The Impact of the Falling Yen on U.S. Import Prices

[Excerpt] In the fall of 2012, Japan set forth economic policies aimed at turning around the country’s historic deflationary slide that began in the 1990s. These policies led the Japanese yen to fall dramatically in value relative to the U.S. dollar, reversing what was a long upward trend of strength against the dollar. From September 2012 to May 2013, the yen–dollar exchange rate plummeted 22.5 percent. Although the rate of decline decelerated considerably over the remainder of the year, the yen fell an additional 2.4 percent against the U.S. dollar between May and December. A falling yen means the purchasing power of the U.S. dollar increases for goods imported from Japan. Parallel to the drop in the value of the yen, import prices of Japanese goods fell 3.5 percent from September 2012 to December 2013. The drop in the value of the yen particularly influenced prices in major product areas such as nonelectrical machinery, computers and electronic products, and chemicals, which combined make up nearly 40 percent of U.S. imports from Japan. The industry that is most affected by Japanese import prices is the transportation vehicles industry, which alone represents 42 percent of U.S. imports from Japan

Selective disruption of stimulus-reward learning in glutamate receptor gria 1 knockout mice.

Glutamatergic neurotransmission via AMPA receptors has been an important focus of studies investigating neuronal plasticity. AMPA receptor glutamate receptor 1 (GluR1) subunits play a critical role in long-term potentiation (LTP). Because LTP is thought to be the cellular substrate for learning, we investigated whether mice lacking the GluR1 subunit [gria1 knock-outs (KO)] were capable of learning a simple cue-reward association, and whether such cues were able to influence motivated behavior. Both gria1 KO and wild-type mice learned to associate a light/tone stimulus with food delivery, as evidenced by their approaching the reward after presentation of the cue. During subsequent testing phases, gria1 KO mice also displayed normal approach to the cue in the absence of the reward (Pavlovian approach) and normal enhanced responding for the reward during cue presentations (Pavlovian to instrumental transfer). However, the cue did not act as a reward for learning a new behavior in the KO mice (conditioned reinforcement). This pattern of behavior is similar to that seen with lesions of the basolateral nucleus of the amygdala (BLA), and correspondingly, gria1 KO mice displayed impaired acquisition of responding under a second-order schedule. Thus, mice lacking the GluR1 receptor displayed a specific deficit in conditioned reward, suggesting that GluR1-containing AMPA receptors are important in the synaptic plasticity in the BLA that underlies conditioned reinforcement. Immunostaining for GluR2/3 subunits revealed changes in GluR2/3 expression in the gria1 KOs in the BLA but not the central nucleus of the amygdala (CA), consistent with the behavioral correlates of BLA but not CA function

What will replace the Human Rights Act?

David Cameron has promised to scrap the Human Rights Act. What will replace it? David Mead writes that it seems highly unlikely that the Tories will tamper with the substance of the ECHR within any domestic Bill. The focus might well be on a re-adjustment of the relationship between British judges and those in Strasbourg, with the difficulty lying in how to do so. And who is a Bill of Rights for? It won’t be for the UK, considering that the ECHR is written in to the Good Friday Agreement, and any planned changes will not affect Scotland as the HRA is part of the devolution package

A socialised conceptualisation of individual privacy: a theoretical and empirical study of the notion of the ‘public’ in UK MoPI cases

This article conceptualises a more public, more socialised notion of privacy in contrast to the archetype: that my privacy is of interest and value only to me. Doing so has historically left claims to privacy exposed against claims to free speech, with its long pedigree and generally acknowledged wider instrumental role. This article provides a corrective. The first part offers a typology of rationales at one of two meta-levels: privacy as a means to effect assurance or as a means to protect someone's activities. The second discusses the results of some small-scale empirical doctrinal research: a sample analysis of 27 UK privacy cases looking to identify the judicial ascription of the value of privacy, specifically whether any judges conceptualise privacy as having a more social, or public, value or utility. The results are perhaps not unexpected. Almost exclusively, judges frame their rationales for protecting privacy in purely individualised terms

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill reinforces tensions and division at the expense of collective social solidarity

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill includes major proposals on crime and justice in England and Wales. David Mead writes that its introduction is an attempt to divert attention away from serious threats – such as climate change and racialised policing – and onto those who try to raise awareness

A Seven (or so) Year Hitch: How has the Coalition’s Pledge to Restore the Right to Non-Violent Protest Fared?

In the course of the 2010 election campaign, the Liberal Democrats committed themselves to ‘restore the right to protest by reforming the Public Order Act to safeguard non-violent protest even if it offends; and restrict the scope of injunctions issued by vested interests.’ This led, after the formation of the Coalition government in May 2010, to a pledge to ‘restore rights to non-violent protest’. Nearly a decade on, it is time to assess how far that was brought into effect. This article takes a broad sweep across the past eight years, looking at peaceful protest and political participation. It concludes that, with some honourable exceptions, the trend has been a regressive one or at least not a liberalising one. That is probably unsurprising. While there have been some advances at doctrinal level, the practical reality on the streets for those wishing to express their dissent or bring about political/social change is one marked by increasing difficulty. The article is in two main parts. The first, shorter part plots some of the key events in the period. The second is organised around four themes, each illustrating a tension or an area of interplay between protesters and the state: doctrinal developments; policing practice; non-state—that is private—involvement and regulation; and access to civic space