bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
927T>C polymorphism of the cysteinyl‐leukotriene type‐1 receptor (CYSLTR1) gene in children with asthma and atopic dermatitis
Authors: Arriba‐Mendez Sonia , Sanz Catalina , Isidoro‐Garcia Maria , Davild Ignacio , Laffond Elena , Horeno Esther , Avila Carmelo , Lorente Felix
Published: July 2006

Asthma and atopic dermatitis share several common features and Cysteinyl‐leukotrienes are mediators that participate in the pathogenesis of both diseases. Recently, a new polymorphism (927T>C) has been identified in cysteinyl‐leukotriene type‐1 receptor (CYSLTR1) gene. This gene is found on the X chromosome. The aim of this study was to analyze this SNP in a population of children with asthma and atopic dermatitis. In this study, 166 individuals, 79 adult controls (CTR) and 87 children with asthma (AA) were included. Forty‐one patients with asthma presented atopic dermatitis (AA‐AD). Adults were chosen as controls to confirm lack of development of asthma and allergy during childhood. Standardized history, physical examination, skin prick tests, and lung function measurements were performed in all patients. The 927T>C CYSLTR1 SNP was analyzed by direct sequencing after PCR amplification. In males (53 individuals), the C allele was significantly more common among AA‐AD patients (47%) than in CTR (8%) (Fisher's p < 0.005; Monte Carlo p < 0.008; OR:9.78; 95%CI: 1.73–55.30). When comparing AA‐AD vs. AA‐NAD (patients with asthma but not atopic dermatitis), significant differences were observed, (47% vs. 15%, Fisher's p = 0.014; Monte Carlo p = 0.022; OR: 4.97; 95%CI: 1.29–19.13). No differences in allele distribution were observed between these disease sub‐groups in females. The 927T>C is a silent SNP; however, it could affect transcription or translation or may be linked to an unidentified, functional polymorphism and thus may pre‐dispose male children to asthma and atopic dermatitis in our population. Further studies are needed to confirm these findings.
Stop the bullying in the corridors: Can including shrubs make your revegetation more Noisy Miner free?
Authors: Hastings Richard A. , Beattie Andrew J.
Published: July 2006

Summary  Noisy Miners (Manorina melanocephala) are aggressive Australian honeyeaters that dominate many areas of remnant vegetation and forest edges from which they competitively exclude small birds. A similar domination can also occur in planted wildlife corridors. The aim of this study was to determine which corridor plantings encouraged the presence of small native birds in regions where Noisy Miners dominate. Six vegetation mixes were investigated in the main study: eucalypts with and without shrubby understorey; acacia with and without shrubby understorey; exotic conifer; and exotic deciduous trees. A supplementary study then examined sites with a mixture of eucalypt and acacia trees with a shrubby understorey. The findings showed that Noisy Miners dominated corridors of eucalypts, virtually excluding small birds, whereas native acacias, exotic conifer and exotic deciduous corridors had small birds and no resident Noisy Miners. The greatest abundance and richness of small birds occurred in plantings combining eucalypts with at least 15% acacias, in this case bipinnate species. Given these results, it is recommended that eucalypt plantings should be supplemented with both acacias (preferably bipinnate) and a shrubby understorey.
Factors influencing species selection for littoral rainforest restoration: Do environmental gradients matter?
Authors: Kooyman Robert , Rossetto Maurizio
Published: July 2006

Summary Littoral rainforest in northern New South Wales, Australia, has been severely reduced in area and is now extremely limited in extent. Factors influencing the floristics, species richness and abundance, and relationship of this coastal rainforest community type to other lowland rainforests are explored. The purpose of the study was to provide ecological information to support (i) the development of management recommendations and assist habitat expansion and restoration planning for a coastal site at Lennox Head, in northern New South Wales, and (ii) the implementation of recovery actions for an endangered ecological community and an endangered tree species. Multivariate analysis techniques were used to classify and ordinate sampled sites relative to environmental variables to provide an explanation for current floristic assemblages. Eight locations at varying distances to the coast, and representing a range of soil types, were chosen to test the influence of selected environmental variables. At the broad scale, the results show that proximity to the coast and altitude were generally correlated and represented the most influential variables; soil depth, topographic position and slope were broadly correlated but markedly less influential; disturbance was a significant but independent influence on floristics; and soil type and aspect had the least influence. The study provided insight into the ecological parameters of a range of species suited to the habitat rehabilitation and restoration project, and identified finer‐scale floristic patterns at the Lennox site that appear to reflect the influence of environmental variables. In that case, areas in closer proximity to the ocean are dominated by several littoral rainforest and disturbance‐related species, and species richness increases relative to distance from the ocean. This highlights the need to be sensitive to landscape variation, and the influence of environmental variables on plant species distributions, and population dynamics and structure, to guide final selection of appropriate plant material for littoral rainforest restoration projects.
Roseobacter and SAR11 dominate microbial glucose uptake in coastal North Sea waters
Authors: Alonso Cecilia , Pernthaler Jakob
Published: July 2006

