Improving the provision of financial services to micro-entrepreneurs, emerging farmers and agribusiness: Lessons from Kwazulu-Natal

Three development finance institutions (DFIs) which operate in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) province were assessed in 1996/97 to see how they could improve financial viability and outreach to emerging farmers, agribusiness and micro-entrepreneurs. Improved service quality and emphasis on mobilising savings would help clients and enable the DFIs to diversify their portfolios. Better access to branches and lower loan approval times (improved screening and administrative procedures) could also lower client transaction costs. Charging a suitable interest rate spread is necessary but not sufficient for lenders to achieve subsidy independence. Reducing arrears through stricter loan contract enforcement (borrower accountability for loan repayment, lower collateral specific risks, secure and transferable collateral) will also promote financial viability. Providing both savings and loan services together would reduce borrower access costs, and allow savings to serve as a form of collateral and borrower information for lenders.Agricultural Finance,

Making Cornish–Fisher Distributions Fit

Preprin

Distinct Modes Of Aged Soil Carbon Export In A Large Tropical Lake Basin Identified Using Bulk And Compound-Specific Radiocarbon Analyses Of Fluvial And Lacustrine Sediment

The 14C content of sedimentary organic matter (OM) and specific organic molecules provide valuable information on the source and age of OM stored in sediments, but these data are limited for tropical fluvial and lake sediments. We analyzed 14C in bulk OM, palmitic acid (C16), and long-chain n-alkanoic acids (C24, C26, and C28), within fluvial and lake sediments in the catchment of Lake Izabal, a large tectonic lake basin in Guatemala. We combined these measurements with bulk and compound-specific δ13C measurements, as well as sediment organic carbon to nitrogen (OC:N) ratios, to understand the source and age of sedimentary OM in different regions of the lake catchment. Most fatty acid and bulk OM samples were characterized by pre-modern carbon, indicating important input of aged carbon with residence times of hundreds to thousands of years into sediments. We identified two mechanisms leading to aged carbon export to sediments. In the high-relief and deforested Polochic catchment, older OM and fatty acids are associated with low % total organic carbon (TOC) and low OC:N, indicating aged OM associated with eroded mineral soil. In the smaller, low-relief, and largely forested Oscuro catchment, old OM and fatty acids are associated with high %TOC and high OC:N ratios, indicating export of undegraded aged plant biomass from swamp peat. The age of bulk OM and fatty acids in Lake Izabal sediments is similar to the ages observed in fluvial sediments, implying that fluvial input of aged soil carbon makes an important contribution to lake sediment carbon reservoirs in this large tropical lake

Embryonic expression and cloning of the murine GATA-3 gene.

We describe the embryonic expression pattern as well as the cloning and initial transcriptional regulatory analysis of the murine (m) GATA-3 gene. In situ hybridization shows that mGATA-3 mRNA accumulation is temporally and spatially regulated during early development: although found most abundantly in the placenta prior to 10 days of embryogenesis, mGATA-3 expression becomes restricted to specific cells within the embryonic central nervous system (in the mesencephalon, diencephalon, pons and inner ear) later in gestation. GATA-3 also shows a restricted expression pattern in the peripheral nervous system, including terminally differentiating cells in the cranial and sympathetic ganglia. In addition to this distinct pattern in the nervous system, mGATA-3 is also expressed in the embryonic kidney and the thymic rudiment, and further analysis showed that it is expressed throughout T lymphocyte differentiation. To begin to investigate how this complex gene expression pattern is elicited, cloning and transcriptional regulatory analyses of the mGATA-3 gene were initiated. At least two regulatory elements (one positive and one negative) appear to be required for appropriate tissue-restricted regulation after transfection of mGATA-3-directed reporter genes into cells that naturally express GATA-3 (T lymphocytes and neuroblastoma cells). Furthermore, this same region of the locus confers developmentally appropriate expression in transgenic mice, but only in a subset of the tissues that naturally express the gene

Hyperhomocysteinemia, anticardiolipin antibody status, and risk for vascular access thrombosis in hemodialysis patients

