Despite the advantages and dominance of globalization in today&rsquo / s world economics / clusters, as a regional based development tool, still attract many researchers and policy makers from all over the world in order to obtain sustainable competitiveness. As a result of fast rising number of cluster development policies and initiatives, the importance of measuring the performance of clusters arises. The purpose of this thesis is to design a performance measurement model, which will be applied to industrial clusters in Turkey. A model framework is developed, based on expected outcomes of clusters which are classified as productivity, innovativeness, new business formations and social capital. Indicators are selected based on extensive literature survey under these four determinants, and a scorecard is developed. After the design phase, the performance of two cluster cases from Turkey is studied. In order to improve clustering approach, it is important to monitor, measure identify the progress of clusters. It is believed that this work will be utile for policy makers to identify whether the interventions, incentives and promotions are beneficial for the desired purposes and whether they are used effectively.

This thesis consists of three sections that provide detailed knowledge of nutrient estimation and management in wild blueberry production. The first section investigated the main and interactive effects of long term fertilizer (NPK) enrichments on soil mineral nitrogen, organic nitrogen and carbon, microbial biomass nitrogen and carbon, net mineralization and net nitrification in wild blueberry soils. The second section studied the optimization of wild blueberry growth, development, foliar nutrients and harvestable yields by using response surface methodology. The third section examined nutrient estimation technologies using field spectroscopy. The remote sensing data was analysed with a combination partial least squares regression and variable selection algorithms (Chemometric analysis). The results indicated elevated nitrification activity under nitrogen enrichments, mainly performed by heterotrophs, report unusually high levels of dissolved organic carbon (> 150 C ha-1), a fungal dominated soil system and high concentration of soluble organic nitrogen in the crop year of production. Nitrification and high dissolved organic carbon levels were observed in connection with possible nitrogen saturation and potential environmental hazards. The results imply a need for nitrification inhibition measures. Results from field studies examining the main and interactive effects of soil applied N, P and K suggested that applications of nitrogen (35 kg ha-1), phosphorus (40 kg ha-1) and potassium (30 kg ha-1) were required to optimize growth, development and harvestable yields of wild blueberry. Under these fertilizer rates, the corresponding predicted harvestable yield was 4,126 kg ha-1 that is as much as 13% higher than would be produced by commonly used fertilizer rate in the industry. This study presented new leaf nutrient ranges for sprout and crop years for wild blueberry fields in Atlantic Canada. Hyperspectral remote sensing technologies were used for estimating macro and micro nutrients. This study provides critical information on wavelengths important for nutrient estimation in reflectance spectra (400-2500 nm). The results and inferences from this thesis may be employed to improve crop production, increase economic returns and health of soil and sustainability of wild blueberry production in Nova Scotia. / This study was undertaken to examine the response of the wild blueberry plant to soil applied fertilizers and encompasses soil nitrogen and carbon pools, plant growth and development, leaf nutrient concentrations and harvestable yields. In addition, given the vast area in which wild blueberry fields are located, the study also examined the feasibility of assessing plant nutrient status through the use of remote sensing hyperspectral technologies. Our results emphasize the importance of monitoring for soil nitrogen and carbon pools in the context of accelerated nitrogen cycling, nitrogen saturation, the fine-tuning of current leaf nutrient ranges in Atlantic Canada in connection to fertilizer rates, the possibility of estimating leaf nutrient contents by remote sensing technologies all with the aim of optimizing wild blueberry yields. In terms of statistical techniques, this thesis used response surface methodologies with a central composite design as a means of discovering, the main and interactive effects of soil applied fertilizers to determine the most appropriate soil nitrogen levels and leaf nutrient ranges that correlate to the highest harvestable yields. The remote sensing data used to estimate leaf nutrients concentrations, various models that combined chemometrics and response surface methodologies for determining model efficiencies with aim of getting informative wavelengths in wild blueberry fields.

No description available.

