Regulation of the expression of Fit insect toxin locus genes in the root-associated biocontrol pseudomonad CHA0

The root-colonizing Pseudomonas fluorescens strain CHA0 is a biocontrol agent of soil-borne plant diseases caused by fungal and oomycete pathogens. Remarkably, this plant-beneficial pseudomonad is also endowed with potent insecticidal activity that depends on the production of a large protein toxin termed Fit (for P. fluorescens insecticidal toxin). In our present work, the genomic locus encoding the P. fluorescens insect toxin is subjected to a detailed molecular analysis. The Fit toxin gene fitD is flanked upstream by the fitABC genes and downstream by the fitE gene that encode the ABC transporter, membrane fusion, and outer membrane efflux components of a type I protein secretion system predicted to function in toxin export. The fitF, fitG, and fitH genes located downstream of fitE code for regulatory proteins having domain structures typical of signal transduction histidine kinases, LysR-type transcriptional regulators, and response regulators, respectively. The role of these insect toxin locus-associated control elements is being investigated with mutants defective for the regulatory genes and with GFP-based reporter fusions to putative promoter regions upstream of the transporter genes fitA and fitE, the toxin gene fitD, and the regulatory genes fitF and fitH. Our preliminary findings suggest that the three regulators interact with known global regulators of biocontrol factor expression to control Fit toxin expression and secretion.

Final Report: 2007 Alzheimer's Disease Task Force, January 2008

Following an overview of the history of the task force and background information on Alzheimer’s disease, the report is divided into four sections. These sections correspond to the delineation of four subcommittees into which task force members were divided. It should be noted that the term “Alzheimer’s Disease” is used to encompass not only Alzheimer’s disease but also additional brain disorders such as vascular dementia, mixed dementia, mild cognitive impairment, dementia with Lewy bodies, and other types of dementia. Interspersed throughout the report are verbatim comments received from Iowans who responded to on-line surveys about how Alzheimer’s disease has affected their lives. Their words poignantly give voice to the emotions, frustrations, and hopes of Iowans who are personally experiencing the impact of Alzheimer’s disease. The Report includes 22 recommendations to the Iowa General Assembly designed to improve the availability and quality of services for people with dementia, their caregivers, and their families. The recommendations fall into four categories; a) Education and Training; b) Services and Housing; c) Wellness and Disease Management; and, d) Funding and Reimbursement.

Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) as of and for the year ended June 30, 2007

Iowa State University of Science and Technology (ISU) as of and for the year ended June 30, 2007

Technology diffusion and the spatial distribution of wages in the US

What explains the spatial distribution of wages across US counties? I find that two of the most important factors are spatial technology diffusion and externalities due to the aggregate scale of production. One empirical finding supporting the importance of spatial technology diffusion is that average wages in a county decrease with the average level of schooling in neighboring counties when employment in the county and average wages in neighboring counties are held constant. All empirical results are obtained using anovel instrument for (endogenous) employment at the county-leveland take into account other factors (e.g. productivity-differencesacross states, climate) that may determine wages.

The structural nature of perceptual experiences

Intuitively, we think of perception as providing us with direct cognitive access to physical objects and their properties. But this common sense picture of perception becomes problematic when we notice that perception is not always veridical. In fact, reflection on illusions and hallucinations seems to indicate that perception cannot be what it intuitively appears to be. This clash between intuition and reflection is what generates the puzzle of perception. The task and enterprise of unravelling this puzzle took, and still takes, centre stage in the philosophy of perception. The goal of my dissertation is to make a contribution to this enterprise by formulating and defending a new structural approach to perception and perceptual consciousness. The argument for my structural approach is developed in several steps. Firstly, I develop an empirically inspired causal argument against naïve and direct realist conceptions of perceptual consciousness. Basically, the argument says that perception and hallucination can have the same proximal causes and must thus belong to the same mental kind. I emphasise that this insight gives us good reasons to abandon what we are instinctively driven to believe - namely that perception is directly about the outside physical world. The causal argument essentially highlights that the information that the subject acquires in perceiving a worldly object is always indirect. To put it another way, the argument shows that what we, as perceivers, are immediately aware of, is not an aspect of the world but an aspect of our sensory response to it. A view like this is traditionally known as a Representative Theory of Perception. As a second step, emphasis is put on the task of defending and promoting a new structural version of the Representative Theory of Perception; one that is immune to some major objections that have been standardly levelled at other Representative Theories of Perception. As part of this defence and promotion, I argue that it is only the structural features of perceptual experiences that are fit to represent the empirical world. This line of thought is backed up by a detailed study of the intriguing phenomenon of synaesthesia. More precisely, I concentrate on empirical cases of synaesthetic experiences and argue that some of them provide support for a structural approach to perception. The general picture that emerges in this dissertation is a new perspective on perceptual consciousness that is structural through and through.