Bacterial assemblages in coastal pelagic environments are exposed to pronounced temporal and spatial fluctuations in the availability of monomeric substrates. Little is known about the response of particular bacterial groups to such variability. We studied glucose incorporation at various concentrations (0.1–100 nM) by bacteria related to Roseobacter, SAR11, Gammaproteobacteria and Cytophaga‐Flavobacteria in coastal North Sea waters in late winter and during a spring phytoplankton bloom dominated by Phaeocystis sp. (March and May 2004 respectively). Both the fraction of glucose‐assimilating bacterial cells and the rate of substrate incorporation per active cell were higher in May. The respective contributions of the studied groups to all glucose‐assimilating Bacteria were related to substrate concentration. The majority of glucose‐incorporating bacterial cells at the lower concentrations were members of the Roseobacter and SAR11 clades. At both time‐points the two groups formed approximately equal fractions of all glucose‐incorporating bacteria. This was due to a small population of highly active Roseobacter cells and high abundances of SAR11 bacteria with low proportions of glucose‐incorporating cells. By contrast, the proportion of active cells from the Cytophaga‐Flavobacteria lineage substantially increased at higher levels of available substrate. The determination of concentration‐dependent substrate incorporation patterns may help to better understand the different ecophysiological niches of bacterioplankton populations.
Use of repaglinide on a pregnant woman during embryogenesis
Authors: Mollar‐Puchades M. A. , Martin‐Cortes A. , Perez‐Calvo A. , Diaz‐Garcia C.
Published: July 2006

In the past few years, oral antihyperglycaemic agents have been considered as an alternative to insulin therapy in the treatment of gestational diabetes. There is still little information available on the safety of these drugs during pregnancy, but there have been several studies published regarding their use. Here we report on the case of a woman who took repaglinide up to the seventh week of pregnancy. Delivery occured with no complications and the newborn showed no malformations. Further studies are required to confirm the safety of repaglinide during pregnancy.
A beaked basal ornithurine bird (Aves, Ornithurae) from the Lower Cretaceous of China
Authors: Zhou Zhonghe , Zhang Fucheng
Published: July 2006

We report here one of the earliest known beaked ornithurine birds from the Lower Cretaceous deposits in Liaoning, northeast China. The new basal ornithurine, Archaeorhynchus spathula gen. et sp. nov., has a rhynchokinetic skull with toothless jaws. It also contains over three dozen preserved gizzard stones, suggesting an herbivorous diet. The distal end of the tibiotarsus is unfused, enabling recognition of the astragalus with a broad ascending process, generally similar to that of Archaeopteryx. The new discovery sheds new light on our understanding of the early radiation and diet diversification of early birds in the Lower Cretaceous.
Cynocephalid dermopterans from the Palaeogene of South Asia (Thailand, Myanmar and Pakistan): systematic, evolutionary and palaeobiogeographic implications
Authors: Marivaux Laurent , Bocat Loïc , Chaimanee Yaowalak , Jaeger Jean‐Jacques , Marandat Bernard , Srisuk Paladej , Tafforeau Paul , Yamee Chotima , Welcomme Jean‐Loup
Published: July 2006

Cynocephalid dermopterans (flying lemurs) are represented by only two living genera (Cynocephalus and Galeopterus), which inhabit tropical rainforests of South‐East Asia. Despite their very poor diversity and their limited distribution, dermopterans play a critical role in higher‐level eutherian phylogeny inasmuch as they represent together with Scandentia (tree‐shrew) the sister group of the Primates clade (Plesiadapiformes + Euprimates). However, unlike primates, for which the fossil record extends back to the early Palaeogene on all Holarctic continents and in Africa, the evolutionary history of the order Dermoptera sensu stricto (Cynocephalidae) has so far remained undocumented, with the exception of a badly preserved fragment of mandible from the late Eocene of Thailand (Dermotherium major). In this paper, we described newly discovered fossil dermopterans (essentially dental remains) from different regions of South Asia (Thailand, Myanmar, and Pakistan) ranging from the late middle Eocene to the late Oligocene. We performed microtomographic examinations at the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF, Grenoble, France) to analyse different morphological aspects of the fossilized jaws. The abundant material from the late Oligocene of Thailand (Nong Ya Plong coal mine) allows us to emend the diagnosis of the genus Dermotherium and to describe a new species: Dermotherium chimaera sp. n. This species exhibits an interesting mosaic of plesiomorphic cynocephalid characters shared with Cynocephalus and Galeopterus, and as such, it probably documents a form close to the ancestral morphotype from which the two extant forms are derived (supported by cladistic assessment of the dental evidence). The discovery of Palaeogene cynocephalids is particularly significant since it attests to the great antiquity of the order Dermoptera in Asia, and besides, it provides the first spatio‐temporal glimpse into the evolutionary history of that enigmatic mammal group. In that respect, these fossils testify to a long history of endemism in South Asia for dermopterans, and demonstrate that their modern geographic restriction in south‐eastern Asia is clearly a relictual distribution. Cynocephalids had a more widespread distribution during the Palaeogene, which extended from the Indian subcontinent (the rafting Greater India) to South‐East Asia. Their subsequent extinction on the Indian subcontinent was probably mediated by the major palaeogeographic and geomorphologic events related to the India‐Eurasia collision (retreat of the Paratethys Sea, formation of orogenic highlands) that have strongly affected the climate of South Asia at the end of the Oligocene.
THE CORPORATE ROLE OF LARGE METROPOLITAN AREAS IN THE UNITED STATES
Authors: WHEELER JAMES O.
Published: July 2006

