bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interactomics profiling of the negative regulatory function of carbon monoxide on RANKL-treated RAW 264.7 cells during osteoclastogenesis
Authors: Tseng Feng-Jen , Chia Wei-Tso , Shyu Jia-Fwu , Gou Guo-Hau , Sytwu Huey-Kang , Hsia Ching-Wu , Tseng Min-Jen , Pan Ru-Yu
Published: May 2014

Background

During osteoclastogenesis, the maturation of osteoclast (OC) progenitors is stimulated by the receptor activator of nuclear factor-κB ligand (RANKL). Excess OC production plays a critical role in the pathogenesis of inflammatory bone disorders. Conversely, the inhibition of abnormal OC proliferation reduces inflammation-induced bone loss. Low concentrations of carbon monoxide (CO) are known to decrease inflammation and OC-mediated bone erosion but the molecular mechanism is unknown.

Results

To obtain insight into the biological function of CO, cultured RANKL-treated RAW 264.7 cells were used in an in vitro experimental model of osteoclastogenesis. The results showed that CO inhibited: 1) tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP)-positive cell formation; 2) F-actin ring production; 3) c-fos pathway activation; 4) the expression of cathepsin K, TRAP, calcitonin receptor, and matrix metalloproteinase-9 mRNAs; 5) the expression of nuclear factor of activated T cells, cytoplasmic, calcineurin-dependent 1 in translation. Protein-protein interaction analysis predicted mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase 4 as the controlling hub.

Conclusions

Low-concentrations of CO (250 ppm) may inhibit osteoclastogenesis. Data from STRING- and IPA-based interactome analyses suggested that the expression of proteins with the functions of signal transduction, enzymes, and epigenetic regulation are significantly altered by CO during RANKL-induced osteoclastogenesis. Our study provides the first interactome analysis of osteoclastogenesis, the results of which supported the negative regulation of OC differentiation by CO.
The assessment and management of diabetes related lower limb problems in India‐an action research approach to integrating best practice
Authors: Harrison‐Blount Michael , Cullen Michelle , Nester Christopher J , Williams Anita E
Published: May 2014

Abstracts

Background

In this article the authors explore the current issues and barriers related to achieving successful outcomes to diabetic foot complications in India. This was achieved by engaging clinicians in taking ownership of the problems and facilitating them in the identification of solutions to action change in clinical practice.

Methods

This was accomplished through facilitating participants in this study via a process of problem identification and planning, the first phases of an action research cycle approach. The methods of data collection were focus groups, observations and individual conversations. The data were analysed using a thematic framework.

Results

Based on the practitioner's experiences and opinions, key themes were identified. These themes had the potential to inform the changes needed in clinical practice, to overcome barriers and embed ownership of the solutions. Five themes were identified highlighting: concerns over a fragmented service; local recognition of need; lack of standardised care pathways; lack of structured assessment and an absence of annual foot screening. Combined, the issues identified were thought to be important in preventing timely assessment and management of foot problems.

Conclusion

It was unanimously agreed that a formalised process of foot assessment should be developed and implemented as part of the subsequent phases of the action research process, which the authors intended to take forward and report in a further paper. The aim of which is to guide triage, education, care pathways, audit and evaluation of outcomes. Facilitation of the clinicians in developing a program and screening tool to implement and teach these skills to others could be an important step in reducing the number of high‐risk cases that are often resulting in the amputation of limbs.
Integrated analysis of chronic lipotoxicity on muscle metabolism and stress and its reversal by antioxidants
Authors: Verma Mahesh Kumar , Yateesh Aggunda Nagaraju , Smitha Rachapalli , Neelima Korrapati , Pallavi Puttrevana M , Reddy Madhusudhan , Poornima Jayaram , Oommen Anup M , Jagannath Madanahalli R , Somesh Baggavalli P
Published: May 2014

