Is there a case for in-kind income transfers?: an analysis of the low-income housing and food stamp programs

The primary objective of this research was to assess the equity and efficiency of in-kind income transfers. The analytical framework employed incorporated key concepts of the utility interdependence paradigm from economic welfare theory. This paradigm views income transfers as social goods and suggests that social as well as private benefits may be derived from the redistribution of income. This study attempted to assess some of the empirical implications of the utility interdependence argument through the investigation of the low-income housing and Food Stamp programs in Multnomah County, Oregon for FY 1973. Data were drawn from agency files, published statistics and documents, interviews with program administrators, and a survey of the records of 498 Non-Public Assistance Food stamp households. The private and social benefits and costs of the programs were estimated. The program participation rates and the socio-economic characteristics of recipient households were ascertained. Particular attention was devoted to an evaluaLion of the efficacy of in-kind transfers in inducing substitution effects or producing social benefits through the alteration of the consumption patterns of the target population. In addition to an economic analysis of in-kind transfers, the political environment of welfare legislation was detailed. The results of this research suggest that in-kind income transfers are an inefficient and inequitable method of redistributing income. All programs investigated were characterized by high administrative costs. The administrative share of the public program budget ranged from 20% in the Food Stamp Program to over 50% in Public Housing. All programs were found to be inequitable in that households with similar socio-economic characteristics did not receive similar benefits. Housing programs discriminate among the equally needy by restricting supply. In the Food Stamp Program, a complex income determination formula, which is used to calculate program benefits, results in a considerable variation in the subsidies provided to households of equivalent size and income. The low-income housing and Food Stamp programs were also found to be ineffective in producing those social benefits which are specifically related to changes in the consumption patterns of the target population as a whole. While housing programs were found to induce substitution effects by furnishing large subsidies to a small number of households, only 5% of the eligible received benefits. Programs which leave the vast majority of the poorly housed untouched were judged unlikely to significantly diminish the external diseconomies presumed to be associated with the housing expenditure patterns of the entire population of eligible. In contrast, the Food stamp Program provides less generous subsidies to all eligible applicants. Food stamp subsidies were found to be insufficient to generate substitution effects; the food consumption patterns demanded of recipient households were not different from the food expenditure patterns of comparable households with income entirely in cash. While the distribution of benefits in the housing and Food stamp programs strongly favors the poor, large numbers of non-poor are officially eligible for assistance. It was estimated that 37% of the households in the country were eligible for low-income housing and approximately 46% were eligible for food stamps. While the tight supply of housing transfers limits the growth of program participation, an enormous expansion of participation in the open-ended Food Stamp Program is possible. The economic analysis of in-kind transfer programs emphasized their deficiencies as redistributive mechanisms. However, the political potency of in-kind programs was found to be considerable. Policy-makers appear to be responsive to pressures to perpetuate and expand established programs, rather than to empirically validate the assumptions on which they are based. In view of the political popularity of in-kind transfers and the public antipathy to transfers of cash, it is probable that transfers in-kind will command an increasing share of the welfare budget

Neurological soft signs and school achievement: The mediating effects of sustained attention

Citation: Schonfeld, I. S., Shaffer, D., & Barmack, J.E. (1989). Neurological soft signs and school achievement: The mediating effects of sustained attention. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 17, 575-596. doi:10.1007/BF0091772

Early soft signs and later psychopathology

At age 17 two motor signs, mirror movements and dysdiadochokinesis, were found in more than half the subjects known to have had the respective signs at age 7. These rates were significantly higher than rates found within the group of subjects who were sign free at age 7

The Viscoelastic Properties of Passive Eye Muscle in Primates. I: Static Forces and Step Responses

