Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Indigenous Community-Based Forestry in the Bolivian Lowlands: Some Basic Challenges for Certification

SUMMARY Indigenous Community Forest Operations (CFOs) that have been certified according to the Principles and Criteria of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) face numerous obstacles in their struggle to remain certified and obtain tangible economic benefits. Three basic conditions for successful CFO certification are (i) socio-economic stability, (ii) economic viability, and (iii) community members demonstrating an understanding of the key concepts of the FSC certification process. Based upon fieldwork in four Bolivian CFOs and more than 140 interviews, this paper identifies some of the major constraints on community forestry certification in Bolivia. The findings suggest that the present conditions in the studied CFOs are jeopardizing FSC certification and its ability to yield a positive financial cost-benefit balance in the long term. In contrary to what is generally being assumed by Bolivian FSC experts and stakeholders, this study suggests that the recent tendency to form certified community-company alliances, as an alternative to existing approaches, might not (yet) be able to deliver much direct economic benefits to the communities.
What's Behind Racial and Ethnic Fertility Differentials?

This book chapters authors assert that a single theory of US fertility differences by race and ethnic group is unproductive. All race and ethnic groups experience early childbearing nonmarital fertility and large families but the factors that influence these behaviors may differ between groups and change over time. Patterns of Hispanic and Black fertility are used to illustrate the dynamic process that affects fertility. It is urged that research also focus on the analysis and better data collection of qualitative and quantitative information on Native American and other ethnic group fertility. The hierarchical structure of early childbearing is schematically presented as beginning with family background community involvement media exposure and biological factors. With the exception of biological factors the other aforementioned factors affect role models and adult supervision which in turn affect perceptions and goals. Individual perceptions result in different interpersonal relations and education or work patterns of which both patterns affect contraception. Self-perception thus affects interpersonal relations education and work patterns contraception marriage patterns sexual behavior and finally fertility. In this hierarchical structure there are many avenues for pursuing further research. For instance research might focus on how sexual norms in racial and ethnic communities are affected by mass media. It is suggested that the recent increase in nonmarital fertility particularly among Blacks is a normative change in the value of marriage as an institution. Recent evidence indicates that employed fathers are twice as likely to marry the mother of their first child as unemployed fathers are. It is also argued by a few that slavery and the destruction of mens role as breadwinner produced systematic differences by race and ethnic group. Trends in minority fertility are identified.
Self-fulfilling debt crises

We characterize the values of government debt and the debt's maturity structure under which financial crises brought on by a loss of confidence in the government can arise within a dynamic, stochastic general equilibrium model. We also characterize the optimal policy response of the government to the threat of such a crisis. We show that when the country's fundamentals place it inside the crisis zone, the government may be motivated to reduce its debt and exit the crisis zone because this leads to an economic boom and a reduction in the interest rate on the government's debt. We show that this reduction can be gradual if debt is high or the probability of a crisis is low. We also show that, while lengthening the maturity of the debt can shrink the crisis zone, credibility-inducing policies can have perverse effects.
Cell-to-cell communication in a differentiating ovine lens culture system.

PURPOSE This study was performed to determine whether the junctions between both the epithelial and the differentiating fiber-like cells of ovine lens cultures, like gap junctions in other tissues, exhibit cell-to-cell communication that is inhibited by n-octanol, and to determine whether lens connexins and the fiber cell membrane proteins MP20 and MP26 are expressed by these ovine lens cell cultures. METHODS Cells were injected with Lucifer yellow CH to measure cell-to-cell communication. Antibodies to connexin-related lens membrane protein MP70, connexin 43 (Cx43), and connexin 46 (Cx46) and to membrane proteins MP20 and MP26 were used to immunofluorescently label lens cultures and probe Western blots of membranes isolated from lens cultures. RESULTS Both epithelial cells and differentiating clear cells exhibited cell-to-cell transfer of Lucifer yellow that was inhibited by n-octanol. Although a Cx43 antibody immunofluorescently labeled small plaques between the epithelial cells, an MP70 antibody labeled large plaques as well as small punctate areas of the differentiating fiber-like cells. It is interesting that Cx43 and MP70 were frequently present in the same plaques at cell interfaces between epithelial cells as well as some of the larger plaques on the differentiating fiber-like cells. Cx46 and MP70 antibodies labeled the same plaques in membranes of differentiating fiber-like cells and late-stage epithelial cells. The electrophoretic mobility of all three connexin proteins was modified after treatment with alkaline phosphatase. Immunohistochemical staining of these differentiating regions and Western immunoblotting of purified membranes derived from differentiated cultures also showed the presence of MP20 and MP26. CONCLUSIONS The different cell types in the ovine lens culture exhibit gap junction-mediated cell-to-cell communication that is likely effected by one or more of the connexin proteins.
Cyclicality and Sectoral Linkages: Aggregate Fluctuations from Independent Sectoral Shocks

