The Challenge to Democratic Reformism in Ecuador

Ecuador is a small and misdeveloped country that has recently embarked on an important experiment in national development. The nature and outcome of this experiment have implications not only for the social science researcher, but more importantly for the Ecuadorean people themselves and for developing countries in the region and throughout the hemisphere. The administration elected in 1979 has pledged to carry out a program of far-reaching reform within a democratic framework that will harmonize economic development and social justice in a way designed to effect a major transformation of the basic structures and values of the nation. It is clear that the reforms proposed will clash with the country\u27s entrenched heritage of three centuries of unequal social and economic growth and with a political tradition characterized by autocracy and authoritarianism. Many observers wonder whether sufficient resources of any kind can be mobilized during the four years of the current regime even to begin to overcome the inertia of imbalanced development, attributed by some to the forces of dependency and by others to structural rigidities inherent in the social relations of production. l On the other hand, it is true that the conditions in Ecuador today could not be more propitious to initiate a process of significant transformation: unprecedented revenues from petroleum provide the state with a promising resource base for reform, the government is led by a new generation of men who have a profound awareness of the country\u27s past and of its present problems, the administration is staffed by a corps of able men and women freed from the sterile conflicts that once dominated the rhetoric (if not the reality) of national politics, and the economy has a potential for diversification that could provide a base for independent development. How the current regime capitalizes on these favorable circumstances, its success or failure in achieving the goals of development and justice, might provide clues to a clearer analysis of the causes of misdevelopment and to a clearer understanding of the solutions needed to resolve the development crises that plague countries throughout the Third World

South West Uplands Initiative Evaluation, Final Report

In November 2010, the Countryside and Community Research Institute (CCRI) was commissioned by the Cornwall Development Company (CDC), South West Upland Initiative Partners and SWRDA to carry out a longitudinal evaluation study into the impact of the SWUI. The aim of this final report is to draw together, in one document, the key findings of the evaluation study presented in previous reports and to update the outputs achieved by June 2013

Short-term exposure to carbon monoxide and myocardial infarction: A systematic review and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND: Previous studies suggest an association between short-term exposure to carbon monoxide and myocardial infarction. We performed a systematic review and meta-analysis to assess current evidence on this association to support the update of the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Air Quality Guidelines. METHODS: We searched Medline, Embase and Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to update the evidence published in a previous systematic review up to 30th September 2018 for studies investigating the association between short-term exposure to ambient carbon monoxide (up to lag of seven days) and emergency department visits or hospital admissions and mortality due to myocardial infarction. Two reviewers assessed potentially eligible studies and performed data extraction independently. Random-effects meta-analysis was used to derive the pooled risk estimate per 1 mg/m3 increase in ambient carbon monoxide concentration. Risk of bias in individual studies was assessed using a domain-based assessment tool. The overall certainty of the body of evidence was evaluated using an adapted certainty of evidence assessment framework. RESULTS: We evaluated 1,038 articles from the previous review and our updated literature search, of which, 26 satisfied our inclusion criteria. Overall, myocardial infarction was associated with exposure to ambient carbon monoxide concentration (risk ratio of 1.052, 95% confidence interval 1.017-1.089 per 1 mg/m3 increase). A third of studies were assessed to be at high risk of bias (RoB) due to inadequate adjustment for confounding. Using an adaptation of the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) framework, the overall evidence was assessed to be of moderate certainty. CONCLUSIONS: This review demonstrated that the pooled risk ratio for myocardial infarction was 1.052 (95% CI 1.017-1.089) per 1 mg/m3 increase in ambient carbon monoxide concentration. However, very few studies originated from low- and middle-income countries

Apparatus for providing a heating or cooling effect to a human or animal body part.

A device configured to treat a human or animal body part or limb by providing a heating and/or cooling effect in addition to a compressive force

The Campylobacter jejuni MarR-like transcriptional regulators RrpA and RrpB both influence bacterial responses to oxidative and aerobic stresses.

The ability of the human intestinal pathogen Campylobacter jejuni to respond to oxidative stress is central to bacterial survival both in vivo during infection and in the environment. Re-annotation of the C. jejuni NCTC11168 genome revealed the presence of two MarR-type transcriptional regulators Cj1546 and Cj1556, originally annotated as hypothetical proteins, which we have designated RrpA and RrpB (regulator of response to peroxide) respectively. Previously we demonstrated a role for RrpB in both oxidative and aerobic (O2) stress and that RrpB was a DNA binding protein with auto-regulatory activity, typical of MarR-type transcriptional regulators. In this study, we show that RrpA is also a DNA binding protein and that a rrpA mutant in strain 11168H exhibits increased sensitivity to hydrogen peroxide oxidative stress. Mutation of either rrpA or rrpB reduces catalase (KatA) expression. However, a rrpAB double mutant exhibits higher levels of resistance to hydrogen peroxide oxidative stress, with levels of KatA expression similar to the wild-type strain. Mutation of either rrpA or rrpB also results in a reduction in the level of katA expression, but this reduction was not observed in the rrpAB double mutant. Neither the rrpA nor rrpB mutant exhibits any significant difference in sensitivity to either cumene hydroperoxide or menadione oxidative stresses, but both mutants exhibit a reduced ability to survive aerobic (O2) stress, enhanced biofilm formation and reduced virulence in the Galleria mellonella infection model. The rrpAB double mutant exhibits wild-type levels of biofilm formation and wild-type levels of virulence in the G mellonella infection model. Together these data indicate a role for both RrpA and RrpB in the C. jejuni peroxide oxidative and aerobic (O2) stress responses, enhancing bacterial survival in vivo and in the environment

End-bridging is required for pol μ to efficiently promote repair of noncomplementary ends by nonhomologous end joining

DNA polymerase μ is a member of the mammalian pol X family and reduces deletion during chromosome break repair by nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ). This biological role is linked to pol μ's ability to promote NHEJ of ends with noncomplementary 3′ overhangs, but questions remain regarding how it performs this role. We show here that synthesis by pol μ in this context is often rapid and, despite the absence of primer/template base-pairing, instructed by template. However, pol μ is both much less active and more prone to possible template independence in some contexts, including ends with overhangs longer than two nucleotides. Reduced activity on longer overhangs implies pol μ is less able to synthesize across longer gaps, arguing pol μ must bridge both sides of gaps between noncomplementary ends to be effective in NHEJ. Consistent with this argument, a pol μ mutant defective specifically on gapped substrates is also less active during NHEJ of noncomplementary ends both in vitro and in cells. Taken together, pol μ activity during NHEJ of noncomplementary ends can thus be primarily linked to pol μ's ability to work together with core NHEJ factors to bridge DNA ends and perform a template-dependent gap fill-in reaction

The Politics of Service Delivery Reform

This article identifies the leaders, the supporters and the resisters of public service reform. It adopts a principal–agent framework, comparing reality with an ‘ideal’ situation in which citizens are the principals over political policy-makers as their agents, and policy-makers are the principals over public service officials as their agents. Reform in most developing countries is complicated by an additional set of external actors — international financial institutions and donors. In practice, international agencies and core government officials usually act as the ‘principals’ in the determination of reforms. The analysis identifies the interests involved in reform, indicating how the balance between them is affected by institutional and sectoral factors. Organizational reforms, particularly in the social sectors, present greater difficulties than first generation economic policy reforms