Enhancing New Markets Tax Credit pipeline flow: Maintaining a continuous deal flow in spite of funding gaps and market volatility

Kevin Leichner examines New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) performance during the Great Recession and provides recommendations for maintaining deal flow to support the NMTC project pipeline and overcome financing gaps. Between 2002 and 2009, the Federal government allocated $26 billion worth of NMTC to support community development projects. Based on new data from the respondents to a Winter 2010 Center for Community Development Investments survey as well as three case studies, NMTC stakeholders are finding their NMTC portfolios are outperforming other investments. At the same time, however, their responses also indicate that the Congressional expansion of the program, with larger annual allocations, may exceed the ability of the NMTC industry to provide high-quality investor-backed projects. As a consequence, investor demand for the tax credits has been falling, resulting in lower investor pay-ins and reduced impact in low-income communities. Based on survey responses, case studies, and industry literature, the paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening the program and stimulating demand.Community development

3D Architectural Analysis of Neurons, Astrocytes, Vasculature & Nuclei in the Motor and Somatosensory Murine Cortical Columns

Characterization of the complex cortical structure of the brain at a cellular level is a fundamental goal of neuroscience which can provide a better understanding of both normal function as well as disease state progression. Many challenges exist however when carrying out this form of analysis. Immunofluorescent staining is a key technique for revealing 3-dimensional structure, but subsequent fluorescence microscopy is limited by the quantity of simultaneous targets that can be labeled and intrinsic lateral and isotropic axial point-spread function (PSF) blurring during the imaging process in a spectral and depth-dependent manner. Even after successful staining, imaging and optical deconvolution, the sheer density of filamentous processes in the neuropil significantly complicates analysis due to the difficulty of separating individual cells in a highly interconnected network of tightly woven cellular arbors. In order to solve these problems, a variety of methodologies were developed and validated for improved analysis of cortical anatomy. An enhanced immunofluorescent staining and imaging protocol was utilized to precisely locate specific functional regions within brain slices at high magnification and collect four-channel, complete cortical columns. A powerful deconvolution routine was established which collected depth variant PSFs using an optical phantom for image restoration. Fractional volume analysis (FVA) was used to provide preliminary data of the proportions of each stained component in order to statistically characterize the variability within and between the functional regions in a depth-dependent and depth-independent manner. Finally, using machine learning techniques, a supervised learning model was developed that could automatically classify neuronal and astrocytic nuclei within the large cortical column datasets based on perinuclear fluorescence. These annotated nuclei were then used as seed points within their corresponding fluorescent channel for cell individualization in a highly interconnected network. For astrocytes, this technique provides the first method for characterization of complex morphology in an automated fashion over large areas without laborious dye filling or manual tracing

Factors Influencing Regulatory T Cell Maintenance for the Control of Autoimmunity

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are a subset of CD4+ T cells with suppressive function and are critical in limiting autoimmunity. Increasing Treg numbers can be beneficial in the treatment of several inflammatory disorders. Here, we investigate the roles played by various factors on the control of Treg homeostasis. We provide evidence that the skin can exert strong systemic effects on Treg numbers by producing the cytokine thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) in response to topical administration of the vitamin D3 analog MC903. Widespread increases in Tregs were observed in mice treated topically but not systemically with MC903. TSLP receptor (TSLP-R) but not hematopoietic vitamin D receptor signaling was important for this increase in Treg numbers and MC903 treatment did not lead to changes in Treg development, but drove increased Treg proliferation. However, TSLP-R expression by Tregs themselves was not required for the expansion induced by MC903 treatment. Rather, TSLP promotes Treg proliferation by affecting dendritic cell (DC)/Treg interactions, as mice lacking DCs did not have an increase in Tregs after MC903 treatment, and TSLP enhanced proliferation of Tregs co-cultured with DCs. To test whether MC903 could influence progression of autoimmunity, non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice were treated topically with MC903 and it was found that this treatment significantly lowered the incidence of diabetes. Other than TSLP-driven expansion, Treg numbers are known to rely on the cytokine interleukin-2 (IL-2) and T cell receptor (TCR) signals. We found that Foxp3- conventional T cells (Tconvs) produce IL-2 in response to self-peptides and that Tconvs possessing TCRs with greater self-reactivity express more IL-2 at baseline. Furthermore, selective disruption of TCR signaling in Tconvs led to a trend towards decreased expression of IL-2 and diminished the ability of Tconvs to maintain Treg numbers. These data suggest that the role of TCR in Treg maintenance includes the ability of Tconvs to signal in response to self-peptides. Together, this work investigates multiple factors that have important effects on Treg maintenance. These findings have potential implications on development of therapies that seek to modulate immune activation in autoimmune settings

Supporting Our Parks: A Guide to Alternative Revenue Strategies

"Supporting Our Parks: A Guide to Alternative Revenue Strategies", a study carried out by New Yorkers for Parks during 2008 and 2009, presents a flexible strategy for addressing the chronic maintenance and operations budgeting shortfall in the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) system. This study offers "reforms in action": a menu of strategies that exist in various parks across the country and can be mixed and matched to develop a broader portfolio of revenue sources than is currently available to DPR. These strategies are suited to the system level, to categories of parks, and can also be creatively and meaningfully applied to individual parks

