Terrorism Risk Insurance: Is it really working?

This paper investigates terrorism risk insurance in the United States as well as those programs offered in other countries throughout the world. In the United States, particular attention is devoted to the interaction of government with private insurers to maintain an effective insurance program. An analysis is performed comparing terrorism insurance before and after the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The paper looks into actual terrorist events that have occurred focusing on 56 world-wide events that are associated with property losses greater than $10 million. This paper not only investigates the losses that were incurred but also the way the event was insured, and how the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) program could help the insurer in the event of catastrophic loss. Based on the 56 major events, a simulation is run in order to examine the losses and timing of potential future catastrophic events. Both property losses and the timing between events are simulated based on various distributions. For a variety of simulated events, the paper investigates how TRIA would pay out losses for the event as well as the effects that the event would have on the insurance industry. Rather than looking at the industry as a whole, particular attention will also be given to some of the top insurers for terrorism coverage. Using the findings from the data, the paper finally proposes changes to TRIA in order to create a better system of reinsurance for events with large losses

Pharmaceutical Industry\u27s Effect on Socioeconomic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa in Relation to Family Planning Accessibility

There is a large unmet need for family planning services in sub-Saharan Africa (Goodkind et al, 2018). Pharmaceutical companies contribute to the accessibility of medications in developing countries (Cottingham & Berer, 2011). If the pharmaceutical industry strongly affects access to contraceptives in sub-Saharan Africa, then it is possible that adjustments made to the industry would increase access to contraceptives. I explored how contraceptives change the economic and social development of subSaharan Africa to determine if contraception benefits Africans enough for their shortage to be a serious injustice. This is followed by how the pharmaceutical industry affects access to and types of birth control available in the area. The potential solution of instilling more non-profit medical institutions to increase contraceptive availability is also probed. It was concluded that access to reproductive health services in sub-Saharan Africa should be available due to their overwhelmingly positive economic and social benefits. However, the for-profit pharmaceutical industry creates obstacles for universal access, such as intellectual property rights and a profit-motivated model (Cottingham & Berer, 2011). Though a nonprofit pharmaceutical system and alternative medications may increase availability of reproductive health services, more research should be conducted as to how a more socialized form of medicine would increase universal access to contraceptives

Between fallacy and feasibility? Dealing with the risk of ecological fallacies in the quantitative study of protest mobilization and conflict

In recent years, the quantitative study of conflict has increasingly focused on small-scale and/or localized conflicts in the developing world. In this paper, we analyze and critically reflect upon a major methodological shortcoming of many studies in this field of research. We argue that by using group- or macro-level empirical data and modelling techniques, while at the same time theoretically underpinning observed empirical associations with individual-level mechanisms, many of these studies risk committing an ecological fallacy. The individual-level mechanism on which many studies rely concerns the presence of grievances which mobilize people to participate in contentious politics. This motivational approach was also present in early studies on protest mobilization in Western societies, which often relied on similar research designs. However, subsequent advances in this literature and the use of methods that were targeted more directly at the individual level uncovered that grievances alone cannot explain mobilization and that organizational capabilities and complex psychological mechanisms of belonging also form part of the puzzle. While drawing on conflict events as well as survey data from Africa, we demonstrate empirically that here, as well, inferring micro-level relations and dynamics from macro-level empirical models can lead to erroneous interpretations and inferences. Hence, we argue that to improve our understanding of conflict mobilization in the developing world, especially for conflicts with low levels of violence, it is necessary to substantially expand our methodological toolbox beyond macro-level analyses

Objectivity: its meaning, its limitations, its fateful omissions

In this text, we explore the guiding thread of the volume "Objectivity after Kant" by first discussing how the main question pertaining to transcendental objectivity arose at the Centre for Critical Philosophy. This exposition takes the form of a microhistorical genealogy, from which the main ideas pursued in the research conducted at this Centre can be distilled. In the second part, we briefly sketch how the different contributors have addressed this question. Its purpose is to facilitate the reader’s navigation through the variety of topics and perspectives addressed throughout this volume, and incite further reflection on the central issue it pursues

Risk Distance: The Loss of Strength Gradient and Colombia's Geography of Impunity

