Successful Projects - What Makes Them Work? A Cross-National Analysis

[Excerpt] This cross national analysis is based on national studies made by research teams in India, Kenya, Romania and South Africa. It aims to draw out the lessons learnt from successful social development processes in these countries. In each country, studies have been made of projects identified as interesting, successful and/or outstanding in the way they have improved the quality of life of people with intellectual disabilities. In national reports, the respective teams have made their own national conclusions. This comparative report briefly describes the national studies. It then continues with a cross national analysis attempting to identify circumstances or factors that are common to these successful projects. Finally, the report summarises the conclusions and their implications. We hope that the findings presented in the report will be used as inspiration in future planning, implementation and funding of projects aiming at improving life conditions of groups that are marginalised in society. Chapter 1 and 2, describing the research process and the national reports have been written by Annika and Lennart Nilsson. Anders Gustavsson and Johans Sandvin are responsible for the cross national analysis in chapter 3 to 7. The conclusions and implications in chapter 8 have been written jointly. The study has been commissioned by Inclusion International and financed by the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida)

Childhood Poverty and Labour Market Exclusion. Findings from a Swedish Birth Cohort.

Research has consistently shown that poverty and economic hardship have negative consequences for children. Few studies, however, have examined whether these consequences persists into adulthood. In the present paper we broaden the focus and analyse how living conditions during childhood and adolescence structure socio-economic circumstances also in midlife. How does exposure to poverty during childhood and adolescence affect future probabilities for labour market exclusion and inclusion in early adulthood and in midlife? The data are drawn from a new longitudinal Swedish data set – the Stockholm Birth Cohort Study (SBC) – in which we can follow a cohort of Swedes from birth (1953) to the age of 48 (2001). Our results show that childhood poverty clearly has a negative impact on attainment in adulthood. Persistent poverty in the family of origin and entering poverty in adolescence are particularly detrimental for life chances. This is most salient in the analysis of exclusion in midlife. Educational achievement and deviant behaviour (criminality and drug abuse) are identified as important intervening variables. The results are interpreted as a process of cumulative disadvantage. In our final analyses we focus on those excluded from the labour market in early adulthood and their likelihood to be included in midlife. We find that resource attainment in terms of education and family has positive effects for the chance for inclusion and may in that respect be regarded as turning points.childhood poverty; socio-economic circumstances; labour market exclusion

Markov modeling of peptide folding in the presence of protein crowders

We use Markov state models (MSMs) to analyze the dynamics of a $\beta$-hairpin-forming peptide in Monte Carlo (MC) simulations with interacting protein crowders, for two different types of crowder proteins [bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI) and GB1]. In these systems, at the temperature used, the peptide can be folded or unfolded and bound or unbound to crowder molecules. Four or five major free-energy minima can be identified. To estimate the dominant MC relaxation times of the peptide, we build MSMs using a range of different time resolutions or lag times. We show that stable relaxation-time estimates can be obtained from the MSM eigenfunctions through fits to autocorrelation data. The eigenfunctions remain sufficiently accurate to permit stable relaxation-time estimation down to small lag times, at which point simple estimates based on the corresponding eigenvalues have large systematic uncertainties. The presence of the crowders have a stabilizing effect on the peptide, especially with BPTI crowders, which can be attributed to a reduced unfolding rate $k_\text{u}$, while the folding rate $k_\text{f}$ is left largely unchanged.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Taking the Lab to the Field: Experimental Tests of Alternative Mechanisms to Procure Multiple Contracts

The first part of the paper reports the results from a sequence of laboratory experiments comparing the bidding behavior for multiple contracts in three different sealed bid auction mechanisms; first-price simultaneous, first-price sequential and first-price combinatorial bidding. The design of the experiment is based on experiences from a public procurement auction of road markings in Sweden. Bidders are asymmetric in their cost functions; some exhibit decreasing average costs of winning more than one contract, whereas other bidders have increasing average cost functions. The combinatorial bidding mechanism is demonstrated to be most efficient. The second part of the paper describes how the lab experiment was followed up by a field test of a combinatorial procurement auction of road markings.Multiple units, non-constant costs, asymmetric redemption values, alternative procurement mechanisms

Two new East Palearctic Agabus species of the adpressus- and confinis-groups (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae)

The Agabus adpressus-group is defined and Agabus udege sp. n. is described from the Sikhote-Alin mountain range in easternmost Russia. It is the sisterspecies of A. adpressus Aube, 1837. Some East Palearctic specimens previously assigned to Agabus discolor (Harris, 1828), A. clypealis (Thomson, 1867), and A. levanderi Hellen, 1929, in the literature are described as Agabus angusi sp. n. The new species is known from the Lake Baikal region and eastwards to NE Mongolia and northernmost China

A new Gyrinus species from Mongolia (Coleoptera: Gyrinidae)

A new species of Gyrinus O. F. Müller (Coleoptera: Gyrinidae) is described from Mongolia: G. sugunurensis. The new species was earlier confused with G. distinctus Aubé

Taxonomic and faunistic notes on East Palaearctic Colymbetes species, with the description of a new species from the Far East (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae)

Colymbetes pseudostriatus n. sp. (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) is described from Sakhalin in the Russian Far East. The new species that is recorded also from E Siberia, NE China and Japan was earlier confused with C. dolabratus (Paykull) and C. striatus (Linnaeus). A lectotype is designated for C. tolli Zaitzev, 1907, and this name is synonymized with Dytiscus dolabratus Paykull, 1798, n. syn. A record of C. fuscus (Linnaeus) from Thibet is confirmed

Lectotype designation for Hydroporus septemvittatus Régimbart, 1883 (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae)

Entomologica Fennica. Vol. 6:4 7.IX.l99

Quasi-Species and Aggregate Dynamics

At an early stage in pre-biotic evolution, groups of replicating molecules must coordinate their reproduction to form aggregated units of selection. Mechanisms that enable this to occur are currently not well understood. In this paper we introduce a deterministic model of primitive replicating aggregates, proto-organisms, that host populations of replicating information carrying molecules. Some of the molecules promote the reproduction of the proto-organism at the cost of their individual replication rate. A situation resembling that of group selection arises. We derive and analytically solve a partial differential equation that describes the system. We find that the relative prevalence of fast and slow replicators is determined by the relative strength of selection at the aggregate level to the selection strength at the molecular level. The analysis is concluded by a preliminary treatment of finite population size effects.Comment: 6 page