Asset dynamics in Northern Nigeria:

This paper examines household asset dynamics and gender-differentiated asset inequality over a 20-year period (1988–2008) in northern Nigeria. We show that the initial endowments of both household capital and livestock holdings are inconsistent with the poverty trap hypothesis but that tracking rules for households in panel surveys may lead to differences in empirical results on poverty traps. We also investigate whether initial household endowments contributed to gender-differentiated future asset levels and asset inequality. Initial livestock holdings have an effect on women's future livestock holdings but not on their livestock shares within the household, as the effect of initial livestock holdings on men's future livestock levels was much greater than its effect on women's levels. The mechanism through which asset levels differed was related to the relative prices of the assets in gender-differentiated asset portfolios. Men, who primarily held larger livestock with larger unit values, benefited from large price increases in high-value livestock, while women held lower-value livestock. These price fluctuations reinforced gender asset inequality within households for both types of assets considered.asset dynamics, poverty traps, Gender, Household resource allocation,

The Indigenous Heterogeneity of Oportunidades: Ample or Insufficient Human Capital Accumulation?

Indigenous groups account for over one tenth of Mexico’s population and many of them suffer from constant social disadvantages and extreme marginalization. One of their few paths out of poverty is through the accumulation of human capital, which is a central element of Oportunidades’ strategy to ameliorate trans-generational poverty. This study finds that the positive impacts of Oportunidades on enrollment for the general population are no different for indigenous households. In addition, it finds that Oportunidades impacts on repeat and illness rates are consistently marginal. Thus, it is argued that unless tailored investment in indigenous human capital accumulation and complimentary alternatives are intensified to close the existing indigenous marginalization gaps, indigenous Mexicans will remain in profound and persistent poverty due to the unique and overwhelming obstacles they face.Oportunidades; PROGRESSA; Mexico; Indigenous; Human Capital Accumulation; Impact Evaluation;

The Indigenous Heterogeneity of Oportunidades: Ample or Insufficient Human Capital Accumulation?

Indigenous groups account for over one tenth of Mexico’s population and many of them suffer from constant social disadvantages and extreme marginalization. One of their few paths out of poverty is through the accumulation of human capital, which is a central element of Oportunidades’ strategy to ameliorate trans-generational poverty. This study finds that the positive impacts of Oportunidades on enrollment for the general population are no different for indigenous households. In addition, it finds that Oportunidades impacts on repeat and illness rates are consistently marginal. Thus, it is argued that unless tailored investment in indigenous human capital accumulation and complimentary alternatives are intensified to close the existing indigenous marginalization gaps, indigenous Mexicans will remain in profound and persistent poverty due to the unique and overwhelming obstacles they face

Factors affecting diabetic patient’s long-term quality of life after simultaneous pancreas-kidney transplantation: a single-center analysis

[Purpose]: Pancreas transplantation (PT) is one of the few ways to restore euglycemia within diabetic patients; however, the high morbidity caused by surgical complications and the need for immunosuppressive therapy has raised controversy about PT improving the health-related quality-of-life (HRQoL). The aim of this study is to assess the long-term (≥ 5 years after PT) HRQoL and to identify the factors affecting it.[Methods]: A single-center, cross-sectional study of 49 sequential PT was performed. All patients conducted a telephone interview to fulfill the modification of Medical Outcome Health Survey Short Form questionnaire (SF-36v2) and were compared to similar post-PT studies from the literature.[Results]: Patients with a history of replacement renal therapy (RRT) or neuropathy undergoing a PT were associated to a worse bodily pain (P = 0.03) and physical function (P = 0.04), respectively, whereas those with retinopathy showed an improved Role Emotional (P = 0.04). Multivariate analysis revealed the presence of RRT as the only independent prognostic factor for a worse bodily pain [relative risk = 3.9; 95% confidence interval (1.1–14.6)], (P = 0.04). Furthermore, nearly all PT recipients (91.8%) claimed an overall better health than prior to PT.[Conclusion]: Our study confirms that PT recipients’ HRQoL improves after PT, showing similar HRQoL scores across different populations and suggests that patients in predialysis could benefit from an improved HRQoL if transplanted on the early stages of the disease

Deep-sequencing reveals broad subtype-specific HCV resistance mutations associated with treatment failure

A percentage of hepatitis C virus (HCV)-infected patients fail direct acting antiviral (DAA)-based treatment regimens, often because of drug resistance-associated substitutions (RAS). The aim of this study was to characterize the resistance profile of a large cohort of patients failing DAA-based treatments, and investigate the relationship between HCV subtype and failure, as an aid to optimizing management of these patients. A new, standardized HCV-RAS testing protocol based on deep sequencing was designed and applied to 220 previously subtyped samples from patients failing DAA treatment, collected in 39 Spanish hospitals. The majority had received DAA-based interferon (IFN) a-free regimens; 79% had failed sofosbuvir-containing therapy. Genomic regions encoding the nonstructural protein (NS) 3, NS5A, and NS5B (DAA target regions) were analyzed using subtype-specific primers. Viral subtype distribution was as follows: genotype (G) 1, 62.7%; G3a, 21.4%; G4d, 12.3%; G2, 1.8%; and mixed infections 1.8%. Overall, 88.6% of patients carried at least 1 RAS, and 19% carried RAS at frequencies below 20% in the mutant spectrum. There were no differences in RAS selection between treatments with and without ribavirin. Regardless of the treatment received, each HCV subtype showed specific types of RAS. Of note, no RAS were detected in the target proteins of 18.6% of patients failing treatment, and 30.4% of patients had RAS in proteins that were not targets of the inhibitors they received. HCV patients failing DAA therapy showed a high diversity of RAS. Ribavirin use did not influence the type or number of RAS at failure. The subtype-specific pattern of RAS emergence underscores the importance of accurate HCV subtyping. The frequency of “extra-target” RAS suggests the need for RAS screening in all three DAA target regions

