Latin America and the Caribbean in the World Economy 2002-2003

Includes bibliography

Commissioning of the CMS experiment and the cosmic run at four tesla

The CMS Collaboration conducted a month-long data-taking exercise known as the Cosmic Run At Four Tesla in late 2008 in order to complete the commissioning of the experiment for extended operation. The operational lessons resulting from this exercise were addressed in the subsequent shutdown to better prepare CMS for LHC beams in 2009. The cosmic data collected have been invaluable to study the performance of the detectors, to commission the alignment and calibration techniques, and to make several cosmic ray measurements. The experimental setup, conditions, and principal achievements from this data-taking exercise are described along with a review of the preceding integration activities. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd and SISSA.

Regional integration and the issue of choosing an appropriate exchange-rate regime in Latin America

Includes bibliography

Policies and practices for the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in education in Latin America and the Caribbean

Includes bibliography

The functional biogeography of species: Biogeographical species roles of birds in Wallacea and the West Indies

Biogeographical systems can be analyzed as networks of species and geographical units. Within such a biogeographical network, individual species may differ fundamentally in their linkage pattern, and therefore hold different topological roles. To advance our understanding of the relationship between species traits and large-scale species distribution patterns in archipelagos, we use a network approach to classify birds as one of four biogeographical species roles: peripherals, connectors, module hubs, and network hubs. These roles are based upon the position of species within the modular network of islands and species in Wallacea and the West Indies. We test whether species traits - including habitat requirements, altitudinal range-span, feeding guild, trophic level, and body length - correlate with species roles. In both archipelagos, habitat requirements, altitudinal range-span and body length show strong relations to species roles. In particular, species that occupy coastal- and open habitats, as well as habitat generalists, show higher proportions of connectors and network hubs and thus tend to span several biogeographical modules (i.e. subregions). Likewise, large body size and a wide altitudinal range-span are related to a wide distribution on many islands and across several biogeographical modules. On the other hand, species restricted to interior forest are mainly characterized as peripherals and, thus, have narrow and localized distributions within biogeographical modules rather than across the archipelago-wide network. These results suggest that the ecological amplitude of a species is highly related to its geographical distribution within and across bio geographical subregions and furthermore supports the idea that large-scale species distributions relate to distributions at the local community level. We finally discuss how our biogeographical species roles may correspond to the stages of the taxon cycle and other prominent theories of species assembly. © 2013 The Authors.

Macroeconomics and regional integration: EMU and the stability programmes: some possible lessons for Latin America

Includes bibliography

Determinants of bird species richness, endemism, and island network roles in Wallacea and the West Indies: is geography sufficient or does current and historical climate matter?

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The People's Hour and the Social Gospel: George Howard Gibson's Gilded Age Search for an Organization of the Kingdom of God

Previous studies of the Social Gospel movement have acknowledged the fact that Social Gospelers were involved in multiple social reform movements during the Gilded Age and into the Progressive Era. However, most of these studies have failed to explain how the reform experiences of the Social Gospelers contributed to the development of the Social Gospel. The Social Gospelers’ ideas regarding the need to transform society and their strategies for doing so were largely a result of their personal experiences as reformers and their collaboration with other reformers. The knowledge and insight gained from interaction with a variety of reform methods played a vital role in the development of the ideology and theology of the Social Gospel. George Howard Gibson is exemplary of the connections between the Social Gospel movement and several other social reform movements of the time. He was involved in the Temperance movement, was a member of both the Prohibition Party and the People’s Party, and co-founded a Christian socialist cooperative colony. His writings illustrate the formation of his identity as a Social Gospeler as well as his attempts to find an organization through which to realize the kingdom of God on earth. Failure to achieve the changes he desired via prohibition encouraged him to broaden his reform goals. Like many Midwestern Social Gospelers Gibson believed he had found “God’s Party” in the People’s Party, but he rejected reform via the political system once the Populists restricted their attention to the silver issue and fused with the Democratic Party. Yet his involvement with the People’s Party demonstrates the attraction many Social Gospelers had to the reforms proposed in the Omaha Platform of 1892 as well as to the party’s use of revivalistic language and emphasis on producerism and brotherhood. Gibson’s experimentation with a variety of ways to achieve the kingdom of God on earth provides new insight into the experiences and contributions of lay Social Gospelers. Adviser: Kenneth J. Winkle

Evaluation of a viral vector system, based on a defective interfering RNA of tomato bushy stunt virus, for protein expression and the induction of gene silencing

A viral vector system was developed based on a DI-RNA, a sub-viral particle derived from TBSV-BS3-statice. This newly designed vector system was tested for its applicability in protein expression and induction of gene silencing. Two strategies were pursued. The first strategy was replication of the DI-RNA by a transgenically expressed TBSV replicase and the second was the replication by a so called helper virus. It could be demonstrated by northern blot analysis that the replicase, expressed by the transgenic N. benthamiana plant line TR4 or supplied by the helper virus, is able to replicate DI-RNA introduced into the plant cells. Various genes were inserted into different DI constructs in order to study the vector system with regard to protein expression. However, independent of how the replicase was provided no detectable amounts of protein were produced in the plants. Possible reasons for this failure are identified: the lack of systemic movement of the DI-RNA in the transgenic TR4 plants and the occurrence of deletions in the inserted genes in both systems. As a consequence the two strategies were considered unsuitable for protein expression. The DI-RNA vector system was able to induce silencing of transgenes as well as endogenous genes. Several different p19 deficient helper virus constructs were made to evaluate their silencing efficiency in combination with our DI-RNA constructs. However, it was found that our vector system can not compete with other existing VIGS (virus induced gene silencing) systems in this field. Finally, the influence of DI sequences on mRNA stability on transient GUS expression experiments in GUS silenced plants was evaluated. The GUS reporter gene system was found to be unsuitable for distinguishing between expression levels of wild type plants and GUS silenced transgenic plants. The results indicate a positive effect of the DI sequences on the level of protein expression and therefore further research into this area is recommended.

An indicator of sudden cardiac death during brief coronary occlusion: electrocardiogram QT time and the role of collaterals

The coronary collateral circulation has a beneficial role regarding all-cause and cardiac mortality. Hitherto, the underlying mechanism has not been clarified. The aim of this prospective study was to assess the effect of the coronary collateral circulation on electrocardiogram (ECG) QTc time change during short-term myocardial ischaemia.

A "Beyond WTO" Scenario for Swiss Agriculture: Consequences for Income Generation and the Provision of Public Goods

The conclusion of the Doha Round negotiations is likely to influence Swiss agricultural policy substantially. The same goes for a free trade agreement in agriculture and food with the European Communities. Even though neither of them will bring about duty-free and quota-free market access, or restrict domestic support measures to green box compatible support, both would represent a big step in that direction. There is no empirical evidence on the effect of such a counterfactual scenario for Swiss agriculture. We therefore use a normative mathematical programming model to illustrate possible effects for agricultural production and the corresponding agricultural income. Moreover, we discuss the results with respect to the provision of public goods under the assumption of continuing green box-compatible direct payments. The aim of our article is to bring more transparency into the discussion on the effects of freer and less distorted trade on the income generation by a multifunctional agriculture. The article will be organized as follows. In the first Section we specify the background of our study. In the second section, we focus on the problem statement and our research questions. In Section 3, we describe in detail a counterfactual scenario of “duty-free, quota-free and price support-free” agriculture from an economic as well as a legal perspective. Our methodology and the results are presented in Section 4 and 5 respectively. In Section 6, we discuss our results with respect to economic and legal aspects of multifunctional agriculture.