The dissertation proposes a theoretical category of distance, risk distance, as a prompt for understanding outcomes in internal armed struggles. Geographers are familiar with cost distance -- conceiving distance according to the time or material resources needed to move people and things. Risk distance is closer conceptually to what strategists might recognize as the distance to the `culminating point', which is a theoretical point in space and time beyond which an armed force would run an imprudent risk to its survival (if it were to continue to pursue, attack, or remain in the same position, etc.). Combat leaders seek to lengthen the distances to their culminating points and shorten those of their opponents. Cost and risk distances are generally related inversely: risk distances can shorten as cost distances increase. In Colombia's internal conflict, a variety of geographic phenomena (rugged upslopes, international borders, urban slums, jungles) share effect on risk distance -- favoring a fugitive entity by disproportionately shortening the risk distances of its pursuers. Risk distance also applies to civilian activity. If the Euclidean distance from a rural community to a hospital maternity ward were 70 kilometers, the cost distance might be six hours and four thousand pesos. The rough ride or danger of attack along the way could lead expecting parents to perceive the risk distance as only thirty kilometers down the road or two hours of travel time. The distance to the feared point of too much risk makes their attempt to go to that hospital untenable. In Colombia, violent armed groups escape to areas beyond their rivals' reach, seeking routes (typically long-established smuggling routes) that help shorten the pursuers' risk distances. These routes and sanctuaries, created within armed rivalry, are often spatially coincident with rural population centers that also appear remote, that is, beyond many quotidian risk distances. This spatial coincidence (of conditions involving certain prosaic and violent rivalry risk distances) contributes to causing some rural communities to fall victim to or collaborate in organized violence; but the differential in rivals' risk distances is by itself more significant to the prolongation or outcome of internal conflict

How do ecological restoration treatments affect understory plant communities in dry conifer forests of the Colorado Front Range?

Includes bibliographical references.2022 Fall.Ecological restoration efforts are progressing in dry conifer forests across the western United States to increase resilience to fire and other disturbances. While such treatments primarily aim to create overstory change, impacts beyond the canopy should also be considered – such as effects on understory plants. Several studies have investigated outcomes of ecological restoration thinning treatments for understory plants, but few of these have examined effects across a landscape and at a time interval long enough for plants to potentially adjust to the disturbance. Additionally, none have investigated how specific aspects of treatment and local climate might interact to modify understory responses. In this study, we investigated the effects of ecological restoration thinning treatments on understory plant communities in dry conifer forests of the Colorado Front Range using a Before/After/Control/Impact study design. We collected data at 1-2 years pre-treatment, 1-2 years post-treatment, and 4-6 years post-treatment in 156 plots distributed across 8 sites, encompassing 15 treatment units and 15 nearby untreated areas. We found 1.6 times higher native understory plant cover and 1.1 times higher richness in treated compared untreated plots at 4-6 years after treatment. Heightened cover and richness values in treated plots were not driven by a single native plant functional group, but by a large portion of the community. Short- and long-lived, forb and graminoid, and vegetatively spreading and non-vegetatively spreading native plants all grew in cover. Both lifespans, forb, and non-vegetatively spreading native plants had heightened richness. Introduced plants showed 2.3 times higher cover and 3.9 times higher richness in treated plots compared to untreated, but were still present at very low levels. Greater native plant cover and richness were associated with lower basal areas that more closely resemble historical norms for the landscape. Thirty year average climatic water deficit (CWD) was not as strong of a predictor of native cover or richness as was a short-term relative measure, final spring CWD z-score, which describes how different the spring climatic conditions of the sampling year were from average conditions. Overall, the broad longer-term benefits to the native understory plant community that were found for numerous sites across the Colorado Front Range suggest that these results may generalizable to elsewhere on this and similar landscapes

ECGRL Unveils Valuable Local Resource for African Americans

The article reports on the creation of an African American Funeral Program collection of resources by Dottie Demarest, a librarian and a genealogy and local history specialist at the East Central Georgia Regional Library (ECGRL) inspired by the donation from the funeral programs of African American Eula Mae Ramsey Johnson. The collection provides information on the lives of the deceased. About 1,2000 funeral programs now consist the collection following digitization of the programs through the help of Georgia HomePlace

Are Nigerian lawmakers incentivised to direct public resources to their voters?

Political parties in Africa are known to forge clientelist rather than programmatic ties to voters, but this does not necessarily mean that parties reward strong ties with local constituents. Research in Nigeria suggests that lawmakers seeking to advance their political careers are incentivised to direct public resources to senior party elites, starving needed development funds in favour of advancing private interests