Simple incentives and group dependence for successful payments for ecosystem services programs: evidence from an experimental game in rural Lao PDR

In this paper, we use a new game-based tool to evaluate the immediate and longer-term behavioral change potential of three different payment for environmental services (PES) delivery mechanisms: direct payments for individual performance, direct payments for group performance and insurance. Results from four rural shifting-cultivation dependent communities in Lao PDR suggest that easily understood group-oriented incentives yield the greatest immediate resource-use reduction and experience less free-riding. Group-based incentives may succeed because they motivate participants to communicate about strategies and coordinate their actions and are perceived as fair. No incentive had a lasting effect after it ceased, but neither did any crowd out the participants’ baseline behavior. Temporary reductions in resource dependence may provide a buffer for development of new livelihoods and longer-term change. Games like the one developed here can help policymakers appropriately target environmental incentive programs to local contexts and teach program participants how incentive schemes work

Gene expression profiling of alveolar soft-part sarcoma (ASPS)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alveolar soft-part sarcoma (ASPS) is an extremely rare, highly vascular soft tissue sarcoma affecting predominantly adolescents and young adults. In an attempt to gain insight into the pathobiology of this enigmatic tumor, we performed the first genome-wide gene expression profiling study.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>For seven patients with confirmed primary or metastatic ASPS, RNA samples were isolated immediately following surgery, reverse transcribed to cDNA and each sample hybridized to duplicate high-density human U133 plus 2.0 microarrays. Array data was then analyzed relative to arrays hybridized to universal RNA to generate an unbiased transcriptome. Subsequent gene ontology analysis was used to identify transcripts with therapeutic or diagnostic potential. A subset of the most interesting genes was then validated using quantitative RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Analysis of patient array data versus universal RNA identified elevated expression of transcripts related to angiogenesis (ANGPTL2, HIF-1 alpha, MDK, c-MET, VEGF, TIMP-2), cell proliferation (PRL, IGFBP1, NTSR2, PCSK1), metastasis (ADAM9, ECM1, POSTN) and steroid biosynthesis (CYP17A1 and STS). A number of muscle-restricted transcripts (ITGB1BP3/MIBP, MYF5, MYF6 and TRIM63) were also identified, strengthening the case for a muscle cell progenitor as the origin of disease. Transcript differentials were validated using real-time PCR and subsequent immunohistochemical analysis confirmed protein expression for several of the most interesting changes (MDK, c-MET, VEGF, POSTN, CYP17A1, ITGB1BP3/MIBP and TRIM63).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Results from this first comprehensive study of ASPS gene expression identifies several targets involved in angiogenesis, metastasis and myogenic differentiation. These efforts represent the first step towards defining the cellular origin, pathogenesis and effective treatment strategies for this atypical malignancy.</p

The new enclosures: critical perspectives on corporate land deals

The contributions to this collection use the tools of agrarian political economy to explore the rapid growth and complex dynamics of large-scale land deals in recent years, with a special focus on the implications of big land deals for property and labour regimes, labour processes and structures of accumulation. The first part of this introductory essay examines the implications of this agrarian political economy perspective. First we explore the continuities and contrasts between historical and contemporary land grabs, before examining the core underlying debate around large- versus small-scale farming futures. Next, we unpack the diverse contexts and causes of land grabbing today, highlighting six overlapping mechanisms. The following section turns to assessing the crisis narratives that frame the justifications for land deals, and the flaws in the argument around there being excess, empty or idle land available. Next the paper turns to an examination of the impacts of land deals, and the processes of inclusion and exclusion at play, before looking at patterns of resistance and constructions of alternatives. The final section introduces the papers in the collection.ESR

The territorial politics of land use planning in Laos

This paper examines land use planning processes in Laos, particularly how they are shaped and reshaped by key actors’ interests and strategies across scales and how they are closely interlinked with state logics of territorialization. It critiques dominant perspectives that view land use planning as a tool for bridging policy and institutional divides to generate holistic land governance. Instead, it presents land use planning as a function of power and a contested arena of power struggle, driven primarily by the development targets of sectoral ministries and the interests of powerful local actors. We show how bureaucratic competition and sectoral fragmentation prevail directly within Laos’s National Land Master Plan formulation process. The paper shows how the logics of land governance in Laos are comprised of a disjuncture between national and local land use planning processes and, a disconnect between formal land use planning and actual land use across scales

The spatial politics of land policy reform in Myanmar and Laos

Land policy reform has dominated the development agenda across the Global South over the past two decades. In contrast with earlier distributive land reforms, contemporary policies reflect an amalgamation of neoliberal, state territorial, and social justice agendas. This paper demonstrates how land policy changes reflect the spatially extensive and multi-scalar politics of land contestation and control, employing the cases of Myanmar and Laos. Myanmar’s short-lived democratic transition enabled civil society actors to exert uneven influence on policy reform. In contrast, communist party and state dominance in Laos has constrained, although not wholly obstructed, policy intervention by non-governmental groups