Globalization Equity and Justice in Small Nation States

The effects of globalization on smaller nation Caribbean states have not been thoroughly examined, and the trade performance of these states has not been evaluated since the WTO came into existence. In this paper, we report on a study that conducted a comparative analysis of selected Caribbean nation states with other countries at different stages of development to determine their levels of performance from 1990 to 1995, the period before the WTO began full operation, and the period 1996 to 2002, the period after globalization. The selected Caribbean countries were Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. The measures for comparison are changes in GDP per capita, capital investment as a percentage of GDP, foreign direct investment, current account balance, trade balance, export services, infant mortality, literacy rates, and agricultural and service labor force change. We also compared the economic and social performance of these countries with those of selected countries of North America, South and Central America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The economic performance of the Caribbean states varied and compared favorably with other developing economies and developed economies, but the socioeconomic indicators worsened for Suriname and other nation states. The current account and the trade balances were negative for Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, in spite of their positive changes in GDP per capita since the WTO came into operation. No factors provide evidence of how well the countries are likely to perform in the future with the implementation of the WTO. In general, the Caribbean states performed worse before, rather than after, the implementation of the WTO. Model results show that the Caribbean states should concentrate on the export of services and the increase of the agricultural labor force to stimulate significant economic growth. The factors influencing the growth of other regions vary, but export of services seemed to have a general effect on economic growth. In terms of social indicator improvement, countries in Asia and Africa should reduce infant mortality while North America and South America could benefit from improvement in literacy rates.Caribbean states, regression analysis, globalization, equity., Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, International Development,

Farmers and Social Security Reform

Agricultural Finance,

Increased pain intensity is associated with greater verbal communication difficulty and increased production of speech and co-speech gestures

Effective pain communication is essential if adequate treatment and support are to be provided. Pain communication is often multimodal, with sufferers utilising speech, nonverbal behaviours (such as facial expressions), and co-speech gestures (bodily movements, primarily of the hands and arms that accompany speech and can convey semantic information) to communicate their experience. Research suggests that the production of nonverbal pain behaviours is positively associated with pain intensity, but it is not known whether this is also the case for speech and co-speech gestures. The present study explored whether increased pain intensity is associated with greater speech and gesture production during face-to-face communication about acute, experimental pain. Participants (N = 26) were exposed to experimentally elicited pressure pain to the fingernail bed at high and low intensities and took part in video-recorded semi-structured interviews. Despite rating more intense pain as more difficult to communicate (t(25) = 2.21, p = .037), participants produced significantly longer verbal pain descriptions and more co-speech gestures in the high intensity pain condition (Words: t(25) = 3.57, p = .001; Gestures: t(25) = 3.66, p = .001). This suggests that spoken and gestural communication about pain is enhanced when pain is more intense. Thus, in addition to conveying detailed semantic information about pain, speech and co-speech gestures may provide a cue to pain intensity, with implications for the treatment and support received by pain sufferers. Future work should consider whether these findings are applicable within the context of clinical interactions about pain

Serum neurofilament light chain levels are associated with white matter integrity in autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease

Neurofilament light chain (NfL) is a protein that is selectively expressed in neurons. Increased levels of NfL measured in either cerebrospinal fluid or blood is thought to be a biomarker of neuronal damage in neurodegenerative diseases. However, there have been limited investigations relating NfL to the concurrent measures of white matter (WM) decline that it should reflect. White matter damage is a common feature of Alzheimer's disease. We hypothesized that serum levels of NfL would associate with WM lesion volume and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) metrics cross-sectionally in 117 autosomal dominant mutation carriers (MC) compared to 84 non-carrier (NC) familial controls as well as in a subset (N = 41) of MC with longitudinal NfL and MRI data. In MC, elevated cross-sectional NfL was positively associated with WM hyperintensity lesion volume, mean diffusivity, radial diffusivity, and axial diffusivity and negatively with fractional anisotropy. Greater change in NfL levels in MC was associated with larger changes in fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, and radial diffusivity, all indicative of reduced WM integrity. There were no relationships with NfL in NC. Our results demonstrate that blood-based NfL levels reflect WM integrity and supports the view that blood levels of NfL are predictive of WM damage in the brain. This is a critical result in improving the interpretability of NfL as a marker of brain integrity, and for validating this emerging biomarker for future use in clinical and research settings across multiple neurodegenerative diseases

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Potential Effects of FTAA on US/CARICOM Fish Trade

Free Trade Areas of the Americas(FTAA), US/CARICOM Fish Trade, International Relations/Trade,

Income Determinants of Low Income Credit Unions

Time series and cross sectional models were used to analyze the factors influencing net income to asset ratios of low income credit unions (LICUs), using OLS, and Parks and Da Silva methods. Variables representing loans (except mortgage loans) delinquency rate and paid management positively influenced the income to asset ratios, but investments negatively influenced the income to asset ratios. Loans to asset ratio and loans to investment ratio are substitutes. Low income credit unions benefit more from loan disbursements than from investments in spite of the associated risks. The Parks method was overall more efficient than the other methods in terms of significance of variables and explanatory power

Globalization Equity and Justice in Small Nation States

The effects of globalization on smaller nation Caribbean states have not been thoroughly examined, and the trade performance of these states has not been evaluated since the WTO came into existence. In this paper, we report on a study that conducted a comparative analysis of selected Caribbean nation states with other countries at different stages of development to determine their levels of performance from 1990 to 1995, the period before the WTO began full operation, and the period 1996 to 2002, the period after globalization. The selected Caribbean countries were Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, and Suriname. The measures for comparison are changes in GDP per capita, capital investment as a percentage of GDP, foreign direct investment, current account balance, trade balance, export services, infant mortality, literacy rates, and agricultural and service labor force change. We also compared the economic and social performance of these countries with those of selected countries of North America, South and Central America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The economic performance of the Caribbean states varied and compared favorably with other developing economies and developed economies, but the socioeconomic indicators worsened for Suriname and other nation states. The current account and the trade balances were negative for Cuba, Haiti, Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, in spite of their positive changes in GDP per capita since the WTO came into operation. No factors provide evidence of how well the countries are likely to perform in the future with the implementation of the WTO. In general, the Caribbean states performed worse before, rather than after, the implementation of the WTO. Model results show that the Caribbean states should concentrate on the export of services and the increase of the agricultural labor force to stimulate significant economic growth. The factors influencing the growth of other regions vary, but export of services seemed to have a general effect on economic growth. In terms of social indicator improvement, countries in Asia and Africa should reduce infant mortality while North America and South America could benefit from improvement in literacy rates