<p>The phenylpropanoid pathway gives rise to a wide variety of specialized metabolites, but the majority of carbon flux going through this pathway is directed towards the synthesis of the lignin monomers: <i>p</i>-coumaryl alcohol, coniferyl alcohol and sinapyl alcohol. Lignin is a major impediment in biomass saccharification, which negatively affects animal feed and biofuel production. In an effort to improve biomass for the latter purposes, researchers have altered the polymer through genetic manipulations and generated biomass with lower recalcitrance to saccharification; however, in many cases these efforts have resulted in plant dwarfism. To date, we do not have a full understanding of the extent of lignin modifications a plant is able to tolerate without affecting its growth. More importantly, the mechanism that links dwarfism and modifications in lignin content and composition remains unknown. To contribute to answering these questions, we designed a strategy to incorporate a novel monomer into the lignin of <i>Arabidopsis thaliana</i>. We used mutants in genes that code for enzymes and regulators of the phenylpropanoid pathway to redirect the pathway’s flux towards the synthesis of <i>p</i>-coumaraldehyde and prevent the incorporation of <i>p-</i>coumaryl alcohol. Despite being mutated for the genes typically considered to be required for monolignol biosynthesis, the plants we generated continue to incorporate <i>p-</i>coumaryl alcohol into their lignin. This result suggests that the pathway’s architecture has not been completely elucidated and that there are more enzymes involved in lignification than previously thought. Additionally, we explored the connection between perturbations in phenylpropanoid metabolism and plant growth, by using an inducible system to track the changes in gene expression and metabolism that occur when phenylpropanoid metabolism is restored in a lignin biosynthetic mutant. The use of an inducible system allowed us to not only determine the metabolic processes affected in this mutant, but the proximal sequence of events that lead to restored growth when a functional copy of the mutant gene is induced. Finally, we redirected the flux through the pathway to assess the effects of simultaneously modulating lignin content and composition. Through this project we discovered that redirecting phenylpropanoid flux towards the synthesis of sinapyl alcohol in lignin-deficient mutant backgrounds, results in plant dwarfism. The growth impairment of these mutants can be overcome by providing exogenous coniferyl alcohol, suggesting that dwarfism in these mutants is caused by deficiency in coniferyl alcohol and/or derivatives thereof and not lignin alone. Altogether these projects allowed us to define the cellular processes affected by perturbations in phenylpropanoid homeostasis and the role of other phenylpropanoids besides lignin in this process.</p>

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20754号 / 医博第4284号 / 新制||医||1024(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 松田 秀一, 教授 開 祐司, 教授 妻木 範行 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

Climate variability and climate change have become important research topics also in economics. The objective of this thesis is not to forecast the future but to learn from the past by studying how two important climate change-related topics have affected Indonesian households. Delayed monsoon onset, El Niño, will become more frequent with climate change whereas palm oil production is a contributor to climate change. The first essay examines how variability in monsoon onset affects rural households' welfare in terms of household expenditure and farm profits. Using the Indonesia Family Life Survey (IFLS) data I find that households in the middle tercile of the expenditure distribution face the biggest albeit temporary losses from delayed monsoon onset. Half of the expenditure decline is due to increase in household size. Conditional on onset, rainfall intensity has only minor effects. The second essay uses the IFLS data to study how schooling and child labour are affected by delayed monsoon onset. The probability of continuing from primary to secondary school is reduced when a delayed onset coincides with the transition year. In other respects, monsoon onset does not affect education of rural children. However, riskier distribution of rain postpones school entry for young children. Moreover, delayed onset increases child labour. Using district-level data on palm oil production and area planted and national household survey (SUSENAS) the third essay studies the impact of oil palm expansion on household expenditure and health. Instrumental variable estimates exploit the historical production and district forest area as an exogenous source of variation. I find that smallholder production has a weak negative impact on household expenditure but this effect is not present among rural households. More, total production increases incidence of asthma in Kalimantan. The findings suggest that palm oil is not a panacea to increase rural welfare.

