Currency Board Arrangement and Transition: The Issues, Controversies and the Experience of Bosnia

In the last decade there has been considerable discussion on what exchange rate policies shall be pursued by developing countries as well as countries in transition as mean of successful transformation and effective mechanism to spur private sector growth and promote stability. the central to this, rather broad and growing debate, has been the role of fixed exchange rates, and the currency board arrangements (cba) in particular.this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the attractions and disadvantages of such arrangements principally drawing on the experience of bosnia and herzegovina (bih). it assesses merits and costs related to this arrangement, primarily looking at the rigidities and constraints the regime imposes on macroeconomic policies, and the subsequent impact on growth and development. finally, the paper elaborates if and under which conditions, the weaknesses associated with the regime are off set with its repeatedly assigned advantages of i.e. macroeconomic stability, low inflation, increased confidence and established credibility as well as reduced “costs” to business transactions and investments. the paper concludes that bosnian currency board was viable temporary solution and that serious consideration shall be given to exiting the regime. the paper is thought to provide useful insights to policy makers and contribute to the overall monetary and exchange rate debate.currency board arrangement, policy misalignments, transition

Microbial differences between dental plaque and historic dental calculus are related to oral biofilm maturation stage

Dental calculus, calcified oral plaque biofilm, contains microbial and host biomolecules that can be used to study historic microbiome communities and host responses. Dental calculus does not typically accumulate as much today as historically, and clinical oral microbiome research studies focus primarily on living dental plaque biofilm. However, plaque and calculus reflect different conditions of the oral biofilm, and the differences in microbial characteristics between the sample types have not yet been systematically explored. Here, we compare the microbial profiles of modern dental plaque, modern dental calculus, and historic dental calculus to establish expected differences between these substrates.- Background - Results -- Authentication of a preserved oral biofilm in calculus samples -- Dental calculus and plaque biofilm communities are distinct -- Health-associated communities of dental plaque and calculus are distinct -- Signatures of health and of disease are shared in modern and historic calculus samples -- Microbial community differences between health and disease in calculus are poorly resolved -- Absence of caries-specific microbial profiles in dental calculus -- Microbial co-exclusion patterns in plaque and calculus reflect biofilm maturity -- Microbial complexes in plaque and calculus -- Functional prediction in calculus is poorly predictive of health status -- Proteomic profiles of historic healthy site calculus -- Correlations between taxonomic, proteomic, and metabolomic profiles - Discussion - Conclusions - Materials and methods --Historic and modern calculus sample collection DNA extraction -- DNA library construction and high-throughput sequencing -- DNA sequence processing -- Genetic assessment of historic calculus sample preservation -- Genetic microbial taxonomic profiling -- Principal component analysis -- Assessment of differentially abundant taxa -- Sparse partial least squares-discriminant analysis -- Assessment of microbial co-exclusion patterns -- Gene functional categorization with SEED -- Proteomics -- Metabolomics -- Regularized canonical correlation analysi

Accomplice, patron, go-between? A role to play with poor migrant Qur’anic students in northern Nigeria

What does it mean to conduct ethnographic research in a context where inequalities are pervasive? Drawing on experiences conducting research with poor migrant Qur’anic students (almajirai) in Kano, northern Nigeria, this article explores the challenges of establishing productive and ethical research relationships with informants whose social and socioeconomic status is significantly lower than that of the researcher. The article argues that large socioeconomic and educational inequalities demand a rethinking of the subject positions available to researchers in such contexts. In the article, I consider in turn my roles as an ‘accomplice’ of exclusionary elite behaviour, as a ‘patron’ for my informants, and as a ‘go-between’ facilitating access for them to otherwise inaccessible ‘social microworlds’