Globalization, Glocalization, or Global Studies: What\u27s in a Name?

It is only in the concluding section of a painstaking article on the life and time of global studies that Nederveen Pieterse comes to make peace with the competing terminologies and says: \u27The issu..

Implications of WTO Agreements and Domestic Trade Policy Reforms for Poverty in Bangladesh: Short vs. Long Run

We examine the impacts of WTO agreements and domestic trade policy reforms on production, welfare and poverty in Bangladesh. A sequential dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model, which takes into account accumulation effects, is used allowing for long run analysis. The study is based on 2000 SAM of Bangladesh including fifteen production sectors, four factors of production (skilled and unskilled labour, agricultural and non-agricultural capital) and mine household groups (five in rural areas and four in urban areas) based on the year 2000 household survey. To examine the link between the macro effects and micro effects in terms of poverty we use the representative household approach with actual intra-group income distributions. The study presents five simulations for which the major findings are: (1) the Doha scenario has negative implications for the overall macro economy, household welfare and poverty in Bangladesh. Terms of trade deteriorate and consumer prices, particularly food prices, increase more than nominal incomes, especially among poor households; (2) Free world trade has similar, but larger, impacts; (3) Domestic trade liberalisation induces an expansion of agricultural and light manufacturing sectors, favourable changes in the domestic terms of trade. Although the short run welfare and poverty impacts are negative, these turn positive in the long run when capital has adjusted through new investments. Rising unskilled wage rates make the poorest household the biggest winners in terms of welfare and poverty reduction; (4) Domestic liberalisation effects far outweigh those of free world trade when these scenarios are combined; (5) Remittances constitute a powerful poverty-reducing tool given their greater importance in the income of the poor.Dynamic CGE model, International trade, Poverty, Bangladesh

Remittances and Household Welfare: A Case Study of Bangladesh

This paper examines the impacts of international remittances on household consumption expenditure and poverty in Bangladesh using computable general equilibrium modeling of the Bangladesh economy and microeconometric analysis at the household level. The former assesses the economic effects and distributional implications of remittances at the macro, sectoral, and household group levels, while the latter shows the association between remittances and household consumption expenditure, including poverty status. The first results show that remittances have positive effects on the economy and reduce poverty. It is estimated that 1.7 out of the 9 percentage point reduction in the headcount ratio during 2000–2005 was due to the growth in remittances. A closer look at the household level further reveals the positive and significant impacts of remittances on the household's food and housing-related expenditures. The impacts on education and health expenditures are also positive but insignificant. Moreover, the logit regression results suggest that the probability of the household becoming poor decreases by 5.9% if it receives remittances, which further confirms the positive impact of remittances. Given that migration and remittances also bring costs to the society, the study findings call for policies to maximize their benefits. This includes attracting more remittances through formal channels and increasing their productive use

Co-Management and Rights-Based Approach to Fisheries Governance-Lessons From Bangladesh

This paper is based on a review and assessment of lessons from three projects on fisheries co-management in Bangladesh: i) Community-based fisheries management (CBFM), ii) Management of aquatic ecosystems through community husbandry (MACH), and iii) Fourth Fisheries Project (FFP). These co-management initiatives established 191 Community Based Organizations (CBOs) in 179 water bodies. The review shows that most lessons learned relate to institutions, governance, access rights and the effectiveness of fisheries management measures such as creation of sanctuaries. In most sites, rights-based approaches dominated fisheries management arrangements and enhanced the sustainability of fisheries through agreed measures. The review shows however that these projects were not as successful institutionally as they were in terms of fish production and cost effectiveness. The review also indicates that improved knowledge provided for better management, and that fishers already know the importance of fisheries resources. This makes it possible for communities to take charge of the responsible management and harvest of fishes from their water bodies. Community leaders can function well as leaders of groups of fishers wherever they act transparently and maintain good relationships with local administration. However, the review shows that these initiatives were not a complete triumph in terms of generating policy shifts amongst government bodies. The review reveals that transfers of responsibilities have occurred as a result of the community-management approach, increasing the role of the fishers in the overall application of the fisheries management. Responsibility for participatory monitoring of Community Based Organizations (CBOs) has enabled fishers to defend their legal rights to protect water bodies from traditional lease holders

