The Dollar Game Curriculum: Inspiring Wealth Creation in Rural Communities

Rural wealth creation and local entrepreneurship are emerging economic development approaches that bring back a sense of self-determination to rural communities. However, their potential is often greatly diminished by preconceived and opposing notions within the community on what drives economic growth. The Dollar Game is an innovative curriculum where participants collectively build an understanding of how innovation, income distribution and export affect their communities. Teams play different scenarios, starting with an island economy isolated from grants, subsidies, and trading opportunities and builds to a connected economy where they eventually lose ownership of the local value-chain

Three essays on food security, food assistance, and migration

This dissertation's three essays explore the determinants of food insecurity for rural farm households, the influence of rainfall variability and long-run changes in rainfall levels on the migration decisions of working-age household heads, and the distributional impacts in core and periphery regions of food assistance to households in the hinterland. The first essay examines how socio-economic characteristics of households, local conditions, and public programs are associated with the probability that a farm household in rural Malawi is food insecure. The statistical analysis uses nationally representative data for 7,965 randomly-selected households interviewed during 2004/05 for the second Malawi Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2). Regressions are estimated separately for households in the north, center, and south of Malawi to account for spatial heterogeneity. Results of a Probit regression model reveal that households are less likely to be food insecure if they have more cultivated land per capita, receive agricultural field assistance, reside in a community with an irrigation scheme, and are headed by an individual with a high school degree. Factors that positively correlate with a household's food insecurity are number of household members and distance to markets. The second essay uses nationally representative data from Malawi's 2004/05 Integrated Household Survey (IHS-2) to examine whether rainfall conditions influence a rural worker’s decision to make a long-term move to an urban or another rural area. Results of a Full Information Maximum Likelihood regression model reveal that (1) rainfall shocks constrain migration, most likely by making it difficult for prospective migrants to cover costs of migration, (2) migrants choose to move to communities where rainfall variability is lower, and (3) rainfall shocks have larger negative effects on the earnings of recent migrants than on long-time residents’ earnings. The third essay examines how benefits from food assistance programs to needy households spillover between areas and among household income groups in the United States. We study the effect of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in the Portland Oregon metro Core and its Periphery trade area, using a Multiregional Input- Output (MRIO) model based on a Social Accounting Matrix (SAM). The analysis captures direct, indirect and induced effects of SNAP on each region and spillover effects on the other region. SNAP benefits to the lower income household classes in each region are traced to their effects on the local economy in each region, and to the effects on household income by income class. The analysis finds that (1) the economic impact on the Portland Core from a given level of SNAP benefits to households in the Periphery is greater than the economic impact in the Periphery from the same level of SNAP benefits to households in the Core; (2) high-income households benefit more than low-income households from the indirect and induced economic impact of SNAP.Keywords: Food Security, Migration, SNAP, Climate Change, Multiregional Input-output SAM Model, Africa, Assistant Programs, Food Stamp, Malaw

Thymic plasmacytoid dendritic cells are susceptible to productive HIV-1 infection and efficiently transfer R5 HIV-1 to thymocytes in vitro

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>HIV-1 infection of the thymus contributes to the defective regeneration and loss of CD4⁺T cells in HIV-1-infected individuals. As thymic dendritic cells (DC) are permissive to infection by HIV-1, we examined the ability of thymic DC to enhance infection of thymocytes which may contribute to the overall depletion of CD4⁺T cells. We compared productive infection in isolated human thymic and blood CD11c⁺myeloid DC (mDC) and CD123⁺plasmacytoid DC (pDC) using enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) CCR5 (R5)-tropic NL(AD8) and CXCR4 (X4)-tropic NL4-3 HIV-1 reporter viruses. Transfer of productive HIV-1 infection from thymic mDC and pDC was determined by culturing these DC subsets either alone or with sorted thymocytes.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Productive infection was observed in both thymic pDC and mDC following exposure to R5 HIV-1 and X4 HIV-1. Thymic pDC were more frequently productively infected by both R5 and X4 HIV-1 than thymic mDC (p = 0.03; n = 6). Thymic pDC efficiently transferred productive R5 HIV-1 infection to both CD3^hi(p = 0.01; mean fold increase of 6.5; n = 6) and CD3^lothymocytes (mean fold increase of 1.6; n = 2). In comparison, transfer of productive infection by thymic mDC was not observed for either X4 or R5 HIV-1.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The capacity of thymic pDC to efficiently transfer R5 HIV-1 to both mature and immature thymocytes that are otherwise refractory to R5 virus may represent a pathway to early infection and impaired production of thymocytes and CD4⁺T cells in HIV-1-infected individuals.</p

Regulation of ASIC channels by a stomatin/STOML3 complex located in a mobile vesicle pool in sensory neurons