Apart from elevated glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol, elevated levels of serum free-fatty acid (FFA) are observed in diabetic patients. Increased FFA load can cause multiple dysregulation which are collectively known as lipotoxicity. Impacts of FFA induced lipotoxicity were evaluated on various cellular responses of metabolism and stress in skeletal muscle myotubes. Under lipotoxicity, oxidative capacity of C2C12 myotubes was reduced and decreased levels ATP and NAD were observed. Lipotoxicity augmented non-oxidative disposal of metabolites in terms of lactate release, IMTG and ceramide synthesis. Concomitantly, insulin resistance was also observed. These impacts were in conjunction with increased cellular stress, inflammation, proteolysis and apoptosis. Quenching of lipotoxicity mediated oxidative stress by antioxidant reverted its deleterious impacts and restored insulin stimulated glucose uptake. In conclusion, thein vitrolipotoxicity makes a system which resemblesin vivopathology of muscle as seen in diabetic patients and represents an integrated perspective of lipotoxicity on various parameters of metabolism and stress.
Inhibition of neutral sphingomyelinases in skeletal muscle attenuates fatty-acid induced defects in metabolism and stress
Authors: Verma Mahesh Kumar , Yateesh Aggunda Nagaraju , Neelima Korrapati , Pawar Niketa , Sandhya Kandoor , Poornima Jayaram , Lakshmi Mudigere N , Yogeshwari Sivakumaran , Pallavi Puttrevana M , Oommen Anup M , Somesh Baggavalli P , Jagannath Madanahalli R
Published: May 2014

Background

Chronic metabolic overload leads to insulin resistance in a variety of tissues. It has been shown that exposure to saturated fatty acid palmitate can cause insulin resistance in skeletal muscle cells. Fatty acid induced synthesis of ceramide is considered to be one of the major causes for insulin resistance. Both de novo synthesis and sphingomyelin hydrolysis by sphingomyelinase are implicated for ceramide generation. Aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of neutral sphingomyelinase (nSMase) inhibition on saturated fatty acid induced lipotoxicity and insulin resistance in skeletal muscle myotubes.

Results

Treatment of saturated fatty acid (palmitate) but not unsaturated fatty acid (oleate) caused an up-regulation in expression of various nSMase genes which are associated with ceramide synthesis through the salvage pathway. Inhibition of nSMase by a pharmacological inhibitor (GW4869) partially reverted the palmitate induced insulin resistance in C2C12 myotubes. Inhibition of nSMase improved metabolic functions of myotubes as measured by improved oxidative capacity in terms of increased mitochondrial number, PGC1α expression and ATP levels with concomitant decrease in intramyocellular triglyceride levels. Palmitate induced inflammatory response was also reduced by nSMase inhibitor. GW4869 treatment reduced palmitate induced oxidative and endoplasmic reticulum stress and improved cell survival.

Conclusion

In this study, we provide evidences that inhibition of nSMase can protect skeletal muscles from saturated fatty acid induced insulin resistance, metabolic dysfunction, cellular stress and inflammation.
The effect of vocational rehabilitation on the employment outcomes of disability insurance beneficiaries: new evidence from Canada
Authors: Campolieti Michele , Gunderson Morley KL , Smith Jeffrey A
Published: May 2014

We estimate the effects of the vocational rehabilitation (VR) program run by the Canada Pension Plan Disability Program using administrative data. Identification relies on “selection on observed variables” plus careful comparison group selection and institutional knowledge regarding sources of conditional variation in participation. We employ several matching and weighting estimators and emphasize flexible conditioning on variables suggested by theory, the institutional setup and the literature. We find modest, and imprecisely estimated, impacts on employment outcomes for men and larger, sometimes statistically significant, impacts for women. A formal sensitivity analysis finds our results are quite robust to lingering selection on unobserved variables.

JEL codes

I38; J08; J24
The Poetic Presentation of Philosophy:Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium”
Authors: Sharpe Matthew
Published: May 2014