Report on a review of selected general and application controls over the Iowa State University of Science and Technology payroll system for the period March 27 through May 11, 2007

Report on a review of selected general and application controls over the Iowa State University of Science and Technology payroll system for the period March 27 through May 11, 2007

Schumpeterian technology shocks

We analyze the labor market effects of neutral and investment-specific technologyshocks along the intensive margin (hours worked) and the extensive margin(unemployment). We characterize the dynamic response of unemploymentin terms of the job separation and the job finding rate. Labor market adjustmentsoccur along the extensive margin in response to neutral shocks, along theintensive margin in response to investment specific shocks. The job separationrate accounts for a major portion of the impact response of unemployment. Neutralshocks prompt a contemporaneous increase in unemployment because of asharp rise in the separation rate. This is prolonged by a persistent fall in thejob finding rate. Investment specific shocks rise employment and hours worked.Neutral shocks explain a substantial portion of the volatility of unemploymentand output; investment specific shocks mainly explain hours worked volatility.This suggests that neutral progress is consistent with Schumpeterian creative destruction,while investment-specific progress operates as in a neoclassical growthmodel.

Trade liberalization, exports and technology upgrading: Evidence on the impact of MERCOSUR on Argentinean firms

This paper studies the impact of a regional free trade agreement, MERCOSUR, on technologyupgrading by Argentinean firms. To guide empirical work, I introduce technology choice inMelitz s (2003) model of trade with heterogeneous firms. The joint treatment of the technologyadoption and exporting choices shows that the increase in revenues produced by trade integrationcan induce exporters to upgrade technology. An empirical test of the model reveals that firms inindustries facing higher reductions in Brazil s tariffs increase their investment in technologyfaster. The effect of tariffs on entry in the export market and technology adoption is highest inthe upper-middle range of the firm size distribution, as predicted by the model.

Report of Recommendations to Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa, for the year ended June 30, 2007

Report on Iowa State University of Science and Technology, Ames, Iowa, for the year ended June 30, 2007

Neural control of vascular reactions: impact of emotion and attention.

This study investigated the neural regions involved in blood pressure reactions to negative stimuli and their possible modulation by attention. Twenty-four healthy human subjects (11 females; age = 24.75 ± 2.49 years) participated in an affective perceptual load task that manipulated attention to negative/neutral distractor pictures. fMRI data were collected simultaneously with continuous recording of peripheral arterial blood pressure. A parametric modulation analysis examined the impact of attention and emotion on the relation between neural activation and blood pressure reactivity during the task. When attention was available for processing the distractor pictures, negative pictures resulted in behavioral interference, neural activation in brain regions previously related to emotion, a transient decrease of blood pressure, and a positive correlation between blood pressure response and activation in a network including prefrontal and parietal regions, the amygdala, caudate, and mid-brain. These effects were modulated by attention; behavioral and neural responses to highly negative distractor pictures (compared with neutral pictures) were smaller or diminished, as was the negative blood pressure response when the central task involved high perceptual load. Furthermore, comparing high and low load revealed enhanced activation in frontoparietal regions implicated in attention control. Our results fit theories emphasizing the role of attention in the control of behavioral and neural reactions to irrelevant emotional distracting information. Our findings furthermore extend the function of attention to the control of autonomous reactions associated with negative emotions by showing altered blood pressure reactions to emotional stimuli, the latter being of potential clinical relevance.

Report on a review of selected general and application controls over the Iowa State University of Science and Technology tuition and fees system for the period of April 11 through May 2, 2008

Report on a review of selected general and application controls over the Iowa State University of Science and Technology tuition and fees system for the period of April 11 through May 2, 2008

On the robust effects of technology shocks on hours worked and output

We analyze the effects of neutral and investment-specific technology shockson hours and output. Long cycles in hours are captured in a variety of ways.Hours robustly fall in response to neutral shocks and robustly increase inresponse to investment specific shocks. The percentage of the variance ofhours (output) explained by neutral shocks is small (large); the opposite istrue for investment specific shocks. News shocks are uncorrelated with theestimated technology shocks.

When Preference Is Not Satisfied but the Individual Is: How Power Distance Affects Person-Job Fit

One aspect of person-job fit reflects congruence between personal preferences and job design; as congruence increases so should satisfaction. We hypothesized that power distance would moderate whether fit is related to satisfaction with degree of job formalization. We obtained measures of job-formalization, fit and satisfaction, as well as organizational commitment from employees (n = 772) in a multinational firm with subsidiaries in six countries. Confirming previous findings, individuals from low power-distance cultures were most satisfied with increasing fit. However, the extent to which individuals from high power-distance cultures were satisfied did not necessarily depend on increasing fit, but mostly on whether the degree of formalization received was congruent to cultural norms. Irrespective of culture, satisfaction with formalization predicted a broad measure of organizational commitment. Apart from our novel extension of fit theory, we show how moderation can be tested in the context of polynomial response surface regression and how specific hypotheses can be tested regarding different points on the response surface.

Report of the Academic Building Revenue Bond Funds of Iowa State University of Science and Technology as of and for the year ended June 30, 2008

Report of the Academic Building Revenue Bond Funds of Iowa State University of Science and Technology as of and for the year ended June 30, 2008

Report of the Dormitory and Dining Services Revenue Bond Funds of Iowa State University of Science and Technology as of and for the year ended June 30, 2008

Report of the Dormitory and Dining Services Revenue Bond Funds of Iowa State University of Science and Technology as of and for the year ended June 30, 2008