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We examine the impact of the rapidly expanding mobile banking service “mobile money” on rural households’ decision to adopt modern agricultural inputs and its resultant effect on agricultural income using plot, household, and community-level panel data from rural Uganda. The main findings indicate that mobile money adoption increases per capita farm income by 13%. Pathway analyses show that mobile money adoption increases the likelihood of using chemical fertilizer on maize plots by 11 percentage points. Mobile money adoption increases the likelihood of high-yielding maize seeds adoption on maize plots by 8.2 percentage points. In the Ugandan context of rapid decline in soil fertility and very low adoption of fertilizer and modern seeds, mobile money provides an avenue to finance agricultural intensification.

Mobile phones have spread rapidly over the last two decades and are now being used even in rural areas of low-income countries, where the poor are concentrated. The number of mobile phone subscriptions per 100 people in the Sub-Saharan Africa region went from 1.7 in 2000 to 82.4 in 2018, meaning that mobile phones have spread to almost all regions and all social classes. The widespread use of mobile phones has made it possible to deliver voice and text information to remote areas at a low cost and has also triggered a variety of services using mobile phones as a platform. Particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa, electronic payment services on mobile phones or ‘mobile money’ rapidly spread and changed people’s lives. This significant change involves not only the urban wealthy but also the rural farmers who previously had little access to financial services. This essay summarizes the findings from the authors’ recent research on the impact of the mobile revolution on the lives of rural residents in developing economies.

We examine the impact of the rapidly expanding mobile banking service “mobile money” on rural households' ability to smooth investment in schooling after a negative shock. We find that a negative shock induces a 9.3‐percentage point decrease in per school‐age child educational expenditure for households who do not use mobile money compared to an 8.3‐percentage point decrease for households that have adopted mobile money. The underlying mechanism is an increase in remittance receipt and the diversity of senders owing to the reduction in transactions cost provided by mobile money. We show that our results are robust to alternative mechanisms. We use the expansion in mobile money agent network as an exogenous variation in access to mobile money.

A heterogeneous metal-loaded titanium oxide photocatalyst provided an efficient route to bring out direct dehydrogenative cross-coupling between toluene and acetone without consuming any additional oxidizing agent. The nature of the metal nanoparticle cocatalyst deposited on TiO2 photocatalyst dictated the product selectivity for the cross-coupling. Pd nanoparticles on TiO2 photocatalyst allowed a C–C bond formation between the aromatic ring of toluene and acetone to give 1-(o-tolyl)propan-2-one (1a1) with high regioselectivity, while Pt nanoparticles on TiO2 photocatalyst promoted the cross-coupling between the methyl group of toluene and acetone to give 4-phenylbutan-2-one (1b) as the acetonylated product. These results demonstrated that the selection of the metal cocatalyst on TiO2 photocatalyst could determine which C–H bonds in toluene, aromatic or aliphatic, can react with acetone. Two kinds of reaction mechanisms were proposed for the photocatalytic dehydrogenative cross-coupling reaction, depending on the property of the metal nanoparticles, i.e., only Pd nanoparticles can catalyze the reaction between aromatic ring and the acetonyl radical species.

Japanese ODA is uniquely different from that of Western countries in its strategic focus on economic growth. This paper examines whether it has indeed contributed to economic growth in its partner countries, as an attempt to respond to the question of how ODA can promote growth. It employs an econometric analysis using a panel dataset of 117 countries from 1980 to 2010 and disaggregated ODA flows from five major donors and the sum of all the other donors. Our study finds that Japanese ODA is positively associated with industrial growth in its partner countries, through which it has contributed to their economic growth.

