A Family Affair: The Pre-Kansas Saga of James Henry Lane

Historian Craig Miner suggests that territorial Kansas between 1854 and 1861 was a nursery of weird and manic figures. Foremost among the weird and manic figures of Kansas history stands James Henry Lane, formerly a U.S. congressman from Indiana, and destined to become one of Kansas\u27 first pair of senators. Writing at the midpoint of the twentieth century, Albert Castel pronounced Jim Lane the most colorful and fascinating personality in the history of Kansas, adding that Very likely, too, he was mentally unbalanced and paranoid. Yet, James H. Lane never set foot on Kansas soil until he was well into his fortieth year of life. Thus, the individual who by 1860 earned a national reputation as the Grim Chieftain of Kansas hardly sprang full-blown from the prairies of his adopted state. He was, rather, haunted by a tragic past that has been largely overlooked by historians. So traumatic were the events that predated Jim Lane\u27s arrival in Kansas that they arguably determined his behavior after he settled in the territory, and ultimately became part of the mix of variables that led to his suicide shortly after the Civil War. In 1854, Lane\u27s mother, Mary Foote Howse Lane, warned her son, What a man is at forty, he will continue to be through the remainder of his life. The present study aspires to shed light on what made Jim Lane the man he was as he celebrated his fortieth birthday, just under a year before he immigrated to Kansas. Lane biographer Ian Spugeon recently noted the habit of historians to focus almost solely on Lane in Kansas, as well as a need to interpret Lane\u27s actions in the broader context of the collapse of the second-party system and the sectional conflict. Aspiring to help fill that gap, the present study suggests that a leitmotif of the Lane story involves the inception, as much as the collapse, of America\u27s second two-party system. Moreover, the saga of Jim Lane before Kansas was essentially a family affair. Enablers so far largely neglected by historians inspired and helped him along the way

Using Blackboard Collaborate, a digital web conference tool, to support nursing students placement learning : A pilot study exploring its impact

Ensuring student nurses, when in clinical placement areas, receive good quality Higher Education Institution (HEI) lecturer support is challenging. This is because conventional HEI placement support, is resource intensive and arguably infeasible with growing student numbers. Evidence suggests, however, that online collaborative learning solutions (e.g., virtual classrooms, web conferencing tools) have the potential to ameliorate resource pressures. To test this idea, an online learning solution called Blackboard Collaborate was piloted. It virtually connected, students and their preceptors to a university lecturer. Its usefulness was explored by obtaining qualitative, focus group data, from the students and preceptor participants. The findings were thematically analysed. Collaborate ensured all three parties were connected. It was a time efficient, easy to use technology. Despite technical glitches, i.e. occasional time delay and audio echo, participants concluded Collaborate was an efficient medium when placement needs were routine. Face-to-face was preferable when more intensive support was required. In today's busy times, HEI's must explore time effective methods of placement collaboration. Online collaborative tools are one solution. Students will, however, need to develop their digital literacy in using this technology. The benefit being when qualified they are more likely to embrace this form of technology to promote their efficiency

A comparison of bunk management strategies and their effect on cattle performance and health

The Australian feedlot industry has sufficient capacity to feed approximately 870 000 head (ALFA Lotfeeding 1997) and contributes approximately 25% of total beef production in Australia. The industry is composed of feedlots incorporated into vertically integrated companies, custom feedlots, pastoral operations and opportunity feedlots. Custom feedlots feed and market cattle for other owners, the pastoral operations value add and retain control over breeding programmes and opportunity feedlots feed cattle on a opportunistic basis when market conditions, eg. feed costs, cattle costs and selling price, are economically beneficial

Measuring the capability to raise revenue process and output dimensions and their application to the Zambia revenue authority

The worldwide diffusion of the good governance agenda and new public management has triggered a renewed focus on state capability and, more specifically, on the capability to raise revenue in developing countries. However, the analytical tools for a comprehensive understanding of the capability to raise revenue remain underdeveloped. This article aims at filling this gap and presents a model consisting of the three process dimensions ‘information collection and processing’, ‘merit orientation’ and ‘administrative accountability’. ‘Revenue performance’ constitutes the fourth capability dimension which assesses tax administration’s output. This model is applied to the case of the Zambia Revenue Authority. The dimensions prove to be valuable not only for assessing the how much but also the how of collecting taxes. They can be a useful tool for future comparative analyses of tax administrations’ capabilities in developing countries.Die weltweite Verbreitung der Good-Governance- und New-Public-Management-Konzepte hat zu einer zunehmenden Konzentration auf staatliche Leistungsfähigkeit und, im Besonderen, auf die Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuererhebung in Entwicklungsländern geführt. Allerdings bleiben die analytischen Werkzeuge für ein umfassendes Verständnis von Leistungsfähigkeit unterentwickelt. Dieser Artikel stellt hierfür ein Modell vor, das die drei Prozess-Dimensionen „Sammeln und Verarbeiten von Informationen“, „Leistungsorientierung der Mitarbeiter“ und „Verantwortlichkeit der Verwaltung“ beinhaltet. „Einnahmeperformanz“ ist die vierte Dimension und erfasst den Output der Steuerverwaltung. Das mehrdimensionale Modell wird für die Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit der Steuerbehörde Zambias (Zambia Revenue Authority) genutzt. Es erweist sich nicht nur für die Untersuchung des Wieviel, sondern auch des Wie des Erhebens von Steuern als wertvoll. Die vier Dimensionen können in Zukunft zur umfassenden und vergleichenden Analyse der Leistungsfähigkeit verschiedener Steuerverwaltungen in Entwicklungsländern genutzt werden

