Trade Imbalances and Multilateral Trade Cooperation

Rising current account and merchandise trade imbalances marked the years before the global financial and economic crisis. These imbalances either contributed to or precipitated the crisis and to the extent that they create systemic risks, it is desirable that they be reduced. There are many factors related to macroeconomic, structural, exchange rate and financial policies that contributed to the imbalances. The inability to manage these issues at the international level reflects the coherence gap in global governance. This paper examines the contribution that the WTO can make in its three areas of activities - negotiations, rule-making and dispute settlement - to deal with trade imbalances and with the main factors leading to them, including exchange rate misalignments. First, market opening efforts in services, including in the area of financial services, can reduce policy-related distortions and market imperfections in surplus countries that lead to the build-up of unsustainable imbalances. Second, in the context of a broad international effort to coordinate macroeconomic, exchange rate and structural policies to deal with the roots of imbalances (the first-best solution), there is a general efficiency argument that could be made for the use of WTO-triggered trade actions to enforce cooperative behaviour towards rebalancing. Absent this first-best response, trade rules alone would not provide an efficient instrument to compensate for the weaknesses in international co-operation in macroeconomic, exchange rate and structural policies

Minimal Change Disease and IgA Deposition: Separate Entities or Common Pathophysiology?

Introduction. Minimal Change Disease (MCD) is the most common cause of nephrotic syndrome in children, while IgA nephropathy is the most common cause of glomerulonephritis worldwide. MCD is responsive to glucocorticoids, while the role of steroids in IgA nephropathy remains unclear. We describe a case of two distinct clinical and pathological findings, raising the question of whether MCD and IgA nephropathy are separate entities or if there is a common pathophysiology. Case Report. A 19-year old man with no medical history presented to the Emergency Department with a 20-day history of anasarca and frothy urine, BUN 68 mg/dL, Cr 2.3 mg/dL, urinalysis 3+ RBCs, 3+ protein, and urine protein : creatinine ratio 6.4. Renal biopsy revealed hypertrophic podocytes on light microscopy, podocyte foot process effacement on electron microscopy, and immunofluorescent mesangial staining for IgA. The patient was started on prednisone and exhibited dramatic improvement. Discussion. MCD typically has an overwhelming improvement with glucocorticoids, while the resolution of IgA nephropathy is rare. Our patient presented with MCD with the uncharacteristic finding of hematuria. Given the improvement with glucocorticoids, we raise the question of whether there is a shared pathophysiologic component of these two distinct clinical diseases that represents a clinical variant

UTILIZING A COMPUTER MOUSE FOR DIAGNOSIS AND PATIENT EDUCATION IN GNATHOLOGY- A CASE REPORT

A personal computer that utilizes optical mouse could be an effective tool in the study of mandibular movements and effective patient education. Dynamic mandibular movements have been traditionally studied using Gothic arch extra oral or intra oral tracers. However, certain drawbacks of the tracings produced by these methods could be overcome with present day optical mouse. This article describes an innovativeoptical mouse modified Gothic arch tracer which scribes the mandibular movement on the display of a computer laptop. Method of modification has also been described along with detailed discussion of its us