Scenario of Accelerating Universe from the Phenomenological \Lambda- Models

Dark matter, the major component of the matter content of the Universe, played a significant role at early stages during structure formation. But at present the Universe is dark energy dominated as well as accelerating. Here, the presence of dark energy has been established by including a time-dependent $\Lambda$ term in the Einstein's field equations. This model is compatible with the idea of an accelerating Universe so far as the value of the deceleration parameter is concerned. Possibility of a change in sign of the deceleration parameter is also discussed. The impact of considering the speed of light as variable in the field equations has also been investigated by using a well known time-dependent $\Lambda$ model.Comment: Latex, 9 pages, Major change

Powering the State: The political geographies of electrification in Mozambique

This paper explores the role of electricity infrastructures in helping to create, expand or limit the contours of the state in post-colonial Mozambique. Through a focus on recent electrification campaigns and attempts to improve sustainable energy access, we argue that the extension of electricity infrastructures helps to counter the state’s ‘blindness’ and to provide a more permanent visibility for the state whilst potentially enhancing its capacity to order, arrange and ‘read’ its territory and citizenry (particularly in contested rural peripheries). We argue that the material and symbolic work of large-scale infrastructural works around rural electrification and grid extension constitute an important means through which the state performs and narrates its presence and role in order to gain meaning and importance in the lives of rural residents and to forge connections with them. Aside from extending the power and reach of state institutions and their territorial authority, we contend that the development of electricity infrastructures also helps to create neoliberal subjectivities and advance neoliberalisation whilst creating lucrative opportunities for elite accumulation. We examine the different forms of institutional, material and discursive power that influence why some ways of organising energy are privileged over others and reflect on the resulting implications for energy access inequalities and state–citizen relations

Cardiovascular outcomes in high risk patients with osteoarthritis treated with ibuprofen, naproxen or lumiracoxib.

Contains fulltext : 52995.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)BACKGROUND: Evidence suggests that both selective cyclooxygenase (COX)-2 inhibitors and non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) increase the risk of cardiovascular events. However, evidence from prospective studies of currently available COX-2 inhibitors and non-selective NSAIDs is lacking in patients at high cardiovascular risk who are taking aspirin. OBJECTIVE: To determine the cardiovascular outcomes in high risk patients with osteoarthritis treated with ibuprofen, naproxen or lumiracoxib. METHODS: The Therapeutic Arthritis Research and Gastrointestinal Event Trial (TARGET) of 18 325 patients with osteoarthritis comprised two parallel substudies, comparing lumiracoxib (COX-2 inhibitor) with either ibuprofen or naproxen. A post hoc analysis by baseline cardiovascular risk, treatment assignment, and low-dose aspirin use was performed. The primary composite end point was cardiovascular mortality, non-fatal myocardial infarction, and stroke at 1 year; a secondary end point was the development of congestive heart failure (CHF). RESULTS: In high risk patients among aspirin users, patients in the ibuprofen substudy had more primary events with ibuprofen than lumiracoxib (2.14% vs 0.25%, p = 0.038), whereas in the naproxen substudy rates were similar for naproxen and lumiracoxib (1.58% vs 1.48%, p = 0.899). High risk patients not taking aspirin had fewer primary events with naproxen than with lumiracoxib (0% vs 1.57%, p = 0.027), but not for ibuprofen versus lumiracoxib (0.92% vs 0.80%, p = 0.920). Overall, CHF developed more often with ibuprofen than lumiracoxib (1.28% vs 0.14%; p = 0.031), whereas no difference existed between naproxen and lumiracoxib. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that ibuprofen may confer an increased risk of thrombotic and CHF events relative to lumiracoxib among aspirin users at high cardiovascular risk. The study indicates that naproxen may be associated with lower risk relative to lumiracoxib among non-aspirin users. This study is subject to inherent limitations, and therefore should be interpreted as a hypothesis-generating study

Managing and transforming policy stigmas in international finance: Emerging markets and controlling capital inflows after the crisis

The past three decades have shown the increasing importance of the efforts of the international financial community to socialize emerging markets to accept norms of financial governance. Social sanctions often have been used to mark non-compliant states and their policies as deviant. Yet, we know little about how deviant states strategically manage such policy stigmas in international finance and how this management shapes the international normative order. Recent scholarship in international relations suggests that stigma management strategies tend to either reinforce or fracture the international normative order. This article, by contrast, contends that such strategies also have the potential to transform the international normative order so that it resembles more closely the preferences of the deviant. This argument is illustrated using evidence drawn from Brazil and South Korea's management of the policy stigma associated with controls on capital inflows