The Earned Income Tax Credit and Food Consumption Patterns

The Earned Income Tax Credit is unique among social programs in that benefits are not paid out evenly across the calendar year. We exploit this feature of the EITC to investigate how the credit influences the food expenditure patterns of eligible households. We find that eligible households spend relatively more on healthy items including fresh fruit and vegetables, meat and poultry, and dairy products during the months when most refunds are paid

Viral Bcl2s' transmembrane domain interact with host Bcl2 proteins to control cellular apoptosis

Viral control of programmed cell death relies in part on the expression of viral analogs of the B-cell lymphoma 2 (Bcl2) protein known as viral Bcl2s (vBcl2s). vBcl2s control apoptosis by interacting with host pro- and anti-apoptotic members of the Bcl2 family. Here, we show that the carboxyl-terminal hydrophobic region of herpesviral and poxviral vBcl2s can operate as transmembrane domains (TMDs) and participate in their homo-oligomerization. Additionally, we show that the viral TMDs mediate interactions with cellular pro- and anti-apoptotic Bcl2 TMDs within the membrane. Furthermore, these intra-membrane interactions among viral and cellular proteins are necessary to control cell death upon an apoptotic stimulus. Therefore, their inhibition represents a new potential therapy against viral infections, which are characterized by short- and long-term deregulation of programmed cell death

Managing and presenting user attributes over a decentralized secure name system

Today, user attributes are managed at centralized identity providers. However, two centralized identity providers dominate digital identity and access management on the web. This is increasingly becoming a privacy problem in times of mass surveillance and data mining for targeted advertisement. Existing systems for attribute sharing or credential presentation either rely on a trusted third party service or require the presentation to be online and synchronous. In this paper we propose a concept that allows the user to manage and share his attributes asynchronously with a requesting party using a secure, decentralized name system

Practical Decentralized Attribute-Based Delegation Using Secure Name Systems

Identity and trust in the modern Internet are centralized around an oligopoly of identity service providers consisting solely of major tech companies. The problem with centralizing trust has become evident in recent discoveries of mass surveillance and censorship programs as well as information leakage through hacking incidents. One approach to decentralizing trust is distributed, attribute-based access control via attribute-based delegation (ABD). Attribute-based delegation allows a large number of cross-domain attribute issuers to be used in making authorization decisions. Attributes are not only issued to identities, but can also be delegated to other attributes issued by different entities in the system. The resulting trust chains can then be resolved by any entity given an appropriate attribute storage and resolution system. While current proposals often fail at the practicability, we show how attribute-based delegation can be realized on top of the secure GNU Name System (GNS) to solve an authorization problem in a real-world scenario

Interaction of Substrates with γ-Secretase at the Level of Individual Transmembrane Helices—A Methodological Approach

Intramembrane proteases, such as γ secretase, typically recruit multiple substrates from an excess of single-span membrane proteins. It is currently unclear to which extent substrate recognition depends on specific interactions of their transmembrane domains (TMDs) with TMDs of a protease. Here, we investigated a large number of potential pairwise interactions between TMDs of γ secretase and a diverse set of its substrates using two different configurations of BLaTM, a genetic reporter system. Our results reveal significant interactions between TMD2 of presenilin, the enzymatic subunit of γ secretase, and the TMD of the amyloid precursor protein, as well as of several other substrates. Presenilin TMD2 is a prime candidate for substrate recruitment, as has been shown from previous studies. In addition, the amyloid precursor protein TMD enters interactions with presenilin TMD 4 as well as with the TMD of nicastrin. Interestingly, the Gly-rich interfaces between the amyloid precursor protein TMD and presenilin TMDs 2 and 4 are highly similar to its homodimerization interface. In terms of methodology, the economics of the newly developed library-based method could prove to be a useful feature in related future work for identifying heterotypic TMD−TMD interactions within other biological contexts

The Economics of Food Insecurity in the United States

Food insecurity is experienced by millions of Americans, and its prevalence has increased dramatically in recent years. Due to its prevalence and many demonstrated negative health consequences, food insecurity is one of the most important nutrition-related public health issues in the U.S. In this article, we cover how economic insights and models have improved our understanding of the determinants of food insecurity, the effects of food insecurity on health outcomes, and the impact of food assistance programs on food insecurity. We conclude with a discussion of several issues where economists can provide further insights

Temperature-Dependent Phase Behavior of the Thermoresponsive Polymer Poly( N -isopropylmethacrylamide) in an Aqueous Solution

Poly(N-isopropylmethacrylamide) (PNIPMAM) is a thermoresponsive polymer, exhibiting lower critical solution temperature (LCST) behavior in aqueous solution. We investigate the temperature-dependent phase behavior of PNIPMAM solutions in D2O using turbidimetry, differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), small-angle and very small-angle neutron scattering (SANS and VSANS), and Raman spectroscopy, covering a large concentration range and compare the results from PNIPMAM with the findings from its analogue poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM). We find that the PNIPMAM chains only dehydrate 2-3 °C above the macroscopic cloud point temperature, TCP. Even in the one-phase state, loosely packed, large-scale inhomogeneities and physical crosslinks are observed, and the chain conformation of PNIPMAM is more compact than the one of PNIPAM. This is attributed to the attractive intermolecular interactions between the hydrophobic moieties. The phase transition of PNIPMAM is broader than the one of PNIPAM. Upon heating to the two-phase state, the PNIPMAM chains collapse and form mesoglobules. These are larger and more hydrated than for PNIPAM. This is attributed to the steric hindrance caused by the additional methyl groups, which weaken the intrapolymer interactions in the two-phase state. Thus, the methyl groups in the backbone of the PNIPMAM chains have a significant impact on the hydration and the structural behavior around the phase transition