This essay undertakes a close analysis of Leo Strauss’s remarkable but undertreated Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium,” reading it as opening a privileged purview of his own (and his students’) wider understandings of philosophy, poetry, and politics. The essay begins by drawing out Strauss’s three framing justifications for his manner of reading the Symposium as a document in the “ancient quarrel” of philosophy and poetry concerning which of the two should rightly shape the culture and ethical ideals of the Greeks (part 1). Then, following the course of Plato’s Symposium, the essay ascends through Strauss’s readings of the first five speeches in Plato’s dialogue (part 2) toward the highlight of Strauss’s reading, namely, his three remarkable sessions on Socrates’s speech. Part 3 analyses Strauss’s reading of this speech up to its climax, which Strauss argues involves the philosophical “demotion of poetry”: a criticism of poets as motivated by the Eros of fame and of tragic poetry as at its best creating captivating images of gods and heroes which reflect their creators’ self-love and patriotic love of “one’s own,” as against any transpolitical truth. Part 4 then looks at Strauss’s unusual reading of the culmination of Socrates’s great speech (Diotima on the “higher mysteries”) alongside Alkibiades’s speech in the Symposium as representing Plato’s “poetic presentation of philosophy.” The essay becomes more critical as it proceeds. Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his reading of the Republic, is remarkable for its own “demotion of metaphysics” in Plato, and in my concluding remarks, I will question this status, or disappearance, of metaphysics in Strauss’s Platonism. Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his wider oeuvre, aims at a defense of philosophy as meaningfully different from and superior to poetry. Yet he is unable to give coherence to the central idea of the Good (versus the Beautiful) in Platonic thought, which he agrees with other commentators is decisive for Plato’s attempt to differentiate philosophical inquiry from poetic creation. So readers of On Plato’s “Symposium” can be left wondering about how Strauss can metaphilosophically ground his elevated claims on behalf of philosophy versus the poets and to what extent his own work remains a decisively rhetorical or poetic presentation of philosophy.
Biometrics
Authors: Clarkson Nicholas L.
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Handmade
Authors: Vaccaro Jeanne
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Intersex
Authors: Morland Iain
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Perfume
Authors: Crawford Lucas
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Phenomenology
Authors: Salamon Gayle
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Temporality
Authors: Amin Kadji
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Voice
Authors: Anastasia Andrew
Published: May 2014

This section includes eighty-six short original essays commissioned for the inaugural issue of TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly. Written by emerging academics, community-based writers, and senior scholars, each essay in this special issue, “Postposttranssexual: Key Concepts for a Twenty-First-Century Transgender Studies,” revolves around a particular keyword or concept. Some contributions focus on a concept central to transgender studies; others describe a term of art from another discipline or interdisciplinary area and show how it might relate to transgender studies. While far from providing a complete picture of the field, these keywords begin to elucidate a conceptual vocabulary for transgender studies. Some of the submissions offer a deep and resilient resistance to the entire project of mapping the field terminologically; some reveal yet-unrealized critical potentials for the field; some take existing terms from canonical thinkers and develop the significance for transgender studies; some offer overviews of well-known methodologies and demonstrate their applicability within transgender studies; some suggest how transgender issues play out in various fields; and some map the productive tensions between trans studies and other interdisciplines.
Pronominal Clitics and Indexability Hierarchies in Hanis and Miluk Coosan
Authors: Kroeber Paul D.
Published: May 2014

The subject and object pronominal clitics of the two Coosan languages, Hanis and Miluk, and their associations with inflectional affixes of the verb are examined on the basis of available text corpora, supplementing and correcting Frachtenberg’s original description of the Hanis forms. In Hanis, an additional proclitic position must be recognized in certain imperative and transitive clauses, differing syntactically from the position of the ordinary proclitics; also, the Algonquian-like hierarchy privileging second person over first person that holds for singular enclitics requires modification for nonsingular ones. In Miluk, the pronominal enclitics differ dramatically from the Hanis proclitics in syntactic position and in some cases also in shape, but in most other respects seem comparable in behavior, as do patterns of inflectional suffixation of verbs. Brief comparative remarks are offered on other languages of the southerly Pacific Northwest.
Reconstructing Long-Term Limits on Diffusion in Australia
Authors: Harvey Mark
Published: May 2014

There has been extensive research on precolonial and postcolonial diffusions in Australia, but little research concerning the limits on diffusion—something that is central to advancing analysis of diffusional processes. There is evidence that persistent and systematic limits can be reconstructed for some diffusions in precolonial Australia, and that colonization favored diffusion, altering limits. Precolonial limits and postcolonial changes are modeled using social network theory; weak ties favor diffusion, while strong ties do not. Precolonial limits on diffusion correlate with fewer weak ties; colonization increased the proportion of weak ties, favoring diffusion.
Escaping the Prison-House: Visualcy and Prelanguage in Sheldon Mayer’s Sugar and Spike
Authors: Honeyman Susan
Published: May 2014

