State Failure and Political Instability: The Impact of Educational Attainment in Africa

I investigate the role of educational attainment on state failure and political stability across the African continent. For the empirical analysis, I estimate a Linear Probability Model (LPM) for State Failure by Ordinary Least Squares (OLS). I hypothesize that differences in educational attainment in Africa can explain differences in political stability and state failure. Furthermore, I believe that this effect has persisted over time and that early educational attainment in the late colonial and early independence era is a significant determinant of state affairs in more recent times. I find that early secondary educational attainment explains higher state stability, while tertiary education explains more state instability later on

A Template for Sustainability Education in Chemistry

Solving sustainability as described by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, is an important focus of chemistry research. Sustainability education must encompass the complexity and interdisciplinary nature of sustainability problem solving and its impact. Tools of systems thinking, network science, and graph theory are ideal for developing sustainability education exercises and delivering transformative learning, which in turn is essential for advising policy and law makers. [1] A template for sustainability education in chemistry that readily fits into any part of the core chemistry curricula and wider STEM subjects, makes it easy for educators to include sustainability in their courses. In new STEM degree courses, the meaning of sustainability should be covered before the core subject material. [2] Education activities should therefore start by addressing students understanding of sustainability. Current practice in sustainability education and surveys of student, researcher and academic staff understanding of sustainability guide activity development. In groups, students iteratively create concept and system maps alongside discussions led by both the students and educators. Templates of network models and graphics, then show students how to effectively focus problem definitions and form simpler paths through complex information. The models and graphics with summary descriptions directly link specific core chemistry principles to sustainability problem solving. They can be applied at any level of an undergraduate and post graduate degree programme. The sustainability education in chemistry template is presented through examples of (i) first year undergraduate physical chemistry of gas diffusion and (ii) third year undergraduate interdisciplinary chemistry of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS). Samples of undergraduate, postgraduate, researcher and academic staff review the activities, providing early feedback on how these might enable future generations to play a crucial role in transforming sustainable use of resources. [1] Flynn, A.B., Orgill M. K., Ho F.M., York S., Matlin S.A., Constable D.J.C and Mahaffy P.G. 2019, Future Directions for Systems thinking, J.Chem. Ed., 96, 3000 – 3005. [2] Zuin V.G., Eilks I., Elschami Myriam and Kummerer, 2021, Education in green chemistry and in sustainable chemistry: perspectives toward sustainability, Green Chemistry, 23, 1594

Cutting the trees to save the forest: The Finch Pruyn working forest

The past two decades have seen sales of millions of acres of commercial forest land in the United States. Changed ownership often results in altered forest management, parcelization or development. Such changes have profound implications for forest species and ecosystems, as well as the timber industry, recreational opportunities, and local and regional economies. An emerging strategy seeks to protect lands through complex public-private partnerships involving state agencies, conservation organizations, and commercial investors. By definition, these partnerships have both environmental and socioeconomic goals; as such, they represent contemporary experiments in sustainable development applied to forested landscapes. As this approach is a recent innovation, its benefits for nature and people have yet to be demonstrated, and the general applicability of this integrated approach to conservation is unknown. Our objective is to identify context-specific objectives and indicators to support integrated monitoring and adaptive management for the former Finch Pruyn lands, which encompass 161,000 acres in the Adirondack region of New York State. This interdisciplinary project involves social science faculty and students from Cornell University and cooperation from conservation scientists from The Nature Conservancy. Through a review of the literature on criteria and indicators for sustainable forestry, we developed an analytical framework for measuring ecological, social, and economic implications of forest management practices. Through key informant interviews, we identified context-specific objectives and indicators for the Finch Pruyn lands, including forest health, species protection, expanded recreation opportunities and community economic vitality. Our approach allows us to compare existing commitments to collection of monitoring data to ideal data sets as defined by actors occupying various structural positions. Identification of potential gaps in monitoring represents an opportunity for dialogue, reallocation of resources and enrollment of new strategic partners. Over time, these global and local indicators can support an adaptive framework through which flows of information inform management in an iterative process. Preliminary results indicate that this project entails several innovations that may contribute to its success, including the development of a comprehensive ecological baseline and the explicit engagement of local claims to livelihoods and access. We make several recommendations for future working forest agreements, such as the need to define clear environmental and socioeconomic goals at the outset, and, when private philanthropy is central to project viability, the incorporation of monitoring costs into initial fundraising targets. We believe these lessons are applicable to conservation development projects in the Northern Forest region and beyond

