Long-term U.S. Cross-border Security Flows with Developed and Emerging Market Countries Surrounding the Global Financial Crisis

This paper analyzes the impact of the global financial crisis on cross-border long-term security flows from and towards the U.S. We are investigating monthly observations from 72 countries over the period from 2003 to 2013. The findings show that the global financial crisis impacted all cross-border capital flows in our analysis; yet, the timing, the significance, and the nature of the impact varies among the different securities, as well as between a sample of developed and emerging market countries. We find evidence for a flight-to-safety with the start of the global financial crisis, with a significant, but short lived interruption due to the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. Further, the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers has caused an abrupt drop in holdings of U.S. and foreign equity, which have not recovered ever since. This may suggest that the extraordinary event has caused a general increase in international investors’ risk aversion. Finally, our results do not provide much evidence for the claim made by developing countries’ policymakers that the accommodative monetary policies by the U.S. have caused an overall disruptive capital flow towards their economies

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Breakfast Clubs According to Parents, Children, and School Staff in the North East of England, UK

The provision of school breakfast has become increasingly popular in the UK in recent years. However, UK-based studies highlighting the views of parents, children, and school staff on school breakfast clubs are lacking. The current study set out to address this dearth in the literature by investigating the views of these key user and stakeholder groups on breakfast clubs within the North East of England. Fourteen parents, 21 children, and 17 school staff were recruited from four primary schools where breakfast clubs were available on site. Parents and school staff took part in semistructured interviews and children participated in focus groups, through which the advantages and disadvantages of breakfast clubs were discussed. Thematic analysis revealed that breakfast clubs provided children with a settled and enjoyable start to the school day. As well as providing children with a healthy and varied breakfast meal and unique opportunities for social interaction, breakfast clubs were recognized as an integral part of the school system that offered support to parents, particularly those who worked and relied on breakfast clubs as a means of affordable and reliable childcare. The few disadvantages identified related to practical issues such as a lack of adherence to school food standards, breakfast club staff missing class preparation time and concerns that some children were being excluded from participating in breakfast clubs particularly due to costs associated with attendance. The findings are discussed in relation to the School Food Plan, and areas for further investigation are proposed

Assessing Evidence for a Pervasive Alteration in Tropical Tree Communities

In Amazonian tropical forests, recent studies have reported increases in aboveground biomass and in primary productivity, as well as shifts in plant species composition favouring fast-growing species over slow-growing ones. This pervasive alteration of mature tropical forests was attributed to global environmental change, such as an increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, nutrient deposition, temperature, drought frequency, and/or irradiance. We used standardized, repeated measurements of over 2 million trees in ten large (16–52 ha each) forest plots on three continents to evaluate the generality of these findings across tropical forests. Aboveground biomass increased at seven of our ten plots, significantly so at four plots, and showed a large decrease at a single plot. Carbon accumulation pooled across sites was significant (+0.24 MgC ha−1 y−1, 95% confidence intervals [0.07, 0.39] MgC ha−1 y−1), but lower than reported previously for Amazonia. At three sites for which we had data for multiple census intervals, we found no concerted increase in biomass gain, in conflict with the increased productivity hypothesis. Over all ten plots, the fastest-growing quartile of species gained biomass (+0.33 [0.09, 0.55] % y−1) compared with the tree community as a whole (+0.15 % y−1); however, this significant trend was due to a single plot. Biomass of slow-growing species increased significantly when calculated over all plots (+0.21 [0.02, 0.37] % y−1), and in half of our plots when calculated individually. Our results do not support the hypothesis that fast-growing species are consistently increasing in dominance in tropical tree communities. Instead, they suggest that our plots may be simultaneously recovering from past disturbances and affected by changes in resource availability. More long-term studies are necessary to clarify the contribution of global change to the functioning of tropical forests

Investigating users’ perspectives on the development of bike-sharing in Shanghai

High levels of car dependence have caused tremendous challenges for sustainable transport development. Transport planners, therefore, seek ways of replacing motor vehicles, as well as increasing the proportion of active travel. The bike-sharing scheme can be seen as an effective way of doing so, particularly in Asian cities. The aim of this paper is to investigate users’ perspectives on the development of bike-sharing using Shanghai as an example. Semi-structured interviews are used to examine the main factors motivating and impeding the development of the bike-sharing scheme in Shanghai. Our findings show that convenience, saving time and financial savings are the major motivations; whereas problems with bicycles being poorly maintained and abused by users, operational issues, financial issues and an unsuitable business model are the major obstacles. In addition, the findings also suggest that a public and private partnership could be the best option for running a sustainable bike-sharing scheme with clear areas of responsibility. Financial incentives, a bicycle-friendly infrastructure, regular operational management and supportive policies should be prioritised. In order to achieve the targets set by the Shanghai Master Plan 2035, transport planners and policymakers should integrate the bike-sharing scheme within the wider active travel system

