Linking Indigenous Social Capital to a Global Economy

Although the concept of social capital is intuitively appealing, policy-makers and scholars have been frustrated by difficulties in finding practical ways to build social capital where it is either weak or absent. Of particular concern in development work has been the difficulty of building bridging forms of social capital to more effectively integrate isolated groups into a global economy. A main source of resistance, in this regard, is the apparent unwillingness of groups with highly dense social networks to invest some of their resources in building less dense but more extensive ties that will connect them to more distant markets, resources, and information. This concern is central to the larger issue of reducing economic inequalities between groups that are based on differential access to social capital, such as the entrepreneurial advantages of one ethnic or religious group vis-à-vis another. In the long run, a solution to this problem will reduce inter-group tensions where two groups with different levels of social capital occupy the same space. The thesis of this paper is that the main obstacle to solving the aforementioned problem is the failure to distinguish between the "structural properties" of effective bridging social networks and the "paths" through which individual groups create bridging networks. The starting point of the paper is the assumption that the structural properties of effective bridging networks can be defined quite easily. The work of Mancur Olson has been most useful in this regard. However, the identification of different paths through which the same structural network properties may be created has received much less attention in the literature. In fact, the notion of "path dependencies" has oftentimes resulted in a view that different paths must mean different structural network property outcomes. This limited view of paths to effective social capital neglects the real concerns and potentially serious costs of destroying "bonding" social capital in the process of building bridging ties. The psychological and spiritual damage to Native Americans through the boarding school programs in the 19th and early 20th centuries is an illustration of this danger. Thus, the task for researchers is to identify specific paths through which indigenous social capital may be connected to bridging ties without creating costs to essential bonding tie relationships. Empirical research examples from thirty years of the author's study of collective action in communities in a variety of settings is used to illustrate how different paths can achieve the same outcomes with respect to building bridging ties for isolated communities. This includes: urban neighborhood organization, Japanese American ethnic communities, rural Midwestern American rural community leaders' networks. Village communities in post-Soviet Russia, Tribal Colleges on Native American reservations and Nationalist and Republican communities in Northern Ireland.

Surface Free Energies, Interfacial Tensions and Correlation Lengths of the ABF Models

The surface free energies, interfacial tensions and correlation lengths of the Andrews-Baxter-Forrester models in regimes III and IV are calculated with fixed boundary conditions. The interfacial tensions are calculated between arbitrary phases and are shown to be additive. The associated critical exponents are given by $2-\alpha_s=\mu=\nu$ with $\nu=(L+1)/4$ in regime III and $4-2\alpha_s=\mu=\nu$ with $\nu=(L+1)/2$ in regime IV. Our results are obtained using general commuting transfer matrix and inversion relation methods that may be applied to other solvable lattice models.Comment: 21 pages, LaTeX 2e, requires the amsmath packag

Economic Impacts of the 2008 Floods in Iowa

Measuring the economic consequences of the 2008 Iowa floods requires careful consideration of what exactly is to be counted as an economic outcome. Property losses and damaged infrastructure mark reductions in overall private and public assets. Ruined or slowed businesses result in constrained productivity. Workers get laid off and household incomes decline. Alternatively, natural disasters require a tremendous amount of recovery spending which stimulates economic activity. This brief report looks at the scope of economic consequences and describes the kinds of economic impacts that might be anticipated in Iowa.

Interaction-Round-a-Face Models with Fixed Boundary Conditions: The ABF Fusion Hierarchy

We use boundary weights and reflection equations to obtain families of commuting double-row transfer matrices for interaction-round-a-face models with fixed boundary conditions. In particular, we consider the fusion hierarchy of the Andrews-Baxter-Forrester models, for which we find that the double-row transfer matrices satisfy functional equations with an su(2) structure.Comment: 48 pages, LaTeX, requires about 79000 words of TeX memory. Submitted to J. Stat. Phy

