The historical origins of corruption in the developing world: a comparative analysis of East Asia

A new approach has emerged in the literature on corruption in the developing world that breaks with the assumption that corruption is driven by individualistic self-interest and, instead, conceptualizes corruption as an informal system of norms and practices. While this emerging neo-institutionalist approach has done much to further our understanding of corruption in the developing world, one key question has received relatively little attention: how do we explain differences in the institutionalization of corruption between developing countries? The paper here addresses this question through a systematic comparison of seven developing and newly industrialized countries in East Asia. The argument that emerges through this analysis is that historical sequencing mattered: countries in which the "political marketplace" had gone through a process of concentration before universal suffrage was introduced are now marked by less harmful types of corruption than countries where mass voting rights where rolled out in a context of fragmented political marketplaces. The paper concludes by demonstrating that this argument can be generalized to the developing world as a whole

Protistan Diversity in the Arctic: A Case of Paleoclimate Shaping Modern Biodiversity?

The impact of climate on biodiversity is indisputable. Climate changes over geological time must have significantly influenced the evolution of biodiversity, ultimately leading to its present pattern. Here we consider the paleoclimate data record, inferring that present-day hot and cold environments should contain, respectively, the largest and the smallest diversity of ancestral lineages of microbial eukaryotes.We investigate this hypothesis by analyzing an original dataset of 18S rRNA gene sequences from Western Greenland in the Arctic, and data from the existing literature on 18S rRNA gene diversity in hydrothermal vent, temperate sediments, and anoxic water column communities. Unexpectedly, the community from the cold environment emerged as one of the richest observed to date in protistan species, and most diverse in ancestral lineages.This pattern is consistent with natural selection sweeps on aerobic non-psychrophilic microbial eukaryotes repeatedly caused by low temperatures and global anoxia of snowball Earth conditions. It implies that cold refuges persisted through the periods of greenhouse conditions, which agrees with some, although not all, current views on the extent of the past global cooling and warming events. We therefore identify cold environments as promising targets for microbial discovery

Hemodynamic support with the pulsatile catheter pump in a sheep model of acute heart failure

This study was aimed to mimic clinical heart failure (HF) conditions and to assess the effect of pulsatilecatheter (PUCA) pump support on hemodynamics and tissue perfusion in a sheep model of acute HF. In 14 sheep, HF was induced by partial occluding the middle left circumflex coronary artery combined with pacemaker-induced tachycardia. PUCA pump was then activated to support the HF for 3 h. Hemodynamic parameters were recorded at baseline, HF, and then every 30 min during experiments. Blood samples were taken in carotid artery (CA), pulmonary artery (PA), and coronary sinus (CS) for the determination of oxygen saturation (SO2) and lactate concentration as markers of tissue perfusion. Results showed that HF model was induced successfully in 10 sheep and failed in four sheep due to refractory ventricular fibrillation. PUCA pump support was successful in seven out of 10 sheep for 3 h. Three cases failed due to technical problems. After HF (n = 10), cardiac output (CO) was decreased from 3.7 +/- 0.5 to 2.0 +/- 0.5 L/min (P <0.001). Mean arterial pressure (MAP) was lowered from 116.1 +/- 14.2 to 68.1 +/- 14.7 mm Hg (P <0.001). In seven sheep supported with PUCA pump, MAP rose from 68.9 +/- 15.2 to 94.7 +/- 14.7 mm Hg (P = 0.005), systolic blood pressure increased from 86.6 +/- 17.0 to 112.6 +/- 17.1 mm Hg (P = 0.009), and diastolic blood pressure increased from 57.7 +/- 12.6 to 79.9 +/- 13.9 mm Hg (P = 0.011). CO remained at about 2.0 L/min. SO2 in CA, PA, and CS decreased significantly after HF (P <0.001), with an increase after support (compared with HF, P <0.001, 0.066 and 0.114, respectively). Lactate concentrations increased gradually in CA, PA, and CS toward the end of experiments without difference among different sampling sites. This HF model in sheep is simple, easy to manipulate, reproducible and reflecting clinical HF conditions. PUCA pump can maintain the hemodynamic status for 3 h in this acute HF model