initiative planning system called MAPGEN. The role of the system is to assist operators building daily plans for each of the rovers, maximizing science return, while maintaining rover safety and abiding by science and engineering constraints. In this paper, we describe the MAPGEN system, focusing on the mixed-initiative planning aspect. We note important challenges, both in terms of human interaction and in terms of automated reasoning requirements. We then describe the approaches taken in MAPGEN, focusing on the novel methods developed by our team

Vascular epiphytic medicinal plants as sources of therapeutic agents: their ethnopharmacological uses, chemical composition, and biological activities

This is an extensive review on epiphytic plants that have been used traditionally as medicines. It provides information on 185 epiphytes and their traditional medicinal uses, regions where Indigenous people use the plants, parts of the plants used as medicines and their preparation, and their reported phytochemical properties and pharmacological properties aligned with their traditional uses. These epiphytic medicinal plants are able to produce a range of secondary metabolites, including alkaloids, and a total of 842 phytochemicals have been identified to date. As many as 71 epiphytic medicinal plants were studied for their biological activities, showing promising pharmacological activities, including as anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anticancer agents. There are several species that were not investigated for their activities and are worthy of exploration. These epipythes have the potential to furnish drug lead compounds, especially for treating cancers, and thus warrant indepth investigations