The viscoelastic properties of passive eye muscles are prime determinants of the deficits observed following eye muscle paralysis, the root cause of several types of strabismus. Our limited knowledge about such properties is hindering the ability of eye plant models to assist in formulating a patient's diagnosis and prognosis. To investigate these properties we conducted an extensive in vivo study of the mechanics of passive eye muscles in deeply anesthetized and paralyzed monkeys. We describe here the static length-tension relationship and the transient forces elicited by small step-like elongations. We found that the static force increases nonlinearly with length, as previously shown. As expected, an elongation step induces a fast rise in force, followed by a prolonged decay. The time course of the decay is however considerably more complex than previously thought, indicating the presence of several relaxation processes, with time constants ranging from 1 ms to at least 40 s. The mechanical properties of passive eye muscles are thus similar to those of many other biological passive tissues. Eye plant models, which for lack of data had to rely on (erroneous) assumptions, will have to be updated to incorporate these properties

Mechanisms and functional roles of glutamatergic synapse diversity in a cerebellar circuit

Synaptic currents display a large degree of heterogeneity of their temporal characteristics, but the functional role of such heterogeneities remains unknown. We investigated in rat cerebellar slices synaptic currents in Unipolar Brush Cells (UBCs), which generate intrinsic mossy fibers relaying vestibular inputs to the cerebellar cortex. We show that UBCs respond to sinusoidal modulations of their sensory input with heterogeneous amplitudes and phase shifts. Experiments and modeling indicate that this variability results both from the kinetics of synaptic glutamate transients and from the diversity of postsynaptic receptors. While phase inversion is produced by an mGluR2-activated outward conductance in OFF-UBCs, the phase delay of ON UBCs is caused by a late rebound current resulting from AMPAR recovery from desensitization. Granular layer network modeling indicates that phase dispersion of UBC responses generates diverse phase coding in the granule cell population, allowing climbing-fiber-driven Purkinje cell learning at arbitrary phases of the vestibular input

Development and organization of polarity-specific segregation of primary vestibular afferent fibers in mice

A striking feature of vestibular hair cells is the polarized arrangement of their stereocilia as the basis for their directional sensitivity. In mammals, each of the vestibular end organs is characterized by a distinct distribution of these polarized cells. We utilized the technique of post-fixation transganglionic neuronal tracing with fluorescent lipid soluble dyes in embryonic and postnatal mice to investigate whether these polarity characteristics correlate with the pattern of connections between the endorgans and their central targets; the vestibular nuclei and cerebellum. We found that the cerebellar and brainstem projections develop independently from each other and have a non-overlapping distribution of neurons and afferents from E11.5 on. In addition, we show that the vestibular fibers projecting to the cerebellum originate preferentially from the lateral half of the utricular macula and the medial half of the saccular macula. In contrast, the brainstem vestibular afferents originate primarily from the medial half of the utricular macula and the lateral half of the saccular macula. This indicates that the line of hair cell polarity reversal within the striola region segregates almost mutually exclusive central projections. A possible interpretation of this feature is that this macular organization provides an inhibitory side-loop through the cerebellum to produce synergistic tuning effects in the vestibular nuclei. The canal cristae project to the brainstem vestibular nuclei and cerebellum, but the projection to the vestibulocerebellum originates preferentially from the superior half of each of the cristae. The reason for this pattern is not clear, but it may compensate for unequal activation of crista hair cells or may be an evolutionary atavism reflecting a different polarity organization in ancestral vertebrate ears

The cerebellum linearly encodes whisker position during voluntary movement

Active whisking is an important model sensorimotor behavior, but the function of the cerebellum in the rodent whisker system is unknown. We have made patch clamp recordings from Purkinje cells in vivo to identify whether cerebellar output encodes kinematic features of whisking including the phase and set point. We show that Purkinje cell spiking activity changes strongly during whisking bouts. On average, the changes in simple spike rate coincide with or slightly precede movement, indicating that the synaptic drive responsible for these changes is predominantly of efferent (motor) rather than re-afferent (sensory) origin. Remarkably, on-going changes in simple spike rate provide an accurate linear read-out of whisker set point. Thus, despite receiving several hundred thousand discrete synaptic inputs across a non-linear dendritic tree, Purkinje cells integrate parallel fiber input to generate precise information about whisking kinematics through linear changes in firing rate

