"Minsky and Economic Policy: A Minskyan Analysis of the Subprime Crisis"

The paper uses Minsky’s financial instability hypothesis as an analytical framework for understanding the subprime mortgage crisis and for introducing adequate reforms to restore economic stability. We argue that the subprime crisis has structural origins that extend far beyond the housing and financial markets. We further argue that rising inequality since the 1980s formed the breeding ground for the current financial markets meltdown. What we observe today is only the manifestation of the ingenuity of the market in taking advantage of moneymaking opportunities, regardless of the consequences. The so-called "democratization of homeownership" rapidly turned into record-high delinquencies and foreclosures. The sudden turn in market expectations led investors and banks to reevaluate their portfolios, which brought about a credit crunch and widespread economic instability. The Federal Reserve Bank's intervention came too late and failed to usher in adequate regulation. Finally, the paper argues that a true democratization of homeownership is only possible through job creation and income-generation programs, rather than through exotic mortgage schemes.

Overview of the Philippines'Conditional Cash Transfer Program : the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya)

The Philippine social protection notes series aims to summarize the good practices and key findings from the Philippines on the topics related to social protection, covering a variety of types of issues including Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) and targeting, broadening the social protection policy dialogue, analysis on social protection and service delivery. The Philippines is implementing a CCT program, which is called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (PPPP). CCT program provides cash to poorest households as long as the beneficiary households comply with the conditions of the program. Health grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 0-14 years old and/or with pregnant women with the conditions that all children 0-5 years old and the pregnant women visit health centers and receive services according to Department of Health (DOH) protocol, all children 6-14 years old undergo de-worming protocol at schools, and the household grantees (mainly women) attend family development sessions at least once a month. Education grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 6-14 years old with the conditions that the children are enrolled in primary or secondary school and maintain a class attendance rate of 85 percent every month.Rural Poverty Reduction,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Regional Economic Development,Housing&Human Habitats

Welfare and distributionalimpacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program

This policy note presents the potential poverty impacts of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (Pantawid Pamilya) using simple analytical tools and the government's largest database of poor households to date, the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR). In doing so, the note also aims to encourage policy-makers and researchers to not only use the NHTS-PR for its intended purpose, that is, for objective targeting of social assistance programs, but also for analysis to maximize the utility of information contained in the database. The Note finds that the Pantawid Pamilya can reduce poverty incidence and inequality in program areas by 2.6 percentage points and 6.6 percent in a year, respectively. Increasing compliance of existing beneficiaries will enhance the poverty-reducing impacts of the Pantawid Pamilya. Expanding program coverage will produce real impacts as long as targeting and program implementation remains properly managed.Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Regional Economic Development,Rural Poverty Reduction,Health Systems Development&Reform,Services&Transfers to Poor

Building governance and anti-corruption in the Philippines'conditional cash transfer program

The Philippine social protection notes series aims to summarize the good practices and key findings from the Philippines on the topics related to social protection, covering a variety of types of issues including Conditional Cash Transfers (CCT) and targeting, broadening the social protection policy dialogue, analysis on social protection and service delivery. The Philippines is implementing a CCT program, which is called the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (PPPP). CCT program provides cash to poorest households as long as the beneficiary households comply with the conditions of the program. Health grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 0-14 years old and/or with pregnant women with the conditions that all children 0-5 years old and the pregnant women visit health centers and receive services according to Department of Health (DOH) protocol, all children 6-14 years old undergo de-worming protocol at schools, and the household grantees (mainly women) attend family development sessions at least once a month. Education grants are provided for beneficiary households with children 6-14 years old with the conditions that the children are enrolled in primary or secondary school and maintain a class attendance rate of 85 percent every month.Public Sector Corruption&Anticorruption Measures,National Governance,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Poverty Monitoring&Analysis,Governance Indicators

El bienestar psicológico en población adolescente

Este estudio pretende describir la relación existente entre el Bienestar Psicológico de estudiantes de la ESO y de Bachiller, y diversas variables de ámbito personal, familiar y social. Para ello se ha utilizado la adaptación española de las Escalas de Bienestar Psicológico de Ryff en versión reducida de 29 ítems. Este instrumento está constituido por seis escalas: Autoaceptación, Relaciones Positivas, Autonomía, Dominio del Entorno, Crecimiento Personal y Propósito en la Vida. El estudio se ha realizado con una muestra de 448 estudiantes de varios Institutos de Enseñanza Secundaria de las provincias de Málaga y Cádiz.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

Exploring Disability Policy in Africa: An Online Search for National Disability Policies and UNCRPD Ratification

This research brief presents a search for national policies on disability and UN CRPD ratification in African countries.  The results of the search found that over half of the countries in continental Africa have a current disability policy and that the majority of countries have ratified the UN CRPD.  Many of the countries that have neither ratified the UN CRPD nor implemented national policies on disabilities are characterized by conflict and/or weak or absent governments.  We anticipate that the results could be beneficial in providing a scope of disability policy in Africa and in helping to easily identify policy and/or geographic locations for future detailed policy analysis