The traditional argument against the relevance of sector-specific shocks for the aggregate phenomenon of business cycles invokes the law of large numbers: positive shocks in some sectors are offset by negative shocks in other sectors. This paper hypothesizes that cancellation of sector-specific shocks via the law of large numbers is affected by interactions among producing sectors. The analysis is performed within the context of a multisector model similar in spirit to that of Long and Plosser (1983). It is shown that the rate at which the law of large numbers applies is controlled by the rate of increase in the number of full rows in the input-use matrix rather than by the rate of increases in the total number of sectors. Investigations of actual input-use matrices from the U.S. economy reveal that the number of full rows increases much slower than the total number of rows upon disaggregation and when these input-use matrices are used to parameterize the model, aggregate volatility from sector shocks declines at less than half the rate implied by the law of large numbers. This finding leaves open the possibility that a sizable portion of aggregate volatility is caused by "smaller" shocks to individual sectors. Simple statistics calculated from the model indicate that as much as 80% the volatility in U.S. gross domestic product growth rates could be the result of independent shocks to 2-digit Standard Industrial Code sectors. (Copyright: Elsevier)
Microvillus Inclusion Disease: A Genetic Defect Affecting Apical Membrane Protein Traffic in Intestinal Epithelium

The striking similarities between microvillus inclusions (MIs) in enterocytes in microvillus inclusion disease (MID) and vacuolar apical compartment in tissue culture epithelial cells, led us to analyze endoscopic biopsies of duodenal mucosa of a patient after the samples were used for diagnostic procedures. Samples from another patient with an unrelated disease were used as controls. The MID enterocytes showed a decrease in the thickness of the apical F‐actin layer, and normal microtubules. The immunofluorescence analysis of the distribution of five apical membrane markers (sucrase isomaltase, alkaline phosphatase, NHE‐3 Na+/H+ exchanger, cGMP‐dependent protein kinase, and cystic fibrosis trans‐membrane conductance regulator), showed low levels of these proteins in their standard localization at the apical membrane as compared with normal duodenal epithelium processed in parallel. Instead, four of these markers were found in a diffuse distribution in the apical cytoplasm, below the terminal web (as indicated by co‐localization with F‐actin and cytokeratin 19), and in MIs as well. The basolateral protein Na+‐K+ATPase, in contrast, was normally localized. These results support the hypothesis that MID may represent the first genetic defect affecting apical membrane traffic, possibly in a late step of apical exocytosis.
The University and Its Communities

This article analyses the engagement of universities with the community in three domains: the consequences of the university simply “being there”, contractual and other partnerships, and the relationship between the institution and its members. The consequences are then explored for the values espoused and practiced by the universities, including the possibility of their codification into a set of “ten commandments”.
Assessing the Efficiency of the Brazilian Anti-Money Laundering Regulation: A Game Theoretic Approach

Neste artigo, a eficiencia da legislacao de combate a lavagem de dinheiro no Brasil e analisada usando-se uma abordagem de teoria dos jogos. A analise mostra que, apesar dos esforcos das autoridades brasileiras em combater a lavagem de dinheiro, a eficiencia de aplicacao da legislacao tem sido prejudicada devido a pratica rigida do principio de sigilo bancario e por uma baixa probabilidade de punir as instituicoes financeiras que nao comunicam atividades suspeitas.
Postnatal Odorant Exposure Induces Peripheral Olfactory Plasticity at the Cellular Level

Mammalian olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs) form the primary elements of the olfactory system. Inserted in the olfactory mucosa lining of the nasal cavity, they are exposed to the environment and their lifespan is brief. Several reports say that OSNs are regularly regenerated during the entire life and that odorant environment affects the olfactory epithelium. However, little is known about the impact of the odorant environment on OSNs at the cellular level and more precisely in the context of early postnatal olfactory exposure. Here we exposed MOR23-green fluorescent protein (GFP) and M71-GFP mice to lyral or acetophenone, ligands for MOR23 or M71, respectively. Daily postnatal exposure to lyral induces plasticity in the population of OSNs expressing MOR23. Their density decreases after odorant exposure, whereas the amount of MOR23 mRNA and protein remain stable in the whole epithelium. Meanwhile, quantitative PCR indicates that each MOR23 neuron has higher levels of olfactory receptor transcripts and also expresses more CNGA2 and phosphodiesterase 1C, fundamental olfactory transduction pathway proteins. Transcript levels return to baseline after 4 weeks recovery. Patch-clamp recordings reveal that exposed MOR23 neurons respond to lyral with higher sensitivity and broader dynamic range while the responses' kinetics were faster. These effects are specific to the odorant–receptor pair lyral–MOR23: there was no effect of acetophenone on MOR23 neurons and no effect of acetophenone and lyral on the M71 population. Together, our results clearly demonstrate that OSNs undergo specific anatomical, molecular, and functional adaptation when chronically exposed to odorants in the early stage of life.
Defective excitation-contraction coupling in experimental cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure.

