How Would Your Kids Vote if I Open my Doors? Evidence from Venezuela

For how long does cultural heritage persist? Do the culturally inherited values of immigrants dilute as generations pass? We answer these question by studying the relationship between revealed political behavior of immigrant families and the culture of the place where they migrated from, either one or many generations ago. Using surnames as indicators of region of origin of Italians in Venezuela, we study the effect of cultural heritage on two indicators of revealed political behavior: (i) propensity for civic engagement, and (ii) propensity for redistribution. A well established literature documents greater propensity for civic engagement and lower propensity for redistribution among Northern Italians. In Venezuela, we measure the former by turnout before the era of political polarization and the latter by signing behavior against Hugo Chávez in the 2004 recall referendum drive. Despite the fact that the wave of Italian immigration to Venezuela occurred more than half a century before the events studied in this paper, we do not find a greater propensity for civic engagement nor preference against redistribution among descendants from Northern as opposed to Southern Italians, suggesting that cultural assimilation may be a strong determinant of political behavior in the long run.Social capital, political incorporation of immigrants, family economics, redistribution, political preferences, civic engagement, Latin America

Is There a Numbers vs. Rights Trade-off in Immigration Policy? What the Data Say

This paper explores the empirical support behind the idea that there is a trade-off between the size of the migrant population and the rights and entitlements enjoyed by immigrants. We first look at the empirical correlation between measures of migrants’ rights and the size of the stock of immigrants in a number of existing databases. Using data on migrants’ rights from three recent studies—the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Migrant Accessibility Index, the Migration Policy Group and British Council’s Migrant Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) and the Human Development Report Office’s Migrant Entitlements and Services Index—we fail to find a systematic correlation of any sign. We then turn to regression analysis using OLS and instrumental variable techniques and again fail to find evidence in favor of the existence of a correlation. The numerical magnitudes of the correlations suggest a quantitatively small relationship which in several cases is positive rather than negative.migration rights and entitlements, measurement, migration data

Have Collapses in Infrastructure Spending led to Cross-Country Divergence in Per Capita GDP?

This paper explores whether the post-1980 decline in infrastructure investment in developing countries is a source of growing disparities in world per capita GDP. I start by reviewing the literature on the infrastructure-productivity link, arguing that a balanced reading of previous studies points to a significant effect of infrastructure provision on productivity. I then empirically study whether retrenchments in infrastructure provision have played a role in growing disparities using a data set of country-level infrastructure stocks for 121 countries since 1960. Cutbacks in infrastructure investment appear to be at most a minor cause of growing divergence in per capita incomes.infrastructure, public capital, convergence, productivity, economic growth

High throughput phenotyping method for water use efficiency in rice under field conditions : [Abstract, P 6.04]

A collaborative CIAT/Cirad project aims to create new improved upland rice germplasm for drought tolerance based on population improvement through recurrent selection (RS). In the framework of a multidisciplinary team (ecophysiology, molecular genetics and breeding), we seek to enhance this breeding strategy through the integration of marker-assisted breeding tools. This requires improving methods for high throughput phenotyping in the field. Four hundreds lines selected from diverse recurrent populations were screened under drought conditions in Villavicencio CIAT experimental station (Colombia) during the dry season 2008/2009. Drought stress was applied for two weeks at panicle initiation stage. Drought response under water deficit at flowering stage was evaluated based on soil moisture and canopy temperature at flowering with an infra-red thermographic camera and final grain yield. Leaf temperature at/around flowering stage exhibited strongly significant varietal differences that were negatively correlated with soil moisture content and yield. This phenotyping approach permitted identifying genotypes that display good maintenance of transpiration (and thus sustained growth) under drought stress, related mainly to limited water extraction and/or greater root depth; it also enabled identifying genotypes that have high transpirationrates (and thus higher potential growth rates) under irrigated control conditions. Selecting suitable combinations of both characteristics is expected to help identifying drought tolerant material with high yield potential. The methodology will be further improved by (1) including on each thermographic photo a wet/dry object to normalize canopy temperatures against weather fluctuations for situations where micro-meteorological backup is not available, and (2) sampling leaf material for complementary delta 13C measurements indicative of transpiration efficiency (TE). The integrated methodology is being implemented in RS breeding schemes and in parallel in a genetic association study on a japonica rice variety panel, in order to identify promising genomic regions and polymorphisms for marker development. This will eventually permit developing efficient marker-assisted recurrent selection (MARS) approaches. (Texte intégral

