A Need for Caution in Applying the Volume-Based Special Safeguard Mechanism

The proximate cause of the collapse of the Doha Agenda negotiations in 2008 was disagreement over the volume-based Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). This measure would provide a right, but not an obligation, for developing countries to impose a duty when imports increase. While many simulations of its impact on domestic prices are available, there appear to be no analyses of its potential impacts on the welfare of poor households. Whether such a safeguard will increase or reduce poverty can only be determined empirically—if there are enough small, poor farmers who are net sellers of the commodity when the duty is imposed, then imposition of a safeguard duty may reduce poverty. If, by contrast, most small, poor farmers are net buyers of the products subject to the duty, then it is likely that poverty will rise. Empirical analysis for twenty-eight countries finds that poverty is generally increased following the imposition of a safeguard-type measure. The adverse poverty impact of the safeguard-induced increase in prices is typically larger when the safeguard can be triggered, because the adverse output shocks typically giving rise to import surges when import prices have not declined reduce the benefit to poor producing households from higher prices.International Relations/Trade,

Promoting global agricultural growth and poverty reduction

Constraints on resources, growth in demand, and a slowdown in agricultural productivity raise concerns that food prices may rise substantially over the next decades. The impacts of such higher prices on the poor and the required mitigating policy responses to this problem remain unclear. This paper uses a global general equilibrium model, projections of global growth and microeconomic household models, to project potential implications for incomes, food production and poverty. We find that higher agricultural productivity would generally lower poverty, with different impacts depending where the productivity growth occurs, while protection policies that reduce imports would generally raise poverty.poverty, growth, projections, Agricultural and Food Policy, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Implications of the growth of China and India for the other Asian giant : Russia

Continuing rapid growth of China and India can be expected to raise incomes in Russia, but also to put adjustment pressure on Russian firms. The impacts of the rapid growth of China and India on the Russian economy are explored by examining a baseline projection using a global general equilibrium model, and then assessing the implications of higher-than-expected growth in China and India. The authors find that a major source of benefits to Russia is likely to be terms-of-trade improvements associated with higher energy prices - a quite different channel of effect from that for many developing countries that benefit primarily through expanded opportunities to trade directly with these emerging giants. Taking into account the likely improvements in the quality and variety of exports from China and India, the gains to Russia increase substantially. The expansion of the energy sector and the contraction of manufacturing and services are a sign of a Dutch disease effect that will increase the importance of policies to encourage adaptation to the changing world environment.Economic Theory&Research,Emerging Markets,Markets and Market Access,Trade Policy,Free Trade

Estimating the short-run poverty impacts of the 2010-11 surge in food prices

Global food prices have increased substantially since mid-2010, as have prices in many developing countries. In this study we assess the poverty impact of the price changes between June and December 2010 in twenty-eight low and middle income countries. This is done by gathering detailed information on individual households'food production and consumption levels for thirty-eight agricultural and food commodities to assess the impacts on household welfare. This study estimates that this sudden food price surge increased the number of poor people globally, but with considerably different impacts in different countries. The heterogeneity of these impacts is partly related to the wide variation in the transmission of global prices to local prices and partly to differences in households'patterns of production and consumption. On balance, the adverse welfare impact on net buyers outweighs the benefits to net sellers resulting in an increase in the number of poor and in the depth of poverty. We estimate that the average poverty change was 1.1 percentage points in low income countries and 0.7 percentage points in middle income countries with a net increase of 44 million people falling below the $1.25 per day extreme poverty line.Food&Beverage Industry,Rural Poverty Reduction,Markets and Market Access,Regional Economic Development

Developing a Theoretical Framework for Response: Creative Writing as Response in the Year 6 Primary Classroom

Focusing on the creative writing of Year 6 boys as they make the transition to Year 7, this article establishes a theoretical model for creative writing as response. In line with Bakhtin’s notion of utterances as ‘interpersonal’ (1986), the model demonstrates the complexity of creative writing – the text is influencing of and influenced by an author’s participation in ‘figured worlds’ (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner and Cain 1998), but also influencing of and influenced by future respondents. This article suggests that ‘weaker framing’ (Bernstein 2000) in creative writing pedagogy has the potential to alter boys’ identities and refigure their worlds

