2,485 research outputs found
The Dispute Settlement Understanding of the WTO Agreement: An Inadequate Mechanism for the Resolution of International Trade Disputes
The 1994 signing of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement marked the initiation of the most far-reaching and comprehensive international agreement on trade in the history of the modern world. The creation of an actual trade organization was a marked improvement over the WTO\u27s predecessor, the 1944 GATT, which never formed an organization per se. Among the many improvements to the GATT, the WTO Agreement substantially changed the mechanism for dispute settlement whenever conflict arose between member states. This change, codified as the Dispute Settlement Understanding ( DSU ), was initially hailed as a great improvement over the GATT dispute settlement provisions. Unfortunately, the DSU has not been the comprehensive dispute settlement mechanism its framers had hoped to create. Myriad problems exist with the DSU in its current state, and the remedies to these problems will not come easily. After explaining the history of the GATT, this paper will discuss the current aspects and procedures of the DSU, examine the problems with these procedures, and suggest how the dispute settlement system under the WTO can operate in a more effective and efficient manner
Longitudinal Aging Study in India: Vision, Design, Implementation, and Some Early Results
India is poised to experience a dramatic rise in its aging population in coming decades, yet comprehensive research and effective policy to confront this transition are lacking. According to projections constructed by the United Nations Population Division, the share of Indians aged 60 and over will increase from 8% today to 19% by 2050 (representing 323 million people, more than the entire US population in 2011). This demographic shift will pose significant challenges. India’s traditional reliance on private family networks to provide older people with care, companionship, and financial support will be stressed not only by the increasing number of aging Indians who rely on it, but also by changing household dynamics and patterns of spatial mobility among younger family members. The Longitudinal Aging Study in India (LASI) is intended to inform the design and expansion of a new generation of institutions – public and private – for the care and support of India’s population of older people by providing comprehensive data to the scientific and policy community. LASI is an evidence base for analyzing the (1) health, (2) economic and financial resources, and (3) living arrangements and social connections of older Indians. It enhances opportunities for cross-national analysis by adding India to the growing number of countries with harmonized data on their older populations. LASI surveys will be carried out every two years, providing longitudinal data to support research and policy development. This paper provides an overview of the conception and content of the 2010 LASI pilot survey that was conducted in four states: Punjab, Rajasthan, Karnataka, and Kerala. We highlight key aspects of the field work, such as response rates and interview duration, and discuss the breadth and quality of the economic, health, and social data collected. We pay close attention to the cultural and geographic diversity LASI is able to capture, and bring to light interesting patterns in, and relationships among, measures of health, social connectedness, labor force participation, and hardship among the elderly.aging, longitudinal, India
Challenging Certification of a Class Action: A Hypothetical
This is intended to be an article for the lawyer whose client is suddenly confronted with one of these Frankenstein monster(s) posing as a class action. Our objective is to set forth the arguments and methods available to counsel in seeking to prevent a class from being certified. In order to sharpen the analysis and arguments we will use a hypothetical class action as a model. Since most of the criticism and praise of the class action device has been focused on complaints filed under section (b)(3), observations will be directed primarily at that part of Rule 23. If, in the end, this writing sounds more like a brief in support of a motion to dismiss a complaint as a class action, rather than a scholarly analysis of Rule 23, we will have accomplished our objective
Noradrenergic Pharmacotherapy, Intracerebral Infusion and Adrenal Transplantation Promote Functional Recovery After Cortical Damage
The research described in this review briefly
summarizes evidence that short term
pharmacological enhancement of noradrenergic
(NA) synaptic activity, combined with symptom
relevant experience (SRE), promotes functional
recovery of some symptoms of cortical damage
in rat, cat and human beings even when
treatment is initiated from days to weeks after
injury. A summary is provided of the numerous
drugs tested in rodent cortical injury models
which have been proven useful for predicting
beneficial or harmful effects on behavioral
outcome in human stroke. The pattern of drug
effects indicates a central role for NA in
functional recovery. Additionally, studies of the
effects of direct intraventricular infusion of
monoamine neurotransmitters are reviewed and
further support the hypothesized role of NA in
recovery from some symptoms of cortical injury.