Decentralisation policies have been adopted by most countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in the expectation of improved service provision. The benefits expected are two-fold: a) decentralisation will lead to better coordination and collaboration between different parts of the state at the local level and b) decentralisation will lead to increased consultation and responsiveness of local governments to their citizens. In this thesis I seek to explain why these benefits are realised in some contexts and not others. In most parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, the predominant form of decentralisation is a combination of devolution and deconcentration. Often these two policies are ambiguous and sometimes contradictory. What are the processes through which such mixed systems work? This thesis attempts to understand how mixed systems of devolution and deconcentration work in practice through a comparative study of Five Municipal Health Directorates in Ghana. The study explores the three sets of relationships that are critical for decentralisation to work well in such mixed systems a) between the Health Directorate and the District Assembly administration, b) between the Health Directorate and the elected members of the District Assembly and c) between the Health Directorate and selected civil society organisations working on health. The work is based on detailed qualitative interviews in the five municipalities. The main finding is that informal ties between the Health Directorate and the three sets of actors mentioned above are helpful in explaining why coordination and consultation seem better in some municipalities than others. Four kinds of ties are found to be important: ethnic/tribal links, family/kinship/neighbourhood relations, political party affiliations, and old-school networks. These ties between Municipal Health Directorates and senior officers of the Municipal Assemblies were found to facilitate Municipal Health Directorates' access to District Assemblies' Common Fund, which was controlled by the Municipal Assemblies. The existence of these ties between Municipal Health Directorates and elected Assembly members of Municipal Assemblies were found to enhance the quality of Municipal Health Directorates' policies and helped to gain public support. Finally, such ties between Municipal Health Directorates and leaders of selected Civil Society Organisations that mobilised around HIV and AIDS programmes were found to facilitate implementation of Municipal Health Directorates' policies around HIV and AIDS. The thesis' contribution is that it shows that informal linkages between different local bodies and between local government and civil society organisations seem important for improved coordination and collaboration among various actors, and better consultation with elected representatives of citizens and leaders of CSOs for effective service delivery at the local level.

