A personal historic perspective on the role of chloride in skeletal and cardiac muscle

During the early decades of the last century, skeletal muscle was held to be impermeable to chloride ions. This theory, based on shaky grounds, was famously falsified by Boyle and Conway in 1941. Two decades later and onwards, the larger part of the resting conductance of skeletal muscle was found to be due to chloride ions, sensitive to the chemical environment, and to be time‐and‐voltage dependent. So, much of the groundwork for the physiological role of chloride ions in skeletal muscle was laid before the game‐changing discovery of chloride channels. The early history of the role of chloride in cardiac muscle, and work on the relative permeability to foreign anions of different muscles are also here covered from a personal perspective

Supersymmetric Majoron Inflation

We propose supersymmetric Majoron inflation in which the Majoron field $\Phi$ responsible for generating right-handed neutrino masses may also be suitable for giving low scale "hilltop" inflation, with a discrete lepton number $Z_N$ spontaneously broken at the end of inflation, while avoiding the domain wall problem. In the framework of non-minimal supergravity, we show that a successful spectral index can result with small running together with small tensor modes. We show that a range of heaviest right-handed neutrino masses can be generated, $m_N\sim 10^1-10^{16}$ GeV, consistent with the constraints from reheating and domain walls.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figure

Different perceptions of adaptation to climate change: a mental model approach applied to the evidence from expert interviews

We argue that differences in the perception and governance of adaptation to climate change and extreme weather events are related to sets of beliefs and concepts through which people understand the environment and which are used to solve the problems they face (mental models). Using data gathered in 31 in-depth interviews with adaptation experts in Europe, we identify five basic stakeholder groups whose divergent aims and logic can be related to different mental models they use: advocacy groups, administration, politicians, researchers, and media and the public. Each of these groups uses specific interpretations of climate change and specifies how to deal with climate change impacts. We suggest that a deeper understanding and follow-up of the identified mental models might be useful for the design of any stakeholder involvement in future climate impact research processes. It might also foster consensus building about adequate adaptation measures against climate threats in a society

PUBLIC POLICY EDUCATION ON INFLATION

Financial Economics,

POLICY EDUCATION ON NON-TRADITIONAL SUBJECTS: A PROGRAM ON PUBLIC UTILITY REGULATION

Public Economics,

DERIVING EMPIRICAL DEFINITIONS OF SPATIAL LABOR MARKETS: THE ROLES OF COMPETING VERSUS COMPLEMENTARY GROWTH

Rural communities compete with each other for firms, but their residents often commute large distances to work. Consequently, rural communities can benefit from economic growth occurring as much as 50 miles away. Data on county population growth shows that counties benefit from growth one or two counties away.Labor and Human Capital,

THE EFFECTS OF HOUSING PRICES, WAGES, AND COMMUTING TIME ON JOINT RESIDENTIAL AND JOB LOCATION CHOICES

A utility maximizing framework is used to model how wages, housing prices, and commuting time affect joint decisions of where to live and where to work. The implied multinomial logit model yields plausible estimates of the role of economic variables on joint residence/job location choices.Labor and Human Capital,

THE DETERMINANTS OF PARTICIPATION DECISION IN OFF-FARM WORK: THE IOWA CASE

This paper examines factors affecting the role of individual, farm production, family finance, and regional characteristics in affecting labor force decisions by farm households. Young, more educated households are much more likely to work off-farm, suggesting that off-farm labor has become an expected part of new farm households.Farm Management, Labor and Human Capital,

Meat Packing and Processing Facilities in the Non-Metropolitan Midwest: Blessing or Curse?

Growth in the meat packing and processing industry in the Midwestern United States has generated a significant amount of debate regarding the costs and benefits of this type of economic development. This research employs 1990-2000 proprietary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Longitudinal Database (LDB) to investigate the effects of this industry on social and economic outcomes in non-metropolitan counties of twelve Midwestern states. The empirical specification uses a difference-in-differences specification to measure the effect of industry growth on local economic growth, government expenditures, and crime. Propensity score matching is used as a check on possible non-random placement of meat packing and processing plants. Results suggest that as the meat packing industry's share of a country's total employment and wage bill rises, total employment growth increases. However, employment growth in other sectors slows, as does local wage growth. There is some evidence that slower wage growth swamps the employment growth so that aggregate income grows more slowly. We find no evidence that growth in the industry changes the growth rates for crime or government spending.Community/Rural/Urban Development,