This project involved collecting Sheldon Mayer’s comic book series, Sugar and Spike (DC, 1954–71) for close analysis of the paratextual matter (letter columns, paper dolls) and recurrent themes, with special attention to the larger historical context of youth responses to censorship and changing literacies. In “Escaping the Prison-House,” I argue that Mayer uses his title characters’ babytalk to indulge in imaginatively escaping the alienating limitations of linguistic interpellation, while hinting at the subversive potential of a then-maligned medium.
The Popol Vuh for Children: Explicit and Implicit Ideological Agendas
Authors: González Ann
Published: May 2014

This essay traces the history of the Popol Vuh and its various adaptations for children to understand how and why the text has been appropriated and reinvented by those in a position of authority within the Guatemalan educational system and beyond, especially with regard to national identity politics. In particular, it reviews the most recent versions of the book for children by Eduardo Galeano, Nivio López Vigil, Francisco Morales Santos, and Victor Montejo published since the 1996 Peace Accords were signed, which ended the decades-long civil war in Guatemala.
Letting Specters In: Environmental Catastrophe and the Limits of Space in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials
Authors: Cantrell Sarah K.
Published: May 2014

In this essay, I examine the function of environmental catastrophe in Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy. I argue that Lord Asriel’s bridge between worlds has irreparable consequences for the mulefa’s and the armored polar bears’ habitats. Moreover, I maintain that Will and Lyra’s agency derives not from the limitless freedom Lord Asriel seeks, but from love and responsibility. Using Lawrence Buell’s ecocritical approach and Wendell Berry’s argument for necessary limitations and placement, my reading addresses how large-scale environmental disaster in the text mirrors our own global climate crisis.
Outward Bound: Adventures in Cross-Cultural Reading and Global Citizenship in North American Young Adult Literatures
Authors: Snell Heather
Published: May 2014

There has been a spate of YA novels in North America that mobilize discourses of cosmopolitanism to construct static, “worlded” sites where adventures in cross-cultural reading and global citizenship can be staged for the benefit of young readers largely coded as white and middle class. As analyses of two such novels show, the adventures staged tend to rely on a rhetoric of deflection in their writings of the “other,” in turn engendering constructions of white subjects as givers of aid in relation to “Third World Others.” The essay concludes with analysis of a text that avoids this kind of rhetoric.
“as natural as oak growing”: Child Voices, Agency, and Empire in Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill
Authors: Tomlinson Johanna Brinkley
Published: May 2014

Published in 1906, Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill and E. Nesbit’s The Story of the Amulet both imagine their child characters interacting with imperial history through fantastical means. This article reads these portraits of empires past within the larger context of changes in education and legislation that resulted in a large emphasis on history education in the British elementary classroom. By attending to the ways these novels imagine and integrate the child voice, I argue that fantasy provides a means to eschew linking historical narratives and heavy-handed didacticism. Instead, both books suggest that narratives of history can and should be questioned by their child readers.
Places of Memory
Authors: Wood Michael
Published: May 2014

This talk/essay explores James’s idea of what he calls “the visiting mind” as it calls on the distant past. The focus is the volume A Small Boy and Others , where James’s reconstruction of “the history of [his] fostered imagination” is performed by this imagination itself: a work not of destiny, as it may seem, but of narrative. James’s identification with his “odd” relative Henry Wyckoff, a man who was not allowed to live freely because he was thought to be too would to be given such a chance, is evoked as partial and ironic but very revealing.
Liberal London, Home, and Henry James’s Letters from the Later 1870s
Authors: Zacharias Greg
Published: May 2014

Henry James’s relocation from Paris to London in December 1876 can be explained best not by failures in Paris, but by the opportunities he saw offered by London’s liberalism, which was congenial both to James’s ambition as a professional writer and also to his particular social interests. The Reform Club, where the social and professional overlapped, not only served as James’s social and professional base in London during those years. It stood for him as a symbol of London’s appeal as well as its satisfaction. The Reform Club was for him “a deep local attachment.”
“No natural place anywhere”: Women’s Precarious Mobility and Cosmopolitanism in James’s Novels
Authors: Despotopoulou Anna
Published: May 2014

