International linkages and multilateral lending in the post-communist region

The focus of the dissertation is the influence of international linkages on the lending decisions from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to the post-communist states between 1992 and 2007. The central question is to analyze the role of international linkages in aid allocation. Most cross-national studies do not make a clear distinction between aid to developing countries and aid to the post-communist states ??? states that are considerably more developed than the standard aid recipient but states that also face distinctive challenges of political and economic transition from a command economy and a one-party authoritarian regime. Moreover, the newly emergent post-communist states, and particularly Russia as the Soviet successor state, represent a novel geopolitical challenge. The geopolitical considerations attached to post-communist stability by the United States and Western Europe is an additional factor that may affect aid allocation. Thus it should not be assumed without empirical investigation that these distinctive cases present the lending institutions with the same considerations in aid allocation that would apply to the developing world. While the IMF and World Bank have been extensively studied, the EBRD ??? a regional bank explicitly established as a ???transition bank??? rather than a ???development bank??? ??? has not. Thus a primary concern of this study is how EBRD aid allocation may differ from that of the IMF and World Bank in the post-communist region. Using a multi-method research design, I employ a regression analysis along with qualitative case studies. I start with a regression analysis in which I use the log transformations of the outcome variable lending from the IMF, World Bank and EBRD and the continuous explanatory variables to identify explanatory variables hypothesized to predict aid levels. The explanatory variables are: economic need, western connections, past relations with the Bretton Woods institutions, European Union or Commonwealth of Independent States membership, level of democracy, government stability and ethnic conflict. I find that international linkages, particularly as measured by trade ties, are influential in aid allocation from the IMF, World Bank and EBRD in the post-communist region. In addition, I chose Poland, Turkmenistan and Russia as the three case studies to understand the temporal dynamics of aid allocation and the role of international linkages in the relationship between domestic policy-makers and the international financial institutions. I chose Poland and Russia as high-level aid recipients while Turkmenistan is a low-level aid recipient. The three case studies also have varying degree of integration with the international community with Poland as a high level integration case, Turkmenistan as a low level integration case and Russia in an intermediate position. Within the case study analysis, I found that government stability and policy continuity are important determinants of Polish, Turkmen and Russian relations with the international financial institutions

Enhancing Neurogenesis in the Aging Brain through mTOR Pathway Activation

poster abstractThe U.S. population is aging. Age-related cognitive decline is a major public health problem. Developing an approach to treat or delay cognitive decline is critical. Neurogenesis by neural stem/progenitor cells (NSCs) in the hippocampus is related to cognitive function, and is greatly affected by the aging process. The molecular signaling that regulates age-related decline in neurogenesis is still poorly understood. Here we took the advantage of a transgenic mouse, Nestin-GFP, to assess neurogenesis and molecular signaling related to age-related decline in neurogenesis. We found that the total number of NSCs, including quiescent neural progenitors (QNPs) and amplifying neural progenitors (ANPs) decreased as the mice aged, but more importantly, ANPs are more significantly affected than QNPs, leading to further reduction in number and proliferation of ANPs. We further found that the mTOR signaling pathway is impaired in NSCs as mice age. Activating the mTOR signaling pathway through Ketamine injections increased NSC proliferation in aged mice. In contrast, inhibiting the activity of the mTOR signaling pathway by rapamycin is sufficient to reduce ANP proliferation in young mice. These results indicate that NSCs become more quiescent when the activity of mTOR signaling is compromised in aged mice, and stimulating the activity of mTOR signaling can overcome the age-associated decline in NSC proliferation. Following stimulation of the mTOR signaling pathway with Ketamine, we found a significant increase in the number of mature neurons. In order to determine whether or not a further increase in hippocampal neurogenesis is possible, we will next examine the ratio of newborn neuron survival

Caregiver Assessment Using Smart Gaming Technology: A Preliminary Approach

As pre-diagnostic technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, using them to improve the quality of care available to dementia patients and their caregivers is of increasing interest. Specifically, we aim to develop a tool for non-invasively assessing task performance in a simple gaming application. To address this, we have developed Caregiver Assessment using Smart Gaming Technology (CAST), a mobile application that personalizes a traditional word scramble game. Its core functionality uses a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) optimized via a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to provide customized performance measures for each user of the system. With CAST, we match the relative level of difficulty of play using the individual's ability to solve the word scramble tasks. We provide an analysis of the preliminary results for determining task difficulty, with respect to our current participant cohort.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figures, 6 table

