The Entrepreneurial State Goes to Europe

This article investigates state-level export programs in response to the emerging new economic and political regime of Europe 1992. Little related export promotion activity is found, even in states reputed to have the most active entrepreneurial policies. The authors conclude that states have few resources to invest in export promotion and are inappropriate jurisdictions around which to organize such policy, despite the much touted entrepreneurial state

Acuity Variations in Diabetes Mellitus

The purpose of this paper is to briefly review the factors involved in acuity changes in diabetes mellitus and to report findings suggesting a new concept, namely, diurnal fluctuations in acuity that are not associated with hypoglycemic episodes

400 Parts Per Million: An Eco-Political Music Video

400 ppm is an eco-political music video which encapsulates climate crisis and climate justice in three minutes flat. It is an intervention in popular political ecology/economy, aimed at those who are uneasy with the increasingly obvious deterioration of the living systems of which we are an inextricable part

Playdough Capitalism: An Adventure in Critical Pedagogy

This paper describes a technique for simulating capitalism within the classroom, using familiar materials and creating a participatory, reflexive learning space. It situates ‘Playdough Capitalism’ within the theory/practice of experiential education/radical pedagogy and the Marxist analysis/immanent critique of capitalism as a historically-formed system of class exploitation and alienated labour. The paper discusses both the value of simulating capitalism within the classroom and its limits as a transformative pedagogy

Rocking the EU: Five Crises and the Fate of the European Union

La Unión Europea se encuentra en crisis durante los últimos 7 años. Primero fue la Euro-Crisis de 2010; luego vino la crisis de refugiados con cerca de un millon de ellos solamente en Alemania en el 2015; luego los ingleses votaron para dejar la Unión Europea en 2016 (el llamado Brexit). En todos estos momentos se estimuló a la derecho cuando los partidos de tendencia anti-inmigrante crecieron en fuerza en cada uno de los países europeos. Otra situación brotó cuando la Unión Europea y sus estados miembros tuvieron que contender con la anexión de Crimea por Rusia junto con la agresión a la Ucrania del Este, porque Putin lanzó diversas amenazas contra Europa del Este, incluyendo a Estados miembros de Europa. Este escrito examina cada una de estas crisis y discute sus implicaciones para la estabilidad de la Unión Europea y su misma existencia actual en la situación presente y su proyección hacia el futuro.AbstractThe European Union (EU) is in crisis during the last seven years. One of them was the Euro-Crisis in 2010; then came the refugee crisis with nearly one million refugees to Germany alone since 2015; then the British voted to leave the EU in 2016 (the Brexit). In all these moments it came a fillip to right wing when the anti-immigrant parties increased their strenght in nearly every country of the EU. Another situation came when the EU and its member states have had to contend with Russian annexation of Crimea and aggression in Eastern Ukraine, as well as Putin’s threats against Eastern Europe, including member states of the EU. This paper examines each of these crises and discusses their implications for European Union stability and its very existence now in the present situation and the prospects for the European project in the future

Hegemony, Counter-hegemony, Anti-hegemony

This article takes a critical realist stance in exploring the changing conditions for and forms of hegemony and counter-hegemony in “postmodern”, “neoliberal”, “globalized” times. Current hegemonic practices and projects make common sense of a market-driven politics and a fragmented culture, infusing into them an organization of consent that operates both locally and globally. Yet this amounts only to a thin hegemony, a weak and ecologically unsustainable basis for social cohesion and material reproduction. If contemporary hegemony is deeply yet perilously grounded then counter-hegemony needs to address those grounds. This stricture points to the articulation of various subaltern and progressive-democratic currents into a counter-hegemonic bloc that organizes dissent across space and time. Counter-hegemony needs to walk on both legs, taking up statecentred issues as well as issues resident in national and transnational civil societies. Its durability across conjunctures requires not only a shared ethical vision but a political form appropriate to its tasks. A range of recent developments relevant to these issues is discussed. The article concludes with a critique of the anti-hegemonic politics of dispersed singularities, whose insights, particularly on the value of direct action and prefiguration, need to be integrated into a strategically coherent form

The Factors That Impact Patient Portal Utilization

Spawned by legislative mandates, such as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009’s Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, and individuals desiring to have more personal accountability for their health and healthcare, the introduction and use of electronic personal health information (ePHI) has grown substantially. Given that most ePHI is maintained within the healthcare delivery system, an information portal is required for individuals to have access to the ePHI. As a result, the legislation required the introduction and use of patient portals to grant such access. Despite substantial financial incentives and disincentives for healthcare organizations to provide and promote the use of patient portals, actual utilization of patient portals has fallen significantly short of expectations and desires. It has been posited that limited patient portal utilization may have been related to multiple factors, with no definitive set of factors empirically established as the root cause. While patient age and gender exhibit some relation to patient portal utilization, those factors are not able to be modified, thereby limiting any potential to change utilization. Therefore, there is an interest to identify other variables that can be modified to have an impact on patient portal utilization. The study sought to contribute to the body of knowledge concerning factors that impact the utilization of patient portals, specifically, how patient literacies, i.e., computer/Internet, health, and numeracy impact patient portal utilization. These literacies for 400 University of Maryland Medical System patients were assessed via self-administered surveys, with the results compared to their actual patient portal utilization. The goal was to identify related correlations between literacy scores and utilization, using the correlations to construct a portal use index capable of accurately predicting utilization based on these literacies. However, Kendall tau-b correlation coefficients indicated an absence of significant correlations between patient literacies and patient portal use