Suchergebnisse

Semaphorin 3A (Sema3A) is a cell-secreted protein that participates in the axonal guidance pathways. Sema3A acts as a canonical repulsive axon guidance molecule, inhibiting CNS regenerative axonal growth and propagation. Therefore, interfering with Sema3A signaling is proposed as a therapeutic target for achieving functional recovery after CNS injuries. It has been shown that Sema3A adheres to the proteoglycan component of the extracellular matrix (ECM) and selectively binds to heparin and chondroitin sulfate-E (CS-E) glycosaminoglycans (GAGs). We hypothesize that the biologically relevant interaction between Sema3A and GAGs takes place at Sema3A C-terminal polybasic region (SCT). The aims of this study were to characterize the interaction of the whole Sema3A C-terminal polybasic region (Sema3A 725–771) with GAGs and to investigate the disruption of this interaction by small molecules. Recombinant Sema3A basic domain was produced and we used a combination of biophysical techniques (NMR, SPR, and heparin affinity chromatography) to gain insight into the interaction of the Sema3A C-terminal domain with GAGs. The results demonstrate that SCT is an intrinsically disordered region, which confirms that SCT binds to GAGs and helps to identify the specific residues involved in the interaction. NMR studies, supported by molecular dynamics simulations, show that a new peptoid molecule (CSIC02) may disrupt the interaction between SCT and heparin. Our structural study paves the way toward the design of new molecules targeting these protein–GAG interactions with potential therapeutic applications. ; This work was funded by the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Project VISION, grant No. 304884, the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation/Spanish Research Agency (MCI/AEI/FEDER, RTI2018–096182-B-I00) and AGAUR (2017 SGR 208). ; Peer reviewed

The writings of the Indian Diaspora have received a great deal of attention and critical acclaim throughout the world. Rohinton Mistry is a well renowned author in the contemporary commonwealth literature and occupies a significant place among the writers of Indian Diaspora. Even though he is settled in Canada; it is his upbringing in Mumbai that reflects in all his writings. The distinct Mumbai culture, particularly the Parsee way of life, the people of the city and even the politics of India are major themes in his novels. Rohinton Mistry as a writer of Diaspora has carved a niche for himself. His works such as: "Tales from Firozsha Baag", "Such A Long Journey", "A Fine Balance" and "Family Matters"; mark a new kind of writing, resulting from a fragmented, splintered world. As a Diasporic Parsi writer, very sensitively he has recalled his community's journey through time and history with a sense of loss and nostalgia. His books portray diverse facets of Indian socioeconomic life; as well as Parsi Zoroastrian life, customs, and religion. Many of his writings are markedly "Indo-nostalgic". Rohinton Mistry through his Diasporic discourse has well depicted his ancestral background, his community's engaged situation in a metropolis like Bombay and his deep attachment with and nostalgia for a world gone by. In this paper an attempt has been made to delineate diasporic discourse in the works of Rohinton Mistry. Although he is obsessed with the colonial and postcolonial experiences in India, we can find some traces of Canada in his literature. His characters dream of being integrated into, and accepted by, Canadian society on the one hand and on the other hand, these same characters are torn by an insatiable desire to be true to their native culture; to honor and cherish their own, distinct cultural identity.Keywords: Diaspora, Cultural identity, Contemporary Canadian literature, Parsi.

With new proposals and development initiatives, the government aims to maintain the momentum of economic growth. There is emphasis on keeping poverty and job losses to a minimum with no new taxes, expansion of social protection schemes, and increase in salaries. Initiatives to protect both formal and informal Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been announced in view of the stresses faced by private enterprises amid COVID-19.