Lack of cash on hand is a significant obstacle in accessing healthcare services in developing countries. Many expectant mothers in the least developed countries do not receive sufficient care during pregnancy due to financial constraints. If such hurdles in accessing healthcare can be overcome, it will contribute to reduction in maternal and newborn mortality, which is a key target of Sustainable Development Goal 3. This study reports the first assessment of the impact of mobile money services on maternal care utilization. We hypothesize that mobile money adoption would motivate rural Ugandan women to receive antenatal care and to deliver their children at health facilities or with skilled birth attendants. By receiving remittances utilizing mobile money, poor rural households may obtain more cash in hand, which might change women&rsquo, s health-seeking behavior. We apply community- and mother-fixed effects models with heterogeneity analysis to longitudinal panel data (the RePEAT [Research on Poverty, Environment, and Agricultural Technology] survey) of three waves (2009, 2012, and 2015). The analysis uses pregnancy reports of 2007&ndash, 2015 from 586 rural Ugandan households. We find suggestive evidence that mobile money adoption positively affects the take-up of antenatal care. Heterogeneity analysis indicates that mobile money brings a larger benefit to geographically challenged households by easing their liquidity constraint as they face higher cost of traveling to distant health facilities. The models failed to reject the null hypothesis of no mobile money effect on the delivery-related outcome variables. This study suggests that promoting financial inclusion by means of mobile money motivates women in rural and remote areas to make antenatal care visits while the evidence of such effect is not found for take-up of facility delivery or delivery with skilled birth attendants.

There are considerable differences in the duration, intensity, and history of migration experiences among migrant households. The variation can have a significant effect on their investment behavio...

Combining new longitudinal and geo-referenced road map data with household panel survey data targeting rural smallholder farmers in South-Western Kenya, we implement a fixed effect (FE) estimation with other controls to assess the causal impact of the change in road access from 2004 to 2012 on the change in farming practices such as hybrid seed adoption, fertiliser intensification, high value crops adoption and market participation for milk and cereals. We construct effective time distance indicators which measures the shortest driving time to the nearest market and nearest large town. We find evidence of diversification into high value crops farming, fertiliser intensification and milk market participation in areas experiencing improved roads. It suggests that the recent road infrastructure investment in South-Western Kenya foster agricultural productivity and market participation by rural smallholder farmers. Also, it implies that the investment has the pro-poor effect since the road improvement...

A facile two-step synthesis of methyl bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)phosphonoacetate (Still–Gennari reagent) has been developed by exploiting Garegg–Samuelsson reaction conditions. Starting from trimethyl phosphonoacetate, Still–Gennari reagent was prepared in 94% yield via methyl 2-{bis[(trimethylsilyl)oxy]phosphoryl}acetate intermediate. This synthetic procedure was also used to prepare some kinds of Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reagents and related compounds.

In recent years, data mining and text mining techniques have been frequently used for analyzing data. Electronic data is collected in everywhere and many products and services are widely used in our daily lives. Data mining techniques such as association analysis and cluster analysis are used for marketing analysis, because those can discover relationships and rules hiding in enormous numerical data. On the other hand, text mining techniques such as keywords extraction and opinion extraction are used for questionnaire or review text analysis, because those can support us to investigate consumers’ opinion in text data. However, data mining tools and text mining tools cannot be used in a single environment. Therefore, a data which has both numerical and text data is not well analyzed because the numerical part and the text part cannot be connected for interpretation. Goal of the data analysis is knowledge emergence that we find or create a new knowledge for decision making. In this paper, a mining framework that can treat both numerical and text data is proposed. Users of the proposed system can iterate data shrink and data analysis with both numerical and text analysis tools in a unique framework. Based on the experimental results, the proposed system was effectively used to data analysis for review texts of humidifiers and fan heaters. We verified that balanced use of numerical and text analysis leads to good ideas and the users should be conscious to use both type of tools and both type of data shrink.

Mobile money usage has expanded tremendously in Uganda, reaching over 40% of the adult population within 8 years of inception. We use data from 820 rural households to examine the effect of this financial innovation on their financial behavior. We find that using mobile money services increases the likelihood of saving, borrowing, and receiving remittances. The corresponding amounts of each service are also significantly higher among mobile money user households relative to their nonuser counterparts. We demonstrate that the mechanism of this impact is a reduction in transaction costs—a combination of transportation fares and service charges—associated with household proximity to mobile money agents. To illustrate the convenience of service proximity, we demonstrate that the household's likelihood and frequency of using mobile money services reduces with the distance to the nearest mobile money agent. This distance variable is then used to instrument for the potentially endogenous mobile money adoption. We finally perform propensity score matching to reinforce the robustness of our results; our results are consistent across all these specifications. The results imply that developing and enhancing access to and usage of pro-poor financial products could be a first step to achieving greater financial inclusion.