This article examines women’s mobility in Henry James, scrutinizing their precarious affiliation with place, on national, international, and domestic levels, and the fine line between cosmopolitanism and vagrancy. Interrogating the notion of women’s sophistication, travel, and cultural expansion, arguing that while travel and national detachment become the cause of social and psychological alienation in women, mental wandering, often situated in a liminal, “unhomely,” narrative space and explored through stylistic experimentation, comes to represent a distinct yet potent cosmopolitanism that differs from his men’s geopolitical or ethical cosmopolitanism.
“None of the Effect of an Invalid”: The Trials of Empathy in Henry James’s The Wings of the Dove
Authors: Byttebier Stephanie
Published: May 2014

This essay examines Henry James’s complex answer in The Wings of the Dove to the late nineteenth-century belief, illustrated by Jane Addams, in suffering’s progressive potential in the world. In James’s novel, pain fails to spontaneously produce empathy’s feeling results. Rather, suffering’s taboo status and the elaborate evasions to which it gives rise draw attention to disquieting processes of mediation that often disrupt the spontaneous flow of emotions between people. James’s novel shows that empathy can degenerate into a whole new experience of suffering, supplanting that of the original sufferer, and obscuring the distinction between bearers and administrators of pain.
Fanny and Bob Forever: The Collage Aesthetic and the Love Story in The Golden Bowl
Authors: Barnes Ashley C.
Published: May 2014

This essay argues that the exemplary couple in The Golden Bowl is the Assinghams. It makes that case by linking James’s high modernism to an archive of paper doll houses, a variant of the scrapbook popular in his day. I argue that James’s writing shares with the paper doll house a collage aesthetic that foregrounds theatricality and composition. Both forms might be read as symptoms of alienation. But in both forms the principles of theatricality and composition actually serve to promote intimacy. Favoring surface rather than depth, proceeding by textual play, the Assinghams’ marriage bears the marks of a post-humanist enterprise. But I contend that James’s portrayal of their relationship maintains a humanist ethic of mutuality, care, and creativity.
“All Human Rights for All”: The United Nations and Human Rights in the Post-Cold War Era
Authors: Thérien Jean-Philippe , Joly Philippe
Published: May 2014

This article analyzes how the post-Cold War era has led to a transformation of the United Nations (UN) human rights ideology. The first part examines the United Nations discourse, and explains how it has been influenced by the objective of making human rights more universal and indivisible. The second section focuses on a set of global policies that illustrate how the UN has sought to put in practice the principle of “all human rights for all.” Although the impact of UN ideology remains limited, this study demonstrates that the world body has shown growing determination in introducing human rights considerations into global politics.
Migrant Domestic Workers in the UK: Enacting Exclusions, Exemptions, and Rights
Authors: Mullally Siobhán , Murphy Clíodhna
Published: May 2014

Human rights law has begun to address the inequalities and exclusions that structure the domain of domestic work. The “everyday” of exclusions from employment law and social security, and precarious migration status, had, until recently, attracted only limited attention. This article examines the reforms introduced in the Overseas Domestic Workers (ODW) visa regime in the United Kingdom. The move towards a more precarious migration status for migrant domestic workers marks a rejection of the reforms secured through sustained political activism. It also highlights the contingency and instability of political moments that secure progressive change for migrants, and the enduring limits of human rights law.
Independent Human Rights Institutions for Children: An Actor for the Protection of Children’s Rights During Armed Conflict?
Authors: Linnarsson Ann , Sedletzki Vanessa
Published: May 2014

Although the legal protection of children in armed conflict has progressed, children’s rights violations are often addressed after war through temporary mechanisms focusing on serious international crimes. Yet, especially when chronic, conflict becomes part of children’s daily reality. While literature has emphasized the role of independent national human rights institutions in peace-building, their contribution to the protection of children’s rights during conflict has remained unexplored. Drawing on the experiences of selected independent institutions in conflict situations, this article investigates their role in protecting the full range of children’s rights despite considerable challenges and uncovers their significant potential.
Slavery in Europe: Part 2, Testing a Predictive Model
Authors: Datta Monti Narayan , Bales Kevin
Published: May 2014

