Immigrants Doing Business in a Mid‐sized Canadian City: Challenges,Opportunities, and Local Strategies in Kelowna,British Columbia

Lacking a tradition of settling immigrants and the appropriate infrastructure to integrate them, small‐ and medium‐sized cities often face the challenge of attracting and retaining immigrants. Using a mixed methods approach, this study compares the experiences of immigrant and non‐immigrant entrepreneurs in a mid‐sized Canadian city, Kelowna, British Columbia. A survey reveals different experiences between these two groups, with immigrants facing more challenges. In the absence of institutionally complete communities or strong ethnic economies, immigrants do not rely extensively on their own community resources, an element considered instrumental for immigrant business development in large cities. Compared to non‐immigrants, immigrant entrepreneurs have a more optimistic outlook on doing business in Kelowna; this is encouraging for a city trying hard to attract immigrant investment. Key informants recommended transforming the city into a more welcoming community, establishing appropriate support infrastructure, and removing potential institutional offsets. This paper adds new theoretical insights to the literature on immigrant entrepreneurship; all socio‐cultural, political‐institutional, and economic‐structural considerations are embedded in geography. The findings also have implications for growth strategies in small‐ and medium‐sized cities.     

Implications of the number of years assessment on recommendation of common bean cultivars

In the common bean crop in Brazil, the requirement of the value for cultivation and use trials is that these experiments must be conducted over two years in three locations per region. Information in regard to the necessary number of years to ensure precision in cultivar recommendation and the influence of evaluated years in the estimation of the GE interaction are still scarce. Using grain yield of five check varieties assessed over 11 years in three sowing seasons per year, the aims of this study are as follows: to measure the relative contribution of the GE interaction, evaluating the implication of the number of years in the estimates of the GE interaction, and infer how many years are needed to ensure precision in cultivar recommendation. For instances, analysis of variance was carried out involving all environments and also combinations of years. The results showed that the GE interaction was greater than all other cross‐effects involving lines. The use of at least two years allows good coincidence in cultivar recommendation compared to the whole period. Increasing the evaluation time is a good strategy, especially when it is difficult to grow three different sowing seasons.     

Introgression of in vitro regeneration capability of Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium Mill. into recalcitrant tomato cultivars

The goal of this research was to study the introgression of the high regeneration capacity of Lycopersicon pimpinellifolium Mill line WV-700, in recalcitrant tomato cultivars (L. esculentum Mill cvs. Petomech, Santa Rita and VFN-8) using backcrossing. Hypocotyl explants of in vitro germinated seeds were cultivated in half strength MS medium supplemented with 5mg/l 6-BA to assess their shoot regeneration capacity. The apical shoot of the in vitro germinated seeds were cultured on a separate medium. Apical shoots from genotypes showing high regeneration rates were acclimated in a glasshouse and used as pollen donors for the next backcrossing. After four backcrossings, the material showed a similar mean fruit weight for the cultivated tomato and a high regeneration capacity similar to the wild species. It is shown that L. pimpinellifolium can be used with success as donor parent to introgress in vitro regeneration capacity to recalcitrant tomato cultivars. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Chemical composition and structural features of the macromolecular components of plantation Acacia mangium wood

The wood of Acacia mangium, a prominent fast-growing plantation species used in the pulp-and-paper industry and, so far, poorly investigated for its chemical structure, was submitted to a detailed characterization of its main macromolecular components. Lignin (28% wood weight) isolated by mild acidolysis and characterized by permanganate oxidation, 1H and 13C NMR, and GPC, showed a very low content of syringylpropane-derived units (S:G:H of 48:49:3), a high degree of condensation, a low content of beta-O-4 ( approximately 0.40-0.43 per C6) structures, and a Mw of 2230. Glucuronoxylan (14% wood weight) isolated by alkaline (KOH) or by dimethyl sulfoxide extraction was characterized by methylation analysis, 1H NMR, and GPC. About 10% of the xylopyranose (Xylp) units constituting the linear backbone were substituted at O-2 with 4-O-methylglucuronic acid residues. Almost half of the Xylp units (45%) were O-2 (18%), O-3 (24%) or O-2,3 (3%) acetylated. X-ray diffraction analysis of cellulose (46% wood weight), isolated according to the Kürschner-Hoffer method, showed a degree of crystallinity of 67.6%.     