Meloxicam Decreases the Formation of Peritoneal Adhesions in an Experimental Surgical Model in Rats

Background: Inflammatory adhesions result from an inflammatory response of the peritoneum during an intra-abdominal inflammatory process secondary to thermal or mechanical injury, infection, radiation, ischemia, dissection, abrasion or foreign body reaction. Adhesions produce consequences such as: infertility, intestinal obstruction, and pelvic-abdominal pain. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effects of Meloxicam, a selective cyclooxygenase-2 inhibitor, on the formation of postoperative peritoneal adhesions in an experimental animal model. Methods: Twenty female Wistar rats were submitted to laparotomy. Postoperative peritoneal adhesions were induced by scorching the serous surface of the colon. The animals were randomly divided into two experimental groups: one group received Meloxicam intramuscularly for 7 days, and the other served as a control group. They were sacrificed and evaluated at 15 days. Results: In the animals given Meloxicam, it was observed that a decrease in number (p = 0.018), severity (p = 0.004), extension (p = 0.011), density (p = 0.023), degree of inflammation (p = 0.002), vascular proliferation (p = 0.004) and fibrosis (p = 0.029) of adhesions, compared to the control group. Conclusion: In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the administration of Meloxicam intramuscularly significantly decreases the formation of postoperative peritoneal adhesions and, therefore, may be useful in their prevention. The effects of Meloxicam could not only be due to its anti-inflammatory action, but also to its effects on the expression of the Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor

Characterisation of excavated plastics for thermochemical upcycling to platform chemicals and liquid fuels

In Europe there are ~500,000 landfills; plastics represent a consistent and significant proportion of waste in landfill (typically 5-25% w/w). This fraction remains in the landfill, along with other non-biodegradable materials, long after the readily biodegradable organics have degraded. During storage in landfill the plastics physicochemical structure is likely to change because of the occurrence of chemical and biochemical reactions, which can lead to their degradation. For instance, H2S and organic acids produced during the acetogenesis phase of landfill are known to degrade plastics, therefore it can be hypothesised that plastics excavated from landfill are not suitable for conventional recycling. The fate of plastics in landfill has not been largely investigated and limited data exists addressing the changes in chemical and physical properties. The aim of this work is to investigate the degradation of plastics in landfill by characterising chemical and physical properties of samples excavated from different landfill depths. Waste samples were extracted from landfills across the UK at depths of 5-40 m. These were sorted in order to determine the total plastic content and the percentage of each type of plastic present (i.e. PET, HDPE etc). The types of plastics were identified using near infrared [NIR] spectroscopy. The surface properties of the excavated plastics were characterised using SEM/EDS to analyse and evaluate their degradation and contamination levels. Chemical characterisation of each plastic fraction has been carried out by proximate and ultimate analyses. Finally, the surface contamination (metal content) of the plastics was determined by ICP. Fresh, non-landfilled, plastic samples matching the plastic types of those found in landfill were characterised for comparison. The data highlighted plastic type variation across the samples, largely dependent on the age of the excavated material. The extent of degradation, was found to depend on the type of plastic and depth of the sample. This work contributes to address the potential utilisation of excavated plastics, such as for upcycling to platform chemicals and/or liquid fuels through thermochemical conversion

A multi-parametric analysis of Trypanosoma cruzi infection: common pathophysiologic patterns beyond extreme heterogeneity of host responses

The extreme genetic diversity of the protozoan Trypanosoma cruzi has been proposed to be associated with the clinical outcomes of the disease it provokes: Chagas disease (CD). To address this question, we analysed the similarities and differences in the CD pathophysiogenesis caused by different parasite strains. Using syngeneic mice infected acutely or chronically with 6 distant parasite strains, we integrated simultaneously 66 parameters: parasite tropism (7 parameters), organ and immune responses (local and systemic; 57 parameters), and clinical presentations of CD (2 parameters). While the parasite genetic background consistently impacts most of these parameters, they remain highly variable, as observed in patients, impeding reliable one-dimensional association with phases, strains, and damage. However, multi-dimensional statistics overcame this extreme intra-group variability for each individual parameter and revealed some pathophysiological patterns that accurately allow defining (i) the infection phase, (ii) the infecting parasite strains, and (iii) organ damage type and intensity. Our results demonstrated a greater variability of clinical outcomes and host responses to T. cruzi infection than previously thought, while our multi-parametric analysis defined common pathophysiological patterns linked to clinical outcome of CD, conserved among the genetically diverse infecting strains

Geografía-Paisaje-Taxonomía.

Para llegar a una clasificación taxonómica de los paisajes geográficos: 1º, se propone una definición de la geografía; 2º, se interpreta el paisaje geográfico como un conjunto de unidades funcionales, que se denominan individuos de paisaje, los cuales permiten dividir el paisaje con un criterio objetivo; 3º, se comentan el concepto, es tructura, funcionamiento y límites del individuo de paisaje; 4º, se propone una ordenación taxonómica de los individuos de paisaje, asi como su correspondiente nomenclatura, paralelas a las usadas para los seres vivos; 5º, se mencionan 83 taxones de dicha clasificación