Since the passage of the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act and the United Nations Palermo Protocols of 2000, there has been an increased focus on the magnitude and complexity of modern day slavery. Yet, surprisingly, little empirical work exists. A comprehensive review of the literature by Elżbieta Gożdziak and Micah Bump in 2008 found that quantitative methodologies were noticeably scarce and that the dominant anti-trafficking discourse was not evidence based. One reason for this scarcity has been the difficulty in obtaining reliable representative data. In this paper, we utilize a novel measure of contemporary slavery in Europe that illustrates one way to fill this gap. Using this measure as a dependent variable, we test one of the first predictive models of slavery. Employing multivariate regression analysis, we find that several predictors—state stability risk, freedom of speech, access to financial services, geography, and age—are significantly predictive of cross-national variation in slavery across Europe. We conclude by outlining a research agenda to develop a better empirical understanding of modern day slavery. This is essential for the development of more effective government policies and responses, with an eye toward the eventual significant reduction or eradication of slavery.
Taking Equality Seriously: Applying Human Rights Frameworks to Priority Setting in Health
Authors: Yamin Alicia Ely , Norheim Ole Frithjof
Published: May 2014

Health systems communicate and enforce norms relating to equality in many ways, including the ways in which priorities are set at micro and macro levels of decision making. This article examines three common forms of priority setting and how rights-based conceptions of equality may influence them. The relevance of human rights to these processes has grown especially urgent due to the increasing attention that the World Health Organization is placing upon achieving universal health coverage and due to discussion of the post 2015 development agenda.
The Deficit of EU Democracies: A New Cycle of Violence Against Roma Population
Authors: Matache Margareta
Published: May 2014

In this article I examine the liaisons between the violence by the far right paramilitary groups, the existing anti-Roma feelings or political discourse, and the various European governments’ actions in combating these phenomena. I argue that strongly-held beliefs of Roma inferiority not tackled through anti-bias education and enforcement of laws, but instead boosted by outspoken racists have encouraged the present extremist views and actions among ordinary citizens. In particular, I examine how the states have neglected their duty to properly address and sanction both legally and morally, such acts of violence. Additionally, I scrutinize the effectiveness of some concrete anti-discrimination measures and discuss a range of other possible strategies at the local, national, or European level.
Mechanisms for the Implementation of Decisions of the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights
Authors: Murray Rachel , Mottershaw Elizabeth
Published: May 2014

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ rights issued its first decision on an individual communication in 1994. It is self-evident, however, that the potential for improvement in human rights protection held by such judgments and decisions can only be realized with implementation. Yet, there is very little written either in academic literature or policy documents and little available information at national or regional levels about what happens to decisions of the African Commission or other regional human rights organs once they have been published. These challenges provide the backdrop against which this article examines the potential for strengthening implementation mechanisms at both national and regional levels.
Using Health Rights to Design Aid-Funded Health Programs so They First do no Harm
Authors: Williams Carmel , Ashton Toni , Bullen Chris
Published: May 2014

This article reports on the development of a framework that guides aid-funded health programs to meet health rights obligations by focusing on health systems. The framework includes indicator-based tools that correspond to the three categories of rights obligations: respecting health rights by designing with a full understanding of the health system; fulfilling health rights by designing available, accessible, acceptable, and quality services; and protecting health rights by conducting a health systems impact assessment to ensure the health system is not weakened by program demands. The tools within this rights-based framework can assist the design of global health initiatives so that they work to strengthen health systems and meet rights obligations.
A Study of the Relation between Inflation and Exchange Rates in the Fiji Islands: A Cointegration and Vector Error Correction Approach
Authors: Paul Muthucattu Thomas , Tang Yih Pin , Bhatt Markand
Published: May 2014

