Learning to Give: Final Evaluation Report Overview & Recommendations (2004-2005)

The Learning to Give project has evolved considerably from its inception nearly a decade ago. From an almost exclusive concern with helping children understand philanthropy and their potential role in it, the project has broadened its focus to include helping children learn how to contribute positively across all aspects of civil society. The earlier years were necessarily focused on creating and testing curricular lessons; more recently the emphasis has fallen on disseminating those tested materials and encouraging their adoption in more schools. In the last two years the project has begun to expand beyond Michigan and currently is establishing itself as a national resource for promoting learning in philanthropy and civic participation

Customer Information Sharing: Strategic Incentives and New Implications

We study oligopolistic firms' incentives to share customer information about past purchase history in a situation where firms are uncertain about whether a particular consumer considers the product offerings complements or substitutes. By addressing this new type of behavior-based price discrimination, we show that both the incentive to share customer information and its effects on consumers depend crucially on the relative magnitudes of the prices that would prevail in the complementary and substitute markets if consumers were fully segmented according to their preferences. This paper has important implications for merger analysis when the primary motive for merger is the acquisition of another firm's customer lists. We also find that the informational regime in which firms reside can have an influence upon the choice of product differentiation. Additionally, our analysis suggests a new role of middlemen as information aggregators

Learning to Give: Addendum (2005-2006)

This report is best understood as an addendum to the final report that the Michigan State University evaluation team submitted to the Learning to Give project staff in September 2005. This overview summarizes the three evaluation tasks that were yet to be completed at the end of the 2004-2005 school year and ends with a few reflections on the evaluation process and the overall findings

Improving Food Security in Africa: Highlights of 25 Years of Research, Capacity-Building, and Outreach.

Decades of research have led to substantially improved understanding of the nature of food insecurity. A combination of economic growth and targeted programs resulted in a steady fall (until the food crisis of 2007/08) in the percentage of the world’s population suffering from undernutrition (from 20% in 1990/92 to 16% in 2006). Yet over a billion people still face both chronic and/or transitory food insecurity due to long-standing problems of inadequate income, low-productivity in agricultural production and marketing, and related problems of poor health and absence of clean water. Assuring adequate food security for such a large share of the world’s population is increasingly challenging due to continuing resource degradation driven by a combination of population pressure and outdated agricultural practices, poorly functioning input markets, rapid urbanization, increased concerns about food safety, and climate change. This document contains an overview of the past 25 years of research, capacity-building, and outreach by MSU’s Food Security Group. The paper describes key elements of the FSG approach and draws lessons regarding the value of that model. Insights gained from research and outreach and their value in addressing the major current challenges facing food and agricultural systems in Africa are summarized in FSG (2009).Africa, Food Security, research, capacity building, outreach, Agricultural and Food Policy, Community/Rural/Urban Development, Consumer/Household Economics, Demand and Price Analysis, Food Security and Poverty, International Development, Land Economics/Use, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, q10, q18, q12, q13,

A genome-wide screen in macrophages identifies new regulators of IFNγ-inducible MHCII that contribute to T cell activation [preprint]

Cytokine-mediated activation of host immunity is central to the control of pathogens. A key cytokine in protective immunity is interferon-gamma (IFNγ), which is a potent activator of antimicrobial and immunomodulatory effectors within the host. A major role of IFNγ is to induce major histocompatibility complex class II molecules (MHCII) on the surface of cells, which is required for CD4+ T cell activation. Despite its central role in host immunity, the complex and dynamic regulation of IFNγ-induced MHCII is not well understood. Here, we integrated functional genomics and transcriptomics to comprehensively define the genetic control of IFNγ-mediated MHCII surface expression in macrophages. Using a genome-wide CRISPR-Cas9 library we identified genes that control MHCII surface expression, many of which have yet to be associated with MHCII. Mechanistic studies uncovered two parallel pathways of IFNγ-mediated MHCII control that require the multifunctional glycogen synthase kinase 3 beta (GSK3β) or the mediator complex subunit MED16. Both pathways are necessary for IFNγ-mediated induction of the MHCII transactivator CIITA, MHCII expression, and CD4+ T cell activation. Using transcriptomic analysis, we defined the regulons controlled by GSK3β and MED16 in the presence and absence of IFNγ and identified unique networks of the IFNγ-mediated transcriptional landscape that are controlled by each gene. Our analysis suggests GSK3β and MED16 control distinct aspects of the IFNγ-response and are critical for macrophages to respond appropriately to IFNγ. Our results define previously unappreciated regulation of MHCII expression that is required to control CD4+ T cell responses by macrophages. These discoveries will aid in our basic understanding of macrophage-mediated immunity and will shed light on mechanisms of failed adaptive responses pervasive in infectious disease, autoimmunity, and cancer

Korean agriculture planning project

노트 : A joing project of the Ministry of Agricalture and Fisheries Republic of Korea and Michigan State Universir