Mesotocin influences pinyon jay prosociality

Many species exhibit prosocial behavior, in which one individual’s actions benefit another individual, often without an immediate benefit to itself. The neuropeptide oxytocin is an important hormonal mechanism influencing prosociality in mammals, but it is unclear whether the avian homologue mesotocin plays a similar functional role in birds. Here, we experimentally tested prosociality in pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), a highly social corvid species that spontaneously shares food with others. First, we measured prosocial preferences in a prosocial choice task with two different payoff distributions: Prosocial trials delivered food to both the subject and either an empty cage or a partner bird, whereas Altruism trials delivered food only to an empty cage or a partner bird (none to subject). In a second experiment, we examined whether administering mesotocin influenced prosocial preferences. Compared to choices in a control condition, we show that subjects voluntarily delivered food rewards to partners, but only when also receiving food for themselves (Prosocial trials), and administration of high levels of mesotocin increased these behaviors. Thus, in birds, mesotocin seems to play a similar functional role in facilitating prosocial behaviors as oxytocin does in mammals, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved hormonal mechanism for prosociality

Mesotocin influences pinyon jay prosociality

Many species exhibit prosocial behavior , in which one individual’s actions benefit another individual, often without an immediate benefit to itself. The neuropeptide oxytocin is an important hormonal mechanism influencing prosociality in mammals, but it is unclear whether the avian homologue mesotocin plays a similar functional role in birds. Here, we experimentally tested prosociality in pinyon jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus), a highly social corvid species that spontaneously shares food with others. First, we measured prosocial preferences in a prosocial choice task with two different pay-off distributions: Prosocial trials delivered food to both the subject and either an empty cage or a partner bird, whereas Altruism trials delivered food only to an empty cage or a partner bird (none to subject). In a second experiment, we examined whether administering mesotocin influenced prosocial preferences. Compared to choices in a control condition, we show that subjects voluntarily delivered food rewards to partners, but only when also receiving food for themselves (Prosocial trials), and administration of high levels of mesotocin increased these behavior s. Thus, in birds, mesotocin seems to play a similar functional role in facilitating prosocial behavior s as oxytocin does in mammals, suggesting an evolutionarily conserved hormonal mechanism for prosociality

Virtuelle Vergemeinschaftung Jugendlicher: ein Literaturbericht zur Szenenforschung der Projektgruppe "Jugendszenen im Internet"

"Welchen Einfluss nimmt das Internet auf die Kommunikation, Verbreitung und Generierung von Jugendszenen? Erkenntnisse der Szenenforschung zu dieser Frage stehen im Mittelpunkt des vorliegenden Literaturberichts. Jugendszenen werden als kommunikative und interaktive Netzwerke verstanden, deren Existenz auf gemeinsamen Interessen ihrer Mitglieder basiert. Das Internet hat sich zweifelsohne zu einem zentralen Kommunikationsraum dieser Gesinnungsgemeinschaften entwickelt. Sie nutzen das Netz zunehmend als Kommunikationsmedium, Präsentationsplattform, Verbreitungsweg und Partizipationsforum. Erste wissenschaftliche Studien deuten darauf hin, dass das Internet auch Potential in sich trägt, Raum für virtuelle Vergemeinschaftung zu bieten und originäre Online-Szenen zu generieren. Der folgende Beitrag führt in die Thematik der Szenenforschung ein und zeigt Probleme wie Potentiale der Selbstrepräsentation von Szenen im Internet auf." (Autorenreferat)"This article examines the research findings on the question of how the Internet influences the communication, diffusion and generation of youth subcultures, which are defined as communicative and interactive networks based on the shared interests of their members. Without a doubt, the Internet has emerged as a central communication space for youth subcultures and is increasingly used as a medium of communication, self-presentation, diffusion and participation. According to leadoff studies, there is evidence to suggest that the Internet potentially provides space for virtual collectivization and may generate youth subcultures whose existence is limited to the internet. The following article provides an introduction to youth subculture research and highlights problems as well as potentials of self-representation of youth subcultures online." (author's abstract

Data-Free Neural Architecture Search via Recursive Label Calibration

This paper aims to explore the feasibility of neural architecture search (NAS) given only a pre-trained model without using any original training data. This is an important circumstance for privacy protection, bias avoidance, etc., in real-world scenarios. To achieve this, we start by synthesizing usable data through recovering the knowledge from a pre-trained deep neural network. Then we use the synthesized data and their predicted soft-labels to guide neural architecture search. We identify that the NAS task requires the synthesized data (we target at image domain here) with enough semantics, diversity, and a minimal domain gap from the natural images. For semantics, we propose recursive label calibration to produce more informative outputs. For diversity, we propose a regional update strategy to generate more diverse and semantically-enriched synthetic data. For minimal domain gap, we use input and feature-level regularization to mimic the original data distribution in latent space. We instantiate our proposed framework with three popular NAS algorithms: DARTS, ProxylessNAS and SPOS. Surprisingly, our results demonstrate that the architectures discovered by searching with our synthetic data achieve accuracy that is comparable to, or even higher than, architectures discovered by searching from the original ones, for the first time, deriving the conclusion that NAS can be done effectively with no need of access to the original or called natural data if the synthesis method is well designed.Comment: ECCV 202