The main purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the exchange rates, international prices, and the demand shocks on inflation in Fiji. How the domestic inflation in a pegged exchange rate system is aligned with international price shocks is an important monetarist idea, and this is tested in this study. This study employs annual data from 1975 to 2010. The multivariate cointegration tests are done after the unit root tests, and further, the Vector Error Correction (VEC) model shows that the changes in Fiji’s CPI are Granger caused by the long-term trends in all other variables, and the CPI in Australia, and devaluation-year dummies are used as exogenous variables in the VEC model, and the changes in exchange rate and changes in demand shocks are the independent variables but made endogenous in the VEC model. The impulse response function also shows that due to the exchange rate depreciation, inflation has increased for many years in Fiji. The policy implication of our study is that as a monetary policy instrument, the flexibility of the exchange rate policy is indispensable for Fiji to appropriately absorb the international supply and price shocks.
How Many Currencies in SAARC Countries?: A Multivariate Structural VAR Approach
Authors: Forhad Md. Abdur Rahman
Published: May 2014

This paper examines whether or not the South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC), can introduce a single currency across the region. A four-variable structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model is used to identify the underlying shocks and to examine the correlation in shocks for a specified sample period of 1974–2010. The results show asymmetric correlations among domestic shocks, which do not suggest forming a common currency area across the region. The paper also finds lower factor mobility; lower degree of intra-regional trades, and lack of political cooperation, suggesting the SAARC countries are not yet ready to introduce a common currency.
Energy Consumption, Economic Growth and Financial Development: Exploring the Empirical Linkages for India
Authors: Mahalik Mantu Kumar , Mallick Hrushikesh
Published: May 2014

This study investigates the relationship between energy consumption, economic growth and financial development in India by using the annual data for the period 1971–2009. An application of Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration results suggest that energy consumption is positively and significantly impacted by proportion of urban population in total population, while the same is negatively and significantly impacted by financial development, economic growth and proportion of industrial output in total output. The cointegration results also further suggest that an increase in proportion of urban population adversely influences economic growth, whereas energy use positively influences economic growth. The findings have significant policy implications for the Indian economy as we find energy use positively impacts on economic growth, suggesting that India is harnessing on the effective use of energy. However, it is recommended that India needs to be cautious in the effective use of energy in proper channels.
The Impact of MENA Conflicts (The Arab Spring) on Global Financial Markets
Authors: Mousavi Mohammad Mahdi , Ouenniche Jamal
Published: May 2014

It is believed that financial markets are integrated and sensitive to news – including political conflicts in some regions of the world. Furthermore, financial markets seem to react differently to information flows from one region to another. The purpose of this research is to discern the effects of the recent Middle East and North Africa (MENA) conflicts – commonly referred to as the Arab Spring – on the volatility of risks and returns of global and regional stock markets as well as Gold and Oil markets. To be more specific, we consider the main uprisings in Tunisia , Egypt , Libya and Yemen and their impact on financial markets – as measured by the volatility of their risks and returns. In sum, we cluster 53 stock markets into 6 regions; namely, developed, developing, MENA, Asia, Europe, and Latin America countries, and use T-GARCH to assess the reaction of these regions to each uprising event independently. In addition, we use GARCH-M to assess the reaction of these regions stock markets as well as Gold and Oil markets to the uprisings of MENA as a whole. Our empirical findings suggest that the uprising events of MENA have more impact on the volatility of risks and returns of developed, developing, and Europe regions than MENA itself. In addition, although the results show that the volatility of both risks and returns of both developed and MENA regions are significantly affected by general conflicts in MENA, the volatility of MENA is affected during all intervals and with higher significance level. Furthermore, while MENA uprisings as a whole impact on the volatility of risk of oil (after 5 days) and gold (immediately after entering news) significantly, the returns of these markets are not affected by conflicts.
Political Economy of Suicide: Financial Reforms, Credit Crunches and Farmer Suicides in India
Authors: Sadanandan Anoop
Published: May 2014

Over 250,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since the mid-1990s. Studies – both case studies of states and at the individual-level - attribute these deaths to credit crunches in the agrarian sector and increased debt burden among farmers. Most of the farm suicides have, however, taken place in five of India’s 28 states, suggesting that adverse financial circumstances affected farmers only in some states. Why did mounting debt and credit crunches affect farmers only in some states? This paper offers an answer by relating farm suicides to the financial reforms the country undertook since the 1990s. Using an instrumental variables approach, it shows how increased competition in the banking sector diverted lending away from agriculture to create dire economic conditions that facilitated farm suicides in some Indian states.
The Origin of Bias in Sovereign Credit Ratings: Reconciling Agency Views with Institutional Quality
Authors: Ozturk Huseyin
Published: May 2014