A critical structured review of economic evaluations of interventions for the prevention and treatment of osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a major cause of morbidity, mortality and resource cost amongst the elderly population. Hip fracture is the most serious of the osteoporotic fractures, with approximately 10-20% of patients dying within six months of sustaining a fracture. Furthermore, hip fractures are the most expensive manifestation of osteoporosis, incurring about 87% of the total costs of osteoporotic fractures. This public health and economic burden is likely to increase in developed nations due, in part, to ageing populations. In addition, there is strong evidence that the age-specific incidence of fracture is rising. There are a number of treatments which can be used to prevent fracture including hormone replacement therapy (HRT), bisphosphonates, vitamin D and calcium. These interventions have been used for primary prevention, secondary prevention and the treatment of established osteoporosis. This Discussion Paper details the results of a structured review, the purpose of which was to identify and critically appraise economic evaluations relating to interventions for osteoporosis. The focus of the work is a critical assessment of the methodology of those studies. A total of 16 economic evaluations was identified on the basis of a computerised search of three bibliographic databases. All studies were based on decision analytical models and all took the form of cost-effectiveness analysis. Seven studies were from the US and four from the UK. The majority of studies focused on either primary prevention alone (seven) or both primary and secondary prevention where high-risk women were identified on the basis of bone mineral density screening (seven). Most studies considered the cost-effectiveness of HRT. Most of the published studies conclude that treatment using HRT is relatively cost-effective among symptomatic women or women who have had a prior hysterectomy. In contrast, for asymptomatic women, the results are more equivocal. The most recent cost-effectiveness analysis was undertaken by the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) which makes the explicit assumption that HRT is the treatment of choice. For women unwilling or unable to take HRT, the next recommended treatment was alendronate; should alendronate not be tolerated, calcitonin was recommended. Many of the models included in the review exhibit methodological weaknesses which suggest heir results should be treated with some caution. One of these concerns the dearth of formally elicited health state preference data from patients or members of the public: only two studies in the review derive preferences empirically rather than use the authors’ judgement. A second limitation of many studies is the inappropriate application of costeffectiveness decision rules with the frequent use of average cost-effectiveness ratios. Areas of methodological controversy, such as whether or not to include costs unrelated to osteoporosis in life-years added as a result of treatment, increase uncertainty regarding how to interpret the results of the studies.osteoporosis, HRT

Evaluation of on-farm labour saving strategies for optimisation of herd size that could be managed by one operator

End of project reportAlternative milking frequencies Once a day (OAD) milking throughout lactation of a herd (over 2 years, incorporating 24% heifers) resulted in loss in milk solids (MS) production of 17% per cow. Milking cows OAD in their 1st lactation does not adversely impact on milk production in the second lactation, when changed to twice a day (TAD) milking but may lead to a higher mastitis incidence. Changeover in milking frequency in mid lactation resulted in a similar yield of MS per cow for TAD milking for the full lactation (474 kg) and the TAD OAD group (TAD for the first 110 days and OAD for the remainder of the lactation) (469 kg). Thirteen times weekly milking in late lactation (omitting the Sunday evening milking) compared to twice daily milking every day had no effect on milk yield or composition and maximum SCC observed during the trial was 270x103 cells/ml. Once daily milking did not adversely affect the processability of milk. Once daily milking did not significantly increase milk SCC levels. Alternative calf rearing systems The improved efficiency increased herd size may be due to less use of buckets for calf feeding together with more frequent use of teat feeding from a container, automatic feeders and ad libitum feeding A study on OAD calf feeding (whole milk) demonstrated that calves can be reared with a OAD milk feeding system and weaned early (42 days) without adversely affecting performance There was no difference in the live-weight gain of calves on once daily feeding, twice daily feeding or once daily feeding going outdoors after 28 days Calf liveweight gain was greater with once daily feeding with milk replacer compared to once daily feeding with whole milk or once daily feeding with milk replacer going outdoors after 28 days Economic analysis of alternative milking systems When deciding on the type, size and level of technology in the milking parlour, the trade-off between labour requirement and cost and the initial capital investment requirement should be key in making the decision

Medicine and Economics: Accounting for the full benefits of childhood vaccination in South Africa

While remarkable gains in health have been achieved since the mid-20th century, these have been unequally distributed, and mortality and morbidity burdens in some regions remain enormous. Of the almost 10 million children under 5 years of age who died in 2006, only 100 000 died in industrialised countries, while 4.8 million died in sub-Saharan Africa.1 In deciding whether to finance an intervention, policy makers commonly weigh the expected population health gains against its costs. Most vaccinations included in national immunisation schedules are inexpensive2 and health gains to costs are very favourable compared with other health interventions. Newer vaccinations, such as those with pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV) or rotavirus vaccine, are also effective in averting child mortality and morbidity but are expensive relative to those commonly included in national immunisation schedules. Policy makers may therefore decide that – at current prices – the comparison of health gains with costs does not justify the free public provision of these vaccinations. The authors of this paper argue that in addition to the health benefits of vaccinations, their effects on education and income3 and benefits for unvaccinated community members are considerable and should be included in calculations to establish their value.Disease, control, global health, vaccination, HIV/AIDS, Africa.