Effectiveness of influenza vaccine against laboratory-confirmed influenza, in the late 2011-2012 season in Spain, among population targeted for vaccination

Background: In Spain, the influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) was estimated in the last three seasons using the observational study cycEVA conducted in the frame of the existing Spanish Influenza Sentinel Surveillance System. The objective of the study was to estimate influenza vaccine effectiveness (VE) against medically attended, laboratory-confirmed influenza-like illness (ILI) among the target groups for vaccination in Spain in the 2011-2012 season. We also studied influenza VE in the early (weeks 52/2011-7/2012) and late (weeks 8-14/2012) phases of the epidemic and according to time since vaccination. Methods: Medically attended patients with ILI were systematically swabbed to collect information on exposure, laboratory outcome and confounding factors. Patients belonging to target groups for vaccination and who were swabbed 4 months, respectively, since vaccination. A decrease in VE with time since vaccination was only observed in individuals aged ≥ 65 years. Regarding the phase of the season, decreasing point estimates were only observed in the early phase, whereas very low or null estimates were obtained in the late phase for the shortest time interval. Conclusions: The 2011-2012 influenza vaccine showed a low-to-moderate protective effect against medically attended, laboratory-confirmed influenza in the target groups for vaccination, in a late season and with a limited match between the vaccine and circulating strains. The suggested decrease in influenza VE with time since vaccination was mostly observed in the elderly population. The decreasing protective effect of the vaccine in the late part of the season could be related to waning vaccine protection because no viral changes were identified throughout the season

Richness, diversity, and factors influencing occupancy of mammal communities across human-modified landscapes in Colombia

As human-modified landscapes are increasing in the tropics, it becomes critical to understand how they affect mammal communities to reconcile conservation and development. We combined land cover information and camera-trapping data to explore the effects of agricultural expansion on mammals in the Magdalena river valley of Colombia. We estimated species diversity, evenness, and dominance across two agricultural landscapes, modified by cattle ranching and oil palm cultivation. We further assessed which variables influence species- and community-level occupancy using multi-species occupancy models. Results highlight that modified landscapes display lower species richness, diversity and evenness, and higher dominance than more pristine sites. Residual forest cover and distance to water had significant effect on community occupancy (positive and negative respectively). Forests were particularly important for pumas, ocelots, lowland pacas, Central American agoutis, and crab-eating raccoons while wetlands had a positive effect on jaguars, the apex predator in the region. The influence of anthropogenic pressure was not clearly evident, though pastures were not valuable habitats for any mammal species, as they had a negative, yet not significant, effect on species and community occupancy. In light of rapidly expanding agriculture across the tropics, our findings highlight species-specific responses to disturbance that can inform land use planning and conservation policies. We stress the conservation value of forest and wetland habitat to mammal occupancy in heterogeneous ecosystems. Moreover, our results demonstrate that oil palm and crop expansion should target existing pastures, which displayed limited conservation value for Neotropical mammals but occupy vast swathes of land across Latin America

Miradas y voces de la Investigación Educativa III : Formación y desarrollo profesional docente. Innovación Educativa con miras a la justicia social. Aportes desde la Investigación Educativa

Fil: Ferreyra, Horacio Ademar. Universidad Católica de Córdoba. Facultad de Educación; ArgentinaFil: Sañudo Guerra, Lya. Universidad Católica de Córdoba. Facultad de Educación; Argentin

A strategy for agricultural Statistics in Ghana

Agriculture is the backbone of the Ghanaian economy. It plays an important role in the socioeconomic development of Ghana as it contributes to ensuring food security, provides raw materials for local industries, generates foreign exchange, and provides employment and incomes for most of the population (especially those living in the rural areas), thereby contributing to economic development and poverty reduction. The central goal of Ghana’s current development strategy, which is detailed in the Poverty Reduction Strategy II (GPRS-II), is to accelerate economic growth in order to achieve middle-income status within a measurable planning period. Subsequently, the government has placed a focus on implementing agricultural policies to bring more land under cultivation in order to generate a rapid supply response that will quickly benefit the poor in rural areas.1 These interventions are also intended to help develop a private agricultural sector that contributes to accelerated and sustained growth in the long run. Monitoring and evaluating the progress of these initiatives requires quality agricultural data for large-scale and household-based production that is collected frequently (in order to address the dynamics of agricultural production) on a spatially disaggregated level. This suggests the need for a system that regularly produces precise agricultural statistics on an annual basis at the district level. This is an important consideration because numerous interventions are currently implemented at that administrative level and many more will be operationalized at the district level in the future as Ghana continues to decentralize. However, recent data gathering activities by the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) and the Statistics, Research, and Information Directorate (SRID) of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) do not currently meet these requirements. Future agricultural surveys must address this gap in order to support the government’s interventions and planning processes and, in turn, maximize the effectiveness of agricultural growth and poverty reduction efforts.Non-PRIFPRI1; GRP32; GSSPDSGD; PHN