While customary land tenure systems are still prevalent in most African countries, they are believed to be evolving to private land ownership. However, questions about how they are evolving and what determines this evolution remain un-answered. This study contributes to the literature by empirically analyzing the process of the evolution of land tenure systems in Uganda using community-, household-, and parcel-level data. By tracing rural-to-rural migration patterns, we found that immigrant-dominated and ethnically diverse communities have a higher incidence of private land ownership. As an implication of the evolution of land tenure system, we found that land markets are more active in immigrant communities, which enhances efficiency in land allocation through land transactions. In fact, we found a large and significant inverse relationship between farm size and productivity in communities with communal land ownership, and an insignificant relationship in communities with more privately owned land. These findings suggest that rural-to-rural migration, through weakening traditional social systems, promotes the shift from communal to individual land ownership which, in turn, boosts land transactions and efficient land use.

This chapter examines the association between politics and regional economic development during the period of devolution in Kenya, which has been experiencing partially since devolved funds for local public services called the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) were established in 2003 and more comprehensively since the new constitution was promulgated in 2010. Using satellite image information on nighttime light intensity as a measurement of subnational level economic performance, we investigate factors affecting the economic development in Kenya from 1992 to 2016 and find that (i) there is no systematic relationship between major ethnicity of counties and their growth rates of nighttime light intensity until 2012; (ii) during the latest five year period (2012–16) largely overlapped with the ruling period of President Uhuru Kenyatta whose ethnicity is Kikuyu, however, the Kikuyu dominant counties, which have more than 50% share of Kikuyu ethnic group in population, show much higher growth rates than other counties and, moreover, Kiambu county which is the home county of the president shows the highest growth rate among 47 counties; (iii) county governors’ observed personal characteristics such as their educational attainment and past experiences as a Member of Parliament (MP) are not associated with the growth rate; (iv) county level human capital indicators measured by proportions of secondary school graduates or university graduates are positively associated with the growth rate of nighttime light intensity.

This paper examines conflicts in northern Uganda over land rights and land demarcation between neighbours who returned from absence due to displacement caused by armed conflicts. It uses detailed parcel-, household-, and community-level data collected in 2015 from villages in northern Uganda. The results are noteworthy: households that were displaced to locations far from their homes are more likely to have new land conflicts and more likely to be concerned about land conflicts. Household number of years spent without doing farming in the home village and weakening informal land governance institutions appear to be the main mechanisms of the above results. Furthermore, land conflicts are found to have a negative effect on agricultural productivity because they reduce farmers’ incentive to invest in their plots due to insecure land rights.

Population pressure on farmlands can have two opposing effects on soil quality. It can negatively affect soil quality due to more frequent and intensive use of farmlands; it can induce transition of farming methods towards more intensive farming in which more fertilisers are used in order to increase productivity of the available small farmlands. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the net effect on soil quality is likely to be negative given the region’s low fertiliser use. However, recent studies show evidence of agricultural intensification in regions with high population pressure. It is important to analyse the extent of soil degradation and its relationship with population pressure. We use unique decade-long panel data containing lab-tested soil measures from Uganda to examine the effect of population pressure on soil quality. We find that population pressure and soil quality are strongly negatively correlated. We, however, find no strong evidence with regard to the positive correlation between population pressure and agricultural intensification. The findings indicate that farmers in Uganda have yet to change their farming practices to respond to increasing land scarcity resulting from population growth.

Despite the increasing incidence of land-conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa and their deleterious effects on agricultural performance, empirical studies on their determinants and consequences are scant. This study uses community-, household-, and parcel-level data from rural Uganda to examine the causes and consequences of different forms of land-related conflicts. We pay special attention to how population pressure and internal migration affects land conflicts. We find more land conflict cases in migrant host and ethnically diverse communities. We also find a higher probability of having land conflicts in districts that have had high population growth rates. As a consequence, we find that the yield is 22% lower on parcels with land conflicts than on parcels without conflicts, owned by the same household. After unbundling conflicts, we find that eviction conflicts hurt productivity more than other conflict types. Parcels with eviction conflicts have 45% lower yield compared with those without conflicts. Our results suggest that population pressure and internal migration weakens social cohesion and hence negatively affects community-specific informal land arrangements and conflict resolution mechanisms, which in turn, result in land conflicts. Ethnic diversity increases the likelihood of eviction-related conflicts which hurts production. Indeed we find that farmers in migrant host communities are less likely to consult informal conflict resolution channels when faced with conflicts.

