Capitalising on the Irish land question : land reform and state banking in Ireland, 1891–1938

This research is part of a wider project, ‘A messy divorce? Irish debt and default, 1891–1938’, conducted by McLaughlin as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow.Land reform and its financial arrangements are central elements of modern Irish history. Yet to date, the financial mechanisms underpinning Irish land reform have been overlooked. The article outlines the mechanisms of land reform in Ireland and the importance of land bonds to the process. Advances worth over £127 million were made to tenant farmers to purchase their holdings. These schemes enabled the transfer of over three-quarters of land on the island of Ireland. The article introduces a new database on Irish land bonds listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange from 1891 to 1938. It illustrates the nature of these bonds and presents data on their size, liquidity and market returns. The article finds a high level of state banking in Ireland: large issues of land bonds were held by state-owned savings banks.PostprintPeer reviewe

State dissolution, sovereign debt and default: Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920-1938

We study Ireland´s inheritance of debt following its secession from the United Kingdom at the beginning of the twentieth century. Exploiting structural differences in bonds guaranteed by the UK and Irish governments, we can identify perceived uncertainty about fiscal responsibility in the aftermath of the sovereign breakup. We document that Ireland´s default on intergovernmental payments was an important event. Although payments from the Irish government ceased, the UK government instructed its Treasury to continue making interest and principal repayments. As a result, the risk premium on the bonds the UK government had guaranteed fell to about zero. Our findings are consistent with persistent ambiguity about fiscal responsibility far-beyond sovereign breakup. We discuss the political and economic forces behind the Irish and UK governments´ decisions, and suggest lessons for modern-day states that are eyeing dissolution. "Further, in view of all the historical circumstances, it is not equitable that the Irish people should be obliged to pay away these moneys" - Eamon De Valera, 12 October 193

Sovereign debt guarantees and default: Lessons from the UK and Ireland, 1920-1938

This research is part of a wider project,“A messy divorce? Irish debt and default, 1891-1938”, conducted by McLaughlin as a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow.We study the daily yields on Irish land bonds listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange during the years 1920–1938. We exploit Irish events during the period and structural differences in land bonds to tease out a measure of investors' credibility in a UK sovereign guarantee. Using Ireland's default on intergovernmental payments in 1932, we find a premium of about 43 basis points associated with uncertainty about the UK government guarantee. We discuss the economic and political forces behind the Irish and UK governments' decisions pertaining to the default. Our finding has implications for modern-day proposals to issue jointly-guaranteed sovereign debt. ‘Further, in view of all the historical circumstances, it is not equitable that the Irish people should be obliged to pay away these moneys’ - Eamon De Valera, 12 October 1932PostprintPeer reviewe

Irish land bonds: 1891-1938

This paper introduces a new database on Irish land bonds listed on the Dublin Stock Exchange from 1891 to 1938: it outlines the nature of these bonds and presents data on their size, liquidity and market returns. These government-guaranteed bonds arose during a period when the possibility of Irish secession from the United Kingdom appeared ever more likely, and were used to finance the transfer of land ownership from landlords to tenants in Ireland (North & South). Movements in the prices of these bonds can help to understand how financial markets responded to events in the early economic and political history of the Irish Free State, including Irish partition, Independence, Civil War and de facto default. Understanding these issues has contemporary relevance for regions in Spain (Catalonia, Euskadi), Great Britain (Scotland) and Belgium (Flanders)