Social circumstances and cultural beliefs influence maternal nutrition, breastfeeding and child feeding practices in South Africa:

Maternal and child undernutrition remain prevalent in developing countries with 45 and 11% of child deaths linked to poor nutrition and suboptimal breastfeeding, respectively. This also has adverse effects on child growth and development. The study determined maternal dietary diversity, breastfeeding and, infant and young child feeding (IYCF) practices and identified reasons for such behavior in five rural communities in South Africa, in the context of cultural beliefs and social aspects

Family Businesses and Adaptation: A Dynamic Capabilities Approach

The main objective of this research was to propose a framework centred on the dynamic capabilities approach, and to be applied in the context of family businesses’ adaption to their changing business environment. Data were gathered through interviews with ten FBs operating in Western Australia. Based on the findings, the clusters of activities, sensing, seizing, and transforming emerged as key factors for firms’ adaptation, and were reinforced by firms’ open culture, signature processes, idiosyncratic knowledge, and valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable attributes. Thus, the usefulness of the proposed framework was confirmed. Implications and future research opportunities are presented. © 2018, The Author(s)

Nutritional value, micronutrient and antioxidant capacity of some green leafy vegetables commonly used by southern coastal people of Bangladesh.

Southern coastal people of Bangladesh are highly vulnerable to food insecurity and malnutrition due to coastal flooding, deforestation and increased soil salinity. A number of green leafy vegetables are found in the southern coastal belt being traditionally eaten as daily basis by local people. But they are unaware of nutritional and medicinal use of these vegetables. To contribute to their wider utilization, five common vegetables namely Hibiscus sabdariffa, Trianthema portulacastrum, Diplazium esculentum, Heliotropium indicum L. and Hygrophila auriculata were selected for analysis of nutritional proximate, micronutrients and antioxidant potential. Nutritional properties were analyzed in terms of moisture, pH, protein, lipid, ash, fibre, minerals and carbohydrate. Total flavonoid, tannin and antioxidant capacity were evaluated using established protocols. The results demonstrated that collected plants are rich in carbohydrate, fibre, proteins, moisture and ash content but low in lipid content. The mineral elements were high with remarkable amount of Na (19.9-21.5 mg/gm), K (7.9-13.5 mg/gm) and P (1.0-1.8 mg/gm). All the samples were found to have considerable amount of flavonoid (90.6-144.5 mg QE/gm) and tannin content (26.8-57.2 mg GAE/gm). The IC50 value of DPPH and superoxide radical scavenging was the lowest for H. indicum (37.1 and 83.4 μg/ml, respectively) whereas T. portulacastrum possessed high reducing power (IC50 53.7 μg/ml). Among the five investigated species, T. portulacastrum and H. indicum were found to have good nutritional and antioxidant properties, thus can be promoted as a significant source of nutritional and antioxidant food supplements

Retinal optical coherence tomography in neuromyelitis optica

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: To determine optic nerve and retinal damage in aquaporin-4 antibody (AQP4-IgG)-seropositive neuromyelitis optica spectrum disorders (NMOSD) in a large international cohort after previous studies have been limited by small and heterogeneous cohorts. METHODS: The cross-sectional Collaborative Retrospective Study on retinal optical coherence tomography (OCT) in neuromyelitis optica collected retrospective data from 22 centers. Of 653 screened participants, we included 283 AQP4-IgG-seropositive patients with NMOSD and 72 healthy controls (HCs). Participants underwent OCT with central reading including quality control and intraretinal segmentation. The primary outcome was thickness of combined ganglion cell and inner plexiform (GCIP) layer; secondary outcomes were thickness of peripapillary retinal nerve fiber layer (pRNFL) and visual acuity (VA). RESULTS: Eyes with ON (NMOSD-ON, N = 260) or without ON (NMOSD-NON, N = 241) were assessed compared with HCs (N = 136). In NMOSD-ON, GCIP layer (57.4 ± 12.2 μm) was reduced compared with HC (GCIP layer: 81.4 ± 5.7 μm, p < 0.001). GCIP layer loss (-22.7 μm) after the first ON was higher than after the next (-3.5 μm) and subsequent episodes. pRNFL observations were similar. NMOSD-NON exhibited reduced GCIP layer but not pRNFL compared with HC. VA was greatly reduced in NMOSD-ON compared with HC eyes, but did not differ between NMOSD-NON and HC. DISCUSSION: Our results emphasize that attack prevention is key to avoid severe neuroaxonal damage and vision loss caused by ON in NMOSD. Therapies ameliorating attack-related damage, especially during a first attack, are an unmet clinical need. Mild signs of neuroaxonal changes without apparent vision loss in ON-unaffected eyes might be solely due to contralateral ON attacks and do not suggest clinically relevant progression but need further investigation