Access to financial services is crucial for development as it enhances resource mobilization needed for productive investment and facilitates consumption smoothing. With a vast majority of adult Ugandans having no access to formal financial services, mobile money is expected to bridge this gap especially in rural areas. This financial product allows users to make financial transactions using their mobile phones. Within five years of its inception in Uganda since 2009, the mobile money service has been used by over 35% of the adult population and the rate of penetration is rapidly increasing. We investigate its impact on household welfare using panel data covering 846 rural households. Using a combination of household fixed effects, instrumental variable and propensity score matching methods, we find a positive and significant effect of mobile money access on household welfare, measured by real per capita consumption. The mechanism of this impact is the facilitation of remittances; user households are more likely to receive remittances, receive remittances more frequently, and the total value received is significantly higher than that of non-user households. We attribute this impact on the reduction in transaction, transport, and time costs associated with mobile phone-based financial transactions. Our results are robust to changes in model specifications and alternative explanations.

Palladium-loaded titanium oxide was found to work as a bifunctional photocatalyst for functionalization of benzene with ether upon photoirradiation, without using any special reagents. The metal-loaded TiO2 photocatalyst activated a C–H bond of ethers and the heterogeneous Pd metal nanoparticle catalyst promoted the successive C–C bond formation between benzene and the radical species. In this reaction, benzene reacted very selectively with the α-carbon of various ethers at least in the initial stage of the reaction. Kinetic and ESR studies revealed a detailed mechanism for the reaction.

Population pressure on farmlands can have two opposing effects on soil quality. It can negatively affect soil quality due to more frequent and intensive use of farmlands, but also can induce transition of farming methods towards more intensive farming in which more fertilizer and improved seeds are used in order to make smaller farmlands more productive. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the net effect is likely to be negative given the region’s current low fertilizer use. Recent studies, however, show evidence of agricultural intensification in regions with high population pressure. It is important to analyze the extent and speed of soil degradation and its relationship with population pressure. Nonetheless, empirical studies on this topic are almost non-existent, partly because soil quality is shaped over a long time horizon, and quality panel data on this issue are rare. We use unique panel data for rural households containing soil quality information from Kenya to elucidate the effect of population pressure on soil quality. We find that population pressure reduces soil quality and also induces agricultural intensification. This suggests that although farmers are trying to mitigate the negative effect of population pressure on soil quality, the rate of soil degradation is outpacing that of intensification.

The western blotting technique is widely used to analyze protein expression levels and protein molecular weight. The chemiluminescence method is mainly used for detection due to its high sensitivity and ease of manipulation, but it is unsuitable for detailed analyses because it cannot be used to detect multiple proteins simultaneously. Recently, more attention has been paid to the fluorescence detection method because it is more quantitative and is suitable for the detection of multiple proteins simultaneously. However, fluorescence detection can be limited by poor image resolution and low detection sensitivity. Here, we describe a method to detect fluorescence in western blots using fluorescence microscopy to obtain high-resolution images. In this method, filters and fluorescent dyes are optimized to enhance detection sensitivity to a level similar to that of the chemiluminescence method.

The synthesis of conjugated allenyl esters (tri-substituted allenes) was achieved by magnesium(II)-mediated Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reaction of methyl bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)phosphonoacetate with disubstituted ketenes. In addition, a novel access to α-fluorinated allenyl carboxamides (tetrasubstituted allenes) is presented.

In recent years, data mining and text mining techniques have been frequently used for analyzing questionnaire and review data. Data mining techniques such as association analysis and cluster analysis are used for marketing analysis, because those can discover relationships and rules hiding in enormous numerical data. On the other hand, text mining techniques such as keywords extraction and opinion extraction are used for questionnaire or review text analysis, because those can support us to investigate consumers opinion in text data. However, data mining tools and text mining tools cannot be used in a single environment. Therefore, a data which has both numerical and text data is not well analyzed because the numerical part and text part cannot be connected for interpretation.In this paper, a mining framework that can treat both numerical and text data is proposed. We can iterate data shrink and data analysis with both numerical and text analysis tools in the unique framework. Based on experimental results, the proposed system was effectively used to data analysis for review texts.