The 2008 financial crisis has served as a catalyst for re-examining the forces of systemic financial crisis, the leading of which was perceived to be the inaccurate credit ratings. Although sovereign credit ratings constitute a small part of the credit rating industry, the impact of unexpected downgrades or upgrades has a huge potential to distort a well-functioning financial system. There appeared plenty of researches in the literature that discussed the inaccuracy of sovereign credit ratings and argued that these measurements are negative biased toward developing countries. By using ordered response models, this paper investigates whether this bias stems partially from cross country variations in the quality of institutions. Measured by six different governance indicators namely “Control of Corruption”, “Voice and Accountability”, “Political Stability and No Violence”, “Government Effectiveness”, “Regulatory Quality”, and “Rule of Law”, institutional quality was found to have positive impact on the rating decisions. Although the simulation of the estimation results revealed that all the governance indicators reduce prediction errors significantly, “Government Effectiveness” and “Regulatory Quality” were predominantly responsible for low sovereign credit ratings.
Interantional Property Rights: The Role of Diversity
Authors: Das Jayoti , DiRienzo Cassandra E.
Published: May 2014

Using the International Index of Property Rights, this study explores the relationship between the quality of country level property rights and three measures of diversity: ethnic, linguistic, and religious. Past studies have assumed a linear relationship between various measures of diversity and economic outcomes, including property rights. The assumption of a linear relationship suggests that the estimated effect of diversity on the outcome will be the same for any change in diversity, regardless of the level diversity within the country. It is argued that the effects of diversity can have diminishing marginal effects on the quality of property rights. By relaxing the assumption of linearity, this analysis contributes to the growing literature on property rights. These relationships are explored using a cross-country data set and the results suggest that ethnic diversity has a diminishing, negative effect on the quality of property rights, while linguistic diversity has a diminishing, positive effect.
Does Government Employment Crowd out Private Sector Employment in SIDS?: The Case of Barbados
Authors: Craigwell Roland , Jackman Mahalia
Published: May 2014

This paper uses a two-step Markov-switching error correction model to determine the impact of government employment on the labour market in Barbados, a small island developing Caribbean state. The results suggest that there is partial crowding out, as public sector hiring reduces private employment but the net impact of unemployment is negative. These findings hint that there may be some merit in a countercyclical employment policy in SIDS. In addition, the results suggest that the tax and debt expense are two channels through which crowding out can occur.
Electricity Consumption, Exports, and Economic Growth in the Democratic Republic of Congo: An ARDL-Bounds Testing Approach
Authors: Odhiambo Nicholas M.
Published: May 2014

In this paper we examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption, exports and economic growth in the DRC, using the newly developed ARDL-bounds testing approach. In order to account for the omission-of-variable bias, the study incorporates exports as an intermittent variable between electricity consumption and economic growth – thereby creating a simple multivariate model. The empirical results of this study show that, while both electricity consumption and economic growth Granger-cause each other in the short run; in the long run, it is economic growth that Granger-causes electricity consumption in the DRC. This finding has important policy implications, as it indicates that the DRC's long-term economic growth is not fully dependent on the electricity consumption. This implies that in the long run, the country could successfully pursue electricity conservation measures – without necessarily stifling its economic growth.
The Welfare Gain from Eliminating Coffee Price Volatility: The Case of Indian Coffee Producers
Authors: Mohan Sushil , Gemech Firdu , Reeves Alan , Struthers John
Published: May 2014

It is commonly felt that the liberalisation of commodity markets has increased the exposure of commodity producers to price volatility. Using a generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity framework, we make a distinction between the predictable and unpredictable components of volatility, the latter exposing producers to price risk. By using empirical estimates of the coefficient of relative risk aversion drawn from the literature, we show that the welfare gain from eliminating this price risk for Indian coffee producers is on average 4.8 percent of their revenue from coffee sales, which for a poor producer may be more than a month’s income. This underlines the need for providing producers access to suitable price-risk management or hedging mechanisms.