Integrating Natural Capital into National Accounts: Three Decades of Promise and Challenge

Economists and ecologists have worked for decades on measuring sustainability by supplementing or adjusting traditional economic indicators such as GDP. Given the threats to humanity from climate change, environmental degradation, and biodiversity loss, it is vital to incorporate values of natural capital into national economic decision-making. This review focuses on how natural capital applications, historically applied from local to global scales, address national-scale concerns. However, natural capital data and accounts have been only partially developed in most countries, given a lack of common metrics and monetary values. Existing accounts are often incomplete in both the types of natural capital and ecosystems they include (e.g., water, land, different ecosystem types) and the values they measure (e.g., market vs. nonmarket values). While it is important to continue work to embed natural capital into national economic accounts, the need for practical tools to analyze environmental problems is more urgent. We review alternative options for incorporating natural capital into national-scale decision-making and make recommendations for countries where the data, capacity, and political will to conduct formal natural capital accounting are lacking

Effects of sex hormones on fluid and solute transport in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells

Effects of sex hormones on fluid and solute transport in Madin-Darby canine kidney cells. Polycystic kidney disease progresses more rapidly in men than in women. To investigate the basis for this sexual dimorphism, we exposed Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells grown on collagen-coated cell culture inserts to control media, or to estradiol or testosterone (1 nM-1 µM). Compared to control and estradiol-treated cells, testosterone stimulated fluid secretion in a dose-dependent manner, enhancing fluid secretion 4.8-fold at 1nM and 19.7-fold at 1 µM (0.59 ± 0.18 vs. 0.03 ± 0.01 µ1/cm2/hr, P < 0.001). Chloride transport paralleled fluid secretion. Testosterone increased cellular cyclic AMP levels 3.2-fold at 1 µM and 12.3-fold at 1 µM (81.3 ± 30.7 vs. 6.6 ± 3.3 pmol/mg protein, P < 0.001). GDPβS (500 µM), an inhibitor of Gs, and 2′,3′-dideoxyadenosine (10 µM), an inhibitor of the catalytic subunit of adenylate cyclase, suppressed testosterone-induced fluid and solute secretion. Neither testosterone nor estradiol had any effect on microsomal Na,K-ATPase activity, cellular proliferation or cellular total protein content. Our studies show that testosterone stimulates fluid secretion and solute transport by MDCK cells by increasing cAMP generation. In vivo, testosterone may contribute to cyst expansion by enhancing fluid secretion. This observation may help explain the worse prognosis of polycystic kidney disease observed in men

"Suboptimal" kidney donors: The experience with tacrolimus-based immunosuppression

Female, pediatric, and older donors have been associated with inferior graft survival after renal transplantation. We analyzed these three subgroups in 397 patients receiving tacrolimus-based immunosuppression. There were no differences in recipient age, incidence of retransplantation, or percentage of sensitized patients. Female donors, compared with male donors, were associated with comparable 1- and 3-year patient survival rates (96% and 93% vs. 95% and 92%, respectively) and comparable 1- and 3-year graft survival rates (90% and 80% vs. 88% and 81%, respectively). Renal function was also similar. Recipients of pediatric en bloc kidneys, when compared with recipients of other cadaveric kidneys, also had comparable 1- and 3-year patient survival rates (94% and 94% vs. 95% and 91%, respectively) and comparable 1- and 3-year graft survival rates (84% and 84% vs. 89% and 79%, respectively). Renal function was better in recipients of en bloc kidneys, with a mean serum creatinine level of 1.4±1.8 mg/dl vs. 2.0±1.5 mg/dl (P=0.01). In contrast to the first two subgroups, donors over 60 years of age, when compared with donors under 60 years of age, were associated with worse 1- and 3-year patient survival rates (88% and 80% vs. 96% and 94%, respectively; P<0.03) and worse 1- and 3-year graft survival rates (74% and 62% vs. 91% and 83%, respectively; P<0.0001). Renal function was worse in the older donor group, with a serum creatinine level of 2.7±1.2 mg/ml vs. 1.9±1.5 mg/dl (P=0.01). We conclude that, under tacrolimus-based immunosuppression, kidneys from female or very young pediatric donors are not associated with adverse outcomes, whereas kidneys from donors over 60 years of age are associated with inferior outcomes