The development of trust and social capital in rural Uganda: An experimental approach

Trust is important for development but can be hard to build. In this paper, we report on experiments designed to understand the determinants of trust in villages in eastern Uganda, and in particular whether trust can be `built´ by offering insurance to people as a protection against the possibility that the trust they offer will not be reciprocated. We find, firstly, that the effects of income and wealth on trust are ambiguous: trust is higher in the richer than the poorer village, but once association and female education are added as explanatory variables, the wealth effect disappears. Secondly, although the offer of insurance is taken up by a majority of players, this is in most cases not an `effective demand´ in the sense of incentivising higher levels of trust. Effective demand for insurance, defined in this way, however responds positively to high levels of risk efficacy, microfinance membership and female education. Insurance offered in this form, therefore, is on its own apparently not a reliable technology for building trust; but its effectiveness as a trust-building instrument appears to increase if certain complementary institutions are in position

How Good is Growth for the Poor? The Role of Initial Income Distribution in Regional Diversity in Poverty Trends

Using panel data of 58 developing countries for the period 1980-1998, this study shows that the responsiveness of the $2 a day poverty headcount measure to changes in mean income and inequality significantly decreases with initial inequality and the ratio poverty line over mean income - taken as proxies for the initial density of income near the poverty line.Variations in these proxies account for the large crossregional differences in the income elasticity of poverty during the 1980s and 1990s.We find that the income elasticity of poverty in the mid 1990s equals -1.31 on average and ranges from -0.71 for Sub-Saharan Africa to -2.27 for the Middle East and North Africa, and that the Gini elasticity of poverty equals 0.80 on average and ranges from 0.01 in South Asia to 1.73 in Latin America.While variation in income growth accounts for most of the variation in poverty reduction across regions, the impact of variations in inequality and in elasticities of poverty is almost always too large to be ignored, and in particular in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.Panel data;Poverty;Income Growth;Inequality

The Role of the 1994-95 Coffee Boom in Uganda's Recovery

This paper reports a CGE analysis that explores the consequences of the 1994-95 rise in the international price of coffee for Uganda´s economy. Evidence is found for a small effect on medium-term growth and poverty reduction. Aid dependence is among the reasons why this effect is not found to be larger. Major beneficiary groups are not only the farmers to which the windfall initially accrued but also urban wage earners and the urban self-employed

Emissions and Distribution of Hexachlorocyclohexanes in the Rhine Basin Area in the 1980s and Prognoses for 1990-2020

The Rhine Basin project, a cooperative study between the Dutch RIVM (National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection) and IIASA, analyzes sources of chemical pollution of the Rhine Basin in order to find relations between pollution and effects. This report deals with sources and distribution of an agricultural chemical: the pesticide lindane. Currently, more than 90% of the composition of lindane is the y-isomer of hexachlorocyclohexane (HCH), but in the past other isomers were present in larger amounts. All the isomers of HCHs are treated in this report as one group. In the 1980s about 300 tons of lindane were applied annually in the Rhine Basin. More than 90% of the use was for cereals, beet and maize. About 3.3% was applied to forest soils. Atmospheric deposition is substantial (4.8%). About 23 tons of HCH accumulates in the soil, and another 26 tons in surface waters. Volatilization and biodegradation in the soil are important processes that determine the fate of HCHs. The effects of four scenarios on future HCH accumulation, erosion and emission to surface waters have been determined. Emissions to surface waters react relatively quickly to changes in lindane use. Levels of lindane in soils and the atmosphere react more slowly to changes in lindane use. A 10% reduction in pesticide use does not affect emissions or accumulation significantly, compared with unchanged pesticide use. Prohibition or a voluntary replacement of lindane by alternatives cause a considerable decrease in emissions to surface waters and accumulation in soils. However, even after a prohibition of lindane it has been calculated that it will take more than 4000 years to remove all the lindane residues from the soil

Ecologische risico's van koper en zink in het oppervlaktewater

Het merendeel van de Nederlandse (rijks)wateren voldoet niet aan de door de Kaderrichtlijn Water vereiste chemische en ecologische toestand. In veel oppervlaktewateren in Nederland zijn de concentraties van de metalen koper en zink hoger dan de wettelijke normen. Tot dusver is het echter niet duidelijk in hoeverre deze normoverschrijdingen tot risico's leiden. Ecologische risico's van zink en koper in het oppervlaktewater kunnen nu worden geschat door recente ontwikkelingen op het gebied van Biotic Ligand-modellen (BLM). Deze kunnen de effecten van koper en zink op een groot aantal organismen inschatten en houden daarbij niet alleen rekening met de metaalconcentraties maar ook met andere factoren die de biologische beschikbaarheid bepalen, zoals pH en DOC. Uit BLM-berekeningen aan een groot aantal oppervlaktewatermonsters blijkt dat voor zink bij overschrijding van de huidige oppervlaktewaternorm inderdaad ecologische risico's worden verwacht. Voor koper worden bij de meeste normoverschrijdingen echter geen ecologische risico's berekend

Ets-1 Regulates Energy Metabolism in Cancer Cells

Cancer cells predominantly utilize glycolysis for ATP production even in the presence of abundant oxygen, an environment that would normally result in energy production through oxidative phosphorylation. Although the molecular mechanism for this metabolic switch to aerobic glycolysis has not been fully elucidated, it is likely that mitochondrial damage to the electron transport chain and the resulting increased production of reactive oxygen species are significant driving forces. In this study, we have investigated the role of the transcription factor Ets-1 in the regulation of mitochondrial function and metabolism. Ets-1 was over-expressed using a stably-incorporated tetracycline-inducible expression vector in the ovarian cancer cell line 2008, which does not express detectable basal levels of Ets-1 protein. Microarray analysis of the effects of Ets-1 over-expression in these ovarian cancer cells shows that Ets-1 up-regulates key enzymes involved in glycolysis and associated feeder pathways, fatty acid metabolism, and antioxidant defense. In contrast, Ets-1 down-regulates genes involved in the citric acid cycle, electron transport chain, and mitochondrial proteins. At the functional level, we have found that Ets-1 expression is directly correlated with cellular oxygen consumption whereby increased expression causes decreased oxygen consumption. Ets-1 over-expression also caused increased sensitivity to glycolytic inhibitors, as well as growth inhibition in a glucose-depleted culture environment. Collectively our findings demonstrate that Ets-1 is involved in the regulation of cellular metabolism and response to oxidative stress in ovarian cancer cells

Differential spontaneous folding of mycolic acids from Mycobacterium tuberculosis

AbstractMycolic acids are structural components of the mycobacterial cell wall that have been implicated in the pathogenicity and drug resistance of certain mycobacterial species. They also offer potential in areas such as rapid serodiagnosis of human and animal tuberculosis. It is increasingly recognized that conformational behavior of mycolic acids is very important in understanding all aspects of their function. Atomistic molecular dynamics simulations, in vacuo, of stereochemically defined Mycobacterium tuberculosis mycolic acids show that they fold spontaneously into reproducible conformational groupings. One of the three characteristic mycolate types, the keto-mycolic acids, behaves very differently from either α-mycolic acids or methoxy-mycolic acids, suggesting a distinct biological role. However, subtle conformational behavioral differences between all the three mycolic acid types indicate that cooperative interplay of individual mycolic acids may be important in the biophysical properties of the mycobacterial cell envelope and therefore in pathogenicity

Cyanobacterial growth and cyanophycin production with urea and ammonium as nitrogen source

publishedVersio