A complex of stomatin-family proteins and acid-sensing (proton-gated) ion channel (ASIC) family members participate in sensory transduction in invertebrates and vertebrates. Here, we have examined the role of the stomatin-family protein stomatin-like protein-3 (STOML3) in this process. We demonstrate that STOML3 interacts with stomatin and ASIC subunits and that this occurs in a highly mobile vesicle pool in dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons and Chinese hamster ovary cells. We identify a hydrophobic region in the N-terminus of STOML3 that is required for vesicular localization of STOML3 and regulates physical and functional interaction with ASICs. We further characterize STOML3-containing vesicles in DRG neurons and show that they are Rab11-positive, but not part of the early-endosomal, lysosomal or Rab14-dependent biosynthetic compartment. Moreover, uncoupling of vesicles from microtubules leads to incorporation of STOML3 into the plasma membrane and increased acid-gated currents. Thus, STOML3 defines a vesicle pool in which it associates with molecules that have critical roles in sensory transduction. We suggest that the molecular features of this vesicular pool may be characteristic of a ‘transducosome’ in sensory neurons

A Catalog of Transient X-ray Sources in M31

From October 1999 to August 2002, 45 transient X-ray sources were detected in M31 by Chandra and XMM-Newton. We have performed spectral analysis of all XMM-Newton and Chandra ACIS detections of these sources, as well as flux measurements of Chandra HRC detections. The result is absorption-corrected X-ray lightcurves for these sources covering this 2.8 year period, along with spectral parameters for several epochs of the outbursts of most of the transient sources. We supply a catalog of the locations, outburst dates, peak observed luminosities, decay time estimates, and spectral properties of the transient sources, and we discuss similarities with Galactic X-ray novae. Duty cycle estimates are possible for 8 of the transients and range from 40% to 2%; upper limits to the duty cycles are estimated for an additional 15 transients and cover a similar range. We find 5 transients which have rapid decay times and may be ultra-compact X-ray binaries. Spectra of three of the transients suggest they may be faint Galactic foreground sources. If even one is a foreground source, this suggests a surface density of faint transient X-ray sources of >~1 deg$^{-2}$.Comment: 63 pages, 22 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in Ap

Cloning, expression, and localization of a novel γ-adaptin-like molecule

AbstractWe describe the cloning, expression, and localization of γ2-adaptin, a novel isoform of γ-adaptin. The predicted human and mouse γ2-adaptin proteins are ∼90 kDa and 64.4% and 61.7% identical to γ-adaptin, respectively. γ2-Adaptin was localized to the Golgi, its localization distinct from γ-adaptin. The membrane association of γ- and γ2-adaptin could further be distinguished by differential sensitivity to the fungal metabolite brefeldin A, γ2-adaptin binding being insensitive to drug treatment. Together, these results suggest that γ2-adaptin plays a role in membrane transport distinct from that played by γ-adaptin

Primary accumulation in the Soviet transition

The Soviet background to the idea of primary socialist accumulation is presented. The mobilisation of labour power and of products into public sector investment from outside are shown to have been the two original forms of the concept. In Soviet primary accumulation the mobilisation of labour power was apparently more decisive than the mobilisation of products. The primary accumulation process had both intended and unintended results. Intended results included bringing most of the economy into the public sector, and industrialisation of the economy as a whole. Unintended results included substantial economic losses, and the proliferation of coercive institutions damaging to attainment of the ultimate goal - the building of a communist society

Different Transport Pathways of Individual Precursor Proteins in Mitochondria

Transport of mitochondrial precursor proteins into mitochondria of Neurospora crassa was studied in a cellfree reconstituted system. Precursors were synthesized in a reticulocyte lysate programmed with Neurospora mRNA and transported into isolated mitochondria in the absence of protein synthesis. Uptake of the following precursors was investigated: apocytochrome c, ADP/ATP carrier and subunit 9 of the oligomycin-sensitive ATPase. Addition of high concentrations of unlabelled chemically prepared apocytochrome c (1–10 μM) inhibited the appearance in the mitochondrial of labelled cytochrome c synthesized in vitro because the unlabelled protein dilutes the labelled one and because the translocation system has a limited capacity [apparent V is 1–3 pmol × min−1× (mg mitochondrial protein)−1]. Concentrations of added apocytochrome c exceeding the concentrations of precursor proteins synthesized in vitro by a factor of about 104 did not inhibit the transfer of ADP/ATP carrier or ATPase subunit 9 into mitochondria. Carbonylcyanide m-chlorophenylhydrazone, an uncoupler of oxidative phosphorylation, inhibited transfer in vitro of ADP/ATP carrier and of ATPase subunit 9, but not of cytochrome c. These findings suggest that cytochrome c and the other two proteins have different import pathways into mitochondria. It can be inferred from the data presented that different 'receptors' on the mitochondrial surface mediate the specific recognition of precursor proteins by mitochondria as a first step in the transport process

Agreeing on what? creating joint accounts of strategic change

This paper addresses a fundamental conundrum at the heart of meaning-making: how are multiple meanings accommodated within a joint account, given the plurivocal nature of organizations? While a new strategic initiative introduces new meanings that must coexist within multiple prevailing meanings; studies on meaning-making processes place different emphases on the accommodation of such multiplicity within a joint account. Based on the findings from a longitudinal case study conducted in a university setting, we develop a framework that demonstrates two patterns of meaning-making on the basis of distinct micro processes of expanding, combining and reframing that are involved in the accomplishment of a joint account. Our study offers counter-intuitive insights into the way vested interests enable or constrain the construction of a joint account of meaning. In doing so, we contribute to knowledge about resistance, ambiguity and the role of agreement, or lack of agreement in constructing joint accounts within a plurivocal context