Gender Differences in Russian Colour Naming

In the present study we explored Russian colour naming in a web-based psycholinguistic experiment (http://www.colournaming.com). Colour singletons representing the Munsell Color Solid (N=600 in total) were presented on a computer monitor and named using an unconstrained colour-naming method. Respondents were Russian speakers (N=713). For gender-split equal-size samples (NF=333, NM=333) we estimated and compared (i) location of centroids of 12 Russian basic colour terms (BCTs); (ii) the number of words in colour descriptors; (iii) occurrences of BCTs most frequent non-BCTs. We found a close correspondence between females’ and males’ BCT centroids. Among individual BCTs, the highest inter-gender agreement was for seryj ‘grey’ and goluboj ‘light blue’, while the lowest was for sinij ‘dark blue’ and krasnyj ‘red’. Females revealed a significantly richer repertory of distinct colour descriptors, with great variety of monolexemic non-BCTs and “fancy” colour names; in comparison, males offered relatively more BCTs or their compounds. Along with these measures, we gauged denotata of most frequent CTs, reflected by linguistic segmentation of colour space, by employing a synthetic observer trained by gender-specific responses. This psycholinguistic representation revealed females’ more refined linguistic segmentation, compared to males, with higher linguistic density predominantly along the redgreen axis of colour space

Global Vascular Guidelines on the Management of Chronic Limb-Threatening Ischemia

Chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI)is associated with mortality, amputation, and impaired quality of life. These Global Vascular Guidelines (GVG)are focused on definition, evaluation, and management of CLTI with the goals of improving evidence-based care and highlighting critical research needs. The term CLTI is preferred over critical limb ischemia, as the latter implies threshold values of impaired perfusion rather than a continuum. CLTI is a clinical syndrome defined by the presence of peripheral artery disease (PAD)in combination with rest pain, gangrene, or a lower limb ulceration >2 weeks duration. Venous, traumatic, embolic, and nonatherosclerotic etiologies are excluded. All patients with suspected CLTI should be referred urgently to a vascular specialist. Accurately staging the severity of limb threat is fundamental, and the Society for Vascular Surgery Threatened Limb Classification system, based on grading of Wounds, Ischemia, and foot Infection (WIfI)is endorsed. Objective hemodynamic testing, including toe pressures as the preferred measure, is required to assess CLTI. Evidence-based revascularization (EBR)hinges on three independent axes: Patient risk, Limb severity, and ANatomic complexity (PLAN). Average-risk and high-risk patients are defined by estimated procedural and 2-year all-cause mortality. The GVG proposes a new Global Anatomic Staging System (GLASS), which involves defining a preferred target artery path (TAP)and then estimating limb-based patency (LBP), resulting in three stages of complexity for intervention. The optimal revascularization strategy is also influenced by the availability of autogenous vein for open bypass surgery. Recommendations for EBR are based on best available data, pending level 1 evidence from ongoing trials. Vein bypass may be preferred for average-risk patients with advanced limb threat and high complexity disease, while those with less complex anatomy, intermediate severity limb threat, or high patient risk may be favored for endovascular intervention. All patients with CLTI should be afforded best medical therapy including the use of antithrombotic, lipid-lowering, antihypertensive, and glycemic control agents, as well as counseling on smoking cessation, diet, exercise, and preventive foot care. Following EBR, long-term limb surveillance is advised. The effectiveness of nonrevascularization therapies (eg, spinal stimulation, pneumatic compression, prostanoids, and hyperbaric oxygen)has not been established. Regenerative medicine approaches (eg, cell, gene therapies)for CLTI should be restricted to rigorously conducted randomizsed clinical trials. The GVG promotes standardization of study designs and end points for clinical trials in CLTI. The importance of multidisciplinary teams and centers of excellence for amputation prevention is stressed as a key health system initiative. © 2019 Society for Vascular Surgery and European Society for Vascular Surger

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

The genetic architecture of the human cerebral cortex

The cerebral cortex underlies our complex cognitive capabilities, yet little is known about the specific genetic loci that influence human cortical structure. To identify genetic variants that affect cortical structure, we conducted a genome-wide association meta-analysis of brain magnetic resonance imaging data from 51,665 individuals. We analyzed the surface area and average thickness of the whole cortex and 34 regions with known functional specializations. We identified 199 significant loci and found significant enrichment for loci influencing total surface area within regulatory elements that are active during prenatal cortical development, supporting the radial unit hypothesis. Loci that affect regional surface area cluster near genes in Wnt signaling pathways, which influence progenitor expansion and areal identity. Variation in cortical structure is genetically correlated with cognitive function, Parkinson's disease, insomnia, depression, neuroticism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead