The significance of deepwater oil drilling for the US energy security: the case of the Gulf of Mexico

This study seeks to quantify and model the significance of the deepwater oil development for domestic US energy supplies in the short-term. It explores the significance and potential contribution deepwater oil supply from the Gulf of Mexico (GoM) can make in providing energy security to the US. The output of this research demonstrates the growth in deepwater oil production and how this latter relates to total US oil production over the next 10 years; and therefore the role it can play in providing energy security to the USA. The literature offers commercial and academic debate on this topic. The research model analyses current available data and make sensible assumptions on the likely future growth of deepwater oil production in the GoM based on a number of scenarios. Our results support the high/best case and suggest that deepwater oil from the GoM can significantly provide energy security to the US on the short term. However, on the long term and in order to maintain its energy security, the US needs to develop and use renewable sources of energy

Esme Vellacott to Sir (1 October 1962)

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/mercorr_pro/1384/thumbnail.jp

Historical Reflections on Votes, Brooms and Guns: Admission to Political Structures-on whose terms?

This paper examines theoretical and historial links uniting feminism and antimilitarism in a particularly interesting and rich period in the history of the women's movement, between 1910 and 1918, principally in England, in relation to the issue of women's right to vote. The campaign for the right to vote was at its height between 1906 and 1914 when the first world war broke out and changed the campaign. This paper considers the terms under which women, who gained the right to vote toward the end of the war in several countries, were permitted to participate in the political system.Cette communication examine les liens historiques et theoriques unissant le feminisme et l'anti-militarisme dans une tranche particulierement interessante etrichede l'histoire du mouvement des femmes, la periode allant de 1910a 1918, en Angleterre principalement, par rapport a la question du droit de vote pour les femmes. La campagne pour le droit de vote etait a son paroxysme de 1906 a 1914, quand la premiere guerre mondiale a eclate et en a modifie le cours. On s'interroge sur les conditions auxquelles les femmes—qui.obtinrent le droit de vote vers la fin de la guerre dans beaucoup de pays—sont devenues admissibles a l'interieur du systeme politique

Zum Zusammenhang von Wohnortswahl und Schulqualität: theoretische Überlegungen und empirische Befunde

Die Zusammensetzung der Schülerschaft beeinflusst die individuellen Leistungen der Neuntklässlerinnen und Neuntklässler in der Schweiz – das haben Analysen der PISA-Daten 2000 und 2003 gezeigt. Es stellt sich die Frage, warum eine Konzentration von Schülerinnen und Schülern mit sprachlichen und sozio-ökonomischen Benachteiligungen in bestimmten Schulhäusern nicht einfacher verhindert werden kann. Einen Einblick in den Prozess der sozialen Segregation von Gemeinden und Wohnquartieren bieten Theorien der sozial-räumlichen Differenzierung und der Wohnortswahl. Vor diesem theoretischen Hintergrund wird der Zusammenhang von Gemeindemerkmalen, wie zum Beispiel der Steuerbelastung oder der Wohnatmosphäre, mit dem Wohnort von gutsituierten Personen deskriptiv untersucht. Ebenfalls gezeigt wird in diesem Beitrag der Einfluss des Reichtums von Gemeinden auf die Ausstattung ihrer Schulhäuser. Die theoretischen und empirischen Erkenntnisse machen deutlich, dass die Wohnortswahl statushoher Personen im Zusammenhang steht mit der sozialen Entmischung der Schülerschaft in Schweizer Schulhäusern. Mehrfachbelastungen ergeben sich dadurch vor allem für fremdsprachige, sozial benachteiligte Jugendliche, welche nicht in reichen Gemeinden wohnen. (DIPF/Orig.)According to the analyses of the Swiss 2000 and 2003 PISA data, the composition of students in classes of ninth graders has an influence on their individual achievements. This leads to the question of why it is so difficult to avoid accumulations of students with language and socio-economic disadvantages in certain regions, and their schools. Looking at the processes of social segregation in communities or living quarters brings up theories of social differentiation and choice of residence. Following this theoretical background, relationships between characteristics of community (i.e., tax charge, or living atmosphere), and place of residence of wealthy people, are investigated on a descriptive level. The relationship between the wealth of a community and the level of equipment of their schools is also shown. The theoretical and empirical results make clear that the choice of residence of people with high socio-economic status and the process of social segregation in Swiss schools are interconnected. Multiple stress is also put on foreign-language students from socially disadvantaged milieus who do not live in wealthy communities. (DIPF/Orig.