This study evaluates the consolidated financial condition and performance of local water districts (LWDs) in the Philippines. Water districts are government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) tasked to construct, operate, maintain, and expand water and sanitation systems in the countryside. They are instrumental in the Philippines' objective to attain 100-percent water supply and sanitation access by 2036. National data show that the consolidated financial performance of LWDs has improved from 2009 to 2018, as reflected in their high and stable cash flows, high debt service coverage ratios, and lower debt ratios. With the aggressive spending program of the government on water infrastructure, lower debt ratios are needed to prepare LWDs to achieve the 2023 and the 2030 goals of universal access to water supply and sanitation. However, the government's spending plans are so ambitious that the current balance sheets of LWDs cannot sustain the planned investments financed through debt. The national government needs to bolster the balance sheets of LWDs by infusing fresh equity of PHP 22 billion to PHP 56 billion to achieve the Philippines' 2030 water supply and sanitation targets. The study likewise shows a significant disparity in water investments across the country's different regions, which impacts the uneven water service coverage throughout the Philippines.

This study evaluates the consolidated financial condition and performance of local water districts (LWDs) in the Philippines. Water districts are government-owned or controlled corporations (GOCCs) tasked to construct, operate, maintain, and expand water and sanitation systems in the countryside. They are instrumental in the Philippines' objective to attain 100-percent water supply and sanitation access by 2036. National data show that the consolidated financial performance of LWDs has improved from 2009 to 2018, as reflected in their high and stable cash flows, high debt service coverage ratios, and lower debt ratios. With the aggressive spending program of the government on water infrastructure, lower debt ratios are needed to prepare LWDs to achieve the 2023 and the 2030 goals of universal access to water supply and sanitation. However, the government's spending plans are so ambitious that the current balance sheets of LWDs cannot sustain the planned investments financed through debt. The national government needs to bolster the balance sheets of LWDs by infusing fresh equity of PHP 22 billion to PHP 56 billion to achieve the Philippines' 2030 water supply and sanitation targets. The study likewise shows a significant disparity in water investments across the country's different regions, which impacts the uneven water service coverage throughout the Philippines.

This week's guest is Ryan Busse, former senior executive in the firearms industry. Ryan's new book, Gunfight, is an intimate and revealing account of his experience in that industry, his growing disillusionment with it and his ultimate exit. In this conversation, we talk about rural household gun culture, the symbolism assault rifles take on in political division, and the rights and responsibilities of gun ownership in our country. ; https://scholarworks.umt.edu/anewangle_podcasts/1224/thumbnail.jpg

This report looks at the upcoming redistricting cycle through the lens of four factors that will influence outcomes in each state: who controls map drawing; changes in the legal rules governing redistricting over the last decade; pressures from population and demographic shifts over the same period; and the potential impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the 2020 Census. In each state, the confluence of these factors will determine the risk of manipulated maps or whether, conversely, the redistrict[1]ing process will produce maps that reflect what voters want, respond to shifts in public opinion, and protect the rights of communities of color.

This thesis studies fictional representations of Fyodor Dostoevsky in contemporary biofiction. The aim of the study is to present an intermedial theoretical framework for biofiction, a genre defined as fictional biographical and often metafictional narratives in which a biographical subject serves as the focal point for the story or plays a role integral to the narrative. Drawing on contributions from prior studies within different areas—biopics, the biographical novel, intermediality, transmedial narratology—the thesis identifies the most salient tenets of an increasingly important and ubiquitous genre—its fictional, intermedial, and metafictional properties—to suggest a medium-spanning definition. From this intermedial definition of the genre, it is suggested that biofiction studies should move beyond medium-specific analysis. By situating the genre firmly within the realm of fiction, the thesis underlines the fact that it is exactly the fictional element that allows the genre to open up important ways to engage with a certain biographical subject. Overall, the biofiction definition presented in the thesis is inspired by Jacques Derrida's différance. Arguing that contemporary biofiction arose from the larger aporetic shift in theory and fiction in the 1960s, which was directed toward various presuppositions undergirding epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological projects, it is contended that biofiction fictionalizes subjects to engage with and reassess the assumptions that suffuse our understanding of the subject. From their metafictional perspective, biofictions also employ subjects for various purposes to interrogate contemporary issues. Biofictions are thus turned toward both a historical moment and its own contemporary context. Buttressed by the intermedial perspective, it is argued that biofictions often employ sustained intermedial strategies—for instance, intermedial references and formal imitation—to engage not only with artistic subjects such as Dostoevsky and their work but also with the premises of creating art. The thesis centers on five Dostoevsky biofictions within film and literature: Aleksandr Zarkhi's biopic Twenty-Six Days from the Life of Dostoevsky (1980), Leonid Tsypkin's novel Summer in Baden-Baden (1982), J. M. Coetzee's novel The Master of Petersburg (1994), Lara Vapnyar's novel Memoirs of a Muse (2006), and Vladimir Khotinenko's television series Dostoevsky (2010). As contemporary biofictions, these fictional representations of Dostoevsky were all produced or written in the wake of the aforementioned aporetic shift and therefore comprise examples of the reflexive and metacritical form of biofiction that is discussed in the thesis. The inclusion of Dostoevsky biofictions is, in part, connected with the various critical perceptions of the writer; it is maintained that biofictions such as those analyzed in the thesis proffer new readings of issues that have been overlooked or have not received due attention, such as how Dostoevsky engaged with and augmented the rivalry polemics of his day; the ways in which his conceptualization of Russian identity rested as much on inclusion as exclusion; how Dostoevsky has been employed to propagate certain models of the muse, the genius, and canonicity; and how, in today's Russia, the writer is employed to embody and express the hyperreal politics of Vladimir Putin's administration.