This study has three purposes. The first is to determine, for the 30 largest U.S. metropolitan areas in 1980. the relationship among population size, the number of major corporations headquartered in these centers, and the number of subsidiaries located there. The expectation is that there will be positive relationships in all cases. Second, this study, based on variations in the relationships examined above, sets forth a corporate classification of the 30 metropolitan areas and identifies common characteristics and locations among six categories of centers. Finally, using the six‐fold classification of centers, metropolitan employment growth between 1980 and 1986 is analyzed, especially job growth in services and in finance, insurance, and real estate (FIRE). The six‐fold classification proves useful in understanding employment growth in these 30 centers during the 1980s and, with modifications, perhaps beyond.
Industrial Development Groups, Organizational Resources, and the Prospects for Effecting Growth in Local Economies
Authors: HUMPHREY CRAIG R. , ERICKSON RODNEY A. , OTTENSMEYER EDWARD J.
Published: July 2006

Using data from a survey of directors of not‐for‐profit industrial development groups in the United States and from a variety of secondary sources, we test the hypothesis that the presence of an active industrial development group was a significant factor in the economic growth of its service area over the 1977‐to‐1982 period. The data permit us to control for different levels of organizational resources among growth promotion groups as well as other traditional factors of local economic change in a regression analysis. While growth promotion groups are judged to be effective in terms of the number of jobs that are created or preserved relative to their direct expenditures of resources, neither their presence nor the levels of their organizational resources are significantly related to service area net employment change. The efforts of growth promotion groups are simply overwhelmed in importance by factors such as population size, metropolitan accessibility, location in a growth region, and manufacturing wage rates that characterize the respective service areas.
State and Local Government Finances: Was There a Structural Break in the Reagan Years?
Authors: BAHL ROY , DUNCOMBE WILLIAM
Published: July 2006

The Reagan administration's “New Federalism” and tax reform proposals were expected to have chilling effects on growth of state and local government revenues and expenditures. This paper examines the hypothesis that there was a structural break in state and local government fiscal behavior in the 1980s. Although the evidence is far from conclusive, it does suggest some different fiscal patterns in this decade. However, the real structural break appears to have occurred in the late 1970s and these trends have continued during the Reagan years.
Canadian Investment in Northern New York: Impact of Exchange Rates on Foreign Direct Investment
Authors: SOLOCHA ANDREW , SOSKIN MARK D. , KASOFF MARKJ.
Published: July 2006

This paper investigates the determinants of Canadian direct investment in Northern New York, focusing on the influence of changing foreign exchange rates. Hypotheses are formulated that new investment should be positively related to the value of the U.S. dollar while expansions of existing facilities ought to be unrelated to exchange rate movements. These predictions are supported by the data. Since Canadian investment is found to behave quite differently from domestic‐source investment, we conclude that other factors besides exchange rates account for much of this difference.1
A Synthesis of Some Market Area Delimitation Models
Authors: O'KELLY M.E. , MILLER H.J.
Published: July 2006

Reilly's law of markets delimits a breakpoint between the trade areas of a pair of centers based on their size and spatial separation. The construction of trade boundaries between more thantwocenters is inadequately dealt with in the literature. This paper generalizes Reilly's market model using probability contour mapping and numerical integration. Since the allocation phase of the model can be based on any suitable interaction model, a wide variety of retail analysis techniques is synthesized. Using computer graphics, both descriptive and predictive uses of the model are illustrated.
Defense Impact Analysis Within a social Accounting Framework
Authors: ESPARZA ADRIAN
Published: July 2006

This paper uses a social accounting matrix (SAM) of the California economy to evaluate (1) industrial‐occupational linkages associated with defense production, and (2) the relative impact of defense expenditures in a regional economy. Multipliers derived from the SAM are used to trace the distribution of wages and salaries payments from 24 industries to managerial, professional, skilled, and unskilled sectors of the labor force. Expenditures by federal defense and non‐defense sectors and households are used to assess the relative impacts of defense spending in the overall regional economy. The results indicate that duality is prevalent in the regional labor market, with managerial and professional occupations receiving the greatest benefits from defense production. Overall impacts to the regional economy are less attributable to defense spending than non‐defense and household sectors.
An Intertemporal Cross‐Section Analysis of Economies of Scale in Mexican Manufacturing
Authors: TRUETT LILA J. , TRUETT DALE B.
Published: July 2006