Sibling Rivalry: A Look at Switzerland with PISA Data

In this paper we analyse the sibling size and birth-order effect on educational achievement in Switzerland on the basis of PISA data. We find an overall modest size and birth-order effect. The sibling size effect, however, is a product of a substantial and significant negative size effect for families with lower socio-economic status and foreign origin and a positive sibling size effect in small, native families with a high socio-economic status compared to singlechild families with the same background. Thus, subgroups of the population seem to be confronted with binding budget constraints, although education is free. The hypothesis that parents of larger families spend on average less time with their children is also tested and shows the expected negative effect of the sibling size. We present an extended version of the sibling size model that can account for these effects and discuss the consequences these results might have for social and educational policy

Economic policy reform in late industrialisers: Argentina and Spain since 1950.

The new institutionalist school of economics addresses the divergence between countries' long-run economic performance by attributing it to differences in institutional heritage. Institutions which suppress the kleptocratic inclinations of governments and enshrine a 'credible commitment' to protect property rights encourage productive activity. But that is not to say states that cannot ensure universal property rights have not achieved economic growth. Such governments may resort to clientelist arrangements that guarantee a subset of asset holders their property rights will be protected in exchange for political and economic support. Such a system of 'crony capitalism' is an inefficient allocator of resources but it can ensure political stability which in turn allows an otherwise weak government to preside over sustained growth. This thesis compares the fortunes of Spain and Argentina, two 'crony capitalist states' characterised by distributional conflict, between 1950 and 2000. The principal hypothesis is that Spain's economic performance far outstripped that of Argentina over subsequent decades because the web of alliances between the state and society included a greater variety of economic interests than its Argentine counterpart and consequently achieved a closer approximation of a credible commitment to universally guarantee property rights. Argentine corporatism constructed in the late 1940s by president Juan Peron failed to integrate powerful interests and Argentine society is consequently defined by a variety of well-organised and powerful economic interest groups that compete for a share of national rent. The executive is forced to negotiate directly with these groups to secure support for new economic policy rather than operate through an effective state bureaucracy. Interests left out of the alliance will act to change the policy or remove the president, resulting in Argentina's perpetual cycle of economic and political instability. In Spain, the executive presided over a state segmented between interest groups. Each group was rewarded in return for loyalty with control over the ministry pertinent to a particular area of Spanish society. Economic interests such as labour, business and agriculture, meanwhile, were represented through compulsory membership of a monolithic syndicate. Within this bureaucracy, different factions representing a variety of economic interests engaged in a war of attrition to shape policy before the arbitrating dictator. This highly centralised state bureaucracy survived the transition to democracy and Spanish political parties abandoned their class-based identities and became mass movements organised under disciplined hierarchies of control. Thus negotiations over reform continued to operate within the state which ensured political stability which is a pure public good and encourages productive activity

Cohabitation in Public Space Today and in the Past: Searching forgotten interrelations

This article confronts and discusses 6 current and past campaigns in public space, based on the results of a completed research project of the Competence Centre for Research on Social Spaces at the FHS St.Gallen, University of Applied Sciences. The focus lies on various decisive stakeholders who make a connection between youth and public space. The intention is to rediscover forgotten connections of living together in public space in order to make them useful for the contemporary debates.This article confronts and discusses 6 current and past campaigns in public space, based on the results of a completed research project of the Competence Centre for Research on Social Spaces at the FHS St.Gallen, University of Applied Sciences. The focus lies on various decisive stakeholders who make a connection between youth and public space. The intention is to rediscover forgotten connections of living together in public space in order to make them useful for the contemporary debates.This article confronts and discusses 6 current and past campaigns in public space, based on the results of a completed research project of the Competence Centre for Research on Social Spaces at the FHS St.Gallen, University of Applied Sciences. The focus lies on various decisive stakeholders who make a connection between youth and public space. The intention is to rediscover forgotten connections of living together in public space in order to make them useful for the contemporary debates

Discordance between physical symptoms versus perception of severity by women with nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP)

BACKGROUND: Nausea and vomiting in pregnancy (NVP) is a multifaceted condition that affects more than half of pregnant women and can range in severity from mild nausea to severe dehydration. Presently physicians evaluate mostly physical symptoms of NVP in trying to assess the severity of the condition. The objective of this study was to investigate how factors, other than the physical morbidity of nausea and vomiting, influence self-perception of NVP by affected women. METHODS: Five hundred women with NVP calling a 1–800 NVP Healthline were asked to rate their NVP severity and report their nausea duration and number of vomiting/retching episodes. RESULTS: Nausea and vomiting/retching correlated significantly but very poorly with self-assessment of NVP severity. There was also a correlation between nausea duration and vomiting/retching frequency however the correlations were weak and overall physical symptoms could only explain 14% of the variability of women's feelings and perceptions through multivariate analysis. CONCLUSIONS: Physical symptoms weakly correlate with self-assessment of NVP severity. Other aspects of this condition, most probably psychosocial, influence women's perception of NVP severity