Disrupting disempowerment: feminism, co-optation, and the privatised governance of gender and development

Longstanding debates about the relationship between neoliberalism and feminism have been given new vigour by the somewhat surprising emergence of an 'unabashed feminism' espoused by elite women in political, economic, and cultural institutions of the global North. Women and girls are now highly visible subjects of global development governance, but also 'poster girls' for a variety of neoliberal reforms: Has feminism been coopted by neoliberalism? Reviewing the strengths and weaknesses of feminist accounts of neoliberal co-optation, this article suggests a path beyond the co-optation debate: Why does neoliberalism evince concern for gender inequality as a form of inequality if it is broadly concerned with individual subjects? Empirically, the article applies this conceptual debate to Bottom of the Pyramid development initiatives, focused on the Girl Effect Accelerator. It argues that neoliberalism appropriates dimensions of feminism insofar as it represents gender inequality as a site of accumulation and mechanism for legitimising the increased power accorded to the private sector in development governance

Improved bounds for the number of forests and acyclic orientations in the square lattice

In a recent paper Merino and Welsh (1999) studied several counting problems on the square lattice $L_n$. The authors gave the following bounds for the asymptotics of $f(n)$, the number of forests of $L_n$, and $\alpha(n)$, the number of acyclic orientations of $L_n$: $3.209912 \leq \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} f(n)^{1/n^2} \leq 3.84161$ and $22/7 \leq \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \alpha(n) \leq 3.70925$. In this paper we improve these bounds as follows: $3.64497 \leq \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} f(n)^{1/n^2} \leq 3.74101$ and $3.41358 \leq \lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \alpha(n) \leq 3.55449$. We obtain this by developing a method for computing the Tutte polynomial of the square lattice and other related graphs based on transfer matrices

Woodfordian Glacial History of the Champlain Lowland, Burlington to Brandon, Vermont

Guidebook for field trips in Vermont: 64th annual meeting October 13, 14, 15, 1972 Burlington, Vermont: Trip G-

Transnational Abortion Pill Flows and the Political Geography of Abortion in Ireland

The growing availability of abortion pills has transformed the safety and accessibility of abortion worldwide, especially in countries with very restrictive abortion laws. The public health implications of this abortion technology have been widely recognized, but its political and geographical impacts require closer attention. This article examines the geography of illegal abortion pills in Republic of Ireland, where abortion pills became widely accessible through transnational activist networks, despite a constitutional abortion ban. The article contributes Political Geography and International Relations conversations about materiality and sovereignty by mapping the flows of abortion pills into Ireland and discussing the varied ways that the institutions of the state conceptualized and responded to these flows. It argues that the state’s response to the influx of illegal abortion pills was predominantly shaped by its understanding of their territorial significance: the state sought to intercept pills at the border and discourage their use at home while advocating abortion travel abroad, eventually legislating for abortion reform that would offer tightly controlled access authorized by doctors. This article advances the research agendas in reproductive and abortion geographies by bringing them into conversation with broader debates on territory and politics

Examining heterogeneity and wildfire management expenditures using spatially and temporally descriptive data

Increasing costs of wildfire management have highlighted the need to better understand suppression expenditures and potential tradeoffs of land management activities that may affect fire risks. Spatially and temporally descriptive data is used to develop a model of wildfire suppression expenditures, providing new insights into the role of spatial and temporal heterogeneity in determining expenditures. Incorporating heterogeneity improves model fit and predictive ability over a model with data based on the point and time of fire ignition. The model is potentially useful for providing expenditure information for simulated fire applications and post-season evaluation of suppression activities

The watchdogs of 'Washminster' – parliamentary scrutiny of executive patronage in the UK

The role of legislatures in scrutinising executive patronage has received scant attention in the context of parliamentary democracy. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on the parliamentary scrutiny of public appointments in the UK. Presenting the results of an extensive programme of research, it reveals how select committees have accrued increasing powers to challenge ministerial appointments, and how this has resulted in a series of unintended consequences that raise critical concerns regarding the overall added-value of pre-appointment scrutiny. The article is therefore of comparative significance for theories of legislative scrutiny in particular and executive–legislature dynamics more broadly

MiR-155 has a protective role in the development of non-alcoholic hepatosteatosis in mice

Hepatic steatosis is a global epidemic that is thought to contribute to the pathogenesis of type 2 diabetes. MicroRNAs (miRs) are regulators that can functionally integrate a range of metabolic and inflammatory pathways in liver. We aimed to investigate the functional role of miR-155 in hepatic steatosis. Male C57BL/6 wild-type (WT) and miR-155−/− mice were fed either normal chow or high fat diet (HFD) for 6 months then lipid levels, metabolic and inflammatory parameters were assessed in livers and serum of the mice. Mice lacking endogenous miR-155 that were fed HFD for 6 months developed increased hepatic steatosis compared to WT controls. This was associated with increased liver weight and serum VLDL/LDL cholesterol and alanine transaminase (ALT) levels, as well as increased hepatic expression of genes involved in glucose regulation (Pck1, Cebpa), fatty acid uptake (Cd36) and lipid metabolism (Fasn, Fabp4, Lpl, Abcd2, Pla2g7). Using miRNA target prediction algorithms and the microarray transcriptomic profile of miR-155−/− livers, we identified and validated that Nr1h3 (LXRα) as a direct miR-155 target gene that is potentially responsible for the liver phenotype of miR-155−/− mice. Together these data indicate that miR-155 plays a pivotal role regulating lipid metabolism in liver and that its deregulation may lead to hepatic steatosis in patients with diabetes