Multisensory integration of visuo-tactile information presented on the body or a dummy body has a strong impact on body image. Previous researches show that alteration of body image induced by visuo-tactile integration is closely related to the activation of the parietal cortex, a sensory association area. The expression of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) in the parietal area of macaque monkeys is thought to modulate the activation of the parietal cortex and alter the extension of body image during tool-use learning. However, the relationship between parietal cortex activation related to body image alterations and BDNF levels in humans remains unclear. We investigated the relationship between human serum BDNF levels and electroencephalography responses during a visuo-tactile integration task involving a rubber hand. We found cortical oscillatory components in the high frequency (gamma) band in the left parietal cortex. Moreover, the power values of these oscillations were positively correlated (p < 0.05) with serum BDNF levels. Our results suggest that serum BDNF could play a role in modulating the cortical activity in response to visuo-tactile integration processes related to body image alteration in humans.

Background: Amygdala hyper-reactivity is sometimes assumed to be a vulnerability factor that predates depression; however, in healthy people, who experience early life stress but do not become depressed, it may represent a resilience mechanism. We aimed to test these hypothesis examining whether increased amygdala activity in association with a history of early life stress (ELS) was negatively or positively associated with depressive symptoms and impact of negative life event stress in never-depressed adults. Methods: Twenty-four healthy participants completed an individually tailored negative mood induction task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) assessment along with evaluation of ELS. Results: Mood change and amygdala reactivity were increased in never-depressed participants who reported ELS compared to participants who reported no ELS. Yet, increased amygdala reactivity lowered effects of ELS on depressive symptoms and negative life events stress. Amygdala reactivity also had positive functional connectivity with the bilateral DLPFC, motor cortex and striatum in people with ELS during sad memory recall. Conclusions: Increased amygdala activity in those with ELS was associated with decreased symptoms and increased neural features, consistent with emotion regulation, suggesting that preservation of robust amygdala reactions may reflect a stress buffering or resilience enhancing factor against depression and negative stressful events.

The Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reactions of 2-fluoro-2-diethylphosphonoacetic acid with 2-{[(triisopropylsilyl)oxy]methyl}cyclopentanone (2-TOM-cyclopentanone) using methylmagnesium chloride furnished the corresponding tetra-substituted fluoroolefin in a Z-selective manner (E/Z = 9:91). A facile synthesis of rac-N-Cbz-Gly-Ψ[(Z)-CF C]-Pro-OH as a dipeptide isostere was achieved based on the Z-selective Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reaction.

Background A recent meta-analysis of many magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies has identified brain regions with gray matter (GM) abnormalities in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). A few studies addressing GM abnormalities in patients with treatment-resistant depression (TRD) have yielded inconsistent results. Moreover, although TRD patients tend to exhibit ruminative thoughts, it remains unclear whether rumination is related to GM abnormalities in such patients or not. Methods We conducted structural MRI scans and voxel-based morphometry (VBM) to identify GM differences among 29 TRD patients and 29 healthy age-matched and sex-matched controls. A response style questionnaire was used to assess the respective degrees of rumination in TRD patients. Structural correlates of rumination were examined. Results TRD patients showed several regions with smaller GM volume than in healthy subjects: the left dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), right ventral ACC, right superior frontal gyrus, right cerebellum (Crus I), and cerebellar vermis. GM volumes in these regions did not correlate to rumination. However, whole-brain analysis revealed that rumination was positively correlated with the GM volume in the right superior temporal gyrus in TRD patients. Limitations Structural correlates of rumination were examined only in TRD patients. Conclusions Our data provide additional evidence supporting the hypothesis that TRD patients show GM abnormalities compared with healthy subjects. Furthermore, this report is the first to describe a study identifying brain regions for which the GM volume is correlated with rumination in TRD patients. These results improve our understanding of the anatomical characteristics of TRD.

We used a randomized control trial to measure how the free distribution of hybrid seeds and chemical fertilizers for maize production affected their adoption by small-scale farmers in the subsequent seasons. Information on their demand for the same inputs was collected through sales meetings which we organized in 2009 and 2011 where the inputs were actually sold. It revealed that the demand for the inputs of the free-input recipients was significantly higher in both 2009 and 2011 than that of non-recipients; that of the neighbors of the recipients fell in-between. The initial treatment assignment has a persistent influence on the farmers' demand over the two years whereas the difference between the free-input recipients and their neighbors has been reduced to some extent. The reduction of their gap in the application level of fertilizers is partly driven by social learning through information networks. However, there was no clear evidence of learning effects from peers on the demand for the hybrid seeds. One possible explanation of these mixed results is due to slow dissemination of the new inputs with low profitability. (JEL O13, O33, O55)