International Coercion, Emulation and Policy Diffusion: Market-Oriented Infrastructure Reforms, 1977-1999

Why do some countries adopt market-oriented reforms such as deregulation, privatization and liberalization of competition in their infrastructure industries while others do not? Why did the pace of adoption accelerate in the 1990s? Building on neo-institutional theory in sociology, we argue that the domestic adoption of market-oriented reforms is strongly influenced by international pressures of coercion and emulation. We find robust support for these arguments with an event-history analysis of the determinants of reform in the telecommunications and electricity sectors of as many as 205 countries and territories between 1977 and 1999. Our results also suggest that the coercive effect of multilateral lending from the IMF, the World Bank or Regional Development Banks is increasing over time, a finding that is consistent with anecdotal evidence that multilateral organizations have broadened the scope of the “conditionality” terms specifying market-oriented reforms imposed on borrowing countries. We discuss the possibility that, by pressuring countries into policy reform, cross-national coercion and emulation may not produce ideal outcomes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/40099/3/wp713.pd

Analysis and functional classification of transcripts from the nematode Meloidogyne incognita

BACKGROUND: Plant parasitic nematodes are major pathogens of most crops. Molecular characterization of these species as well as the development of new techniques for control can benefit from genomic approaches. As an entrée to characterizing plant parasitic nematode genomes, we analyzed 5,700 expressed sequence tags (ESTs) from second-stage larvae (L2) of the root-knot nematode Meloidogyne incognita. RESULTS: From these, 1,625 EST clusters were formed and classified by function using the Gene Ontology (GO) hierarchy and the Kyoto KEGG database. L2 larvae, which represent the infective stage of the life cycle before plant invasion, express a diverse array of ligand-binding proteins and abundant cytoskeletal proteins. L2 are structurally similar to Caenorhabditis elegans dauer larva and the presence of transcripts encoding glyoxylate pathway enzymes in the M. incognita clusters suggests that root-knot nematode larvae metabolize lipid stores while in search of a host. Homology to other species was observed in 79% of translated cluster sequences, with the C. elegans genome providing more information than any other source. In addition to identifying putative nematode-specific and Tylenchida-specific genes, sequencing revealed previously uncharacterized horizontal gene transfer candidates in Meloidogyne with high identity to rhizobacterial genes including homologs of nodL acetyltransferase and novel cellulases. CONCLUSIONS: With sequencing from plant parasitic nematodes accelerating, the approaches to transcript characterization described here can be applied to more extensive datasets and also provide a foundation for more complex genome analyses

Isolation of Angola-like Marburg virus from Egyptian rousette bats from West Africa.

Marburg virus (MARV) causes sporadic outbreaks of severe Marburg virus disease (MVD). Most MVD outbreaks originated in East Africa and field studies in East Africa, South Africa, Zambia, and Gabon identified the Egyptian rousette bat (ERB; Rousettus aegyptiacus) as a natural reservoir. However, the largest recorded MVD outbreak with the highest case-fatality ratio happened in 2005 in Angola, where direct spillover from bats was not  shown. Here, collaborative studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Njala University, University of California, Davis USAID-PREDICT, and the University of Makeni identify MARV circulating in ERBs in Sierra Leone. PCR, antibody and virus isolation data from 1755 bats of 42 species shows active MARV infection in approximately 2.5% of ERBs. Phylogenetic analysis identifies MARVs that are similar to the Angola strain. These results provide evidence of MARV circulation in West Africa and demonstrate the value of pathogen surveillance to identify previously undetected threats

Transmission of HIV-1 infection in sub-Saharan Africa and effect of elimination of unsafe injections

During the past year, a group has argued that unsafe injections are a major if not the main mode of HIV-1 transmission\ud in sub-Saharan Africa. We review the main arguments used to question the epidemiological interpretations on the lead\ud role of unsafe sex in HIV-1 transmission, and conclude there is no compelling evidence that unsafe injections are a\ud predominant mode of HIV-1 transmission in sub-Saharan Africa. Conversely, though there is a clear need to eliminate\ud all unsafe injections, epidemiological evidence indicates that sexual transmission continues to be by far the major\ud mode of spread of HIV-1 in the region. Increased efforts are needed to reduce sexual transmission of HIV-1

Compensatory mutations reducing the fitness cost of plasmid carriage occur in plant rhizosphere communities

Plasmids drive bacterial evolutionary innovation by transferring ecologically important functions between lineages, but acquiring a plasmid often comes at a fitness cost to the host cell. Compensatory mutations, which ameliorate the cost of plasmid carriage, promote plasmid maintenance in simplified laboratory media across diverse plasmid-host associations. Whether such compensatory evolution can occur in more complex communities inhabiting natural environmental niches where evolutionary paths may be more constrained is, however, unclear. Here, we show a substantial fitness cost of carrying the large conjugative plasmid pQBR103 in Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 in the plant rhizosphere. This plasmid fitness cost could be ameliorated by compensatory mutations affecting the chromosomal global regulatory system gacA/gacS, which arose rapidly in plant rhizosphere communities and were exclusive to plasmid carriers. These findings expand our understanding of the importance of compensatory evolution in plasmid dynamics beyond simplified lab media. Compensatory mutations contribute to plasmid survival in bacterial populations living within complex microbial communities in their environmental niche