The Bottom Line: Investing for Impact on Economic Mobility in the U.S.

There is no greater challenge in the United States today than income inequality. It has been 50 years since the War on Poverty began. We have made progress but not enough. More than 32 million children live in low-income families, and racial and gender gaps persist. For the first time, Americans do not believe life will be better for the next generation. We have both a moral and an economic imperative to fuel social and economic mobility in this country.The Aspen Institute was founded in 1950 as a place to address the critical issues of our time. Today, ensuring that the American dream can be a possibility for all and be passed from one generation to the next is that issue. This commitment is at the heart of the work of many policy programs at the Aspen Institute. Ending the cycle of poverty requires leadership and hard work across all sectors, from nonprofit organizations, philanthropies, and academia to the government and private sector. This report recognizes the importance of learning from all sectors in tackling any challenge. Specifically, it builds on opportunities in the growing impact investment field. The report draws on the lessons from market-based approaches to identify tools and strategies that can help move the needle on family economic security. In this report, you will find the following: Case studies -- An opportunity to go under the hood on deals with the Bank of America, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Acelero Learning, and others; Point of view essays -- Insights and lessons from leaders in the field; Deals at a glance -- Snapshots of impact investors and what they have learned, including the Kresge Foundation, Living Cities, and the MacArthur Foundation; and Survey results and lessons learned -- Trends among active and emerging players in the U.S. impact investment field and the lessons that can be applied to economic mobility in the U.S. We are pleased to offer this expanded perspective on impact investing in the U.S. and the lessons for investors, philanthropists, and non-profits working to build strong and prosperous families and communities

A 200-year perspective on alternative stable state theory and lake management from a biomanipulated shallow lake

Abstract. Multiple stressors to a shallow lake ecosystem have the ability to control the relative stability of alternative states (clear, macrophyte-dominated or turbid, algaldominated). As a consequence, the use of remedial biomanipulations to induce trophic cascades and shift a turbid lake to a clear state is often only a temporary solution. Here we show the instability of short-term manipulations in the shallow Lake Christina (Minnesota, USA) is governed by the long-term state following a regime shift in the lake. During the modern, managed period of the lake, three top-down manipulations (fish kills) were undertaken inducing temporary (5-10 years) unstable clear-water states. Paleoecological remains of diatoms, along with proxies of primary production (total chlorophyll a and total organic carbon accumulation rate) and trophic state (total P) from sediment records clearly show a single regime shift in the lake during the early 1950s; following this shift, the functioning of the lake ecosystem is dominated by a persistent turbid state. We find that multiple stressors contributed to the regime shift. First, the lake began to eutrophy (from agricultural land use and/or increased waterfowl populations), leading to a dramatic increase in primary production. Soon after, the construction of a dam in 1936 effectively doubled the depth of the lake, compounded by increases in regional humidity; this resulted in an increase in planktivorous and benthivorous fish reducing phytoplankton grazers. These factors further conspired to increase the stability of a turbid regime during the modern managed period, such that switches to a clear-water state were inherently unstable and the lake consistently returned to a turbid state. We conclude that while top-down manipulations have had measurable impacts on the lake state, they have not been effective in providing a return to an ecosystem similar to the stable historical period. Our work offers an example of a well-studied ecosystem forced by multiple stressors into a new long-term managed period, where manipulated clearwater states are temporary, managed features

Minimizing Errors in RT-PCR Detection and Quantification of SARS-CoV-2 RNA for Wastewater Surveillance

Wastewater surveillance for pathogens using the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is an effective, resource-efficient tool for gathering additional community-level public health information, including the incidence and/or prevalence and trends of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater may provide an early-warning signal of COVID-19 infections in a community. The capacity of the world’s environmental microbiology and virology laboratories for SARS-CoV-2 RNA characterization in wastewater is rapidly increasing. However, there are no standardized protocols nor harmonized quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC) procedures for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance. This paper is a technical review of factors that can lead to false-positive and -negative errors in the surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, culminating in recommendations and strategies that can be implemented to identify and mitigate these errors. Recommendations include, stringent QA/QC measures, representative sampling approaches, effective virus concentration and efficient RNA extraction, amplification inhibition assessment, inclusion of sample processing controls, and considerations for RT-PCR assay selection and data interpretation. Clear data interpretation guidelines (e.g., determination of positive and negative samples) are critical, particularly during a low incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater. Corrective and confirmatory actions must be in place for inconclusive and/or potentially significant results (e.g., initial onset or reemergence of COVID-19 in a community). It will also be prudent to perform inter-laboratory comparisons to ensure results are reliable and interpretable for ongoing and retrospective analyses. The strategies that are recommended in this review aim to improve SARS-CoV-2 characterization for wastewater surveillance applications. A silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic is that the efficacy of wastewater surveillance was demonstrated during this global crisis. In the future, wastewater will play an important role in the surveillance of a range of other communicable diseases.Highlights: Harmonized QA/QC procedures for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance are lacking; Wastewater analysis protocols are not optimized for trace analysis of viruses; False-positive and -negative errors have consequences for public health responses; Inter-laboratory studies utilizing standardized reference materials and protocols are needed.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PROMISING THE DREAM: changing destination image of London through the effect of website place