Utilizing data from quinquennial industrial censuses for the period 1960‐1975, this study examines economies of scale in a number of Mexico's manufacturing industries. A cross‐sectional approach is used to estimate production functions by industry for each of four industrial censuses. In contrast to findings of relatively constant returns to scale for the United States, the Mexican data reveal substantial economies of scale at both the beginning and the end of the study period, suggesting that further opportunities for reduction in long‐run costs exist. The resultant policy implications are that measures which promote larger scale manufacturing (incentives for expanded domestic production, export promotion, and selected tariff preferences) will speed up both short‐term recovery and long‐term growth of the Mexican economy. It is desirable, however, that these policies be harmonized with other designed to reduce the environmental contamination and congestion that has accompanied Mexico's industrial development.
Producer Services Development and the Role of Telecommunications: A Case Study in Rural Washington
Authors: KIRN THOMAS J. , CONWAY RICHARD S. , BEYERS WILLIAM B.
Published: July 2006

Information‐intensive producer services, which constitute one of the fastest growing components of the U.S. economy, have been identified as a potential contributor to economic development in rural areas. This issue is examined in a case study of a community in rural Washington State. The findings indicate that producer services have not been decentralizing to rural Washington, and that opportunities for producer services development in rural communities are limited because of the inaccessibility of markets, smaller pools of skilled labor, and the lack of agglomeration economies. Opportunities for producer services are greatest in large rural communities with high‐quality telecommunications systems. Although the quality of telecommunications systems is important to the economic health of communities, advances in telecommunications can be a two‐way street for rural America. While telecommunications improvements increase a rural community's access to information and make it possible for rural businesses to more easily serve non‐local markets, they can also make it easier for firms located in urban areas to serve rural markets via branch offices or through the telecommunications system.
Mixed Signals in the Job Training Partnership Act
Authors: ANDERSON KATHRYN H. , BURKHAUSER RICHARD V. , RAYMOND JENNIE E. , RUSSELL CLIFFORD S.
Published: July 2006

The Job Training Partnership Act of 1982 was developed to train the disadvantaged for work or better jobs. The Act that passed targeted the economically disadvantaged but stressed efficiency in the operation of the program. Program performance standards were established, and local Private Industry Councils (PICs) were developed to operate the program and to involve local business in JTPA training. Critics argued that this structure resulted in “creaming” of participants to the exclusion of the most disadvantaged workers. We test the “creaming” hypothesis using data on JTPA participants in Tennessee in 1987 and a sample of disadvantaged workers in Tennessee extracted from the Current Population Surveys. We find that racial and welfare targets are met but that the most able among those groups are chosen for help. We also find some evidence of “channeling.” The most disadvantaged groups are less likely to receive the most successful type of training — on‐the‐job training. Finally, we present alternative strategies to encourage PICs to do less “creaming,” and we make predictions about their likely success.
Dynamic Relationships Among Regional and Nationwide Manufacturing
Authors: WOZNIAK GREGORY D. , BABULA RONALD A.
Published: July 2006

The purpose of this paper is to examine how regional manufacturing responds to a decline in manufacturing activity nationwide. A trivariate VAR model of the relationships between the Federal Reserve Board's Industrial Production Index for manufacturing, and two regional manufacturing output indexes is estimated. The regions considered correspond to the Fifth and the Seventh Federal Reserve Districts. A negative shock in the national index is imposed on the system to demonstrate the following: durations and general patterns of the impulse responses; severity of the responses in the two patterns; reaction times; and interregional differences in response patterns. The findings indicate that the response patterns generally differ between the regions.
Retail Business Adjustment in Rural Hierarchies
Authors: HENDERSON DAVID , WALLACE GEORGE
Published: July 2006

Many rural hierarchies are becoming increasingly dominated by a few regional growth centers while the retail sector in adjacent smaller communities either stagnates or declines. This study tests the hypothesis that the rate of adjustment of the retail sector to changing consumer spending patterns is uniform across different ordered communities in a rural hierarchy. Neoclassical investment theory is combined with central place theory to develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the retail sector and investment in a community. A three tiered 49 community hierarchy is constructed using data from the Minnesota Department of Revenue and the Report of Condition and Income of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. A crosssectional time series ordinary least squares regression model is employed to estimate retail coefficients of adjustment for the hypothesis testing. Regional estimates indicate only partial adjustment in the retail sector across the whole hierarchy to shifts in consumer spending patterns. Community estimates, which decompose the regional estimate, indicate retail businesses in the largest and mid‐sized communities adjust totally in one period, but that retail businesses in the smallest communities do not. The faster rates of adjustment by retail businesses in the larger communities to changing consumer spending patterns may augment the development of regional growth centers in rural areas.
Convergence of State Per Capita Incomes: An Examination of Its Sources
Authors: MALLICK RAJIV
Published: July 2006

