Is PROGRESA working?

This document summarizes 24 months of extensive research by the International Food Policy Research Institute designed to evaluate whether PROGRESA has been successful at achieving its goals. The evaluation analyzes what has been the impact of PROGRESA on education, health, and nutrition as well as in other areas, such as women's status and work incentives.Education ,health ,human nutrition ,

Gender and development: bridging the gap between research and action

Gender, Development, Research, households, Household resource allocation, Property rights, Project evaluation, Needs assessment,

Religious Implications of the Berlin Wall

In this paper, I take a close look at the present condition of the Jewish Community in Berlin. Being a community that, within the last century, has faced the devastation of the Holocaust and the subjugation of the Berlin Wall and accompanying Soviet regime, the Jewish community in Berlin represented, to me, one with an amazing challenge and opportunity to rebuild itself. The aim of this paper was to separate the Jewish community from other communities in Berlin, separate the presence of the Berlin Wall from other historical events, and then consider the possibility that the Wall itself has an inherent religious meaning and that the Jewish community was effected independently and uniquely by that meaning. In order to fully grasp the condition of the Jewish community in Berlin today, as well as to understand the Wall’s role in Berlin society, traveling to the city of Berlin was a necessary component of this study. The observations, insights and information that trip allowed fuel the theories and the arguments made throughout this paper. Ultimately it has become clear that, while the Wall may not itself be inherently religious, it did in fact have implications for Berlin citizens that affected their religious experience. Furthermore, while the Wall’s effects may not have been exclusively to Jewish Berliners, being a Jew in Berlin at the time of the Wall’s presence and fall did in fact lead to isolation from the rest of Berlin society. Additionally, and most noteworthy, is the shared work that both Jewish and non-Jewish Berliners have done since the Wall’s fall to commemorate their history and acknowledge all that Berliners, as a shared community, have overcome

Using gender research in development: food security in practice

Gender, Development, Research, food security, Household surveys, Food policy, Intrahousehold issues, Decision-making, Research projects, Practitioners, Project management, Women in development, Food supply, Economic development projects,

You Can\u27t Have Your Cake and Eat It Too: Tax Classification and \u3cem\u3eBresnan Communications, LLC v. State Department of Revenue\u3c/em\u3e

The result of Bresnan Communications, LLC v. State Dept. of Revenue significantly increased Bresnan’s tax bill by reclassifying the company’s “cable television system” property as “telecommunication service company” property. The new classification was a result of Bresnan expanding its operations into phone and internet services. This decision was put in the public spotlight when Charter Communications (“Charter”), a Connecticut-based company that bought Bresnan Communications, sponsored Initiative 172. If passed, the initiative would have essentially reversed the Montana Supreme Court decision by changing the property tax rates for companies, like Charter, who provide “physically bundled” television, phone and internet services. The result Bresnan sought through a law suit, and Charter sought through the initiative was the same; both wanted to realize the benefits of their newly expanded operations without facing the costly tax consequences

Surface expression, single-channel analysis and membrane topology of recombinant Chlamydia trachomatis Major Outer Membrane Protein

BACKGROUND: Chlamydial bacteria are obligate intracellular pathogens containing a cysteine-rich porin (Major Outer Membrane Protein, MOMP) with important structural and, in many species, immunity-related roles. MOMP forms extensive disulphide bonds with other chlamydial proteins, and is difficult to purify. Leaderless, recombinant MOMPs expressed in E. coli have yet to be refolded from inclusion bodies, and although leadered MOMP can be expressed in E. coli cells, it often misfolds and aggregates. We aimed to improve the surface expression of correctly folded MOMP to investigate the membrane topology of the protein, and provide a system to display native and modified MOMP epitopes. RESULTS: C. trachomatis MOMP was expressed on the surface of E. coli cells (including "porin knockout" cells) after optimizing leader sequence, temperature and medium composition, and the protein was functionally reconstituted at the single-channel level to confirm it was folded correctly. Recombinant MOMP formed oligomers even in the absence of its 9 cysteine residues, and the unmodified protein also formed inter- and intra-subunit disulphide bonds. Its topology was modeled as a (16-stranded) β-barrel, and specific structural predictions were tested by removing each of the four putative surface-exposed loops corresponding to highly immunogenic variable sequence (VS) domains, and one or two of the putative transmembrane strands. The deletion of predicted external loops did not prevent folding and incorporation of MOMP into the E. coli outer membrane, in contrast to the removal of predicted transmembrane strands. CONCLUSIONS: C. trachomatis MOMP was functionally expressed on the surface of E. coli cells under newly optimized conditions. Tests of its predicted membrane topology were consistent with β-barrel oligomers in which major immunogenic regions are displayed on surface-exposed loops. Functional surface expression, coupled with improved understanding of MOMP's topology, could provide modified antigens for immunological studies and vaccination, including live subunit vaccines, and might be useful to co-express MOMP with other chlamydial membrane proteins

Site specific deacylation by ABHD17a controls BK channel splice variant activity

S-Acylation, the reversible post-translational lipid modification of proteins, is an important mechanism to control the properties and function of ion channels and other polytopic transmembrane proteins. However, although increasing evidence reveals the role of diverse acyl protein transferases (zDHHC) in controlling ion channel S-acylation, the acyl protein thioesterases that control ion channel deacylation are very poorly defined. Here we show that ABHD17a (α/β-hydrolase domain-containing protein 17a) deacylates the stress-regulated exon domain of large conductance voltage- and calcium-activated potassium (BK) channels inhibiting channel activity independently of effects on channel surface expression. Importantly, ABHD17a deacylates BK channels in a site-specific manner because it has no effect on the S-acylated S0–S1 domain conserved in all BK channels that controls membrane trafficking and is deacylated by the acyl protein thioesterase Lypla1. Thus, distinct S-acylated domains in the same polytopic transmembrane protein can be regulated by different acyl protein thioesterases revealing mechanisms for generating both specificity and diversity for these important enzymes to control the properties and functions of ion channels

Head Injury risk and car seat use for children in collisions

Background: Motor vehicle collisions (MVCs) are the leading cause of death for people under the age of 17 years. Almost 80% of rear seat motor vehicle passengers are children. Previous studies have shown that a large fraction of injuries to children in MVCs involved the head and chest. In this study, the hypothesis that children under the age of eight using a forward-facing child restraint system (FFCRS) will have more severe head injuries than children using any other type of restraints in an MVC was tested. Methods: Several datasets obtained from Transport Canada and Level 1 Pediatric Trauma Centre emergency and admission reports containing collision, occupant, and injury information were combined and trends were analyzed. Results: Investigations for 42 cases were analyzed (6 fatal / 36 non-fatal injury). Fourteen children had severe head injuries and five of those were fatal. All of those with severe head injuries were using FFCRSs. However, more than half were incorrectly used or installed, or not used at all (8/14). Discussion & Conclusion: Restraint misuse for child passengers leads to more severe head injuries in MVCs. FFCRSs that are properly used decrease risk of injury and death. Interdisciplinary Reflection: The findings from this study help to determine why younger children are injured more severely in crashes and whether these injuries are related to the type of restraint system used. This information can be used to create new CRS designs to prevent further injury as well as create treatment plans for the most common youth head injuries