Corruption in Natural Disaster Aid: The 2004 Indonesian Tsunami

The tsunami that affected Asia and African countries in December 2004 was one of the most destructive natural disasters in recent time s. Aceh alone suffered an estimated 167,000 deaths and 566,000 displaced persons (USAID, 2005). The response by donor countries and individuals was swift and unprecedented in magnitude, however, after more than one year, thousands of families remained effected by corruption and were forced to huddle in tents instead of living in permanent housing (TI, 2010). Review studies such as Mitchell (2010), show that the outcomes achieved through the aid response we re inefficient and inequitable. Natural disasters, especially when they occur in developing countries, strain government budgets significantly. With large populations (among donors or beneficiaries) believing provisional aid is substantial when in reality it is small (Mitchell, 2010), powers amongst NGO lobbyists growing, and the media’s willingness and ability to distribute damaging stories about corrupt aid practices (Oxfam , 2010), it is easy to see why national governments, eager to appease electorates (presuming they are democratic of course) and the international community, are motivated to provide effective natural disaster aid. In this context, giving aid to countries plagued wi th corruption poses a difficult dilemma. This paper highlights market failures in natural disaster aid using the case of Aceh, and recommends a strategy that adjusts government agents’ incentives to take a path that could arguably assuage the problem of corrupt ion by reducing the severity of the moral hazard problem in an afflicted government

CTG Trinucleotide Repeat “Big Jumps”: Large Expansions, Small Mice

Trinucleotide repeat expansions are the genetic cause of numerous human diseases, including fragile X mental retardation, Huntington disease, and myotonic dystrophy type 1. Disease severity and age of onset are critically linked to expansion size. Previous mouse models of repeat instability have not recreated large intergenerational expansions (“big jumps”), observed when the repeat is transmitted from one generation to the next, and have never attained the very large tract lengths possible in humans. Here, we describe dramatic intergenerational CTG•CAG repeat expansions of several hundred repeats in a transgenic mouse model of myotonic dystrophy type 1, resulting in increasingly severe phenotypic and molecular abnormalities. Homozygous mice carrying over 700 trinucleotide repeats on both alleles display severely reduced body size and splicing abnormalities, notably in the central nervous system. Our findings demonstrate that large intergenerational trinucleotide repeat expansions can be recreated in mice, and endorse the use of transgenic mouse models to refine our understanding of triplet repeat expansion and the resulting pathogenesis

Sample designs for measuring the health of small racial/ethnic subgroups

Most national health surveys do not permit precise measurement of the health of racial/ethnic subgroups that comprise <1 per cent of the U.S. population. We identify three potentially promising sample design strategies for increasing the accuracy of national health estimates for a small target subgroup when used to supplement a small probability sample of that group and apply these strategies to American Indians/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) and Chinese using National Health Interview Survey data. These sample design strategies include (1) complete sampling of targets within households, (2) oversampling selected macrogeographic units, and (3) oversampling from an incomplete list frame. Stage (1) is promising for Chinese and AI/AN; (2) works for both groups, but it would be more cost-effective for AI/AN because of their greater residential concentration; (3) is somewhat effective for groups like Chinese with viable surname lists, but not for AI/AN. Both (2) and (3) efficiently improve measurement precision when the supplement is the same size as the existing core sample, with diminishing additional returns as the supplement grows relative to the core sample, especially for (3). To avoid large design effects, the oversampled geographic areas or lists must have good coverage of the target population. To reduce costs, oversampled geographic tracts and lists must consist primarily of targets. These techniques can be used simultaneously to substantially increase effective sample sizes (ESSs). For example, (1) and (2) in combination can be used to multiply the nominal sample size of AI/AN or Chinese by 8 and the ESS by 4. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/60911/1/3244_ftp.pd

iDREAM: a multidisciplinary methodology and integrated toolset for flight vehicle engineering

Rapid prototyping of flight vehicle engineering needs the use of two key elements: the data from the different building blocks and the required engineering tools to design vital subsystems of the flight vehicle. Politecnico di Torino in the framework of the I-DREAM, a GSTP contract carried out under the supervision of the European Space Agency (ESA), has developed a unique multidisciplinary methodology and integrated toolset able to support the rapid prototyping of a wide range of aerospace vehicles. iDREAM allows complementing the conceptual design activities with the economic viability and technological sustainability assessments. In detail, the iDREAM methodology consists of four main modules that can be used in a stand-alone mode and in an integrated activity flow, exploiting the implemented automatic connections. The first module consists of a well-structured MySQL database developed to support all the other modules, thanks to a unified connection guaranteed by an ad-hoc developed Database Management Library managing the operations of data input and output from/to the database throughout the tool modules. The second module consists of a vehicle design routine and a mission design routine, supporting the design of a new vehicle and mission concept and assessing the main performance of an already existing configuration. The vehicle design routine is called ASTRID-H, and it is the latest version of an in-house conceptual design tool integrating capabilities ranging from high-speed aircraft to lunar-landers design. The vehicle design routine automatically interfaces with ASTOS, a commercial software environment used for mission analysis optimization. Automatic interactions between the two routines inside the module have been ad-hoc developed and tested to guarantee good accuracy of the results. The third module consists of the economic viability module. Once the design is defined, it is possible to run a subsystem-level cost estimation. Using the subsystems’ masses estimated in the design routine, the parametric cost model provides useful insights on the potential development, manufacturing, and operating costs, as well as the cost and price per flight. Eventually, the developed methodology gives the possibility to generate a technology roadmap (fourth module). Supported by a database connection, the tool estimates each technology readiness and risk assessment, along with an indication of the necessary activities, missions, and future works. This paper describes the methodology and the integrated toolset in flight vehicle engineering of Microlaunchers. Eventually, the Electron mission would be used as a benchmark and validation study to showcase the tool’s results and accuracy for preliminary design studies