This paper examines the sources of regional convergence in per capita incomes over the last four decades. Growth in per capita income is decomposed into two major components: (1) growth in employment rates and (2) growth in wage rates per worker. Using annual data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the paper finds that the observed convergence in per capita incomes of sates was largely due to convergence in employment rates; wage rates either did not converge or did so weakly. Employing an instrumental variables technique, the paper finds that rapid growth in the work force with relatively low levels of human capital in initially poor states was a depressing influence on wage rate growth in these states, and was a major reason for the relatively slow convergence in per capita incomes.
Innovation, High‐Technology Use, and Flexibility in Small Manufacturing Firms
Authors: YOUNG RUTH C. , FRANCIS JOE D. , YOUNG CHRISTOPHER H.
Published: July 2006

Innovation, use of high technology, and flexibility of response to customer needs are studied in two surveys of small manufacturing firms in New York and Pennsylvania. They are shown in both surveys to be separate and unrelated concepts. None of five industry‐level classifications of high‐technology firms, using SIC codes predict these concepts on a firm level. Only innovation is related to a sophisticated firm marketing program. and to export from the state.
The Globalization of Japanese Manufacturing Corporations
Authors: EDGINGTON DAVID W.
Published: July 2006

This paper discusses recent shifts in the overseas investment strategies of Japan's major multinational manufacturing companies (MNCs). Based on a survey of twenty corporations it is postulated that the move towards the globalization of these companies has taken place in three distinct but overlapping phases: (1) a linear link‐up to Japan, (2) a transition stage, based upon international specialization and‘mesh’strategies, and (3) a tetra‐polar strategic division of the world. The paper commences with a discussion of recent trends in MNC behavior, and then shows how overseas corporate organization has changed in the Japanese firms surveyed, especially after 1985. The implications of these changes among the major global regions is examined. The paper concludes with an assessment of whether the strategies of Japanese MNCs have converged with those. of United States or European MNCs, and to what degree they have retained their own distinctive attributes.
Application of Fuzzy‐Set Clustering for Regional Typologies
Authors: HARRIS THOMAS R. , STODDARD SHAWN W. , BEZDEK JAMES C.
Published: July 2006

Qualitative and quantitative procedures have been used to aggregate communities and counties for regional economic analysis. However, Once aggregated, communities and counties are perceived as homogeneous entities; this often belies the diversity that may exist. In order to capture the non‐uniqueness of counties, fuzzy‐set clustering procedures were employed to derive a typology of Nevada counties. Fuzzy‐set clustering procedures employing fuzzy‐set membership values and possibility theory derive county membership values associated for specific county clusters. Information from fuzzy partitions yields a means for posterior evaluation of county clusters which is independent of the algorithm producing them. From county membership values calculated from results of the fuzzy‐set clustering analysis for Nevada, specific economic development programs for aggregate and individual counties are derived.
Interregional Spillovers in Regional Impact Assessment: New Mexico, Texas, and the Supreme Court
Authors: HAMILTON JOEL R. , ROBISON M. HENRY , WHITTLESEY NORMAN K. , ELLIS JOHN
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT Input‐output models are frequently used to estimate impacts, benefits or damages from some event. These analytic models and the questions they are designed to answer are usually based on political definitions of regions. However the true impacts propagate according to the actual spatial pattern of the regional economy. Because of the divergence between the political regions used for analysis and the economic regions on the ground, the economic impacts which spill over political boundaries can sometimes become analytically important. This paper applies these concepts to a case study of allocating irrigation water from the Pecos River in Texas and New Mexico. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that New Mexico used water belonging to Texas. Our analysis suggests that the spillover benefits to Texas from New Mexico's use of the water might equal or exceed the benefits which Texas would have gotten from using the water itself. Texas might be better off because New Mexico took its water.
A Survey of Group Technology Adoption in the American Midwest
Authors: KNUDSEN DANIEL C. , JACOBS F. ROBERT , CONWAY DENNIS , BLAKE MEGAN K.
Published: July 2006

This paper presents results of a hierarchical, fixed‐question survey that sought responses about flexible machining cells, flexible labor cells, and concurrent changes in plant operations among nonelectrical machinery manufacturers in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. General results indicate that the majority of firms in the American Midwest do not possess flexible manufacturing capability. Of those that do possess this capability, most adopted flexible labor cells prior to adopting flexible machining cells. These cells are small, employing relatively few workers and producing a limited line of products. While the adoption process has been plagued with training, scheduling, and integration problems, most plant managers are pleased with the performance of their flexible manufacturing cells. Management has been reluctant to break out of traditional relationships with suppliers, to trim levels of management and to explore strategic alliances with competitors. Survey results are disaggregated by year, size, positon‐in‐organization, and by union affiliation.
Institutions and Economic Transformation: The Case of Postwar Japanese Capitalism
Authors: FLORIDA RICHARD , KENNEY MARTIN
Published: July 2006