Explorations of the seen and unseen social changes within the academy underpin the Counter// Narratives' project, where in 2019-2020 the life history narratives of first generation academics from Angola, India, South Africa and Syria were engaged with by visual artists from the collective Analogue Eye: Video Art Africa, many of whom are themselves first generation university-educated. In each of these contexts, a critical mass of those from groups and knowledge systems misrecognised and oppressed have negotiated radical changes in the figures and institutions of authority in their countries. Authorship is central to such power and to agency. This paper deliberates such questions and politics of authorship alongside those entanglements of author-ing inherent to the interpretative processes of storytelling, artistic research and interpretation within The 'Counter // Narratives' Project itself - which sought to explore how counter-stories may see a way through the myopia of the social delegitimation of the western-oriented academy, provide challenge to reproductions of internalised oppression, and openings to engagement with more just notions of authority. Against the dominant hero narratives of social mobility and exceptionalism, and the looming spectres of colonial universities' mythologies of quality, the artists grappled with the ethico-historical responsibility of bearing witness, but also creating generative and equitious imaginaries through their creative arts research practice. Drawing on reflective interviews with the artists, participants and ourselves as the research-curatorial team, in this video we offer a synopsis of the paper for this conference. Within it, we highlight insights into the layers of narration negotiated, including the relations between those layers and the visual discourses and micro-textuality of the final videos. Excerpts and stills from the video artworks, and extracts from correspondence, transcripts and audience reception responses are referenced by the research-curatorial team, to provide a rich and complex dialogue about the im-possibilities of representing and visualising emancipatory imaginaries.

A CPD power point presentation analyzing the national budget of Bangladesh for FY2021-22.

By the turn of the 20th century, nation-building reformers in Spain tried to stimulate schooling expansion to improve (or at least dignify) Spain's position in the international arena. However, in this paper we find that democratic imperfections help explaining the modest spread of primary schooling after the 1902 reforms. Regression results show that the lack of effective electoral competition and political patronage lowered public primary education spending across Spanish provinces in 1902-22. Voter turnout had a positive impact but it was not big enough to compensate for this negative effect.

This paper discusses the origins and institutional evolution of the European Monetary Union (EMU) in the light of two theoretical frameworks: the liberal federation proposed by Hayek and Robbins in the first half of the 20th century and the still prevailing neoclassical macroeconomic consensus. It is argued that before existing as Euro, the common currency was already a neoliberal project, in the sense of an ideal space for elevating market rules to a unique and definitive form of social and economic order. This neoliberal construction was technically legitimized by a neoclassical economic theory founded on wrong epistemological principles, which prevented a correct understanding of the economic and social challenges faced by the Eurozone. The result is a crisis prone configuration that will keep endangering EMU's political and economic stability.