Human lunar lander system design, cost estimation and technology roadmaps

This paper describes the methodology developed at Politecnico di Torino to support the European Space Agency in the Human Lunar Landing System design activity and to complement the traditional conceptual design with a multidisciplinary set of analyses which includes a thorough assessment of the economic and technological viability of the solution. The paper briefly describes the logic laying behind each of these analyses and it shows the results of the validation of the integrated design methodology, called iDREAM, with an already existing case study, the Exploration Systems Architecture Study-Lunar Surface Access Module spacecraft (ESAS-LSAM). The results are satisfactory and reveals errors lower than 10% in average, perfectly in line with the expectations of a conceptual design phase

Review: The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas, volume 14, issue 1

Contents include: Far From Inundated, A Word form the President, BHAGS Words of Welcome, Remarks from Conference Co-Chair Ed Sobel, Keynote Speech Given by Chuck Smith Introduced by Michele Volansky, The Telephone Monologues: Five Monologues Written for the 2003 LMDA Conference introduced by Janet Allard, Telephone, Billy, The Visitors, A Drag Queen, Choice, Don\u27t Know Much About Holly-turgy Outline, Reflections on Conference 2003, Elect Better Actors, Neo-Romantic Manifesto, Pullet Surprise-Call for Nominations, and Regional News-Know Your Regional Vice Presidents. Issue editors: D.J. Hopkins, Shelley Orr, Liz Engelman, Madeleine Oldham, Jacob Zimmerhttps://soundideas.pugetsound.edu/lmdareview/1028/thumbnail.jp

Approaches to monitor and evaluate OER policies in higher education : tracing developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

The 2019 UNESCO recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) encourages member states to monitor policies and mechanisms in OER across the world. In higher education, there are many initiatives and policies around OER. This contribution gives insights into the current situation concerning OER policy documents that are of national or institutional relevance for public higher education institutions in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. For each country, a different approach for identifying OER policy documents was chosen, dependent on the availability of documents and different dominant forms of documentation. Whereas digital documents available on the web were found as helpful sources for Germany, and performance agreements between the national ministry and individual universities were used for analysis in Austria, a survey amongst all universities was the chosen research approach in Switzerland to give an overview about potentially OER related policy documents. All these documents are now made available via the OER World Map. With this contribution, the authors also highlight the possibility of using the OER World Map as a powerful tool to collect and evaluate OER policy documents

Approaches to monitor and evaluate OER policies in higher education : tracing developments in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland

The 2019 UNESCO recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) encourages member states to monitor policies and mechanisms in OER across the world. In higher education, there are many initiatives and policies around OER. This contribution gives insights into the current situation concerning OER policy documents that are of national or institutional relevance for public higher education institutions in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria. For each country, a different approach for identifying OER policy documents was chosen, dependent on the availability of documents and different dominant forms of documentation. Whereas digital documents available on the web were found as helpful sources for Germany, and performance agreements between the national ministry and individual universities were used for analysis in Austria, a survey amongst all universities was the chosen research approach in Switzerland to give an overview about potentially OER related policy documents. All these documents are now made available via the OER World Map. With this contribution, the authors also highlight the possibility of using the OER World Map as a powerful tool to collect and evaluate OER policy documents

Identification of functional elements and regulatory circuits by Drosophila modENCODE

To gain insight into how genomic information is translated into cellular and developmental programs, the Drosophila model organism Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (modENCODE) project is comprehensively mapping transcripts, histone modifications, chromosomal proteins, transcription factors, replication proteins and intermediates, and nucleosome properties across a developmental time course and in multiple cell lines. We have generated more than 700 data sets and discovered protein-coding, noncoding, RNA regulatory, replication, and chromatin elements, more than tripling the annotated portion of the Drosophila genome. Correlated activity patterns of these elements reveal a functional regulatory network, which predicts putative new functions for genes, reveals stage- and tissue-specific regulators, and enables gene-expression prediction. Our results provide a foundation for directed experimental and computational studies in Drosophila and related species and also a model for systematic data integration toward comprehensive genomic and functional annotation