Institutions matter to economic development—particularly to the process of economic transformation. New technologies and new ways of organizing economic activity do not emerge in a vacuum, but bear the imprint of institutional arrangements. Economic transformation thus entails institutional adaptation as well as technological change—the emergence of new ways of organizing production or production systems and new sets of social and economic relationships which provide the institutional context for economic growth and development. Just as importantly, new institutional arrangements do not emergetabula rasa, but reflect the legacy of old social and institutional forms. Given particular social and institutional legacies, different societies adapt differently to economic transformation. This article employs a theoretically‐informed comparative examination of postwar Japanese capitalism to explore the critical role played by institutions in the process of economic transformation.
Towards a Gendered Regional Geography: Women and Work in Rural Appalachia
Authors: OBERHAUSER ANN M.
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT Regional studies has reemerged in recent decades as an important area of geographic analysis. In contrast to the traditional regional school which offers static descriptions of particular places and people, reconstructed regional geography approaches the region as a dynamic process where social relations are linked to spatial structures. Reconstructed regional geography, however, has largely neglected gender as a social category and focuses on class as the fundamental social relation under capitalism. This paper demonstrates how regions are constructed through social processes which include gender as well as class. Historical and contemporary analyses of women and household economic strategies in rural Appalachia illustrate the intersection of gender, place, and scale. Specifically, employment and poverty conditions are examined using county‐level data and household strategies are analyzed through intensive interviews with West Virginia women. This paper concludes that gender relations at the household, subregional, and regional scales are critical to the analysis of social and spatial processes in regional geography.
Cultivating Wilderness: The Place of Land in the Fiction of Ed Abbey and Wendell Berry
Authors: DRESSER NATHANAEL
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT Novelists Wendell Berry and Edward Abbey consider the natural world in a way most or their predecessors did not: the land itself as a complex character which deserves the respect of its human inhabitants. “Cultivating Wilderness” presents an overview or this relationship in Abbey's and Berry's fiction relating not only how the authors contrast characters attuned to the land and its patterns with others who arc “out of sync” with the natural world, but also how both ferry and Abbey deal with the interaction or human and natural communities—especially in a “modern world” which seemingly prefers to control nature and eradicate mystery. While it is not the role of fiction to offer blueprints for economic, environmental, or social policies, the novels and short stories of Wendell Berry and Ed Abbey do address important issues and eloquently call for a new paradigm for human behavior—at individual, community, and national levels—within and toward the natural world.

I felt, rather than knew, with a sudden keen taste and appetite, what it was to be a farmer in Islandia. I sensed the absorbing interest of the immediate task that also is integrated with rill the other tasks of one's life into a rounded whole, because one's land und one's farm is larger than oneself, reaching from a past long before one began into a future long after one is dead—but all of it one's own.
Evaluation of Wilderness in a Spatial Context
Authors: HANINK DEAN M.
Published: July 2006

ABSTRACT Spatial scarcities are integral to basic models that account for the organization of land use, including wilderness. The purpose of this paper is to consider the evaluation of wilderness from the perspective of spatial scarcity. Spatial scarcity usually can be taken as relative depending upon scale of analysis. At the more local scale, the relative scarcities of competing land uses are relevant to wilderness evaluation while at larger national and global scales scarcities in certain wilderness qualities may be more important. The paper begins with a brief review of existing approaches to evaluating wilderness and lays out an explicitly spatial approach to the problem. Then, local scale evaluation is considered in the context of von Thunen types of land use transition models which concern relative scarcity payments, or rents. The paper also takes up larger geographic scales and uses the concept of spatial scarcity in linking the hedonic and travel cost models of wilderness evaluation with central place theory in the consideration of wilderness potential.
Where is the Disintegration?
Authors: KIE CLAYTON , HYNES MARTIN
Published: July 2006

A large literature within industrial geography suggests that contemporary production systems are characterized by vertical disintegration processes and the emergence of agglomerations of small manufacturing establishments. According to Allen Scott, one of the most influential contributors to this literature, centers of economic activity in California are especially susceptible to the processes of vertical disintegration and agglomeration. Our concern in this paper is that this “California thesis” has serious empirical difficulties that need to be addressed. Accordingly, this paper reexamines general indicators of vertical disintegration, comparing their temporal record in California to that of the nation as a whole. We examine changes to these indicators for a set of industries that, according to Scott, are characterized by vertical disintegration. Our findings indicate that the weight of evidence does not support the conclusions of Scott concerning vertical disintegration in California. Therefore, his explanation of recent economic growth in California and the utility of his theory as an economic development paradigm require reevaluation.
How Fast Do We Grow?
Authors: VOHRA RUBINA
Published: July 2006

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether major results from Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992) cross national study on productivity convergence hold when applied to U.S. states where there is more uniformity of institutional factors and homogeneity of the economic data. Similar to the international studies, this paper identifies the contribution of factor inputs and human capital by state for the period 1969–88. The study finds a strong tendency for convergence even when controlling for other factors, with human capital growth being most important; the speed of convergence is roughly twice as high as between countries.
Expanding Access to the Secondary Mortgage Markets: The Role of Central City Lending Goals
Authors: MACDONALD HEATHER
Published: July 2006

