Strengthening the Women’s Entrepreneurship Ecosystem within the Energy Sector

As women are increasingly engaged in clean energy value chains globally, it is crucial to understand what business models, practices, and enabling conditions can support the dual goals of scaling energy access and empowering women. To understand gaps in the women’s energy entrepreneurship ecosystem, we draw from recent theories of gender and entrepreneurship and both peer-reviewed and grey literature sources on entrepreneurship and development. Key challenges in women’s energy entrepreneurship and potential programme supports to the women’s energy entrepreneurship ecosystem are identified from a resource-based perspective, focused on five primary sources of capital – economic, social, time, cultural, and symbolic. Examples of programme supports include: (a) access to finance and capital; (b) access to coaches, mentors, and business networks; (c) business education and skill development; (d) training to foster personal agency, personal initiative, and entrepreneurial mindsets; and (e) inclusion of men within women’s energy entrepreneurship programming

Isolation of 1-(3',4'-dihydroxyphenyl)-3-(2",4",6"-trihydroxyphenyl)-propan-2-ol from grape seed extract and evaluation of its antioxidant and antispasmodic potential

HPLC profiling of phenolics in grape seed extracts revealed a prominent peak of an unknown substance with concentrations up to 5.3%. Spectroscopic data allowed the identification of the compound 1 as 1-(3′,4′-dihydroxyphenyl)-3-(2″,4″,6″-trihydroxyphenyl)-propan-2-ol. 1 is known to be produced from catechin and epicatechin through anaerobic bacteria from human, as well as the rat, intestines. It was hypothesized that the marc remaining after expression of juice from grapes became infested during storage, resulting in the production of 1. Because compound 1 is infrequently found in nature and has never been found in grape seeds, its presence may be considered a marker of an unwanted anaerobic bacterial process occurring during production. The antioxidant potential of 1 was determined by DPPH, ABTS, and FRAP (ferric reducing antioxidant power) assays and compared to the potential of the following compounds: phloroglucine, pyrogallol, gallic acid, catechin, and epicatechin. Furthermore, it was established that 1 significantly reduced guinea pig ileum contraction induced by histamine

Russia’s Legal Transitions: Marxist Theory, Neoclassical Economics and the Rule of Law

We review the role of economic theory in shaping the process of legal change in Russia during the two transitions it experienced during the course of the twentieth century: the transition to a socialist economy organised along the lines of state ownership of the means of production in the 1920s, and the transition to a market economy which occurred after the fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Despite differences in methodology and in policy implications, Marxist theory, dominant in the 1920s, and neoclassical economics, dominant in the 1990s, offered a similarly reductive account of law as subservient to wider economic forces. In both cases, the subordinate place accorded to law undermined the transition process. Although path dependence and history are frequently invoked to explain the limited development of the rule of law in Russia during the 1990s, policy choices driven by a deterministic conception of law and economics also played a role.This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s40803-015-0012-

Insights into the ceria-catalyzed ketonization reaction for biofuels applications

The ketonization of small organic acids is a valuable reaction for biorenewable applications. Ceria has long been used as a catalyst for this reaction; however, under both liquid and vapor phase conditions, it was found that given the right temperature regime of about 150-300 °C, cerium oxide, which was previously believed to be a stable catalyst for ketonization, can undergo bulk transformations. This result, along with other literature reports, suggest that the long held belief of two separate reaction pathways for either bulk or surface ketonization reactions are not required to explain the interaction of cerium oxide with organic acids. X-ray photon spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and temperature programmed decomposition results supported the formation of metal acetates and explained the occurrence of cerium reduction as well as the formation of cerium oxide/acetate whiskers. After thermogravimetry/mass spectrometry and FT-IR experiments, a single reaction sequence is proposed that can be applied to either surface or bulk reactions with ceria

The Chlorophyll Catabolite, Pheophorbide a, Confers Predation Resistance in a Larval Tortoise Beetle Shield Defense

