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Purpose: The anecdote of this paper is to bring the aid effectiveness debate to the sub-national level using the change in night lights as an alternative measure of economic activity. We observe non-robustness of results regarding the effects of aid types on development in antecedent literature to arise due to the effects of aid being treated as a unitary component. provoked by such insightful observation and literature deficiency we employed geocoded data to examine Causal links between the varying types of aid and local economic development in Malawi. Design/methodology/approach: The main objective of the empirical examination is to examine the distributional effects of distinct aid types in local towns in Malawi. For that purpose, the authors thus have a panel dataset for each aid type indicator. Allowing for fixed time and town effects, the baseline light density growth regression model to estimate the effectiveness of disentangled aid on night light intensity was accomplished by employing a spatial dynamic panel data (SDPD) approach with instrumentation. Thus, panel regressions were performed to investigate both conceptual and policy implications. Findings: Cross-city evidence shows that category aid type brings both negative and positive results depending on location within a country. There are cities and locations where certain aid type(s) does not matter whereas it matters most in some. This speaks to different levels of growth between different regions and cities in Malawi. As a result, we observe the size of the effect of distinct aid type(s) on economic activities to vary (increase/decrease) with the size of the location. Research limitations/implications: It may be interesting to generalize results from this study to a panel case over long periods of time using dynamic modelling with both threshold analysis and interaction effects Institutional factors need also to be includes in similar analyses. The authors leave this for a follow-up study. Second, the most immediate opportunity is application of the methodology to the other countries with geo-coded AidData. The authors expect to expand the analysis by taking into account other determinants of aid effectiveness at the local level, including the characteristics of donors and varieties of targeted development programmes. Practical implications: Results in some geographical locations and towns indicate that the authors do not have sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis of the research study at 5% level. However, other geographical locations like Zomba indicate that aid category has a significant bearing on local economic growth. Therefore, as opposed to unitary aid approaches, we recommend distribution of relevant disentangled growth-enhancing aid type to specific administrative regions but with a bias toward smaller socially and economically deprived regions and towns. Social implications: The unique insight from this study is that foreign aid-growth benefits are symmetric and skewed toward large towns. If such unbalance aid-growth benefits anomalies are not addressed in a transparent manner it has the possibilities of promoting interregional migration which from Nielsen et al. (2011) and Findley et al (2011)'s evidence might trigger regional tensions and violent armed conflicts. Thus, there is need for equitable distribution of social and economic developmental aid free from political or ethnic inclination but based on transparent needs assessment model(s). Locations where social and developmental aid types seem to have negative or no effect serves as a salient indicator of aid leakages due to rent seeking tendencies of bureaucrats or weak institutions which ultimately pose welfare burden on citizens. Originality/value: Apart from contributing to the extant literature on aid and economic growth, this paper relates to at least three other strands of research. First, the work partially answers a call by Minoiu and Reddy (2010), Schmid (2013) and Khomba and Trew (2019) for researchers to examine the growth effects of distinct aid types on local economic development. Second, the increase in aid volumes to Africa and the worsening of economic conditions has been the subject of considerable interest amongst development economists (e.g. Ravenhill, 1990; Lancaster, 1999; Easterly, 2003; Bräutigam and Knack, 2004 and Collier, 2006). This makes the use of a major aid recipient developing economy (Malawi) as a laboratory an anecdote. Third, use of disaggregated as opposed to unitary aid data with an African flavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The anecdote of this paper is to bring the aid effectiveness debate to the sub-national level using the change in night lights as an alternative measure of economic activity. We observe non-robustness of results regarding the effects of aid types on development in antecedent literature to arise due to the effects of aid being treated as a unitary component. provoked by such insightful observation and literature deficiency we employed geocoded data to examine Causal links between the varying types of aid and local economic development in Malawi. Design/methodology/approach: The main objective of the empirical examination is to examine the distributional effects of distinct aid types in local towns in Malawi. For that purpose, the authors thus have a panel dataset for each aid type indicator. Allowing for fixed time and town effects, the baseline light density growth regression model to estimate the effectiveness of disentangled aid on night light intensity was accomplished by employing a spatial dynamic panel data (SDPD) approach with instrumentation. Thus, panel regressions were performed to investigate both conceptual and policy implications. Findings: Cross-city evidence shows that category aid type brings both negative and positive results depending on location