Targeting the poor in Mexico

This report reevaluates PROGRESA's targeting methods since the program began adding beneficiary households through a process called “densification.” The authors first evaluate PROGRESA's accuracy in targeting both at the community and household levels. Second, they evaluate the targeting in terms of its impact on poverty alleviation relative to other feasible methods assuming the same total budget.Education ,Mexico ,

Who's behind that mask and cape? The Asian leopard cat's Agouti (ASIP) allele likely affects coat colour phenotype in the Bengal cat breed.

Coat colours and patterns are highly variable in cats and are determined mainly by several genes with Mendelian inheritance. A 2-bp deletion in agouti signalling protein (ASIP) is associated with melanism in domestic cats. Bengal cats are hybrids between domestic cats and Asian leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis), and the charcoal coat colouration/pattern in Bengals presents as a possible incomplete melanism. The complete coding region of ASIP was directly sequenced in Asian leopard, domestic and Bengal cats. Twenty-seven variants were identified between domestic and leopard cats and were investigated in Bengals and Savannahs, a hybrid with servals (Leptailurus serval). The leopard cat ASIP haplotype was distinguished from domestic cat by four synonymous and four non-synonymous exonic SNPs, as well as 19 intronic variants, including a 42-bp deletion in intron 4. Fifty-six of 64 reported charcoal cats were compound heterozygotes at ASIP, with leopard cat agouti (A(P) (be) ) and domestic cat non-agouti (a) haplotypes. Twenty-four Bengals had an additional unique haplotype (A2) for exon 2 that was not identified in leopard cats, servals or jungle cats (Felis chaus). The compound heterozygote state suggests the leopard cat allele, in combination with the recessive non-agouti allele, influences Bengal markings, producing a darker, yet not completely melanistic coat. This is the first validation of a leopard cat allele segregating in the Bengal breed and likely affecting their overall pelage phenotype. Genetic testing services need to be aware of the possible segregation of wild felid alleles in all assays performed on hybrid cats

What Practitioners Should Understand About Bovine Lymphosarcoma

Bovine lymphosarcoma (BLS) is a common neoplasm found in both dairy and beef cattle. It is important for veterinarians, dairy producers and beef producers to gain a thorough understanding of BLS. The \u27first step in understanding BLS is to define the disease. Bovine leukosis, bovine leukemia, bovine lymphoma, and malignant lymphoma are misnomers that add confusion and frustration in understanding the disease process of BLS. There are currently four distinct forms of BLS: calf form, thymic form, skin form, and adult or bovine leukemia virus (BLV) associated form. In understanding these forms of BLS it is important to know what clinical signs to look for, how to make the diagnosis, the treatment options and recommendations for prevention and control

Hawking radiation as tunneling from charged black holes in 0A string theory

There has been much work on explaining Hawking radiation as a quantum tunneling process through horizons. Basically, this intuitive picture requires the calculation of the imaginary part of the action for outgoing particle. And two ways are known for achieving this goal: the null-geodesic method and the Hamilton-Jacobi method. We apply these methods to the charged black holes in 2D dilaton gravity which is originated from the low energy effective theory of type 0A string theory. We derive the correct Hawking temperature of the black holes including the effect of the back reaction of the radiation, and obtain the entropy by using the 1st law of black hole thermodynamics. For fixed-charge ensemble, the 0A black holes are free of phase transition and thermodynamically stable regardless of mass-charge ratio. We show this by interpreting the back reaction term as the inverse of the heat capacity of the black holes. Finally, the possibility of the phase transition in the fixed-potential ensemble is discussed.Comment: 12 pages; v2: references added, revised with some changes in formula and unaltered conclusions, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Dual encoding of muscle tension and eye position by abducens motoneurons

Extraocular muscle tension associated with spontaneous eye movements has a pulse-slide-step profile similar to that of motoneuron firing rate. Existing models only relate motoneuron firing to eye position, velocity and acceleration. We measured and quantitatively compared lateral rectus muscle force and eye position with the firing of abducens motoneurons in the cat to determine fundamental encoding correlations. During fixations (step), muscle force increased exponentially with eccentric eye position, consistent with a model of estimate ensemble motor innervation based on neuronal sensitivities and recruitment order. Moreover, firing rate in all motoneurons tested was better related to eye position than to muscle tension during fixations. In contrast, during the postsaccadic slide phase, the time constant of firing rate decay was closely related to that of muscle force decay, suggesting that all motoneurons encode muscle tension as well. Discharge characteristics of abducens motoneurons formed overlapping clusters of phasic and tonic motoneurons, thus, tonic units recruited earlier and had a larger slide signal. We conclude that the slide signal is a discharge characteristic of the motoneuron that controls muscle tension during the postsaccadic phase and that motoneurons are specialized for both tension and position-related properties. The organization of signal content in the pool of abducens motoneurons from the very phasic to the very tonic units is possibly a result of the differential trophic background received from distinct types of muscle fibers

Axons Giving Rise to the Palisade Endings of Feline Extraocular Muscles Display Motor Features

