Brokers, voters and clientelism

The book is about distributive politics. The received theories usually predict that parties and governmentswill spend scarce resources on responsive voters. And these responsive voters will be fence-sitters, people who might otherwise not turn out or vote for the party responsible for the distribution but who could be swayed by a favor or a program. Yet over and over again, the evidence seemed to tell us that not fence-sitters but firm party loyalists were the primary beneficiaries of the distributive game. Because we believed in the received theories, we discarded them only reluctantly. Like good Kuhnians, a few anomalies did not shift our paradigm. But eventually the weight of the anomalies was too much. Constructing an alternative theory was only one of the tasks we faced. Our new theory suggested new questions and new observational implications. Many parties can be decomposed into leaders and low-level operatives or brokers. If brokers play the distributive game by different rules than do their leaders, allocations of resources should come out differently when brokers are in control and when leaders are in control. (They do.) If brokers are imperfect agents of party leaders, antimachine reform movements, when they break out, may be driven as much by party leaders as by non-partisan reformers. (In several countries, they have been.) And if brokers are imperfect agents, it should be the case that they impose agency losses on parties and parties should devise elaborate techniques to monitor the brokers and minimize these losses. (We offer evidence that both are true.)Fil: Nazareno, Marcelo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades. Escuela de Historia; Argentina.Fil: Nazareno, Marcelo. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina.Fil: Brusco, Valeria. Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. Facultad de Ciencias Sociales; Argentina.Ciencia Polític

Targeting microRNAs as a Therapeutic Strategy to Reduce Oxidative Stress in Diabetes

Diabetes mellitus is a group of heterogeneous metabolic disorders characterized by chronic hyperglycaemia as a consequence of pancreatic β cell loss and/or dysfunction, also caused by oxidative stress. The molecular mechanisms involved inβ cell dysfunction and in response to oxidative stress are also regulated by microRNAs (miRNAs). miRNAs are a class of negative gene regulators, which modulate pathologic mechanisms occurring in diabetes and its complications. Although several pharmacological therapies specifically targeting miRNAs have already been developed and brought to the clinic, most previous miRNA-based drug delivery methods were unable to target a specific miRNA in a single cell type or tissue, leading to important off-target effects. In order to overcome these issues, aptamers and nanoparticles have been described as non-cytotoxic vehicles for miRNA-based drug delivery. These approaches could represent an innovative way to specifically target and modulate miRNAs involved in oxidative stress in diabetes and its complications. Therefore, the aims of this review are: (i) to report the role of miRNAs involved in oxidative stress in diabetes as promising therapeutic targets; (ii) to shed light onto the new delivery strategies developed to modulate the expression of miRNAs in diseases

Sleep hygiene impacts on episodic memories in young and older adults during quarantine by Covid-19: preliminary results

Sleep benefits off-line memory consolidation. Due to quarantine by Covid-19, sleep routines and sleep quality were affected. Preliminary results from our Lab showed that episodic memory formation is impaired by emotional variables, such as anxiety and depression. We hypothesize that sleep hygiene during quarantine positively impacts memory processes and emotional variables. To test this, we perform a 21-day study. Young and older participants were trained on the episodic memory task (video of neutral content). On day 7 they were tested and half of them began a sleep hygiene program. On day 14, participants were trained in a new episodic task and were tested on day 21. We found that young and older adults that received the sleep hygiene treatment had a positive impact on memory performance. Furthermore, older adults had better performance in memory recognition than young adults independently of the hygiene treatment. Moreover, older adults that received the sleep hygiene treatment showed a positive correlation between the total amount of sleep hygiene activities and the amount of correct recognition as well as a negative correlation with false recognition. We did not found a significant effect on emotional variables. These results demonstrate that sleep hygiene can be an effective tool for young and older adults to improve memory, however one-week treatment is not enough to induce emotional improvements.Fil: Tassone, Leonela Magali. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Moyano, Malen Daiana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Solferino, C.. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaFil: Feldberg, Carolina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto de Neurociencias Buenos Aires S. A.; ArgentinaFil: Tartaglini, Maria Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto de Neurociencias Buenos Aires S. A.; ArgentinaFil: Brusco, I.. Centro de Neuropsiquiatría y Neurología de la Conducta; ArgentinaFil: Forcato, Cecilia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires; ArgentinaXXXV Annual Meeting of the Argentinian Society for Neuroscience ResearchCiudad Autónoma de Buenos AiresArgentinaSociedad Argentina de Investigación en Neurociencia

Evolution of innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia: Similar reality, similar results?