Drawing on theories of place identity and social identity, this study aims to fill a gap in place identity studies regarding the effect of a place website on the destination image of customers/visitors/tourists. The research addresses three questions: (1) what are the main impacts of tourists’ attitude on place identity and the place website, (2) what are the factors that influence destination image, and (3) what are the main impacts of a favorable destination image? The favorability of a destination image is reflected by the extent to which visitors positively regard that place website. Results reveal the importance of the destination image in enhancing the intention to revisit and recommend. Also, visitors’ satisfaction impacts on their intention to revisit and recommend the place. Significant implications for place managers and researchers are highlighted

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Cross-Sectional Exploration of Plasma Biomarkers of Alzheimer's Disease in Down Syndrome: Early Data from the Longitudinal Investigation for Enhancing Down Syndrome Research (LIFE-DSR) Study

With improved healthcare, the Down syndrome (DS) population is both growing and aging rapidly. However, with longevity comes a very high risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). The LIFE-DSR study (NCT04149197) is a longitudinal natural history study recruiting 270 adults with DS over the age of 25. The study is designed to characterize trajectories of change in DS-associated AD (DS-AD). The current study reports its cross-sectional analysis of the first 90 subjects enrolled. Plasma biomarkers phosphorylated tau protein (p-tau), neurofilament light chain (NfL), amyloid β peptides (Aβ1-40, Aβ1-42), and glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP) were undertaken with previously published methods. The clinical data from the baseline visit include demographics as well as the cognitive measures under the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) and Down Syndrome Mental Status Examination (DS-MSE). Biomarker distributions are described with strong statistical associations observed with participant age. The biomarker data contributes to understanding DS-AD across the spectrum of disease. Collectively, the biomarker data show evidence of DS-AD progression beginning at approximately 40 years of age. Exploring these data across the full LIFE-DSR longitudinal study population will be an important resource in understanding the onset, progression, and clinical profiles of DS-AD pathophysiology

Biotic Interactions as Determinants of Ecosystem Structure in Prairie Wetlands: An Example Using Fish

Wetlands are abundant throughout the prairie pothole region (PPR), an area comprising over 700,000 km2 in central North America. Prairie wetland communities are strongly influenced by regional physiography and climate, resulting in extreme spatial and temporal variability relative to other aquatic ecosystems. Given the strong influence of abiotic factors, PPR wetland communities have been viewed traditionally in the context of their responses to chemical and physical features of landscape and climate. Although useful, this physical-chemical paradigm may fail to account for ecosystem variability due to biotic influences, particularly those associated with presence of fish. Spatial and temporal variability in fish populations, in turn, may reflect anthropogenic activities, landscape characteristics, and climate-mediated effects on water levels, surface connectivity, and hydroperiods. We reviewed studies assessing influences of fish on prairie wetlands and examined precipitation patterns and biological data from PPR wetlands in east-central North Dakota and western Minnesota, USA. Our review and analysis indicated that native fish influence many characteristics of permanently flooded prairie wetlands, including water clarity and abundance of phytoplankton, submerged macrophytes, and aquatic invertebrates. We suggest that ecologists and managers will benefit from conceptual paradigms that better meld biotic interactions associated with fish, and perhaps other organisms, with chemical and physical influences on prairie wetland communities

A Surface-Associated Activity Trap for Capturing Water-Surface and Aquatic Invertebrates in Wetlands

We developed a surface-associated activity trap (SAT) for sampling aquatic invertebrates in wetlands. We compared performance of this trap with that of a conventional activity trap (AT) based on nondetection rates and relative abundance estimates for 13 taxa of common wetland invertebrates and for taxon richness using data from experiments in constructed wetlands. Taxon-specific non-detection rates for ATs generally exceeded those of SATs, and largest improvements using SATs were for Chironomidae and Gastropoda. SATs were efficient at capturing cladocera, Chironomidae, Gastropoda, total Crustacea, and multiple taxa (taxon richness) but were only slightly better than ATs at capturing Dytiscidae. Temporal differences in capture rates were observed only for cladocera, Chironomidae, Dytiscidae, and total Crustacea, with capture efficiencies of SATs usually decreasing from mid-June through mid-July for these taxa. We believe that SATs may be useful for characterizing wetland invertebrate communities and for developing improved measures of prey available to foraging waterfowl and other aquatic birds