Incidence and impact of land conflict in Uganda

While there is a large, though inconclusive, literature on the impact of land titles in Africa, little attention has been devoted to the study of land conflict, despite evidence on increasing incidence of such conflicts. The authors use data from Uganda to explore who is affected by land conflicts, whether recent legal changes have helped to reduce their incidence, and to assess their impact on productivity. Results indicate that female-headed households and widows are particularly affected and that the passage of the 1998 Land Act has failed to reduce the number of pending land conflicts. The authors also find evidence of a significant and quantitatively large productivity-reducing impact of land conflicts. This suggests that, especially in Africa, attention to land-related conflicts and exploration of ways to prevent and speedily resolve them would be an important area for policy as well as research.Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development,Real Estate Development,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Real Estate Development,Agricultural Knowledge&Information Systems,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Land and Real Estate Development

Large-N mesons

We present an update of our project of computing the meson spectrum and decay constants in large-N QCD. The results are obtained in the quenched approximation with the Wilson fermion action for N = 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 17 and extrapolated to infinite N. We non-perturbatively determine the renormalization factors for local quark bilinears that are needed to compute the decay constants. We extrapolate our SU(7) results to the continuum limit, employing four different lattice spacings.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, presented at the 31st International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2013), 29 July - 3 August 2013, Mainz, German

Comparing land reform and land markets in colombia: impacts on equity and efficiency

Based on a large survey to compare the effectiveness of land markets and land reform in Colombia, the authors find that rental and sales markets were more effective in transferring land to poor but productive producers than was administrative land reform. The fact that land transactions were all of a short-term nature and that little land was transferred from very large to small land owners or the landless suggests that there may be scope for policies both to improve the functioning of land markets and to facilitate greater land access by the most disadvantaged. Analysis of the factors associated with success in a sample of land transfers from large to small producers helps to identify key elements for policies in both respects.Banks&Banking Reform,Environmental Economics&Policies,Municipal Housing and Land,Land Use and Policies,Agribusiness&Markets,Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Rural Land Policies for Poverty Reduction,Land Use and Policies,Agribusiness&Markets

The meson spectrum in large-N QCD

We present lattice results on the meson spectrum and decay constants in large-N QCD. The results are obtained in the quenched approximation for N = 2,3,4,5,6,7 and 17 and extrapolated to N = ∞. Xth Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum

Thermodynamics of SU(N) Yang-Mills theories in 2+1 dimensions I - The confining phase

Peer reviewe

Thermodynamics of SU(N) gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions in the $T regime

Host publication title: Lattice 2010Non peer reviewe

Reduction of colonic inflammation in HLA-B27 transgenic rats by feeding Marie Ménard apples, rich in polyphenols

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) are immunomediated ailments affecting millions of individuals. Although diet is regarded as an important factor influencing IBD, there are no accepted dietary recommendations presently available. We administered 7.6 % lyophilised apples obtained from two cultivars (Golden Delicious and Marie Ménard, low and high in polyphenols, respectively) to HLA-B27 transgenic rats which develop spontaneous IBD. After 3 months feeding, rats fed Marie Ménard apples had reduced myeloperoxidase activity (3.6 (sem 0.3) v. 2.2 (sem 0.2) U/g tissue; P <0.05) and reduced cyclo-oxygenase-2 (P <0.05) and inducible NO synthase gene expression (P <0.01) in the colon mucosa and significantly less diarrhoea (P <0.05), compared with control rats. Cell proliferation in the colon mucosa was reduced significantly by feeding Golden Delicious apples, with a borderline effect of Marie Ménard apples. Gene expression profiling of the colon mucosa, analysed using the Whole Rat Genome 4 x 44 K Agilent Arrays, revealed a down-regulation of the pathways of PG synthesis, mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK) signalling and TNFalpha-NF-kappaB in Marie Ménard-fed rats. In the stools of the animals of this group we also measured a significant reduction of bacteria of the Bacteriodes fragilis group. In conclusion, the administration of Marie Ménard apples, rich in polyphenols and used at present only in the manufacturing of cider, ameliorates colon inflammation in transgenic rats developing spontaneous intestinal inflammation, suggesting the possible use of these and other apple varieties to control inflammation in IBD patient

Inibitori SIRT-1, LDH-A e GLUT-1 come approccio innovativo nella chemioterapia del carcinoma pancreatico.

L’adenocarcinoma pancreatico duttale (PDAC) rappresenta la forma più comune di tumore del pancreas e figura tra le principali cause di morte per neoplasia nei paesi occidentali; si tratta di un tumore dalla prognosi decisamente infausta in quanto è caratterizzato da una comparsa tardiva dei sintomi e da una componente cellulare in continua replicazione che lo rende invasivo ed aggressivo, ragioni per le quali il tasso di sopravvivenza nei cinque anni successivi alla diagnosi risulta inferiore al 5% e il numero di morti per anno è in continua crescita. Ad oggi, le uniche due possibilità di cura per pazienti affetti da carcinoma pancreatico sono rappresentate dall’intervento chirurgico, sfortunatamente praticabile soltanto nel 10% dei casi e caratterizzato da un alto rischio di complicanze, e dal trattamento farmacologico con Gemcitabina, analogo nucleosidico di uso consolidato in chemioterapia ma che fornisce scarsi risultati ed elevata resistenza nel caso del tumore del pancreas. Per questi motivi si è resa necessaria la ricerca di approcci innovativi nella chemioterapia del carcinoma pancreatico che potessero consentire un’associazione tra farmaci di nuova sintesi e farmaco di riferimento, al fine di rendere le cellule più vulnerabili e di stabilire, nello stesso tempo, un regime posologico meno tossico e più efficace rispetto a quello attuale. In questo lavoro di tesi, nello specifico, l’attenzione è stata rivolta alle vie cellulari e ai meccanismi adattativi messi in atto dal tumore stesso per sopperire alla deprivazione calorico-metabolica a cui va incontro durante la propria crescita. La sovra-espressione di molecole implicate nella glicolisi aerobia e nella protezione dallo stress ossidativo, quali l’isoforma A dell’enzima lattato deidrogenasi, il trasportatore del glucosio GLUT1 e la sirtuina SIRT1, ha costituito perciò un’ottima base per la sintesi di molecole che, inibendo tali target, potessero esplicare un’azione citotossica e antiproliferativa. Alla luce di queste osservazioni, l’obiettivo principale della presente tesi è stato proprio quello di selezionare tra questi nuovi composti quelli che potessero dare i migliori risultati come chemioterapici antitumorali. In particolare, sono stati studiati in vitro gli effetti antiproliferativi dei composti di sintesi #147 e #161 inibitori di LDH-A, PGL-17 inibitore di GLUT-1, BB24 inibitore di SIRT-1 sulla linea cellulare di metastasi di adenocarcinoma pancreatico umano (AsPC-1). Sono state testate diverse concentrazioni dei composti per studiarne l’effetto sulla vitalità cellulare, quantificata tramite saggio colorimetrico con WST-1 dopo 72 ore di incubazione, e per identificare, al contempo, una concentrazione d’elezione tale da provocare una significativa ma parziale riduzione della sopravvivenza cellulare allo scopo di garantire un’eventuale co-somminiatrazione con i chemioterapici di riferimento riportati in letteratura