Complexation characteristics of 1,4,7,10,13,16-hexaoxacyclooctadecane (18-crown-6, 18C6) with Li+ and K+ in a hydrophobic ionic liquid of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide under dry and humid conditions at 298.2 K were studied by 1H and 13C NMR chemical shifts. The comparison of the 1H and 13C chemical shifts of 18C6 molecule between the dry and humid IL solutions without the alkali metal ions showed that uncomplexed 18C6 molecules are solvated by water molecules in the humid ionic liquid solution. The changes in the 1H and 13C chemical shifts of 18C6 ligand molecule with the increases in the Li+ and K+ concentrations revealed that in both dry and humid ionic liquid solutions 18C6 molecule forms 1:1 complexes with Li+ and K+. The 1H NMR data of water molecules in the humid ionic liquid solutions demonstrated that water molecules interact with Li+-18C6 complexes and free Li+, but do not with K+-18C6 complexes and free K+. The mechanisms of the formation of the Li+ and K+ complexes in the humid ionic liquid solution are different from each other due to the differences in the complex-water interactions.

Background Altered emotional memory is one of the core cognitive functions that causes and maintains depression. Although many studies have investigated the relationship between hippocampal volume, depression and treatment response, no studies have investigated the relationship for hippocampal activity. Additionally, few studies have examined the relationship between functional and structural abnormalities in depression. Methods We conducted a functional and volumetric MRI study investigating associative encoding of positive, negative and neutral word pairs in 13 healthy controls, and 14 untreated depressives. We carried out fMRI during a memory-encoding task at baseline. Treatment response was clinically assessed six weeks after pharmacotherapy began. Then, we explored the relation between brain activation during encoding of each word pair and symptomatic improvement. Results Relative to controls, depressives exhibited decreased activity in the left hippocampus during encoding positive word pairs and, in contrast, increased activity in the right hippocampus during encoding negative or neutral word pairs. Poor response to treatment was associated with smaller activation within the left hippocampus during the memory encoding of positive word pairs. Overall results were not confounded by hippocampal volume. Limitations We could not appreciate any disease alteration during the retrieving phase. Conclusion We found qualitative differences in hippocampus functioning between depressives and healthy controls. In addition, the left hippocampus could have an effect on treatment response in depression by contributing to the dysfunctional encoding of positive information.

(1)H and (7)Li NMR chemical shifts of 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide-water solutions in the presence and absence of lithium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide were determined at 293.2 K over a wide range of water concentrations from 0.0156 to 1.16 mol kg(-1). These results revealed the attractive interaction between water molecule and Li(+) as well as the hydrogen bonding among water molecules. Moreover, self-diffusion coefficients of water, 1-ethyl-3-methylimidazolium cation, Li(+), and bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)amide anion in the ionic liquid solutions at various water contents were determined by (1)H, (7)Li, and (19)F NMR techniques. It was found that Li(+) is averagely hydrated by eight water molecules in the ionic liquid solutions. Furthermore, (7)Li longitudinal relaxation times of Li(+) in the ionic liquid solutions at 293.2 K were measured with two different magnetic fields and various water contents. The mean one-jump distances of Li(+) in the ionic liquid solutions were estimated from the correlation times and the self-diffusion coefficients. A comparison between the hydrodynamic radius and the mean one-jump distance of Li(+) suggested the formation of water channels in the ionic liquid solutions.

In Africa, most development strategies include efforts to improve the productivity of staple crops grown on smallholder farms. An underlying premise is that small farms are productive in the African context and that smallholders do not forgo economies of scale—a premise supported by the often observed phenomenon that staple cereal yields decline as the scale of production increases. This article explores a research design conundrum that encourages researchers who study the relationship between productivity and scale to use surveys with a narrow geographic reach in order to produce more reliable results, even though results are better suited for policy decisions when they are based on data that are broadly representative. Using a model of endogenous technology choice, we explore the relationship between maize yields and scale using alternative data. Since rich descriptions of the decision environments that farmers face are needed to identify the applied technologies that generate the data, improvements in the location specificity of the data should reduce the likelihood of identification errors and biased estimates. However, our analysis finds that the inverse-productivity hypothesis holds up well across a broad platform of data, despite obvious shortcomings with some components. It also finds surprising consistency in the estimated scale elasticities.