CONSCIENTIZAÇÃO CRÍTICA DA LINGUAGEM

The authors assume that the development of a critical awareness of the world ought to be the main objective of all education, including language education. Language awareness programmes ought therefore to help children develop not only operational and descriptive knowledge of the linguistic practices of their world, but also a critical awareness of how these practices are shaped by, and shape, social relationships and relationships of power. In the first part of a two-part paper, the authors show that many existing language awareness proposals and materials are not ‘critical’ in this sense. On the contrary, with a few exceptions, they present the naturalised domain of linguistic practices as a natural domain, a given and common sense reality with social origins which are out of sight. This is true for bilingual, dialectal and diatypic variation. Most current approaches to language awareness present the domain of linguistic practices as a pluralistically harmonious domain; no attention is given to ideological differences or ideological struggles in language, and, in fact, the nexus of language-power-ideology is ignored. Despite their admirable attempts to heighten cross-cultural undertanding and harmony, they appear to underscore the legitimacy of the already legitimated set of existing linguistic practices, and therefore indirectly of the existing power relations which underpin these practices. In the second part of the paper, they briefly explore the notion of Critical Language Analysis (or Critical Linguistics in a generic sense), and indicate how this approach might contribute to more critical Language Awareness programmes. The authors also argue that the diverse objectives which are usually given for Language Awareness programmes appear to be given particular desocialising weightings in actual materials, and suggest a way of articulating the various objectives that might be in agreement with a critical perspective. They end with an example of how Critical Language Awareness can be incorporated into a family history writing project

CONSCIENTIZAÇÃO CRÍTICA DA LINGUAGEM

The authors assume that the development of a critical awareness of the world ought to be the main objective of all education, including language education. Language awareness programmes ought therefore to help children develop not only operational and descriptive knowledge of the linguistic practices of their world, but also a critical awareness of how these practices are shaped by, and shape, social relationships and relationships of power. In the first part of a two-part paper, the authors show that many existing language awareness proposals and materials are not ‘critical’ in this sense. On the contrary, with a few exceptions, they present the naturalised domain of linguistic practices as a natural domain, a given and common sense reality with social origins which are out of sight. This is true for bilingual, dialectal and diatypic variation. Most current approaches to language awareness present the domain of linguistic practices as a pluralistically harmonious domain; no attention is given to ideological differences or ideological struggles in language, and, in fact, the nexus of language-power-ideology is ignored. Despite their admirable attempts to heighten cross-cultural undertanding and harmony, they appear to underscore the legitimacy of the already legitimated set of existing linguistic practices, and therefore indirectly of the existing power relations which underpin these practices. In the second part of the paper, they briefly explore the notion of Critical Language Analysis (or Critical Linguistics in a generic sense), and indicate how this approach might contribute to more critical Language Awareness programmes. The authors also argue that the diverse objectives which are usually given for Language Awareness programmes appear to be given particular desocialising weightings in actual materials, and suggest a way of articulating the various objectives that might be in agreement with a critical perspective. They end with an example of how Critical Language Awareness can be incorporated into a family history writing project

Deregulation of the EGFR/PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTORC1 pathway in breast cancer: possibilities for therapeutic intervention