Decline in Telomere Length by Age and Effect Modification by Gender, Allostatic Load and Comorbidities in National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (1999-2002)

Background: This study aims to assess the decline in telomere length (TL) with age and evaluate effect modification by gender, chronic stress, and comorbidity in a representative sample of the US population. Methods: Cross-sectional data on 7826 adults with a TL measurement, were included from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, years 1999–2002. The population rate of decline in TL across 10-year age categories was estimated using crude and adjusted regression. Results: In an adjusted model, the population rate of decline in TL with age was consistent and linear for only three age categories: 20–29 (β = -0.0172, 95% CI: -0.0342, -0.0002), 50–59 (β = -0.0182, 95% CI: -0.0311, -0.0054) and 70–79 (β = -0.0170, 95% CI: -0.0329, -0.0011) years. The population rate of decline in TL with age was significantly greater for males and those with high allostatic load and a history of comorbidities. When the population rate of decline in TL was analyzed by gender in 10-year age bins, a fairly consistent yet statistically non-significant decline for males was observed; however, a trough in the rate was observed for females in the age categories 20–29 years (β = -0.0284, 95% CI: -0.0464, -0.0103) and 50–59 years (β = -0.0211, 95% CI: -0.0391, -0.0032). To further elucidate the gender difference observed in the primary analyses, secondary analyses were conducted with reproductive and hormonal status; a significant inverse association was found between TL and parity, menopause, and age at menopause. Conclusions: TL was shorter with increasing age and this decline was modified by gender, chronic stress and comorbidities; individuals with chronic morbidity and/or chronic stress and females in their twenties and fifties experienced greater decline. Female reproductive factors, i.e., parity and menopause, were associated with TL

High throughput phenotyping methods for screening rice germplasm under water limited field conditions

A Cirad project (Orytage) involving NARS and IRC aims at developing an international phenotyping network for rice adaptations to drought and thermal stresses in the context of gene discovery and genetic mapping. Relevant association mapping depend on improved methods for high quality and high throughput phenotyping in the field. In case of drought the Infrared thermography was used to phenotype the plant transpiration capacity in relation with carbon isotopic discrimination, soil moisture and atmosphere demand. Two hundreds varieties representative of the Oryza sativa japonica group were phenotyped under drought condition at the Villavicencio CIAT experimental station (Colombia) during the dry season 2009/2010. Irrigation was suspended for two weeks at vegetative stage (45-60 DAS). Drought response was evaluated based on canopy temperature with an infra-red thermographic camera. The methodology was improved by CWSI (crop water stress index) calculated to normalize canopy temperatures against micro-meteorological weather fluctuations, and complemented with delta 13C measurements indicative of water use efficiency (WUE). Leaf temperature at vegetative stage exhibited strong and significant varietal differences that were negatively correlated with soil moisture content. This phenotyping approach permitted identifying genotypes with good maintenance of transpiration capacity (and thus sustained growth) under drought stress, related mainly to limited water extraction and/or greater root depth. The integration of high throughput phenotyping with genetic association study on a japonica rice variety panel, present a significant advance in order to identify genomic regions of interest and polymorphisms for marker development (ongoing). This will eventually permit developing efficient marker-assisted selection (MAS) approaches. (Résumé d'auteur

The underlying social dynamics of paradigm shifts

We develop here a multi-agent model of the creation of knowledge (scientific progress or technological evolution) within a community of researchers devoted to such endeavors. In the proposed model, agents learn in a physical-technological landscape, and weight is attached to both individual search and social influence. We find that the combination of these two forces together with random experimentation can account for both i) marginal change, that is, periods of normal science or refinements on the performance of a given technology (and in which the community stays in the neighborhood of the current paradigm); and ii) radical change, which takes the form of scientific paradigm shifts (or discontinuities in the structure of performance of a technology) that is observed as a swift migration of the knowledge community towards the new and superior paradigm. The efficiency of the search process is heavily dependent on the weight that agents posit on social influence. The occurrence of a paradigm shift becomes more likely when each member of the community attaches a small but positive weight to the experience of his/her peers. For this parameter region, nevertheless, a conservative force is exerted by the representatives of the current paradigm. However, social influence is not strong enough to seriously hamper individual discovery, and can act so as to empower successful individual pioneers who have conquered the new and superior paradigm.Fil: Rodriguez Sickert, Carlos. Universidad del Desarrollo; ChileFil: Cosmelli, Diego. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; ChileFil: Claro, Francisco. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile; ChileFil: Fuentes, Miguel Angel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad San Sebastián; Chil