Cricket, migration and diasporic communities

Ever since different communities began processes of global migration, sport has been an integral feature in how we conceptualise and experience the notion of being part of a diaspora. Sport provides diasporic communities with a powerful means for creating transnational ties, but also shapes ideas of their ethnic and racial identities. In spite of this, theories of diaspora have been applied sparingly to sporting discourses. Due mainly to its central role in spreading dominant white racial narratives within the British Empire, and the various ways different ethnic groups have ‘played’ with the meanings and associations of the sport in the (post-)colonial period, cricket is an interesting focus for academic research. Despite W.G. Grace’s claim that cricket advances civilisation by promoting a common bond, binding together peoples of vastly different backgrounds, to this day cricket operates strict symbolic boundaries; defining those who do, and equally, do not belong. C.L.R. James’ now famous metaphor of looking ‘beyond the boundary’ captures the belief that, to fully understand the significance of cricket, and the sport’s roles in changing and shaping society, one must consider the wider social and political contexts within which the game is played. The collection of papers in this special issue does just that. Cricket acts as the point of departure in each, but the way in which ideas of power, representation and inequality are ‘played out’ is unique in each

Ophthalmic Biomarker Detection Using Ensembled Vision Transformers -- Winning Solution to IEEE SPS VIP Cup 2023

This report outlines our approach in the IEEE SPS VIP Cup 2023: Ophthalmic Biomarker Detection competition. Our primary objective in this competition was to identify biomarkers from Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images obtained from a diverse range of patients. Using robust augmentations and 5-fold cross-validation, we trained two vision transformer-based models: MaxViT and EVA-02, and ensembled them at inference time. We find MaxViT's use of convolution layers followed by strided attention to be better suited for the detection of local features while EVA-02's use of normal attention mechanism and knowledge distillation is better for detecting global features. Ours was the best-performing solution in the competition, achieving a patient-wise F1 score of 0.814 in the first phase and 0.8527 in the second and final phase of VIP Cup 2023, scoring 3.8% higher than the next-best solution

Tourist in the (K)Now: Social Rapportage and the Performative Rapport of Social Media

Special issue on 'Reterritorializing Digital Performance From South to North: This paper explores how tourists, through the use of social and digital media platforms, are able to develop formations and connections that enhance a sense of rapport. The role of tourist is articulated through a new term, the ‘rapporter’, and the activity of the rapporter takes place as ‘rapportage’. Additionally, I suggest that this is achieved through the availability of mobile Apps. I propose that through the process and act of rapportage individuals can disseminate their responses to events and experiences, which provides an opportunity for further rapport. The voices then become part of a collective rapport inspired to understand and connect with others, and can provide different examples compared to the divisive and often aggressive reporting frequently articulated as part of the ‘post-truth’ environment

Order and disorder - An integrative structure of the full-length human growth hormone receptor

Because of its small size (70 kilodalton) and large content of structural disorder (>50%), the human growth hormone receptor (hGHR) falls between the cracks of conventional high-resolution structural biology methods. Here, we study the structure of the full-length hGHR in nanodiscs with small-angle x-ray scattering (SAXS) as the foundation. We develop an approach that combines SAXS, x-ray diffraction, and NMR spectroscopy data obtained on individual domains and integrate these through molecular dynamics simulations to interpret SAXS data on the full-length hGHR in nanodiscs. The hGHR domains reorient freely, resulting in a broad structural ensemble, emphasizing the need to take an ensemble view on signaling of relevance to disease states. The structure provides the first experimental model of any full-length cytokine receptor in a lipid membrane and exemplifies how integrating experimental data from several techniques computationally may access structures of membrane proteins with long, disordered regions, a widespread phenomenon in biology