Access to credit in lower‐income communities has become an increasingly central public policy issue in financial sector regulation over the past five years. One important reform was the establishment of purchasing goals for the government‐sponsored secondary mortgage markets (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) in 1992. This paper examines the central city lending goal, using the St. Louis MSA as a case study. Census tracts are clustered according to five variables argued to impede secondary market purchases of home loans in some neighborhoods. Borrower characteristics and lending patterns are compared across the clusters of tracts, and across central city and suburban tracts. Clustered tracts are found to be more strongly related to a set of key lending variables than are tracts divided according to central city/ suburban boundaries. The paper concludes that targeting affirmative lending requirements on the basis of neighborhood characteristics rather than political or statistical divisions may provide a more appropriate framework for efforts to expand access to credit. However, the analysis of spatial differences in lending patterns raises a number of questions that require further research.
Income Distribution Characteristics of Rural Economic Sectors: Implications for Local Development Policy
Authors: LEATHERMAN JOHN C. , MARCOUILLER DAVID W.
Published: July 2006

Recent trends suggest increasing reliance on private markets to provide for local economic well‐being. This research demonstrates the study of regional household income distribution patterns associated with productive activities important to many rural areas. A social accounting matrix analysis was used to examine agricultural production, agricultural processing, forestry production, forest products processing, and tourism in a small rural region in Wisconsin to illustrate the variable distributional characteristics of private market structures and related local economic development policy. The results showed that while high income households comprised 22 percent of total regional households in the study area, they received between 57 percent and 63 percent of earned income associated with changes in sectoral factor income. Medium income households (34 percent of regional households) received between 32 percent and 41 percent of earned income, and low income households (44 percent) received between 2 percent and 6 percent. The ability of local policy to influence distributional patterns is implied to the extent that local action can facilitate variable growth rates of targeted economic sectors.
Coping Strategies in a Wealthy City of Northern Italy
Authors: ANDREOTTI ALBERTA
Published: July 2006

The article focuses on the coping strategies of three categories of people usually considered to be at risk of becoming socially excluded — single mothers with minor children, long‐term unemployed males and foreign immigrants — in the northern Italian city of Milan. The concept of social exclusion, often used as an alternative to the concept of poverty, occasionally as its synonym, is here intended as multidimensional, dynamic and, most of all, relational. The article shows how this concept can be useful in analysing the condition of the three categories of people and how their condition is strongly related to the constraints and resources offered by the local context. Through the empirical material gathered from in‐depth interviews with the three above‐mentioned categories of people, the article first shows how these people profit from the labour market and the social services available in the city. It then analyses the role of social networks and the mechanisms behind the mobilization of people in support of the interviewees. Finally, it deals with the subjective dimension, that is, it examines whether, and to what extent, interviewees express feelings of uselessness. A visualization of the strategies will also be proposed. The empirical material will help to understand whether these people are socially excluded or not, and in which sense.
Four Theses in the Study of China’s Urbanization
Authors: FRIEDMANN JOHN
Published: July 2006

This article is written specifically for students of Chinese urbanization who are not sinologists. Four theses should inform their studies. The first is that China is an ancient urban civilization, but the processes we observe today are unprecedented. Thus, China’s urbanization must be studied under this dual aspect, giving due to both historical continuities and the unique characteristics of our own era. The second thesis argues that urbanization is a set of multidimensional socio‐spatial processes of at least seven different and overlapping dimensions, each with its own vocabulary and traditions of scholarship. The study of China’s urbanization thus requires a trans‐disciplinary approach. Thesis number three argues that urbanization involves rural–urban relations, but in contrast with many earlier studies, these relationships should be studied from an urban rather than rural perspective. Finally, and most contentiously, China’s urbanization, although entwined with globalization processes, is to be understood chiefly as an endogenous process leading to a specifically Chinese form of modernity.
Dual role of calbindin‐D28K in vesicular catecholamine release from mouse chromaffin cells
Authors: Westerink R. H. S. , Rook M. B. , Beekwilder J. P. , Wadman W. J.
Published: July 2006

Calbindin‐D28K is suggested to play a postsynaptic role in neurotransmission and in the regulation of the intracellular Ca2+ concentration. However, it is still unclear whether calbindin‐D28K has a role in the regulation of exocytosis, either as Ca2+ buffer or as Ca2+ sensor. Amperometric recordings of catecholamine exocytosis from wild‐type and calbindin‐D28K knockout mouse chromaffin cells reveal a strong reduction in the number of released vesicles, as well as in the amount of neurotransmitter released per fusion event in knockout cells. However, Ca2+ current recordings and Ca2+ imaging experiments, including video‐rate confocal laser scanning microscopy, revealed that the intracellular Ca2+ dynamics are remarkably similar in wild‐type and knockout cells. The combined results demonstrate that calbindin‐D28K plays an important and dual role in exocytosis, affecting both release frequency and quantal size, apparently without strong effects on intracellular Ca2+ dynamics. Consequently, the possibility that calbindin‐D28K functions not only as a Ca2+ buffer but also as a modulator of vesicular catecholamine release is discussed.
Democratization as an emancipative process: The neglected role of mass motivations
Authors: WELZEL CHRISTIAN
Published: July 2006

