Social Exclusion: the Concept and Application to Developing Countries

The feasibility of operationalisation of the 'social exclusion' concept in developing countries is investigated in this paper. The origins of the approach in relation to the welfare state and unemployment status and its spread in Western Europe and developing countries are discussed briefly. Some studies operationalising the concept in Western Europe and developing countries are presented. The differences in the social security arrangements between industrialised and developing countries that require the concept to be altered to allow implementation in local contexts are discussed. Such attempts however appear to largely result in a repetition of research that has already been conducted within frameworks that have developed in developing countries (basic needs, capabilities, sustainable livelihoods, risk and vulnerability, participatory approaches) in parallel to the 'social exclusion' concept in industrialised countries. While most features of the 'social exclusion' concept (attention to multiple dimensions, social relationships, assessing the poverty of individuals relative to others in society and concern with dynamics of poverty) are shared by concepts implemented in developing countries, these frameworks, could benefit by taking from social exclusion its emphasis on investigating the processes that lead to poverty. It would however be sufficient to incorporate an emphasis on looking at processes within pre-existing frameworks in developing countries, rather than re-doing poverty analyses under the rubric of 'social exclusion'.

Poverty-lines versus the poor : method versus meaning

poverty; measurement; methodology;

Anti-poverty Policy: Screening for Eligibility Using Village-level Evidence

In the context of targeting of state transfers based on income poverty lines, this study is concerned with the identification of households that may have been wrongly included in the target group. To this end, we investigate the relationship between self-declared private income and some 478 household variables obtained in a village level survey. We use class probability tree analysis which is a non-parametric multivariate method. Relationships are expressed as easily interpretable rules that give combinations of the important features that characterise the 'poor' households (income declared below the income poverty line) and the 'non-poor' (income declared above the income poverty line), rather than as mathematical equations as in previous regression based analyses. Approximately 20% of the households that declared income so as to be classified 'poor' were found to have feature combinations which were similar to those characterising 'non-poor' households. These cases would thus be worthy of further investigation for distortion of income, before being considered eligible for any transfers.

The development of a repetitive mild traumatic brain injury model in adolescent mice

While participation in youth sports bolster a myriad of health benefits, it can also pose a risk to the athlete's health from the increasing prevalence of repetitive mild traumatic brain injuries (TBI), often referred to as concussions. The adverse effects from repeated traumatic blows give a combination of acute symptoms, which may potentially develop into long-term complications. There is little known about the epidemiology of concussions, and thus the development of an animal model would help enhance our understanding of this potentially debilitating injury. An appropriate animal model should mimic the conditions of how concussions occur, in that there is not an invasive method to induce the injury and follows the same biomechanics. In our adolescent repetitive mild TBI model, we utilized a free-falling weight to deliver the traumatic blow to anesthetized mice that allowed free head rotation after impact. The injured group received one hit daily over the course of three days. The mice then underwent several behavioral tests to analyze the cognitive deficits, and the pathology of the tissue was analyzed via silver, Hematoxylin and Eosin (H&E), and Fluoro Jade-B staining. The injured mice developed both short- and long-term memory and spatial learning deficits, symptoms commonly found in concussed athletes, but failed to show deficits in anxiety and depression tests. The Fluoro Jade-B, silver and H&E staining resulted in negative signals for cell death. This study properly demonstrates repetitive mild TBIs in an adolescent mice model

Does it matter that we don't agree on the definition of poverty? A comparison of four approaches

While there is worldwide agreement on poverty reduction as an overriding goal of development policy, there is little agreement on the definition of poverty. The paper reviews four approaches to the definition and measurement of poverty - the monetary, capability, social exclusion and participatory approaches. It points out the theoretical underpinnings of the various measures, and problems of operationalising them. It argues that each is a construction of reality, involving numerous judgements, which are often not transparent. The different methods have different implications for policy, and also, to the extent that they point to different people as being poor, for targeting. Empirical work in Peru and India shows that there is significant lack of overlap between the methods with, for example, nearly half the population identified as in poverty according to monetary poverty not in capability poverty, and conversely. This confirms similar findings elsewhere. Hence the definition of poverty does matter for poverty eradication strategies.

Towards conceptualizing child wellbeing in India: The need for a paradigm shift

Globally, there is a vast array of social indicators, many of these specifically oriented to the lives, experience and needs of children. This approach is much more advanced in developed economies and rich countries, where the focus has widened and shifted progressively towards a full recognition of the nonmonetary dimensions of child wellbeing. At present, there would appear to be a propitious academic, activist and policy conjuncture for the widening of the discourse on child deprivation in India. This environment is created partly by the emerging reporting requirements and exhortations of the international development regime. But it is also fuelled by dissatisfaction over the inability of the existing methodologies, dominated by the reductionist monetary poverty line approach, to provide a meaningful intellectual or operational frame for contending with issues of child wellbeing in a holistic manner. The basic argument of this paper is that a double paradigm shift is urgently necessary: from mainstream approaches which tend to focus overwhelmingly on the material poverty and deprivation experienced by some children, deemed by definition to be those in households-in-poverty, to one that widens the field of vision to include both material and non-material dimensions of wellbeing of all children. Clearly, fresh epistemological and methodological challenges will have to be met with innovative and creative responses. It is time for India to catch up with best practices in rich countries, and given the impressive dimensions of India's academic and professional infrastructure, this should not be an unrealistic goal

From Poverty to Wellbeing: Alternative Approaches to the Recognition of Child Deprivation in India

Ways of seeing influence ways of doing; so there is much to be gained potentially by a thorough stock-taking and interrogation of the habitual methods and techniques employed in the field of child poverty measurement in India. The basic argument of this paper is that a paradigm shift is urgently necessary: from the mainstream approach which tends to focus overwhelmingly on the material poverty and deprivation experienced by some children, deemed by definition to be those in households-in-poverty, to one that widens the field of vision to include both material and non-material dimensions of wellbeing of all children. Such a shift carries significant implications for modes of conceptualization and recognition; for the focus and substantive content of analysis, for the choice of methods and tools, for the framing and design of policies and interventions, and more generally for the scope of debates and discourse pertaining to the development rights of children

The role of pregnancy-specific β-1 glycoprotein (SP1) in assessing human blastocyst quality in vitro

The advent of new culture techniques resulting in more than 60% of embryos developing in vitro to the blastocyst stage suggests that blastocyst transfer in humans with its potential to increase in-vitro fertilization success rates could be a feasible option. Blastocyst quality markers, however, are required to ensure that an increase in numbers is not achieved at the expense of lowering quality. We have previously reported a morphology based method for grading blastocysts. The current study sought to determine whether the secretion of pregnancy-specific β-1-glycoprotein (SP1) (a trophoblast product known to be associated with fetal well-being) by blastocysts of differing quality was reflected in the morphological grading. SP1 concentrations were measured in the culture medium of grade 1 (n=19), grade 2 (n=4) and grade 3 (n=4) blastocysts as well as vacuolated morulae (n=6) daily from day 1 to day 14. Cumulative SP1 concentrations secreted by blastocysts were significantly higher than those secreted by vacuolated morulae. However, SP1 levels could not distinguish between blastocysts of differing morphological grades. The inconsistent pattern of secretion suggests that at this early stage of development, SP1 secretion is probably not sufficiently defined to allow any differences in levels to be reflected by the morphological gradin