Hyperhomocysteinemia, anticardiolipin antibody status, and risk for vascular access thrombosis in hemodialysis patients.Background. Vascular access failure is an important cause of morbidity in end-stage renal failure patients on hemodialysis. Currently, little is known about risk factors that predispose certain hemodialysis patients to recurrent access thrombosis. Hyperhomocysteinemia (common in patients with renal failure) predisposes people with normal renal function to recurrent and early-onset venous thrombosis, although the effect on vascular access thrombosis is currently unknown. Previous studies have suggested that high titers of IgG anticardiolipin antibody (IgG-ACA) predispose hemodialysis patients to access thrombosis. This cross sectional study was designed to assess for an association between two predictive variables, hyperhomocysteinemia and elevated titers of IgG-ACA, and vascular access thrombosis in patients undergoing chronic hemodialysis.Methods. Risk factors for vascular access thrombosis were documented, and the number of episodes of access thrombosis was recorded for the previous three years in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Midweek predialysis total homocysteine and IgG-ACA levels were measured in all subjects.Results. Of the 118 patients who were enrolled, 75.4% had a native arteriovenous fistula. Episodes of vascular access thrombosis were recorded for the previous three years; 34 (28.8%, 95% CI 20.9 to 37.9%) patients had 72 episodes of access thrombosis over the period of risk. Mean homocysteine levels were not significantly different between these 34 patients (28.6 μmol/liter, 95% CI 24.5 to 32.7) and the patients who had no episodes of graft thrombosis (29.8 μmol/liter, 95% CI 26.7 to 32.9). Sixty-seven unselected patients had IgG-ACA levels drawn for analysis, and all assays were negative. The only variable that was associated with a higher risk for graft thrombosis was the type of vascular access placed (odds ratio 4.0, 95% CI 1.6 to 9.6 for patients with a synthetic graft compared with those with an arteriovenous fistula).Conclusions. No association was found between homocysteine levels or anticardiolipin antibody and vascular access thrombosis in our patient population

Effective actions, Wilson lines and the IR/UV mixing in noncommutative supersymmetric gauge theories

We study IR/UV mixing effects in noncommutative supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with gauge group U(N) using background field perturbation theory. We compute three- and four-point functions of background fields, and show that the IR/UV mixed contributions to these correlators can be reproduced from an explicitly gauge-invariant effective action, which is expressed in terms of open Wilson lines.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures. v2: new section and references added, effective action expressed only in terms of open Wilson lines operator

Noncommutative Dipole Field Theories And Unitarity

We extend the argument of Gomis and Mehen for violation of unitarity in field theories with space-time noncommutativity to dipole field theories. In dipole field theories with a timelike dipole vector, we present 1-loop amplitudes that violate the optical theorem. A quantum mechanical system with nonlocal potential of finite extent in time also shows violation of unitarity.Comment: typos corrected, more details added in Sec 5, version to appear in JHE

GATA-2 and GATA-3 regulate trophoblast-specific gene expression in vivo.

We previously demonstrated that the zinc finger transcription factors GATA-2 and GATA-3 are expressed in trophoblast giant cells and that they regulate transcription from the mouse placental lactogen I gene promoter in a transfected trophoblast cell line. We present evidence here that both of these factors regulate transcription of the placental lactogen I gene, as well as the related proliferin gene, in trophoblast giant cells in vivo. Placentas lacking GATA-3 accumulate placental lactogen I and proliferi

Mutator system derivatives isolated from sugarcane genome sequence

Mutator-like transposase is the most represented transposon transcript in the sugarcane transcriptome. Phylogenetic reconstructions derived from sequenced transcripts provided evidence that at least four distinct classes exist (I- IV) and that diversification among these classes occurred early in Angiosperms, prior to the divergence of Monocots/ Eudicots. The four previously described classes served as probes to select and further sequence six BAC clones from a genomic library of cultivar R570. A total of 579,352 sugarcane base pairs were produced from these "Mutator system" BAC containing regions for further characterization. The analyzed genomic regions confirmed that the predicted structure and organization of the Mutator system in sugarcane is composed of two true transposon lineages, each containing a specific terminal inverted repeat and two transposase lineages considered to be domesticated. Each Mutator transposase class displayed a particular molecular structure supporting lineage specific evolution. MUSTANG, previously described domesticated genes, are located in syntenic regions across Sacharineae and, as expected for a host functional gene, posses the same gene structure as in other Poaceae. Two sequenced BACs correspond to hom(eo)logous locus with specific retrotransposon insertions that discriminate sugarcane haplotypes. The comparative studies presented, add information to the Mutator systems previously identified in the maize and rice genomes by describing lineage specific molecular structure and genomic distribution pattern in the sugarcane genome. (Résumé d'auteur

Two-dimensional Copolymers and Multifractality: Comparing Perturbative Expansions, MC Simulations, and Exact Results

We analyze the scaling laws for a set of two different species of long flexible polymer chains joined together at one of their extremities (copolymer stars) in space dimension D=2. We use a formerly constructed field-theoretic description and compare our perturbative results for the scaling exponents with recent conjectures for exact conformal scaling dimensions derived by a conformal invariance technique in the context of D=2 quantum gravity. A simple MC simulation brings about reasonable agreement with both approaches. We analyse the remarkable multifractal properties of the spectrum of scaling exponents.Comment: 5 page