A puzzle in the recently-stagnated economy of Jamaica is that high rates of unemployment have persisted even when real wages have been increasing. This paper examines aspects of the labor supply in an effort to understand why high rates of unemployment have existed with increasing real wages. This is a sign of a badly functioning labor market. The cross-sectional analysis suggests that remittances have some impact on labor supply, especially on labor market participation. The pseudo panel data analysis also confirms that remittances have a strong impact on labor participation but not on weekly working hours. Households with remittance income a have higher reservation wage and have reduced the supply of labor by moving out of the labor force.

The non-cell autonomous transfer of OTX2 homeoprotein transcription factor into juvenile mouse cerebral cortex regulates parvalbumin interneuron maturation and critical period timing. By analyzing gene expression in primary visual cortex of wild-type and Otx2+/GFP mice at plastic and nonplastic ages, we identified several putative genes implicated in Otx2-dependent visual cortex plasticity for ocular dominance. Cortical OTX2 infusion in juvenile mice induced Gadd45b/g expression through direct regulation of transcription. Intriguingly, a reverse effect was found in the adult, where reducing cortical OTX2 resulted in Gadd45b/g upregulation. Viral expression of Gadd45b in adult visual cortex directly induced ocular dominance plasticity with concomitant changes in MeCP2 foci within parvalbumin interneurons and in methylation states of several plasticity gene promoters, suggesting epigenetic regulation. This interaction provides a molecular mechanism for OTX2 to trigger critical period plasticity yet suppress adult plasticity.

Graphical AbstractHighlights d Intercellular transfer is a general feature of homeodomain proteins (HPs) d HP secretion is a cell-context-sensitive event d Hydrophobic residues outside of the homeodomain support the secretion of HP

No abstract

No abstract

This paper proposes a simple indicator to measure the exposure to natural disasters for the poor and non-poor population, in order to assess the global and regional trend of natural hazard and poverty. Globally, poor people are two times more exposed to natural disasters than the non-poor in the twenty-first century. The time trend varies across regions, with poor people in East Asia and Pacific being most exposed to natural disasters, followed by those in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. The change of exposure measure over time is decomposed into two factors: a pure exposure change, which could be fuelled by climate change; and a concentration component. The result shows that the total net increase of exposure between the 1970s and the 2000s is driven significantly by the increased concentration of the poor (26 per cent) in disaster-prone areas, whereas the contribution of that factor remains very small for the non-poor (six per cent).

Injection inoculation protocols for fruit body formation of Cordyceps militaris (C. militaris) were investigated to improve the incidence of infection in the silkworm species Bombyx mori (B. mori). Injection, with suspensions of C. militaris hyphal bodies into living silkworm pupae, was used to test for fruit body production. Use of Daeseungjam rather than Baegokjam or Keumokjam varieties of B. mori is thought to be suitable for infection by C. militaris. From mounting, nine-day-old to 11-day-old pupae showed the best incidence of infection with a 100 µL injection volume. Silkworm pupae injected with a hyphal suspension concentration of more than 2 × 105 colony-forming unit (cfu) recorded a greater than 96% incidence of infection. Also, fruit bodies of C. militaris were induced and produced at a light intensity between 500 and 1,000 lx.

To increase the income of sericultural farms and expand sericulture industry, new high value-added products of sericulture which are beyond current products like 5th instar 3 day dried silkworm, male pupa and silkworm dongchunghacho are needed. For this sericulture product diversification, it is in desperate need of the edible processing method after 5th instar 4 day silkworm that silkgland formation is rapidly in progress during the larva periods. So far it was hard to eat because of silkgland formation in their body. So we try to boil and steam frozen-, dried-, and livingsilkworm to develop low-cost edible processing methods for farmers. As the result, the silkgland of frozen and dried silkworm was not degenerated, so silkgland in their body was not edible. But in the case of living silkworm, the silkgland of mature silkworm was degenerated by boil and steam treatment, so the body and silkgland of silkworm were not only edible but also tasted good. Then the dried silkworm was easily powdered and there was no problem when it was eaten. This source technology can be widely used in the general food industry, health functional food cosmetics, pet food and so on, so it is predictable that this will contribute to increase the income of sericulture farms and expand sericultural industry.