The site of NA/SRE interaction to promote
recovery from hemiplegia apparently involves
the cerebellar hemisphere contralateral to the
cortical injury. Microinfusions of NA into the
contra- but not ipsilaterai cerebellar hemisphere
dramatically enhance recovery. Furthermore,
like its systemic action, microinfusion of the α1-
NA receptor antagonist, phenoxybenzamine,
reinstates hemiplegia. A “permanent” symptom
of motor cortex injury in the cat is the complete
loss of tactile placing contralateral to the injury
which does not spontaneously recover for as
long as seven years after ablation. This posturai
reflex is temporarily restored for 8-12 hours
following amphetamine administration.
However, this permanently lost reflex can be
enduringly restored by transplanting catecholamine secreting adrenal tissue into the
wound cavity. The experiment is reviewed in
detail and involves chromaffin cell autografts
into the frontal cortex ablation wound cavity
producing a restoration of tactile placing for the
7-10 month duration of the study. This enduring
restoration of tactile placing is considered a
result of the release of catecholamines into the
CNS from the grafted chromaffin cells found, by
histochemical methods, surviving 7-10 months
after transplant. Lastly, we attribute these
delayed treatment effects to an attenuation of a
diaschisis, or remote functional depression, in
morphologically intact areas anatomically
connected to the area of injury. The widespread
reduction of glycolytic and oxidative
metabolism, produced by focal cortical injury, is
normalized by the same treatment which
alleviates symptoms and is worsened by drugs
which exacerbate deficits. These data support
the hypothesis that providing SRE during a
period of enhanced NA synaptic activity
produces an enduring functional recovery after
cortical injury by attenuating remote functional
depression. This treatment for enhancing
recovery is especially attractive since it is
effective even when begun weeks after cortical
damage
First Observational Tests of Eternal Inflation: Analysis Methods and WMAP 7-Year Results
In the picture of eternal inflation, our observable universe resides inside a
single bubble nucleated from an inflating false vacuum. Many of the theories
giving rise to eternal inflation predict that we have causal access to
collisions with other bubble universes, providing an opportunity to confront
these theories with observation. We present the results from the first
observational search for the effects of bubble collisions, using cosmic
microwave background data from the WMAP satellite. Our search targets a generic
set of properties associated with a bubble collision spacetime, which we
describe in detail. We use a modular algorithm that is designed to avoid a
posteriori selection effects, automatically picking out the most promising
signals, performing a search for causal boundaries, and conducting a full
Bayesian parameter estimation and model selection analysis. We outline each
component of this algorithm, describing its response to simulated CMB skies
with and without bubble collisions. Comparing the results for simulated bubble
collisions to the results from an analysis of the WMAP 7-year data, we rule out
bubble collisions over a range of parameter space. Our model selection results
based on WMAP 7-year data do not warrant augmenting LCDM with bubble
collisions. Data from the Planck satellite can be used to more definitively
test the bubble collision hypothesis.Comment: Companion to arXiv:1012.1995. 41 pages, 23 figures. v2: replaced with
version accepted by PRD. Significant extensions to the Bayesian pipeline to
do the full-sky non-Gaussian source detection problem (previously restricted
to patches). Note that this has changed the normalization of evidence values
reported previously, as full-sky priors are now employed, but the conclusions
remain unchange
Development and validation of the Cannabis Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (CRSEQ) in adult cannabis users in treatment
Background: There are few valid clinical assessment instruments for cannabis. Self-efficacy, or the ability of users to resist temptation, is a central feature of social cognitive theory. This study outlines the development and validation of the Cannabis Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (CRSEQ), which measures the situational confidence to refuse cannabis
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