The aquatic environment is severely impacted by xenobiotics that are released due to anthropogenic activities, threatening ecosystem health. Some of these contaminants accumulate in lipophilic fish tissues and are maternally transferred to developing offspring, affecting their growth and performance. However, knowledge about the long-term and generational impacts associated with maternal transfer of contaminants is limited in fish. In this thesis, the hypothesis tested was that maternal transfer of bisphenol A (BPA) leads to disruption in the developmental programing of growth and stress axes functioning in rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss), and that these changes are passed on to the next generation. This was tested by exposing oocytes to either control (vehicle; <0.01% ethanol) 0.3, 3.0, and 30.0 mg l-1 BPA in ovarian fluid for 3 h, prior to fertilization, to mimic maternal transfer. This led to the accumulation of 0, 0.8, 4.4 and 41.3 ng BPA embryo-1. Oocytes were fertilized with milt from clean males, and offspring growth, development and stress performances were assessed in a clean environment for a year (F1 generation). For F2 generation, oocytes collected from F1 females, raised from the different BPA accumulated eggs, were fertilized with milt from clean males and raised in a clean environment for one year as described for F1 generation. The accumulated BPA in eggs was quickly cleared and it was no longer detected in the F1 embryos at hatch. BPA exposure reduced specific growth rate and increased food conversion ratio in larvae reared from BPA-laden oocytes. Moreover, BPA-exposed fish had an altered cortisol developmental profile and a delay in stress axis maturation. In addition, the mRNA abundance of genes involved in somatotropic [insulin-like growth factor (IGF) -1; IGF-2; IGF receptor b (IGF-1rb)] and stress axes functioning [steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (StAR); cytochrome P450 side chain cleavage (P450scc)] were altered. Also, changes in thyroid signaling [thyroid receptor (TR) mRNA levels] and cortisol signaling [glucocorticoid receptor (GR) protein expression] were disrupted temporally during development. These results demonstrate that BPA accumulation in eggs, mimicking maternal transfer, impacts growth and development, and delays stress axis maturation via non-reproductive endocrine disrupting routes in trout. Some of the BPA changes seen in F1 generation also persisted in the F2 generation. For instance, ancestral exposure to BPA led to reduced growth and whole body glycogen content prior to feeding in the F2 fish. The developmental transcript profile of growth hormone-1and -2, IGF-1 and -2 and IGF-1rb, along with whole body cortisol levels were impacted by ancestral exposure to BPA. Moreover, a delay in cortisol dynamics post-stress was noted in the F2 fish of BPA exposure lineage. Our results show that ancestral exposure to BPA leads to effects on growth and stress performance in rainbow trout, but the mechanism is not known. To further investigate the long-term effect of BPA accumulation in eggs on stress performances, F1 and F2 juvenile fish were subjected to an acute stressor. Also, head kidney tissues from these juvenile fish were subjected to adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) stimulation in vitro to assess cortisol production capacity. BPA accumulation in eggs led to a reduced acute handling stressor-induced plasma cortisol response in trout from the F1 and F2 (only high BPA group) generations. Also, BPA exposure had a pronounced impact on acute handling stressor-mediated plasma glucose (only F2 generation) and lactate levels, indicative of a metabolic disturbance. BPA exposure (only the 4.4 ng group) did affect unstimulated but not stimulated [ACTH or 8-bromo-cyclic AMP (8-B-cAMP)] cortisol production from head kidney slices of juvenile fish from F1 generation. In the F2 generation, there was an increase in ACTH-stimulated cortisol production only from the high BPA-exposed group. Overall, BPA in eggs disrupts long-term cortisol and metabolic stress performances in rainbow trout. While the impaired plasma cortisol stress performance was dose-related in the F1, the effect was apparent only for high BPA group in the F2 generation, suggesting that the generational effects on cortisol stress axis functioning may be concentration-dependent. A metabolomics approach further confirmed multigenerational effects associated with BPA accumulation in eggs. Analysis of the metabolome profile at hatch and prior to first feed, using gas chromatography-time of flight-mass spectrometry (GC-TOF-MS), revealed a BPA-mediated metabolic disruption, including changes in pathways involved in carbohydrate, lipid and amino sugar metabolism, and amino acid metabolism and synthesis. Pathways involved in citric acid cycle and alanine, aspartate and glutamate metabolism were altered in both generations, suggesting that these pathways have the potential to be markers with predictive value for multigenerational effects of BPA in fish. Altogether, the study provides novel insights on the impact of BPA on rainbow trout metabolome at hatch and first feed. The results suggest that pathways involved in energy metabolism are targets for BPA impact and should be investigated as potential markers for BPA toxicity. Overall, BPA accumulation in oocytes induces long-term delays in growth and stress axis maturation in F1 generations fish, and these effects persist in the F2 generation. The developmental profiles of key genes of the somatotropic and HPI axes were altered by BPA, along with whole body composition, suggesting that BPA exposure leads to a metabolic disturbance in fish, resulting in reduced growth. Additionally, the altered plasma cortisol response to acute stress in F1 and F2 juveniles provides evidence for multigenerational effects of BPA on stress axis functioning. The current study proposes that BPA-induced epigenetic modifications during early development may be playing a key role in the generational effects on growth and stress axes disruption in trout. The finding that the growth and developmental changes to BPA exposure also corresponds with endocrine and metabolome changes in multiple generations in trout is novel, and underscores the necessity to develop new risk assessments tools for chemicals that are maternally transferred in fish.

This study investigates the socioeconomic effects of the economic crises and the post-crisis programs based on the experiences of Argentina, Indonesia and Turkey. For this purpose, main socioeconomic indicators of these countries are analyzed for the 1990-2002 period by utilizing the before-after methodology. The comparative analysis of the results shows that significant deteriorations in the socioeconomic indicators of these countries had occurred in the crisis periods. In addition, the social policy components of post-crisis programs of these countries are analyzed. In this regard, it is found that the governments and the BWIs are more likely to incorporate active social policy measures, which would mitigate the negative socioeconomic effects of the crises on the households, into the post-crisis programs under the presence of significant public pressure emanating from social protests.

No description available.