Larval insect herbivores feeding externally on leaves are vulnerable to numerous and varied enemies. Larvae of the Neotropical herbivore, Chelymorpha alternans (Chrysomelidae:Cassidinae), possess shields made of cast skins and feces, which can be aimed and waved at attacking enemies. Prior work with C. alternans feeding on Merremia umbellata (Convolvulaceae) showed that shields offered protection from generalist predators, and polar compounds were implicated. This study used a ubiquitous ant predator, Azteca lacrymosa, in field bioassays to determine the chemical constitution of the defense. We confirmed that intact shields do protect larvae and that methanol-water leaching significantly reduced shield effectiveness. Liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) of the methanolic shield extract revealed two peaks at 20.18 min and 21.97 min, both with a molecular ion at m/z 593.4, and a strong UV absorption around 409 nm, suggesting a porphyrin-type compound. LC-MS analysis of a commercial standard confirmed pheophorbide a (Pha) identity. C. alternans shields contained more than 100 μg Pha per shield. Shields leached with methanol-water did not deter ants. Methanol-water-leached shields enhanced with 3 μg of Pha were more deterrent than larvae with solvent-leached shields, while those with 5 μg additional Pha provided slightly less deterrence than larvae with intact shields. Solvent-leached shields with 10 μg added Pha were comparable to intact shields, even though the Pha concentration was less than 10% of its natural concentration. Our findings are the first to assign an ecological role for a chlorophyll catabolite as a deterrent in an insect defense

Sorting Signals, N-Terminal Modifications and Abundance of the Chloroplast Proteome

Characterization of the chloroplast proteome is needed to understand the essential contribution of the chloroplast to plant growth and development. Here we present a large scale analysis by nanoLC-Q-TOF and nanoLC-LTQ-Orbitrap mass spectrometry (MS) of ten independent chloroplast preparations from Arabidopsis thaliana which unambiguously identified 1325 proteins. Novel proteins include various kinases and putative nucleotide binding proteins. Based on repeated and independent MS based protein identifications requiring multiple matched peptide sequences, as well as literature, 916 nuclear-encoded proteins were assigned with high confidence to the plastid, of which 86% had a predicted chloroplast transit peptide (cTP). The protein abundance of soluble stromal proteins was calculated from normalized spectral counts from LTQ-Obitrap analysis and was found to cover four orders of magnitude. Comparison to gel-based quantification demonstrates that ‘spectral counting’ can provide large scale protein quantification for Arabidopsis. This quantitative information was used to determine possible biases for protein targeting prediction by TargetP and also to understand the significance of protein contaminants. The abundance data for 550 stromal proteins was used to understand abundance of metabolic pathways and chloroplast processes. We highlight the abundance of 48 stromal proteins involved in post-translational proteome homeostasis (including aminopeptidases, proteases, deformylases, chaperones, protein sorting components) and discuss the biological implications. N-terminal modifications were identified for a subset of nuclear- and chloroplast-encoded proteins and a novel N-terminal acetylation motif was discovered. Analysis of cTPs and their cleavage sites of Arabidopsis chloroplast proteins, as well as their predicted rice homologues, identified new species-dependent features, which will facilitate improved subcellular localization prediction. No evidence was found for suggested targeting via the secretory system. This study provides the most comprehensive chloroplast proteome analysis to date and an expanded Plant Proteome Database (PPDB) in which all MS data are projected on identified gene models

Association of Calcineurin with the COPI Protein Sec28 and the COPII Protein Sec13 Revealed by Quantitative Proteomics

Calcineurin is a calcium-calmodulin-dependent serine/threonine specific protein phosphatase operating in key cellular processes governing responses to extracellular cues. Calcineurin is essential for growth at high temperature and virulence of the human fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans but the underlying mechanism is unknown. We performed a mass spectrometry analysis to identify proteins that associate with the calcineurin A catalytic subunit (Cna1) in C. neoformans cells grown under non-stress and high temperature stress conditions. A novel prioritization strategy for mass spectrometry data from immunoprecipitation experiments identified putative substrates and proteins potentially operating with calcineurin in common pathways. Cna1 co-purified with proteins involved in membrane trafficking including the COPI component Sec28 and the COPII component Sec13. The association of Cna1 with Sec28 and Sec13 was confirmed by co-immunoprecipitation. Cna1 exhibited a dramatic change in subcellular localization during high temperature stress from diffuse cytoplasmic to ER-associated puncta and the mother-bud neck and co-localized with Sec28 and Sec13