within a country. There are cities and locations where certain aid type(s) does not matter whereas it matters most in some. This speaks to different levels of growth between different regions and cities in Malawi. As a result, we observe the size of the effect of distinct aid type(s) on economic activities to vary (increase/decrease) with the size of the location. Research limitations/implications: It may be interesting to generalize results from this study to a panel case over long periods of time using dynamic modelling with both threshold analysis and interaction effects Institutional factors need also to be includes in similar analyses. The authors leave this for a follow-up study. Second, the most immediate opportunity is application of the methodology to the other countries with geo-coded AidData. The authors expect to expand the analysis by taking into account other determinants of aid effectiveness at the local level, including the characteristics of donors and varieties of targeted development programmes. Practical implications: Results in some geographical locations and towns indicate that the authors do not have sufficient evidence to reject the null hypothesis of the research study at 5% level. However, other geographical locations like Zomba indicate that aid category has a significant bearing on local economic growth. Therefore, as opposed to unitary aid approaches, we recommend distribution of relevant disentangled growth-enhancing aid type to specific administrative regions but with a bias toward smaller socially and economically deprived regions and towns. Social implications: The unique insight from this study is that foreign aid-growth benefits are symmetric and skewed toward large towns. If such unbalance aid-growth benefits anomalies are not addressed in a transparent manner it has the possibilities of promoting interregional migration which from Nielsen et al. (2011) and Findley et al (2011)'s evidence might trigger regional tensions and violent armed conflicts. Thus, there is need for equitable distribution of social and economic developmental aid free from political or ethnic inclination but based on transparent needs assessment model(s). Locations where social and developmental aid types seem to have negative or no effect serves as a salient indicator of aid leakages due to rent seeking tendencies of bureaucrats or weak institutions which ultimately pose welfare burden on citizens. Originality/value: Apart from contributing to the extant literature on aid and economic growth, this paper relates to at least three other strands of research. First, the work partially answers a call by Minoiu and Reddy (2010), Schmid (2013) and Khomba and Trew (2019) for researchers to examine the growth effects of distinct aid types on local economic development. Second, the increase in aid volumes to Africa and the worsening of economic conditions has been the subject of considerable interest amongst development economists (e.g. Ravenhill, 1990; Lancaster, 1999; Easterly, 2003; Bräutigam and Knack, 2004 and Collier, 2006). This makes the use of a major aid recipient developing economy (Malawi) as a laboratory an anecdote. Third, use of disaggregated as opposed to unitary aid data with an African flavour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crop abandonment is when farmers decide not to harvest their previously planted crop. There is limited but emerging literature on crop abandonment or failure predominantly examining weather and crop failure rates. Consistent with these existing scant studies, it is not immediately clear to what extent historical relationships can be extrapolated in the long run under climate change. This paper seeks to improve our understanding of determinants of crop abandonment decisions in Zambia for maize production at subnational level. We find that crop abandonment (harvesting) is positively (negatively) related to fertiliser use, rainfall and temperature and negatively (positively) related to cost of living, price of maize, index-based insurance cover, town and random shocks. Therefore, fertiliser, rainfall and temperature increase the likelihood of crop abandonment in Zambia whereas increasing cost of living, maize price, insurance participation, town specific and random shock reduce it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a new approach and the initial feedback in a research that seeks to provoke reflections and reactions to different stakeholders on future changes in their living territory. This project is divided into two stages. The first is a production of different scenarios of changes in land use, associated with a 3D virtual representation of landscape. The second stage is a participatory workshop in small groups of stakeholders. The shared collective thinking is based on 3D virtual representations of transformations of space that were chosen by the participants from an application designed for this project. The study area, located on the coastal zone of Alpes- Maritimes, is very threatened by fast and diffuse urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a mapping of land use and land cover of Santa Catarina Island, in southern Brazil, based on high-resolution aerial photography and vectorization of aerophotogrammetric digital mapping at 1:2.000 scale produced by Urban Planning Institute of Florianopolis. The methodology adopted the visual analysis and interpretation of an aerial photogrammetric mosaic and the mapping method of land use patterns was organized into 17 classes. The results show the predominance of vegetation classes and urban areas. The patterns of urban areas are divided into continuous, discontinuous and diffuse categories, revealing punctual density and the presence of large urban areas only in the first settlements, real estate ventures or urban development projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While low concentrations