Cardiac hypertrophy and heart failure caused by high blood pressure were studied in single myocytes taken from hypertensive rats (Dahl SS/Jr) and SH-HF rats in heart failure. Confocal microscopy and patch-clamp methods were used to examine excitation-contraction (EC) coupling, and the relation between the plasma membrane calcium current (ICa) and evoked calcium release from the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR), which was visualized as "calcium sparks. " The ability of ICa to trigger calcium release from the SR in both hypertrophied and failing hearts was reduced. Because ICa density and SR calcium-release channels were normal, the defect appears to reside in a change in the relation between SR calcium-release channels and sarcolemmal calcium channels. beta-Adrenergic stimulation largely overcame the defect in hypertrophic but not failing heart cells. Thus, the same defect in EC coupling that develops during hypertrophy may contribute to heart failure when compensatory mechanisms fail.
Community‐based traffic preservation in telecommunication networks

Large‐scale failures in telecommunication networks have been traditionally mitigated by attempting to preserve global connectivity in the network. However, although communication inside communities may be of high relevance, their preservation is a challenging task. To achieve this, we propose a new concept of community that combines not only the topological information of the network but also the traffic‐level interaction. This new concept is then used to present six novel community‐based strategies that, when working within a limited budget, are able to determine which are the best candidate nodes to protect. The strategies proposed have been tested over four different types of networks and have been compared with other well‐known immunization or protection methods. Results show that community‐based strategies better preserve the inner community traffic with respect to traditional approaches. Furthermore, in some cases, both global and intra‐community traffic preservation is able to be improved. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A mitogen-responsive promoter region that is synergistically activated through multiple signalling pathways

A regulatory region of the human transferrin receptor gene promoter was found to be required for increased expression in response to serum or growth factors. This region contains two elements that appear to cooperate for full responsiveness. We found that sodium orthovanadate treatment of cells significantly activated expression of promoter constructs containing these elements. 12-O-Tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate alone induced a twofold increase in expression but acted synergistically with vanadate to generate a highly elevated level of expression. Dibutyryl cyclic AMP alone had no effect on expression, but when added together with vanadate and 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate, led to superinduction of the promoter construct. Induction of expression by these reagents was delayed several hours, and the kinetics were identical to those observed for serum induction.
Conservancies in Coastal British Columbia: A New Approach to Protected Areas in the Traditional Territories of First Nations

In British Columbia (BC), Canada, the provincial government and First Nations have recently created an innovative new form of collaboratively managed protected area. Designated as 'Conservancies' under the BC Park Act or the Protected Areas of British Columbia Act, these protected areas are intended to provide a variety of sustainable uses, while maintaining biodiversity and recreational values and prohibiting large-scale commercial or industrial development. Conservancies evolved out of a desire to increase the protected area land base in the province, but also to accommodate traditional Aboriginal land uses and low-impact economic development. The Conservancy designation was created in 2006, and since then 156 Conservancies have been established in BC, covering a total of approximately 2,999,000 ha managed in collaboration with more than 30 First Nations. In this article, we describe the history and management framework of Conservancies, and compare the Conservancy model with international principles for governance of protected areas involving Indigenous people. Despite potential challenges involving integrated management, capacity, allocation of permits among Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal users, and treaty negotiations, Conservancies appear to align well with international norms and offer a promising model for flexible protected areas.
Support study results—Implications for hospice care

This landmark study took place over a four year period of time and included 9,105 seriously ill hospitalized clients and their physicians. Its main objective was to improve end of life decision making and reduce the frequency of painful, mechanically supported, prolonged patterns of dying. Findings indicate that despite well planned, comprehensive interventions to improve study outcomes, clients in the intervention group fared no better than their counterparts in the control group. These findings have serious implications for those working in hospice and palliative care.
The enzyme aromatic amine dehydrogenase induces a substrate conformation crucial for promoting vibration that significantly reduces the effective potential energy barrier to proton transfer