This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published in: “European Planning Studies"; Volume 22, Issue 11, 2014; copyright Taylor & Francis; available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2013.831398[EN] This paper examines the evolution of regional innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia, two regions with similar economic features that implemented close innovation policies in the 1970s and 1980s. We investigate whether their similarities have led to parallel targets, policy tools and governance developments. We show that innovation policy in both regions suffered from the effects of privatization, budget constraints and changes to manufacturing during the 1990s and we highlight the consequences. Although Emilia-Romagna experienced deeper changes to its innovation policy, privatizations and/or the replacement of public funds promoted commercial approaches and induced market failures in both regions. The worst effects of these policies were the implementation of less-risky innovation projects, the shift towards extraregional projects and markets, and the favouring of large firms.López Estornell, M.; Barberá Tomás, JD.; Garcia Reche, A.; Mas Verdú, F. (2013). Evolution of innovation policy in Emilia-Romagna and Valencia: Similar reality, similar results?. European Planning Studies. 22(11):2287-2304. doi:10.1080/09654313.2013.831398S22872304221

Rhodium catalyzed hydrogenation reactions in aqueous micellar systems as green solvents

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.The hydrogenation of itaconic acid and dimethyl itaconate is transferred from methanol to aqueous micellar solutions of several surfactants, e.g., SDS and Triton X-100, in order to facilitate the recovery of the catalyst. The reaction rate and selectivity strongly depends on the chosen surfactant and in some cases also on the surfactant concentration. In the best case the selectivity is the same as in methanol but the reaction rate is still lower because of a lower hydrogen solubility in water. Repetitive semi-batch experiments are chosen to demonstrate that high turn-over-numbers (>1000) can be reached in aqueous micellar solutions. No notable catalyst deactivation is observed in these experiments. The performance of micellar reaction systems is controlled by the partition coefficient of the substrates between the micelles and the continuous aqueous phase which can be predicted using the Conductor-like Screening Model for Real Solvents (COSMO-RS).DFG, EXC 314, Unifying Concepts in Catalysi

A novel SDS-stable dimer of a heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein at presynaptic terminals of squid neurons

Author Posting. © The Author(s), 2015. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Elsevier for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Neuroscience 300 (2015): 381-392, doi:10.1016/j.neuroscience.2015.05.040.The presence of mRNAs in synaptic terminals and their regulated translation are important factors in neuronal communication and plasticity. Heterogeneous nuclear ribonucleoprotein (hnRNP) complexes are involved in the translocation, stability, and subcellular localization of mRNA and the regulation of its translation. Defects in these processes and mutations in components of the hnRNP complexes have been related to the formation of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies and neurodegenerative diseases. Despite much data on mRNA localization and evidence for protein synthesis, as well as the presence of translation machinery, in axons and presynaptic terminals, the identity of RNA-binding proteins involved in RNA transport and function in presynaptic regions is lacking. We previously characterized a strongly basic RNA-binding protein (p65), member of the hnRNP A/B subfamily, in squid presynaptic terminals. Intriguingly, in SDS-PAGE, p65 migrated as a 65 kDa protein, whereas members of the hnRNP A/B family typically have molecular masses ranging from 35 to 42 kDa. In this report we present further biochemical and molecular characterization that shows endogenous p65 to be an SDS-stable dimer composed of ~37 kDa hnRNPA/B-like subunits. We cloned and expressed a recombinant protein corresponding to squid hnRNPA/B-like protein and showed its propensity to aggregate and form SDS-stable dimers in vitro. Our data suggest that this unique hnRNPA/B-like protein co-localizes with synaptic vesicle protein 2 and RNA-binding protein ELAV and thus may serve as a link between local mRNA processing and presynaptic function and regulation.Research was supported by grants to REL from the Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Sao Paulo (FAPESP), the Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) and the Fundação de Apoio ao Ensino, Pesquisa e Assistência do Hospital das Clínicas da FMRP-USP (FAEPA). JAD received financial support from the RI-INBRE Program Grant #8 P20 GM103430-12 from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, NIH, Bethesda, MD. DTPL and GSL received research fellowships from FAPESP and CNPq. REL and JCR received the Productivity-in-Research fellowship from CNPq

Respiratory Syncytial Virus Bronchiolitis in Infancy: The Acute Hospitalization Cost

Introduction: Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) bronchiolitis is among the leading causes of hospitalization in infants. Prophylaxis with palivizumab may reduce RSV infection, but its prescription is restricted to high-risk groups. The aim of the study is to retrospectively determine acute hospitalization costs of bronchiolitis. Materials and methods: Infants aged 1 month-1 year, admitted to Bambino Gesu Children Hospital, Rome, Italy, with a diagnosis of bronchiolitis from January 1 till December 31, 2017, were included in the study. Results: A total of 531 patients were enrolled in the study, and the mean age was 78.75 days. The main etiologic agent causing bronchiolitis was RSV, accounting for 58.38% of infections. The total cost of bronchiolitis hospitalization was 2,958,786 euros. The mean cost per patient was significantly higher in the case of RSV (5,753.43 +/- 2,041.62 euros) compared to other etiology (5,395.15 +/- 2,040.87 euros) (p = 0.04). Discussion: The study confirms the high hospitalization cost associated with bronchiolitis. In detail, in the case of RSV etiology, the cost was higher compared to other etiology, which is likely due to the longer hospitalization and the more frequent admission to the intensive cure department. Conclusion: This study highlights that bronchiolitis is an important cost item even in a tertiary hospital and that cost-effective interventions targeting RSV are increasingly urgent