The EGFR/PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTORC1/GSK-3 pathway plays prominent roles in malignant transformation, prevention of apoptosis, drug resistance and metastasis. The expression of this pathway is frequently altered in breast cancer due to mutations at or aberrant expression of: HER2, ERalpha, BRCA1, BRCA2, EGFR1, PIK3CA, PTEN, TP53, RB as well as other oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. In some breast cancer cases, mutations at certain components of this pathway (e.g., PIK3CA) are associated with a better prognosis than breast cancers lacking these mutations. The expression of this pathway and upstream HER2 has been associated with breast cancer initiating cells (CICs) and in some cases resistance to treatment. The anti-diabetes drug metformin can suppress the growth of breast CICs and herceptin-resistant HER2+ cells. This review will discuss the importance of the EGFR/PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTORC1/GSK-3 pathway primarily in breast cancer but will also include relevant examples from other cancer types. The targeting of this pathway will be discussed as well as clinical trials with novel small molecule inhibitors. The targeting of the hormone receptor, HER2 and EGFR1 in breast cancer will be reviewed in association with suppression of the EGFR/PI3K/PTEN/Akt/mTORC1/GSK-3 pathway.USAMRMC {[}BC022276]; Intramural RECDA Award; Italian Association for Cancer Research (AIRC); MIUR-PRIN; Italian MIUR-FIRB Accordi di Programma; Italian ``Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (Ministry for Education, Universities and Research) - FIRB-MERIT {[}RBNE08YYBM]; Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance; Italian Ministry of Health, Ricerca Finalizzata Stemness; MIUR FIRB {[}RBAP11ZJFA\_001]; CRO; Italian Association for Cancer Research, (AIRC) (RM PI); Italian Association for Cancer Research, (AIRC) {[}MCO10016]; Italian Ministry of Health; Regione Friuli Venezia-Giuli

The Impact of Multifunctional Genes on "Guilt by Association" Analysis

Many previous studies have shown that by using variants of “guilt-by-association”, gene function predictions can be made with very high statistical confidence. In these studies, it is assumed that the “associations” in the data (e.g., protein interaction partners) of a gene are necessary in establishing “guilt”. In this paper we show that multifunctionality, rather than association, is a primary driver of gene function prediction. We first show that knowledge of the degree of multifunctionality alone can produce astonishingly strong performance when used as a predictor of gene function. We then demonstrate how multifunctionality is encoded in gene interaction data (such as protein interactions and coexpression networks) and how this can feed forward into gene function prediction algorithms. We find that high-quality gene function predictions can be made using data that possesses no information on which gene interacts with which. By examining a wide range of networks from mouse, human and yeast, as well as multiple prediction methods and evaluation metrics, we provide evidence that this problem is pervasive and does not reflect the failings of any particular algorithm or data type. We propose computational controls that can be used to provide more meaningful control when estimating gene function prediction performance. We suggest that this source of bias due to multifunctionality is important to control for, with widespread implications for the interpretation of genomics studies

Comparison of foot orthoses made by podiatrists, pedorthists and orthotists regarding plantar pressure reduction in The Netherlands

BACKGROUND: There is a need for evidence of clinical effectiveness of foot orthosis therapy. This study evaluated the effect of foot orthoses made by ten podiatrists, ten pedorthists and eleven orthotists on plantar pressure and walking convenience for three patients with metatarsalgia. Aims were to assess differences and variability between and within the disciplines. The relationship between the importance of pressure reduction and the effect on peak pressure was also evaluated. METHODS: Each therapist examined all three patients and was asked to rate the 'importance of pressure reduction' through a visual analogue scale. The orthoses were evaluated twice in two sessions while the patient walked on a treadmill. Plantar pressures were recorded with an in-sole measuring system. Patients scored walking convenience per orthosis. The effects of the orthoses on peak pressure reduction were calculated for the whole plantar surface of the forefoot and six regions: big toe and metatarsal one to five. RESULTS: Within each discipline there was an extensive variation in construction of the orthoses and achieved peak pressure reductions. Pedorthists and orthotists achieved greater maximal peak pressure reductions calculated over the whole forefoot than podiatrists: 960, 1020 and 750 kPa, respectively (p < .001). This was also true for the effect in the regions with the highest baseline peak pressures and walking convenience rated by patients A and B. There was a weak relationship between the 'importance of pressure reduction' and the achieved pressure reduction for orthotists, but no relationship for podiatrists and pedorthotists. CONCLUSION: The large variation for various aspects of foot orthoses therapy raises questions about a consistent use of concepts for pressures management within the professional groups