Palisade endings are nerve specializations found in the extraocular muscles (EOMs) of mammals, including primates. They have long been postulated to be proprioceptors. It was recently demonstrated that palisade endings are cholinergic and that in monkeys they originate from the EOM motor nuclei. Nevertheless, there is considerable difference of opinion concerning the nature of palisade ending function. Palisade endings in EOMs were examined in cats to test whether they display motor or sensory characteristics. We injected an anterograde tracer into the oculomotor or abducens nuclei and combined tracer visualization with immunohistochemistry and α-bungarotoxin staining. Employing immunohistochemistry, we performed molecular analyses of palisade endings and trigeminal ganglia to determine whether cat palisade endings are a cholinergic trigeminal projection. We confirmed that palisade endings are cholinergic and showed, for the first time, that they, like extraocular motoneurons, are also immunoreactive for calcitonin gene-related peptide. Following tracer injection into the EOM nuclei, we observed tracer-positive palisade endings that exhibited choline acetyl transferase immunoreactivity. The tracer-positive nerve fibers supplying palisade endings also established motor terminals along the muscle fibers, as demonstrated by α-bungarotoxin. Neither the trigeminal ganglion nor the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve contained cholinergic elements. This study confirms that palisade endings originate in the EOM motor nuclei and further indicates that they are extensions of the axons supplying the muscle fiber related to the palisade. The present work excludes the possibility that they receive cholinergic trigeminal projections. These findings call into doubt the proposed proprioceptive function of palisade endings

The effects of verbal information on children's fear beliefs about social situations

Two experiments explored the role of verbal information in changing children’s fearrelated beliefs about social situations. In Experiment 1, 118 6- to 8- and 12- to 13-year-olds heard positive, negative, or no information about individuals’ experiences of three social situations. Fear beliefs regarding each situation were assessed before and after this manipulation. Verbal information had no significant influence on children’s fear beliefs. In Experiment 2, the same paradigm was used with 80 12- to 13-year-olds, but the information took the form of multiple attitude statements about the situations expressed by groups of peers, older children, or adults. An affective priming task of implicit attitudes was used to complement the explicit questions about fear beliefs. Negative information influenced both explicit and implicit fear beliefs. The source of information and the child’s own social anxiety did not moderate these effects. Implications for our understanding of the socialisation of childhood fears are discussed

Effects of Selective Deafferentation on the Discharge Characteristics of Medial Rectus Motoneurons

Medial rectus motoneurons receive two main pontine inputs: abducens internuclear neurons, whose axons course through the medial longitudinal fasciculus (MLF), and neurons in the lateral vestibular nucleus, whose axons project through the ascending tract of Deiters (ATD). Abducens internuclear neurons are responsible for conjugate gaze in the horizontal plane, whereas ATD neurons provide medial rectus motoneurons with a vestibular input comprising mainly head velocity. To reveal the relative contribution of each input to the oculomotor physiology, single-unit recordings from medial rectus motoneurons were obtained in the control situation and after selective deafferentation from cats with unilateral transection of either the MLF or the ATD. Both MLF and ATD transection produced similar short-term alterations in medial rectus motoneuron firing pattern, which were more drastic in MLF of animals. However, long-term recordings revealed important differences between the two types of lesion. Thus, while the effects of the MLF section were permanent, 2 months after ATD lesioning all motoneuronal firing parameters were similar to the control. These findings indicated a more relevant role of the MLF pathway in driving motoneuronal firing and evidenced compensatory mechanisms following the ATD lesion. Confocal immunocytochemistry revealed that MLF transection produced also a higher loss of synaptic boutons, mainly at the dendritic level. Moreover, 2 months after ATD transection, we observed an increase in synaptic coverage around motoneuron cell bodies compared with short-term data, which is indicative of a synaptogenic compensatory mechanism of the abducens internuclear pathway that could lead to the observed firing and morphological recovery. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Eye movements rely on multiple neuronal circuits for appropriate performance. The abducens internuclear pathway through the medial longitudinal fascicle (MLF) and the vestibular neurons through the ascending tract of Deiters (ATD) are a dual system that supports the firing of medial rectus motoneurons. We report the effect of sectioning the MLF or the ATD pathway on the firing of medial rectus motoneurons, as well as the plastic mechanisms by which one input compensates for the lack of the other. This work shows that while the effects of MLF transection are permanent, the ATD section produces transitory effects. A mechanism based on axonal sprouting and occupancy of the vacant synaptic space due to deafferentation is the base for the mechanism of compensation on the medial rectus motoneuron

Quasinormal resonances of near-extremal Kerr-Newman black holes

We study analytically the fundamental resonances of near-extremal, slowly rotating Kerr-Newman black holes. We find a simple analytic expression for these black-hole quasinormal frequencies in terms of the black-hole physical parameters: omega=m Omega-2i pi T(l+1+n), where T and Omega are the temperature and angular velocity of the black hole. The mode parameters l and m are the spheroidal harmonic index and the azimuthal harmonic index of a co-rotating mode, respectively. This analytical formula is valid in the regime Im omega << Re omega <<1/M, where M is the black-hole mass.Comment: 4 page

Do specific delirium aetiologies have different associations with death? A longitudinal cohort of hospitalised patients

PURPOSE: To describe aetiology-specific associations with mortality among older hospital patients with delirium. METHODS: Over 21 months, a cohort of 1702 patients with 2471 acute hospital admissions (median age 85, IQR 80-90, 56% women) were assessed for delirium, categorised with inflammatory and metabolic aetiologies based on available laboratory results, and followed up for all-cause mortality. Interactions between aetiology and delirium were tested. RESULTS: The total mortality for the cohort was 35.2%. While inflammation, metabolic disturbance, and delirium at time of admission all demonstrated independent associations with mortality, there was no evidence for any interactions between delirium and these laboratory-measured aetiologies. CONCLUSIONS: Delirium remains an important predictor of death in older hospital patients, irrespective of underlying aetiology