Visuomotor Cerebellum in Human and Nonhuman Primates

In this paper, we will review the anatomical components of the visuomotor cerebellum in human and, where possible, in non-human primates and discuss their function in relation to those of extracerebellar visuomotor regions with which they are connected. The floccular lobe, the dorsal paraflocculus, the oculomotor vermis, the uvula–nodulus, and the ansiform lobule are more or less independent components of the visuomotor cerebellum that are involved in different corticocerebellar and/or brain stem olivocerebellar loops. The floccular lobe and the oculomotor vermis share different mossy fiber inputs from the brain stem; the dorsal paraflocculus and the ansiform lobule receive corticopontine mossy fibers from postrolandic visual areas and the frontal eye fields, respectively. Of the visuomotor functions of the cerebellum, the vestibulo-ocular reflex is controlled by the floccular lobe; saccadic eye movements are controlled by the oculomotor vermis and ansiform lobule, while control of smooth pursuit involves all these cerebellar visuomotor regions. Functional imaging studies in humans further emphasize cerebellar involvement in visual reflexive eye movements and are discussed

Synaptic Responses Evoked by Tactile Stimuli in Purkinje Cells in Mouse Cerebellar Cortex Crus II In Vivo

Sensory stimuli evoke responses in cerebellar Purkinje cells (PCs) via the mossy fiber-granule cell pathway. However, the properties of synaptic responses evoked by tactile stimulation in cerebellar PCs are unknown. The present study investigated the synaptic responses of PCs in response to an air-puff stimulation on the ipsilateral whisker pad in urethane-anesthetized mice.Thirty-three PCs were recorded from 48 urethane-anesthetized adult (6-8-week-old) HA/ICR mice by somatic or dendritic patch-clamp recording and pharmacological methods. Tactile stimulation to the ipsilateral whisker pad was delivered by an air-puff through a 12-gauge stainless steel tube connected with a pressurized injection system. Under current-clamp conditions (I = 0), the air-puff stimulation evoked strong inhibitory postsynaptic potentials (IPSPs) in the somata of PCs. Application of SR95531, a specific GABA(A) receptor antagonist, blocked IPSPs and revealed stimulation-evoked simple spike firing. Under voltage-clamp conditions, tactile stimulation evoked a sequence of transient inward currents followed by strong outward currents in the somata and dendrites in PCs. Application of SR95531 blocked outward currents and revealed excitatory postsynaptic currents (EPSCs) in somata and a temporal summation of parallel fiber EPSCs in PC dendrites. We also demonstrated that PCs respond to both the onset and offset of the air-puff stimulation.These findings indicated that tactile stimulation induced asynchronous parallel fiber excitatory inputs onto the dendrites of PCs, and failed to evoke strong EPSCs and spike firing in PCs, but induced the rapid activation of strong GABA(A) receptor-mediated inhibitory postsynaptic currents in the somata and dendrites of PCs in the cerebellar cortex Crus II in urethane-anesthetized mice

Roles of Molecular Layer Interneurons in Sensory Information Processing in Mouse Cerebellar Cortex Crus II In Vivo

Cerebellar cortical molecular layer interneurons (MLIs) play essential roles in sensory information processing by the cerebellar cortex. However, recent experimental and modeling results are questioning traditional roles for molecular layer inhibition in the cerebellum. receptors uncovered larger EPSCs in PCs whose time to peak, half-width and 10–90% rising time were also significantly slower than in MLIs. Biocytin labeling indicated that the MLIs (but not PCs) are dye-coupled.These findings indicate that tactile face stimulation evokes rapid excitation in MLIs and inhibition occurring at later latencies in PCs in mouse cerebellar cortex Crus II. These results support previous suggestions that the lack of parallel fiber driven PC activity is due to the effect of MLI inhibition