Stress-related psychopathology is highly prevalent among elderly individuals and is associated with detrimental effects on mood, appetite and cognition. Conversely, under certain circumstances repeated mild-to-moderate stressors have been shown to enhance cognitive performance in rodents and exert stress-inoculating effects in humans. As most stress-related favorable outcomes have been reported in adolescence and young-adulthood, this apparent disparity could result from fundamental differences in how aging organisms respond to stress. Furthermore, given prominent age-related alterations in sex hormones, the effect of chronic stress in aging females remains a highly relevant yet little studied issue. In the present study, female C57BL/6 mice aged 3 (young-adult) and 20-23 (old) months were subjected to 8 weeks of chronic unpredictable stress (CUS). Behavioral outcomes were measured during the last 3 weeks of the CUS protocol, followed by brain dissection for histological and molecular end points. We found that in young-adult female mice, CUS resulted in decreased anxiety-like behavior and enhanced cognitive performance, whereas in old female mice it led to weight loss, dysregulated locomotion and memory impairment. These phenotypes were paralleled by differential changes in the expression of hypothalamic insulin and melanocortin-4 receptors and were consistent with an age-dependent reduction in the dynamic range of stress-related changes in the hippocampal transcriptome. Supported by an integrated microRNA (miRNA)-mRNA expression analysis, the present study proposes that, when confronted with ongoing stress, neuroprotective mechanisms involving the upregulation of neurogenesis, Wnt signaling and miR-375 can be harnessed more effectively during young-adulthood. Conversely, we suggest that aging alters the pattern of immune activation elicited by stress. Ultimately, interventions that modulate these processes could reduce the burden of stress-related psychopathology in late life.

As population pressure on land grows rapidly in Kenya, rural farmers have started to intensify land use, which has led to the emergence of a new maize farming system. The new system is characterized by the adoption of high-yielding maize varieties, the application of chemical fertilizer and manure produced by stall-fed improved dairy cows, and intercropping, especially the combination of maize and legumes. This study aims to explore the determinants of the new maize farming system and its impact on land productivity. We examine not only the impacts of new technologies and production practices but also the impact of the entire new maize farming system by generating an agricultural intensification index based on a principal component analysis. The estimation results show that a decrease in the land-labor ratio accelerates farming intensification, and that the adoption of each new technology and production practice has positive and significant impacts on land productivity. These findings are further supported by the significantly positive impacts of the agriculture intensification index on land productivity.

The synthesis of conjugated allenyl esters (tri-substituted allenes) was achieved by magnesium(II)-mediated Horner–Wadsworth–Emmons reaction of methyl bis(2,2,2-trifluoroethyl)phosphonoacetate with disubstituted ketenes. In addition, a novel access to α-fluorinated allenyl carboxamides (tetrasubstituted allenes) is presented.

Histone acetylation, which alters the compact chromatin structure and changes the accessibility of DNA to regulatory proteins, is emerging as a fundamental mechanism for regulating gene expression. Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors increase histone acetylation and enhance fear extinction. In this study, we examined whether vorinostat, an HDAC inhibitor, facilitates fear extinction, using a contextual fear conditioning (FC) paradigm, in Sprague-Dawley rats. We found that vorinostat facilitated fear extinction. Next, the levels of global acetylated histone H3 and H4 were measured by Western blotting. We also assessed the effect of vorinostat on the hippocampal levels of NMDA receptor mRNA by real-time quantitative PCR (RT-PCR) and protein by Western blotting. 2 h after vorinostat administration, the levels acetylated histones and NR2B mRNA, but not NR1 or NR2A mRNA, were elevated in the hippocampus. The NR2B protein level was elevated 4 h after vorinostat administration. Last, we investigated the levels of acetylated histones and phospho-CREB (p-CREB) binding at the promoter of the NR2B gene using the chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP) assay followed by RT-PCR. The ChIP assay revealed increases in the levels of acetylated histones and they were accompanied by enhanced binding of p-CREB to its binding site at the promoter of the NR2B gene 2 h after vorinostat administration. These findings suggest that vorinostat increases the expression of NR2B in the hippocampus by enhancing histone acetylation, and this process may be implicated in fear extinction.