Laurel, Mississippi: A Historical Perspective.

Laurel, Mississippi, exemplifies the new southern development that occurred in the years following Reconstruction. Coinciding with continental rail building and the depletion of northern timber resources, Laurel emerged as one of Mississippi\u27s great industrial centers. Laurel\u27s survival after the early twentieth century timber boom predicated itself on the diversification of its industry coupled with the continued growth of its infrastructure. Although Laurel\u27s industrial ascension is not unique in the annals of southern history, its duality regarding northern capitalistic impulses and southern labor and material serves as a successful industrial model in the era of cut out and get out sawmill and timber operations. Along with primary resources this study employs secondary source material to place Laurel, Mississippi in the scope of southern historiography. In addition to contextualizing Laurel\u27s place in southern history, this essay also serves to highlight Laurel\u27s social and economic development after the arrival of its northern benefactors

Small-scale farmer participation in new agri-food supply chains: Case of the supermarket supply chain for fruit and vegetables in Honduras

This paper explores the role of transaction costs and collective action in shaping small-scale farmer participation in the fresh fruit and vegetable (FFV) supply chain to supermarkets (SSC) in Honduras. Transaction costs and collective action are found to be significant in determining farmer participation in the SSC. Contrary to the findings of other studies, human capital and farm characteristic variables are not significant, suggesting that small-scale farmers can be included in new supply chains under certain conditions, especially if incentives to farmers, trust-based relationships between buyers and sellers, risk reduction practices and new forms of collective action are put in place. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Retrotransposons Are the Major Contributors to the Expansion of the Drosophila ananassae Muller F Element

The discordance between genome size and the complexity of eukaryotes can partly be attributed to differences in repeat density. The Muller F element (∼5.2 Mb) is the smallest chromosome in Drosophila melanogaster, but it is substantially larger (>18.7 Mb) in D. ananassae. To identify the major contributors to the expansion of the F element and to assess their impact, we improved the genome sequence and annotated the genes in a 1.4-Mb region of the D. ananassae F element, and a 1.7-Mb region from the D element for comparison. We find that transposons (particularly LTR and LINE retrotransposons) are major contributors to this expansion (78.6%), while Wolbachia sequences integrated into the D. ananassae genome are minor contributors (0.02%). Both D. melanogaster and D. ananassae F-element genes exhibit distinct characteristics compared to D-element genes (e.g., larger coding spans, larger introns, more coding exons, and lower codon bias), but these differences are exaggerated in D. ananassae. Compared to D. melanogaster, the codon bias observed in D. ananassae F-element genes can primarily be attributed to mutational biases instead of selection. The 5′ ends of F-element genes in both species are enriched in dimethylation of lysine 4 on histone 3 (H3K4me2), while the coding spans are enriched in H3K9me2. Despite differences in repeat density and gene characteristics, D. ananassae F-element genes show a similar range of expression levels compared to genes in euchromatic domains. This study improves our understanding of how transposons can affect genome size and how genes can function within highly repetitive domains