A food outlook report explains the past, current, and future situation of various crops in a specific geographical location. A food outlook report is useful in showing the trends and fluctuations in the cultivated area, production, yield, prices, and other variables. This information is helpful for relevant stakeholders in determining the possible impending shortages or gluts in the food market. A timely analysis on food output and prices can enable policymakers to make wellinformed decisions that can result in controlling market distortions. A major benefit of such reports is that it can predict any anticipated shock or guide about exploiting a growing opportunity. The forecasts conducted in this food outlook report can be helpful in determining the supply and prices of the crops at their harvesting time. To counter a foreseeable shortage or glut, governments can work with the relevant stakeholders to enable timely imports or exports of the crop. One of the main objectives of this paper is to make timely and evidence-based decisions to overcome gaps between food production and consumption growth, and to increase access of the growing population to affordable foods. ; Non-PR ; IFPRI1; PACE; CRP2; 3 Building Inclusive and Efficient Markets, Trade Systems, and Food Industry; 5 Strengthening Institutions and Governance; Capacity Strengthening; PSSP ; DSGD; PIM ; CGIAR Research Program on Policies, Institutions, and Markets (PIM)

This paper estimates the response of stock prices to monetary policy shocks following the framework set by Gali and Gambetti (2015) using data for Brazil. In doing so, a time-varying coefficient VAR is used for both quarterly and monthly data, separately. The evidence indicates continual periods in which stock prices respond positively to monetary policy contractions, siding with the initial finding by Gali and Gambetti (2015). However, such results is in stark opposition to commonly held "Leaning Against the Wind" approach to monetary policy and bubbles. The time-varying nature of the bubble component is further verified in subsamples representing Brasils different political-economic periods. Brazil potentially finds itself in a Catch 22: monetary policy tightening, aimed at stabilizing inflation, can lead to protracted periods of soaring stock prices. ; Este artigo estima a resposta dos preços de ações a choques de política monetária seguindo o framework desenvolvido por Gali e Gambetti (2015) usando dados para o Brasil. Utiliza-se um Time-Varying Coefficient Structural VAR com dados trimestrais e mensais, separadamente. As evidências indicam períodos contínuos em que os preços de ações respondem positivamente às contrações da política monetária, alinhando-se com a constatação inicial de Gali e Gambetti (2015). No entanto, tais resultados estão em total oposição à abordagem comumente defendida Leaning Against the Wind para a política monetária e bolhas. A natureza variável no tempo do componente bolha é verificada em subamostras que representam os diferentes períodos políticoeconômicos do Brasil. O Brasil potencialmente se encontra em um Catch 22: o aperto da política monetária, com o objetivo de estabilizar a inflação, pode levar a períodos prolongados de alta dos preços das ações.

Rad detaljno prikazuje faze koje je potrebno proći kako bi se zgrada oštećena u potresu koji je pogodio Zagreb 22. ožujka 2020. obnovila i pojačala do zahtijevane razine potresne otpornosti. Prikazane su sve faze počevši od preliminarnog pregleda pa potom i detaljnog pregleda, izrade elaborata ocjene stanja građevinske konstrukcije, projekta obnove te konačno izvođenja radova obnove uz stručni nadzor. Posebna je pozornost usmjerena na proračun građevine nelinearnom statičkom metodom koja se temelji na pomacima, tzv. "pushover analysis" ili metoda postupnog guranja, za koju se smatra da je jedna od najprimjerenijih metoda za seizmičku analizu postojećih zidanih konstrukcija. Svi postupci koji su provedeni u sklopu ove obnove su provedeni u skladu sa zakonskom regulativom koja je stupila na snagu nakon potresa. ; The phases that must be completed so that a building damaged in earthquake that struck Zagreb on 22 March 2020 can be renovated and strengthened to the required level of seismic resistance are presented in the paper. All phases are therefore presented, starting from the rapid and then detailed inspection, and continuing with preparation of the structural condition assessment report, preparation of renovation design and, finally, ending with realisation of work with expert supervision. A special attention is paid to structural analysis that is conducted using a nonlinear static method based on displacements, the so called pushover analysis, which is considered to be one of the most appropriate methods for seismic analysis of existing masonry structures. All procedures conducted in the scope of this renovation were realised in accordance with legislation that entered into force after the earthquake.