The role of promoting vibrations in enzymic reactions involving hydrogen tunnelling is contentious. While models incorporating such promoting vibrations have successfully reproduced and explained experimental observations, it has also been argued that such vibrations are not part of the catalytic effect. In this study, we have employed combined quantum mechanical/molecular mechanical methods with molecular dynamics and potential energy surface calculations to investigate how enzyme and substrate motion affects the energy barrier to proton transfer for the rate-limiting H-transfer step in aromatic amine dehydrogenase (AADH) with tryptamine as substrate. In particular, the conformation of the iminoquinone adduct induced by AADH was found to be essential for a promoting vibration identified previously—this lowers significantly the ‘effective’ potential energy barrier, that is the barrier which remains to be surmounted following collective, thermally equilibrated motion attaining a quantum degenerate state of reactants and products. When the substrate adopts a conformation similar to that in the free iminoquinone, this barrier was found to increase markedly. This is consistent with AADH facilitating the H-transfer event by holding the substrate in a conformation that induces a promoting vibration.
Explaining The Gender Gap in Support for the New Right

This article uses data from the 2000 Canadian Election Studyto examine a variety of possible explanations for the gender gap in support for the newright. The authors find structural and situational explanations to be of little help in accounting for the gap. What matters are values and beliefs. The gender gap in support for Canada's new right party reflects differences in views about the appropriate role of the state, lawand order, and traditional moral values. It also appears to reflect differences in the salience of politics in men's andwomen's lives. When all of these attitudinal factors are taken into account, the gender gap ceases to be significant. The implications of the findings are considered in light of comparative analyses of gender gaps in vote choice and support for radical right-wing populist political parties in Western Europe.
Consistent Modelling of VIX and Equity Derivatives Using a 3/2 plus Jumps Model

Abstract The paper demonstrates that a pure-diffusion 3/2 model is able to capture the observed upward-sloping implied volatility skew in VIX options. This observation contradicts a common perception in the literature that jumps are required for the consistent modelling of equity and VIX derivatives. The pure-diffusion model, however, struggles to reproduce the smile in the implied volatilities of short-term index options. The pronounced implied volatility smile produces artificially inflated fitted parameters, resulting in unrealistically high VIX option implied volatilities. To remedy these shortcomings, jumps are introduced. The resulting model is able to better fit short-term index option implied volatilities while producing more realistic VIX option implied volatilities, without a loss in tractability.
Corpus Linguistics and Corpus-Based Research in Hong Kong: A State-of-Art Review

This article reports a state-of-art review of recent development on corpus linguistics and corpus-based research in Hong Kong. A top-down, multi-layer, stratified review identified 29 on-going research projects from the eight research-active universities in Hong Kong. These projects make use of corpus technology to address a wide range of research questions related to issues in language teaching and learning, linguistic studies, cultural studies, information technology, and sign language. Such diversified applications of corpus technology clearly indicate the great potential and opportunities that corpus linguistics can afford for researchers, language educators and learners to explore and collaborate.
Responding to potential impacts of climate change on U.S. coastal biodiversity

Abstract Accelerated rates of sea level rise and other impacts of climate change resulting from global warming are likely to aggravate threats to coastal biodiversity in the United States. Species restricted to or dependent upon a narrow band of habitat close to sea level will be subjected to continuing threats of development from above, and rising sea levels from below. In five states alone, almost 500 rare and imperiled species utilize the coastal fringe below the 10‐foot contour. Some 53 species federally listed as threatened or endangered or as candidates for listing are found only within the narrow band below the 10‐foot contour. Rising seas will stress coastal habitats including wetlands, barrier islands, coral reefs, and mangroves, in some cases substantially reducing their area. To ensure the conservation of coastal biodiversity global warming must be slowed as much as possible. Steps must also be taken quickly to establish coastal zone policies that allow adaptive response to rising seas by makin.
Laws, People and Land Use: A Sociological Perspective on the Relation Between Laws and Land Use

Public policy is often implemented through formal laws. In contrast to the typically optimistic ex-ante analyses of the impact of a set of laws, in retrospect it may be hard to determine what the laws concretely produced. Particularly complicated to measure are the unintended and indirect effects on actors or values that were not the prime focus of the law. Despite the literature on these matters in other fields of research, among planners the theory of law implementation receives relatively little attention. This attitude may stem from the means-ends rationality that has been common to planning for so many years. This paper makes a plea for focusing on the interaction between people and laws so as to understand the outcomes. We do this by drawing insights from sociological perspectives on laws.