Abstract. Despite major differences, prevailing approaches in democratization research have one thing in common: they downplay the role of mass attitudes. This article criticizes the neglect of mass attitudes, arguing that it ignores the very essence of democratization. In light of human development theory, democratization is essentially an emancipative process, for it manifests human freedom by empowering people with civil and political rights. From this premise, the author concludes that democratization should be driven by emancipative forces in the population and that these forces are reflected in particular mass attitudes: liberty aspirations. Based on evidence from the Values Surveys, the analyses show that more widespread liberty aspirations facilitate progress and impede regress in the process of democratization. No other indicator – including GDP/capita and social capital – outperforms the effect of liberty aspirations on democratization. The article concludes that human development theory is useful because its emphasis on people empowerment highlights something that has been ignored in the democratization literature: emancipative motivational forces in the population.
Wrong-Way Chloride Transport: Is it a Treatable Cause of Some Intractable Seizures?
Authors: Staley Kevin J.
Published: July 2006

Despite decades of research and a half dozen new anticonvulsant agents, some types of seizures are as untreatable now as they were in the days of bromides. These treatment-resistant seizures suggest that some of the assumptions about anticonvulsant mechanisms may need revision. This review will focus on one of the bedrock assumptions of epileptology that the neurotransmitter GABA inhibits neuronal activity, and therefore, agents that increase GABA activity should increase inhibition and consequently decrease the abnormal neuronal activity that occurs during a seizure.
Neonatal Seizures: Is a Novel, Mechanism-Based Treatment Finally on the Horizon?
Authors: Stafstrom Carl E.
Published: July 2006

NKCC1 Transporter Facilitates Seizures in the Developing Brain

Dzhala VI, Talos DM, Sdrulla DA, Brumback AC, Mathews GC, Benke TA, Delpire E, Jensen FE, Staley KJ

Nat Med 2005;11(11):1205–1213

During development, activation of Cl–-permeable GABAA receptors (GABAA-R) excites neurons as a result of elevated intracellular Cl– levels and a depolarized Cl– equilibrium potential (ECl). GABA becomes inhibitory as net outward neuronal transport of Cl– develops in a caudal-rostral progression. In line with this caudal-rostral developmental pattern, GABAergic anticonvulsant compounds inhibit motor manifestations of neonatal seizures but not cortical seizure activity. The Na+-K+-2Cl– cotransporter (NKCC1) facilitates the accumulation of Cl– in neurons. The NKCC1 blocker bumetanide shifted ECl negative in immature neurons, suppressed epileptiform activity in hippocampal slices in vitro and attenuated electrographic seizures in neonatal rats in vivo. Bumetanide had no effect in the presence of the GABAA-R antagonist bicuculline, nor in brain slices from NKCC1-knockout mice. NKCC1 expression level versus expression of the Cl–-extruding transporter (KCC2) in human and rat cortex showed that Cl– transport in perinatal human cortex is as immature as in the rat. Our results provide evidence that NKCC1 facilitates seizures in the developing brain and indicate that bumetanide should be useful in the treatment of neonatal seizures.

Depolarizing GABA Acts on Intrinsically Bursting Pyramidal Neurons to Drive Giant Depolarizing Potentials in the Immature Hippocampus

Sipilä ST, Huttu K, Soltesz I, Voipio J, Kaila K

J Neurosci 2005;25(22):5280–5289

Spontaneous periodic network events are a characteristic feature of developing neuronal networks, and they are thought to play a crucial role in the maturation of neuronal circuits. In the immature hippocampus, these types of events are seen in intracellular recordings as giant depolarizing potentials (GDPs) during the stage of neuronal development when GABAA-mediated transmission is depolarizing. However, the precise mechanism how GABAergic transmission promotes GDP occurrence is not known. Using whole-cell, cell-attached, perforated-patch, and field-potential recordings in hippocampal slices, we demonstrate here that CA3 pyramidal neurons in the newborn rat generate intrinsic bursts when depolarized. Furthermore, the characteristic rhythmicity of GDP generation is not based on a temporally patterned output of the GABAergic interneuronal network. However, GABAergic depolarization plays a key role in promoting voltage-dependent, intrinsic pyramidal bursting activity. The present data indicate that glutamatergic CA3 neurons have an instructive, pacemaker role in the generation of GDPs, whereas both synaptic and tonic depolarizing GABAergic mechanisms exert a temporally nonpatterned, facilitatory action in the generation of these network events.