of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) represent a well-established cardiovascular risk factor, extremely high HDL-C is paradoxically associated with elevated cardiovascular risk, resulting in the U-shape relationship with cardiovascular disease. Free cholesterol transfer to HDL upon lipolysis of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TGRL) was recently reported to underlie this relationship, linking HDL-C to triglyceride metabolism and atherosclerosis. In addition to free cholesterol, other surface components of TGRL, primarily phospholipids, are transferred to HDL during lipolysis. It remains indeterminate as to whether such transfer is linked to HDL-C and cardiovascular disease. When TGRL was labelled with fluorescent phospholipid 1,1′-dioctadecyl-3,3,3′,3′-tetramethylindocarbocyanine perchlorate (DiI), time- and dose-dependent transfer of DiI to HDL was observed upon incubations with lipoprotein lipase (LPL). The capacity of HDL to acquire DiI was decreased by −36% (p< 0.001) in low HDL-C patients with acute myocardial infarction (n = 22) and by -95% (p <0.001) in low HDL-C subjects with Tangier disease (n = 7), unchanged in low HDL-C patients with Type 2 diabetes (n = 17) and in subjects with high HDL-C (n = 20), and elevated in subjects with extremely high HDL-C (+11%, p< 0.05) relative to healthy normolipidemic controls. Across all the populations combined, HDL capacity to acquire DiI was directly correlated with HDL-C (r = 0.58, p< 0.001). No relationship of HDL capacity to acquire DiI with both overall and cardiovascular mortality obtained from epidemiological studies for the mean HDL-C levels observed in the studied populations was obtained. These data indicate that the capacity of HDL to acquire phospholipid from TGRL upon LPL-mediated lipolysis is proportional to HDL-C and does not reflect cardiovascular risk in subjects widely differing in HDL-C levels. [Display omitted] • DiI, a fluorescent phospholipid, was transferred from TGRL to HDL upon lipolysis by LPL in a time- and dose-dependent manner. • HDL capacity to acquire DiI was decreased in low HDL-C patients with acute myocardial infarction and Tangier disease. • HDL capacity to acquire DiI was elevated in subjects with extremely high HDL-C and was correlated with HDL-C. • HDL capacity to acquire DiI was unrelated to overall and CV mortality obtained from epidemiological studies. • HDL capacity to acquire phospholipid from TGRL upon lipolysis by LPL is proportional to HDL-C and is unrelated to CV risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The concept of uncertainty has fostered in the last decade's fundamental and applied research in different disciplinary fields. Couclelis (2003) clearly demonstrated the pervasiveness of uncertainty in the production process of geographical knowledge. The paper shares this epistemological point of view. Pragmatically, its goal is to show how questions of uncertainty arise in the praxis of geographic research. It suggests that scientific work can be enriched, and not hindered, by addressing uncertainty in knowledge. The paper discusses eight domains within the activity of the geographer, where questions of uncertainty arise: geographic information, geographic definitions, the explanation of geographic phenomena, the complexity of spatial systems, geosimulation, the representation of spatial knowledge, subjectivity in spatial phenomena, and planning. Within each domain uncertainty issues are identified as well as their possible interrelations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

L’échelle DEGR est le seul outil francophone actuellement validé pour évaluer la douleur prolongée chez l’enfant de 2 à 6 ans. Néanmoins, sa complexité limite son utilisation au quotidien. Forts de ce constat, nous proposons une échelle simplifiée élaborée selon une méthodologie de simplification des échelles composites et présentons l’étude de validation de cette échelle. Méthode: L’échelle HEDEN a été élaborée par consensus d’experts, en choisissant parmi les items de DEGR 2 items traduisant les signes directs de douleurs (SDD) (position antalgique et contrôle exercé par l’enfant quand on le mobilise), 2 items traduisant l’atonie psychomotrice (APM) (intérêt pour le monde extérieur et lenteur et rareté des mouvements) et 1 item d’expression volontaire de douleur (EVD) (plaintes somatiques). L’étude de validation comporte une évaluation de la faisabilité, une étude de validité afin de montrer une corrélation avec une échelle validée (DEGR), une étude de concordance interobservateur et une étude de fiabilité afin d’estimer la variabilité due à la mesure (coef α de Cronbach). Résultats: l’étude de faisabilité (59 enfants) montre une corrélation admissible entre HEDEN et DEGR (r = 0,5). La fiabilité de l’échelle HEDEN est bonne (α= 0,61) ainsi que la concordance inter observateur (r = 0,62). Dans l’étude de validation (48 enfants), l’analyse en composantes principales confirme les 3 domaines de représentation des phénomènes douloureux que sont les SDD, l’APM et l’EVD. Les corrélations entre les scores des 5 items HEDEN et le score DEGR sont toutes significatives entre 0,31 et 0,64. La corrélation entre les scores globaux DEGR et HEDEN est bonne (=0,60, p < 0,001). Le coefficient ??? de Cronbach à 0,75 montre une bonne concordance entre les items. L’analyse de la concordance interobservateur montre une bonne concordance entre les scores globaux avec un coefficient de corrélation intra-classe de 0,67 (IC95 % : 0,48 – 0,79, p < 0,0001). La durée moyenne de remplissage de la grille HEDEN est de 4,42 mn (1 à 32) versus 23,09 mn (5 à 50) pour la grille DEGR. Conclusion: HEDEN permet de quantifier de manière rapide et objective la douleur prolongée de l’enfant. Elle semble adaptée à une pratique quotidienne au lit du malade par l’ensemble des soignants et son apprentissage est aisé. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]