A Comment on: “State Capacity, Reciprocity, and the Social Contract” by Timothy Besley

In this note, I discuss avenues for future research stemming from Besley's [this issue] theoretical approach on the interconnections between civicness, institutions, and state‐fiscal capacity. First, I lay down some ideas on how one could extend the framework to model fragility traps that characterize many low‐income countries and study issues related to nation‐building, conflict, and heterogeneity across space and ethnic lines in the provision of public goods. Second, I discuss the relevance of the approach for the analysis of authoritarian populism that is spreading in developed countries and emerging markets

IL-12 and IL-4 activate a CD39-dependent intrinsic peripheral tolerance mechanism in CD8+ T cells

Immune responses to protein antigens involve CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, which follow distinct programs of differentiation. Naïve CD8 T cells rapidly develop cytotoxic T-cell (CTL) activity after T-cell receptor stimulation, and we have previously shown that this is accompanied by suppressive activity in the presence of specific cytokines, i.e. IL-12 and IL-4. Cytokine-induced CD8+ regulatory T (Treg) cells are one of several Treg-cell phenotypes and are Foxp3− IL-10+ with contact-dependent suppressive capacity. Here, we show they also express high level CD39, an ecto-nucleotidase that degrades extracellular ATP, and this contributes to their suppressive activity. CD39 expression was found to be upregulated on CD8+ T cells during peripheral tolerance induction in vivo, accompanied by release of IL-12 and IL-10. CD39 was also upregulated during respiratory tolerance induction to inhaled allergen and on tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells. Production of IL-10 and expression of CD39 by CD8+ T cells was independently regulated, being respectively blocked by extracellular ATP and enhanced by an A2A adenosine receptor agonist. Our results suggest that any CTL can develop suppressive activity when exposed to specific cytokines in the absence of alarmins. Thus negative feedback controls CTL expansion under regulation from both nucleotide and cytokine environment within tissues

Modelling the phase and chemical equilibria of aqueous solutions of alkanolamines and carbon dioxide using the SAFT-γ SW group contribution approach

p>All computational data for figures presented in the publication/p

Historical legacies and African development

As Africa’s role on the global stage is rising, so does the need to understand the shadow of history on the continent’s economy and polity. We discuss recent works that shed light on Africa’s colonial and precolonial legacies. The emerging corpus is remarkably interdisciplinary. Archives, ethnographic materials, georeferenced censuses, surveys, and satellite imagery are some of the sources often combined to test influential conjectures put forward in African historiography. Exploiting within-country variation and employing credible, albeit mostly local, identification techniques, this recent literature has uncovered strong evidence of historical continuity as well as instances of rupture in the evolution of the African economy. The exposition proceeds in reverse chronological order. Starting from the colonial period, which has been linked to almost all of Africa’s postindependence maladies, we first review works that uncover the lasting legacies of colonial investments in infrastructure and human capital and quantify the role of various extractive institutions, such as indirect rule and oppression associated with concessionary agreements. Second, we discuss the long-lasting impact of the "Scramble for Africa," which led to ethnic partitioning and the creation of artificial modern states. Third, we cover studies on the multifaceted legacy of the slave trades. Fourth, we analyze the contemporary role of various precolonial, ethnic-specific, institutional and social traits, such as political centralization. We conclude by offering some thoughts on what we view as open questions

"Transit Data"-based MST Computation

In this work, we present an innovative image recognition technique which is based on the exploitation of transit-data in images or simple photographs of sites of interest. Our objective is to automatically transform real-world images to graphs and, then, compute Minimum Spanning Trees (MST) in them.We apply this framework and present an application which automatically computes efficient construction plans (for escalator or low-emission hot spots) for connecting all points of interest in cultural sites, i.e., archaeological sites, museums, galleries, etc, aiming to to facilitate global physical access to cultural heritage and artistic work and make it accessible to all groups of population

Emerging opportunities: the internet, marketing and museums

The tremendous impact of applying new technologies is obvious when it comes to museums. Internet forms an integral part of museums everyday life and decision making. Websites, online communities, social media, and mobile applications comprise elements of the modern museum’s digital self, which complements the real museum of permanent and temporary exhibitions, storage rooms, visitors’ facilities, laboratories and, most important, museum objects. This environment inevitably affects museum marketing strategies and creates relevant opportunities

Regional Transfer Multipliers

A series of discontinuities in the allocation mechanism of federal transfers, to municipal governments in Brazil allow us to identify the causal effect of public spending on local labor markets, using a ‘fuzzy’ Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD). Our estimates imply a cost per job of about 8,000 US dollars per year and a local income multiplier around two. The effect comes mostly from employment in services and is more pronounced among less financially developed municipalities

Dynamic in vivo imaging and cell tracking using a histone fluorescent protein fusion in mice

BACKGROUND: Advances in optical imaging modalities and the continued evolution of genetically-encoded fluorescent proteins are coming together to facilitate the study of cell behavior at high resolution in living organisms. As a result, imaging using autofluorescent protein reporters is gaining popularity in mouse transgenic and targeted mutagenesis applications. RESULTS: We have used embryonic stem cell-mediated transgenesis to label cells at sub-cellular resolution in vivo, and to evaluate fusion of a human histone protein to green fluorescent protein for ubiquitous fluorescent labeling of nucleosomes in mice. To this end we have generated embryonic stem cells and a corresponding strain of mice that is viable and fertile and exhibits widespread chromatin-localized reporter expression. High levels of transgene expression are maintained in a constitutive manner. Viability and fertility of homozygous transgenic animals demonstrates that this reporter is developmentally neutral and does not interfere with mitosis or meiosis. CONCLUSIONS: Using various optical imaging modalities including wide-field, spinning disc confocal, and laser scanning confocal and multiphoton excitation microscopy, we can identify cells in various stages of the cell cycle. We can identify cells in interphase, cells undergoing mitosis or cell death. We demonstrate that this histone fusion reporter allows the direct visualization of active chromatin in situ. Since this reporter segments three-dimensional space, it permits the visualization of individual cells within a population, and so facilitates tracking cell position over time. It is therefore attractive for use in multidimensional studies of in vivo cell behavior and cell fate