Conservation Auctions and Compliance: Theory and Evidence from Laboratory Experiments

Poster prepared for presentation at the Agricultural & Applied Economics Association 2010 AAEA,CAES, & WAEA Joint Annual Meeting, Denver, Colorado, July 25-27, 2010.Auctions, Conservation contracting, Compliance, Environmental Economics and Policy, C91, D44, Q24,

Preparation of Rat Brain Aggregate Cultures for Neuron and Glia Development Studies

An in vitro system that recapitulates the development and differentiation of progenitors into mature neurons and glia in the central nervous system (CNS) would provide a powerful platform for neuroscientists to investigate axo-glial interactions, properties and differentiation of multipotent progenitors, and progression of oligodendroglial lineage cells at the cellular and molecular level. We describe here a CNS aggregate culture system from embryonic rat forebrains, which can be maintained in a serum-free medium up to 3-4 weeks and is used in our laboratory as a model to study neuron-glia interaction and CNS myelination. This video clip will demonstrate how to isolate and grow these CNS aggregate cultures from E16 rat brain. Furthermore, from the same brain dissection, highly enriched regular dissociated neuronal cultures can be readily obtained and used for various studies on CNS neurons or used for co-cultures with other cells

Niobium oxides: Correlation of acidity with structure and catalytic performance in sucrose conversion to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural

The conversion of sugars to 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) over solid acids in water represents an environmentally and separation-friendly route to an important platform molecule. In particular, the conversion of sucrose attracts increasing attention because it is cheaper and more widely available than glucose and fructose. Sucrose can undergo rapid hydrolysis to the two monosaccharides, however conversion mechanisms and interactions with solid acids remain unclear. Here, it is shown that niobium oxides possess Brønsted acid (BA) and Lewis acid (LA) sites of tunable quantity and strength, dependent on their structure and morphology. By systematically studying these acid catalysts, it is revealed for the first time that both acid type and strength are significant for the sugar conversion: Fructose reaction is catalyzed by BA, with weaker BA sites being more selective toward HMF. Glucose conversion to HMF involves an additional isomerization step to fructose, which can be catalyzed by both LA and strong BA but LA is more efficient. Sucrose is shown to be easily hydrolyzed into glucose and fructose under the reaction conditions and HMF is formed from the further conversion of the two sugars. It is demonstrated that mesoporous niobium oxide gives the highest HMF yield for sucrose conversion among all niobium oxides due to balanced BA and LA sites with appropriate acid strengths

Auctioning Conservation Contracts and Evaluating the Risk Attitudes of Farmers: Economic Experiments in Japan

Agri-environmental programs in Japan have generally been promoted through the provision of fixed payments for certain environment-friendly farming and management practices. However, the auctioning of agrienvironmental contracts is a noteworthy alternative for the furtherance of such programs. Conservation auctions are used to enhance the cost-effectiveness of public expenses and have been employed in practice as well as tested in various pilot projects in some countries. This study uses an experimental economics method to factor the risk attitude of participants into a comparison of uniform price (UP) auctions and discriminatory price (DP) auctions. Although some studies have compared fixed payments, UP auctions, and DP auctions, the superiority or inferiority of these strategies depends on the settings of an experiment. Consequently, experiments reflecting the Japanese situation could provide further insight into the advantages of each of these methods, and be used to guide policy design. In addition, the study also examines the effects of participants’ risk attitudes on auction performance. Its principal conclusion is that DP auctions outperform UP auctions; this is in line with the findings of previous studies. This empirical research furthers our understanding of environmental auctions in a first step toward the design of such auctions, but field experiments using real farmers should be conducted in order to help corroborate research conclusions before these are applied to the real world.conservation auction, experimental economics, risk attitude, environment-friendly farming, Agribusiness, Agricultural and Food Policy, Consumer/Household Economics, Environmental Economics and Policy, Farm Management,

Physical modelling of backward erosion piping in foundation beneath levee

Centrifuge model tests are performed to observe piping progression in foundation beneath levee and to examine influence of repeated seepage and thickness of foundation ground on piping progression. Once the pipe is formed beneath the levee, hydraulic gradient upstream of the pipe tip becomes larger while that along the pipe becomes rather small. Shift of this large hydraulic gradient position to the upstream with rise of the flood water level leads to the large subsidence of the slope in the protected side and marked increase in flow rate. Repeated seepage and thickness of the permeable foundation layer have influence on stability of levee against piping. Repeated seepage makes the piping progression faster and levee vulnerable to the piping formation. With the thinner permeable foundation layer beneath the levee, the levee is at higher risk to cause brittle failure while the required hydraulic gradient to cause piping is larger

Opossum APOBEC1 is a DNA mutator with retrovirus and retroelement restriction activity

APOBEC3s (A3s) are single-stranded DNA cytosine deaminases that provide innate immune defences against retroviruses and mobile elements. A3s are specific to eutherian mammals because no direct homologs exist at the syntenic genomic locus in metatherian (marsupial) or prototherian (monotreme) mammals. However, the A3s in these species have the likely evolutionary precursors, the antibody gene deaminase AID and the RNA/DNA editing enzyme APOBEC1 (A1). Here, we used cell culture-based assays to determine whether opossum A1 restricts the infectivity of retroviruses including human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) and the mobility of LTR/non-LTR retrotransposons. Opossum A1 partially inhibited HIV-1, as well as simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), murine leukemia virus (MLV), and the retrotransposon MusD. The mechanism of inhibition required catalytic activity, except for human LINE1 (L1) restriction, which was deamination-independent. These results indicate that opossum A1 functions as an innate barrier to infection by retroviruses such as HIV-1, and controls LTR/non-LTR retrotransposition in marsupials

いま、子どもを育む空間に求められること

建築とまちづくり. 2022, 520, P.6-11articl

The antiretroviral potency of APOBEC1 deaminase from small animal species

Although the role of the APOBEC3-dependent retroelement restriction system as an intrinsic immune defense against human immunodeficiency virus type1 (HIV-1) infection is becoming clear, only the rat ortholog of mammalian APOBEC1s (A1) thus far has been shown to possess antiviral activity. Here, we cloned A1 cDNAs from small animal species, and showed that similar to rat A1, both wild-type and Δvif HIV-1 infection was inhibited by mouse and hamster A1 (4- to 10-fold), whereas human A1 had negligible effects. Moreover, rabbit A1 significantly reduced the infectivity of both HIV-1 virions (>300-fold), as well as that of SIVmac, SIVagm, FIV and murine leukemia virus. Immunoblot analysis showed that A1s were efficiently incorporated into the HIV-1 virion, and their packaging is mediated through an interaction with the nucleocapsid Gag domain. Interestingly, there was a clear accumulation of particular C-T changes in the genomic RNAs of HIV-1 produced in their presence, with few G-A changes in the proviral DNA. Together, these data reveal that A1 may function as a defense mechanism, regulating retroelements in a wide range of mammalian species