Assessment of the production of antioxidants from winemaking waste solids

Winemaking waste solids (WS, resulting from red grapes after fermentation and distillation to recover spirits) were subjected to various processing schemes for isolating fractions with antioxidant activity. The liquors entrapped in WS as received were separated by pressing and freeze-dried to yield a fraction with antioxidant activity (measured as DPPH radical scavenging capacity) comparable to those of synthetic antioxidants. A second approach based on the direct processing of raw WS in sulfuric acid medium under fixed operational conditions and further extraction of hydrolysis liquors with ethyl acetate enabled the isolation of a fraction with higher antioxidant ability at an improved yield. The most favorable approach started with a washing stage leading to liquors (which were directly freeze-dried to yield 1.20 g of extract/100 g of oven-dry WS and presented an EC50 of 0.41 g of extract/L) and washed solids, which were dried and subjected to hydrolytic processing (i) with water as a reactive in an autocatalyzed reaction (autohydrolysis) or (ii) with sulfuric acid solutions to give an ethyl acetate-soluble fraction with improved antioxidant properties (EC50 in the range of 0.18-0.40 g/L). Samples from washing liquors and processing of washed solids in aqueous medium were subjected to chromatographic fractionation and analysis to give isolates with remarkable antioxidant activity (with EC50 as low as 0.07 g/L) and to identify their major components.     

Biodiversity of mannose-specific lectins within Narcissus species

Mannose-specific lectins (MSLs) were isolated from the bulbs of 27 species of wild Spanish Narcissi and compared to the commercially available MSL from daffodil (Narcissus pseudonarcissus, NPA). Molecular weight analysis showed the monomers of all the MSLs were at, or around, 12.5 kD. Haemagglutination assays showed that the MSLs exhibited activities at up to four times greater than that displayed by NPA and other MSLs derived from other species such as Galanthus nivalus (snowdrop) and Allium ursinum (ramson). Elution profiles from ion exchange chromatography exhibited similarities for species within the same taxonomic section suggesting that this method could aid in species classification. Further analysis by isoelectric focusing showed many isolectins are present in vivo and that even within a single peak from ion exchange chromatography there are numerous isolectins present. The basis of the isolectin heterogeneity is suggested to reside in the tetraploidy (sometime triploidy) nature of Narcissus genes.     

Seed chemical variation in Prosopis chilensis from Argentina

Ten Prosopis chilensis populations from different phytogeografic areas of Argentina were analyzed chemically in their proximate and fatty acid composition. Oil and protein contents varied between 2.5–6.6% and 29.2–38.6%, respectively. Ash content ranged from 3.1 to 4.6%. The seed lipids contained a relatively large proportion of unsaturated fatty acids with linoleic acid as predominant. The results showed that: (a) There was a significant variation among populations in their chemical components, (b) moisture, ash and protein contents, and saturated fatty acids had not significant correlation with geographic parameters analyzed; (c) some unsaturated fatty acids correlated significantly with altitude. The variability observed might indicate that there is sufficient intraspecific differences to permit improvement by selection and breeding.     

Differences in the diversity of oribatid mite communities in forests and agrosystems lands

A field study was conducted in the province of Burgos (Castile, NW of Spain) to assess the role and influence of the different anthropic use of soil on the oribatid mite communities (Acari, Oribatida).Soil samples from 20 representative soil sites of the Castilian upland steppes, with cultured, pastureland or forest soil uses, were taken in spring and autumn 2000. Thereafter, soil samples were analysed in terms of their mesofaunal biodiversity, measured using the real and relative diversity of the oribatid mite communities.Collected individuals were identified to species level, being altogether 111 Oribatid species. Results from communities' ordination analysis showed clear gradients based on community variables. One of these was defined by plots with high values of diversity and species richness which correspond to the less anthropic natural soils, mainly oak forest. In contrast, the most anthropic agrosystems soils, including extensive cereal crops, most of them receiving only mineral fertilisation or having human management, were placed in opposite gradients. Differences in biodiversity between crop lands and natural soils were also confirmed by ANOVA. The seasonality, measured in terms of difference between spring and autumn plots, played a minimum role in explaining differences of diversity. Nevertheless autumn diversity values were slightly higher than those of spring, except for crops.