Actually existing Silk Roads

This article explores the relevance of the concept of Silk Road for understandings patterns of trade and exchange between China, Eurasia and the Middle East. It is based on ethnographic fieldwork in the city of Yiwu, in China’s Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is a node in the global distribution of Chinese ‘small commodities’ and home to merchants and traders from across Asia and beyond. The article explores the role played by traders from Afghanistan in connecting the city of Yiwu to markets and trading posts in the world beyond. It seeks to bring attention to the diverse types of networks involved in such forms of trade, as well as their emergence and development over the past thirty years

LHC constraints on a B − L gauge model using Contur

The large and growing library of measurements from the Large Hadron Collider has significant power to constrain extensions of the Standard Model. We consider such constraints on a well-motivated model involving a gauged and spontaneously-broken B − L symmetry, within the Contur framework. The model contains an extra Higgs boson, a gauge boson, and right-handed neutrinos with Majorana masses. This new particle content implies a varied phenomenology highly dependent on the parameters of the model, very well-suited to a general study of this kind. We find that existing LHC measurements significantly constrain the model in interesting regions of parameter space. Other regions remain open, some of which are within reach of future LHC data

Food and welfare in India, c. 1900–1950

In 2001, the People's Union for Civil Liberties submitted a writ petition to the Supreme Court of India on the “right to food.” The petitioner was a voluntary human rights organization; the initial respondents were the Government of India, the Food Corporation of India, and six state governments. The petition opens with three pointed questions posed to the court: * A. Does the right to life mean that people who are starving and who are too poor to buy food grains ought to be given food grains free of cost by the State from the surplus stock lying with the State, particularly when it is reported that a large part of it is lying unused and rotting? * B. Does not the right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution of India include the right to food? * C. Does not the right to food, which has been upheld by the Honourable Court, imply that the state has a duty to provide food especially in situations of drought, to people who are drought affected and are not in a position to purchase food

Association of HDL cholesterol efflux capacity with incident coronary heart disease events: a prospective case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Although HDL cholesterol concentrations are strongly and inversely associated with risk of coronary heart disease, interventions that raise HDL cholesterol do not reduce risk of coronary heart disease. HDL cholesterol efflux capacity-a prototypical measure of HDL function-has been associated with coronary heart disease after adjusting for HDL cholesterol, but its effect on incident coronary heart disease risk is uncertain. METHODS: We measured cholesterol efflux capacity and assessed its relation with vascular risk factors and incident coronary heart disease events in a nested case-control sample from the prospective EPIC-Norfolk study of 25 639 individuals aged 40-79 years, assessed in 1993-97 and followed up to 2009. We quantified cholesterol efflux capacity in 1745 patients with incident coronary heart disease and 1749 control participants free of any cardiovascular disorders by use of a validated ex-vivo radiotracer assay that involved incubation of cholesterol-labelled J774 macrophages with apoB-depleted serum from study participants. FINDINGS: Cholesterol efflux capacity was positively correlated with HDL cholesterol concentration (r=0·40; p<0·0001) and apoA-I concentration (r=0·22; p<0·0001). It was also inversely correlated with type 2 diabetes (r=-0·18; p<0·0001) and positively correlated with alcohol consumption (r=0·12; p<0·0001). In analyses comparing the top and bottom tertiles, cholesterol efflux capacity was significantly and inversely associated with incident coronary heart disease events, independent of age, sex, diabetes, hypertension, smoking and alcohol use, waist:hip ratio, BMI, LDL cholesterol concentration, log-triglycerides, and HDL cholesterol or apoA-I concentrations (odds ratio 0·64, 95% CI 0·51-0·80). After a similar multivariable adjustment the risk of incident coronary heart disease was 0·80 (95% CI 0·70-0·90) for a per-SD change in cholesterol efflux capacity. INTERPRETATION: HDL cholesterol efflux capacity might provide an alternative mechanism for therapeutic modulation of the HDL pathway beyond HDL cholesterol concentration to help reduce risk of coronary heart disease. FUNDING: US National Institutes of Health, UK Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK

General practitioners' perceptions on home medicines reviews: A qualitative analysis

Background: Home Medicines Review (HMR) is an Australian initiative introduced in 2001 to improve quality use of medicines. Medication management services such as HMRs have the potential to reduce medication related problems. In 2011, changes to the HMR program were introduced to allow for referrals directly to accredited pharmacists in addition to the community pharmacy referral model. These changes were introduced to improve efficiency of the process. This study explored the perceptions of Western Australian general practitioners (GPs) on benefits and barriers of the HMR service and process, including their insights into the direct referral model. Methods: Purposive sampling of GPs who had experience ensured that participants had a working knowledge of the HMR service. Semi structured interviews with 24 GPs from 14 metropolitan Western Australian medical centres between March and May 2013. Transcribing and thematic analysis of data were performed. Results: Most GPs had positive attitudes towards the HMR service. Main perceived benefits of the service were poly-pharmacy reduction and education for both the GP and patient. Strategies identified to improve the service were introduction of a standard HMR report template for pharmacists and better use of technology. Whilst reliability and GPs' familiarity were the main perceived benefits of the direct referral model, a number of GPs agreed that patient unfamiliarity with the HMR pharmacist was a barrier. Conclusions: Despite recognition of the value of the HMR service participating GPs were of the opinion that there are aspects of the HMR service that could be improved. As one of the success factors of HMRs is relying on GPs to utilise this service, this study provides valuable insight into issues that need to be addressed to improve HMR uptake

Crossing Eurasia: trans-regional Afghan trading networks in China and beyond

An expanding body of literature in the field of Central Asian studies has brought attention to the problems of considering the region's complex dynamics through the lens of its nation-states. Comparatively less attention has been paid to the role played by trans-regional circulations in connecting parts of Central Asia to the wider world. This paper situates ethnographic work on trans-regional networks of Afghan traders in China, Central Asia, Russia, Ukraine and the UK in relation to the literature on trans-regional connections and circulation societies. Ethnographically it demonstrates the multi-polar nature of these trans-regional networks, and the importance of trading nodes, especially the Chinese city of Yiwu, to their formation and ongoing vitality

Eurasian globalization: past and present

© 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. In an attempt to examine Eurasian globalization historically, this paper outlines three phases of globalization starting from 200 BCE to 1492 CE as Phase 1 and 1500 CE to 1999 CE as Phase 2 and from 2000 CE Phase 3. By historicizing the concept and the process of globalization, the paper attempts to provide a more global rather than a Europe-centred history of globalization and modernization. The paper builds on the idea of Eurasia and offers a new perspective of Eurasian globalization by pivoting on China\u27s role in both Phase 1 and Phase 3 of globalization. The paper uses historical literature that has been not only critical of the Eurocentric view of the world but also provides a more connected view of global history. Concurring with Steger and James [2019. Globalization matters. Cambridge University Press] that globalization has not outlived its utility, the paper seeks to historicize and globalize the discussion of globalization