OVERCOMING THE AGE-ASSOCIATED DECLINE IN NEURAL STEM CELL PROLIFERATION

poster abstractThe U.S. population is aging. Age-related cognitive decline is a major public health problem. Developing an approach to treat or delay cognitive decline is critical. Neurogenesis by neural stem/progenitor cells (NSCs) in the hippocampus is related to cognitive function, and is greatly affected by the aging process. The molecular signaling that regulates age-related decline in neurogenesis is still poorly understood. Here we took the advantage of a transgenic mouse, Nestin-GFP, to assess neurogenesis and molecular signal-ing related to age-related decline in neurogenesis. We found that the total number of NSCs, including quiescent neural progenitors (QNPs) and amplify-ing neural progenitors (ANPs) decreased as the mice aged, but more im-portantly, ANPs are more significantly affected than QNPs, leading to further reduction in number and proliferation of ANPs. We further found that the mTOR signaling pathway is impaired in NSCs as mice age. Activating the mTOR signaling pathway through Ketamine injections increased NSC prolif-eration in aged mice. In contrast, inhibiting the activity of the mTOR signal-ing pathway by rapamycin is sufficient to reduce ANP proliferation in young mice. These results indicate that NSCs becomes more quiescent when the activity of mTOR signaling is compromised in aged mice, and stimulating the activity of mTOR signaling can overcome the age-associated decline in NSC proliferation. This data suggests that promoting stem cell proliferation to en-hance neurogenesis may be a potential approach for attenuating cognitive decline in the aging brain.This work was supported by funding from the Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Award, Indiana University Biological Research Grant, NIH grants RR025761 and 1R21NS072631-01A, and Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP)

Caregiver Assessment Using Smart Gaming Technology: A Feasibility Study

© 2019 IEEE. As pre-diagnostic technologies are becoming increasingly accessible, using them to improve the quality of care available to dementia patients and their caregivers is of increasing interest. Specifically, we aim to develop a tool for non-invasively assessing task performance in a simple gaming application. To address this, we have developed Caregiver Assessment using Smart Technology (CAST), a mobile application that personalizes a traditional word scramble game. Its core functionality uses a Fuzzy Inference System (FIS) optimized via a Genetic Algorithm (GA) to provide customized performance measures for each user of the system. With CAST, we match the relative level of difficulty of play using the individual\u27s ability to solve the word scramble tasks. We provide an analysis of the preliminary results for determining task difficulty, with respect to our current participant cohort

Comparisons of Shewanella strains based on genome annotations, modeling, and experiments

BACKGROUND:Shewanella is a genus of facultatively anaerobic, Gram-negative bacteria that have highly adaptable metabolism which allows them to thrive in diverse environments. This quality makes them an attractive bacterial target for research in bioremediation and microbial fuel cell applications. Constraint-based modeling is a useful tool for helping researchers gain insights into the metabolic capabilities of these bacteria. However, Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 is the only strain with a genome-scale metabolic model constructed out of 21 sequenced Shewanella strains.RESULTS:In this work, we updated the model for Shewanella oneidensis MR-1 and constructed metabolic models for three other strains, namely Shewanella sp. MR-4, Shewanella sp. W3-18-1, and Shewanella denitrificans OS217 which span the genus based on the number of genes lost in comparison to MR-1. We also constructed a Shewanella core model that contains the genes shared by all 21 sequenced strains and a few non-conserved genes associated with essential reactions. Model comparisons between the five constructed models were done at two levels - for wildtype strains under different growth conditions and for knockout mutants under the same growth condition. In the first level, growth/no-growth phenotypes were predicted by the models on various carbon sources and electron acceptors. Cluster analysis of these results revealed that the MR-1 model is most similar to the W3-18-1 model, followed by the MR-4 and OS217 models when considering predicted growth phenotypes. However, a cluster analysis done based on metabolic gene content revealed that the MR-4 and W3-18-1 models are the most similar, with the MR-1 and OS217 models being more distinct from these latter two strains. As a second level of comparison, we identified differences in reaction and gene content which give rise to different functional predictions of single and double gene knockout mutants using Comparison of Networks by Gene Alignment (CONGA). Here, we showed how CONGA can be used to find biomass, metabolic, and genetic differences between models.CONCLUSIONS:We developed four strain-specific models and a general core model that can be used to do various in silico studies of Shewanella metabolism. The developed models provide a platform for a systematic investigation of Shewanella metabolism to aid researchers using Shewanella in various biotechnology applications.This item is part of the UA Faculty Publications collection. For more information this item or other items in the UA Campus Repository, contact the University of Arizona Libraries at [email protected]

Development of a Daily Use Caregiver Sleep Survey (DUCSS): A Mixed-Method Design

Dementia caregiving is associated with depression, stress, and sleep disturbance. A daily use caregiver sleep survey (DUCSS) was developed to evaluate caregiver sleep. The tool was distributed to 24 informal caregivers and validated using the Rasch model, which indicated that the 17-item survey produced sleep quality measures of sufficient reliability for both group-level and individual-level comparisons (reliability = .87). The sample size was sufficient to provide precise measures of the item’s position along the scale (item difficulty) (reliability = .85), so outcomes associated with sleep quality levels could be evaluated. We observed that the structure of the instrument is unidimensional, meaning the wording does not contain systematic biases peripheral to sleep quality. DUCSS is a useful tool for caregiver assessment and monitoring