Toward an Activist Political Theory

This essay focuses on the role that discursive structures such as neoliberalism play in political theory, and on how these heroic discourses inhibit theoretical projects seeking to generate solutions to damaging political projects. In response to a discourse-focused trend within political theory, this work elaborates an \u27activist political theory\u27 intended to be both theoretically rigorous and tactically enriching for the embattled groups from whose lives political theory often springs. As one example of an activist political theory, this essay explores political theorist Paul Apostolidis\u27s work with the \u27ordinary politics\u27 of a group of immigrant workers in Washington state, and the Gramscian ideologies undergirding his theoretical approach

Modelling the liquidity premium on corporate bonds

AbstractThe liquidity premium on corporate bonds has been high on the agenda of Solvency regulators owing to its potential relationship to an additional discount factor on long-dated insurance liabilities. We analyse components of the credit spread as a function of standard bond characteristics during 2003–2014 on a daily basis by regression analyses, after introducing a new liquidity proxy. We derive daily distributions of illiquidity contributions to the credit spread at the individual bond level and find that liquidity premia were close to zero just before the financial crisis. We observe the time-varying nature of liquidity premia as well as a widening in the daily distribution in the years after the credit crunch. We find evidence to support higher liquidity premia, on average, on bonds of lower credit quality. The evolution of model parameters is economically intuitive and brings additional insight into investors’ behaviour. The frequent and bond-level estimation of liquidity premia, combined with few data restrictions makes the approach suitable for ALM modelling, especially when future work is directed towards arriving at forward-looking estimates at both the aggregate and bond-specific level.</jats:p

Comparative analysis of Middle Stone Age artifacts in Africa (CoMSAfrica).

Spatial and temporal variation among African Middle Stone Age (MSA) archeological assemblages provide essential cultural and behavioral data for understanding the origin, evolution, diversification, and dispersal of Homo sapiens—and, possibly, interactions with other hominin taxa. However, incorporating archeological data into a robust framework suited to replicable, quantitative analyses that can be integrated with observations drawn from studies of the human genome, hominin morphology, and paleoenvironmental contexts requires the development of a unified comparative approach and shared units of analysis. The CoMSAfrica workshop presented here, has the ambition to build bridges between researchers and research regions in Africa on these paramount topics

Circulating 250HD, dietary vitamin D, PTH, and calcium associations with incident cardiovascular disease and mortality: The MIDSPAN Family Study

&lt;p&gt;Context: Observational studies relating circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25OHD) and dietary vitamin D intake to cardiovascular disease (CVD) have reported conflicting results.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Objective: Our objective was to investigate the association of 25OHD, dietary vitamin D, PTH, and adjusted calcium with CVD and mortality in a Scottish cohort.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Design and Setting: TheMIDSPAN Family Study is a prospective study of 1040 men and 1298 women from the West of Scotland recruited in 1996 and followed up for a median 14.4 yr. Participants: Locally resident adult offspring of a general population cohort were recruited from 1972–1976.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Main Outcome Measures: CVD events (n &#61; 416) and all-cause mortality (n&#61;100) were evaluated.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Results: 25OHD was measured using liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry in available plasma (n&#61;2081). Median plasma 25OHD was 18.6 ng/ml, and median vitamin D intake was 3.2 &#181; g/d (128 IU/d). Vitamin D deficiency (25OHD&#60;15 ng/ml) was present in 689 participants (33.1%). There was no evidence that dietary vitamin D intake, PTH, or adjusted calcium were associated with CVD events or with mortality. Vitamin D deficiency was not associated with CVD (fully adjusted hazard ratio&#61;1.00; 95% confidence interval&#61;0.77–1.31). Results were similar after excluding patients who reported an activity-limiting longstanding illness at baseline (18.8%) and those taking any vitamin supplements (21.7%). However, there was some evidence vitamin D deficiency was associated with all-cause mortality (fully adjusted hazard ratio&#61;2.02; 95% confidence interval&#61;1.17–3.51).&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Conclusion: Vitamin D deficiency was not associated with risk of CVD in this cohort with very low 25OHD. Future trials of vitamin D supplementation in middle-aged cohorts should be powered to detect differences inmortality outcomes as well as CVD.(J Clin EndocrinolMetab97: 0000 –0000, 2012)&lt;/p&gt

Drama without drama: The late rise of scripted TV formats

This article revisits the history of TV formats - concepts of TV shows that are licensed for local adaptations – focusing on scripted entertainment. While the TV format revolution of the 1990s bypassed scripted formats, they have been catching up in recent years. This paper analyses both the reasons for this late rise and the factors behind the recent growth. It argues that the adaptation of scripted formats is more complex and risks remain higher than for other genres. The underlying economics of their production and distribution also differs from non-scripted formats. Stars came together when demand for drama increased worldwide, Hollywood studios began to mine their catalogues, new exporters and scripted genres emerged, and knowledge transfer techniques improved. Finally, this paper analyses the significance of the rise of scripted entertainment in the global TV format trading system

Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine implementation in middle-income countries

Since 2000, the widespread adoption of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines (PCVs) has had a major impact in the prevention of pneumonia. Limited access to international financial support means some middle-income countries (MICs) are trailing in the widespread use of PCVs. We review the status of PCV implementation, and discuss any needs and gaps related to low levels of PCV implementation in MICs, with analysis of possible solutions to strengthen the PCV implementation process in MICs

Why Tenth Graders Fail to Finish High School: A Dropout Typology Latent Class Analysis

A large percentage of the students who drop out of K-12 schools in the United States do so at the end of high school, at some point after grade 10. Yet we know little about the differences between different types of students who drop out of the end of high school. The purpose of this study is to examine a typology of high school dropouts from a large nationally representative dataset (ELS:2002) using latent class analysis (LCA). We found three significantly different types of dropouts; Quiet, Jaded, and Involved. Based on this typology of three subgroups, we discuss implications for future dropout intervention research, policy, and practice