How the Occupy movement may have facilitated political change

Occupy protests are one of the major global political waves of our time. But what was their impact? Alper Yagci highlights the link between the recession, inequality, and the Occupy movement, and writes that although the institutional impact might not have been immediately obvious, the wider political change Occupy facilitated is now becoming clearer

Managing the Agricultural Biotechnology Revolution: Responses to Transgenic Seeds in Developing Countries

There has been heated debate over transgenic or genetically modified (GM) crops in agriculture. Advocates and critics argue over possible economic, environmental, public health implications of this technology. This study examines varying policy approaches to regulating GM crop cultivation in four developing countries where the technology has large potential application. Why have some countries banned GM crop cultivation in their territory while others encouraged it? In countries where GM crops were allowed, why have varying systems of intellectual property rights (IPR) protection been constructed? To investigate these questions I comparatively examine the policy experience (1995-2015) of Argentina, Brazil, Turkey relying on original fieldwork and India based on secondary literature. The explanation combines structural considerations with a social constructivist understanding of how actors make use of ideas to interpret and articulate their interests in a context defined by novelty and uncertainty. Transnational biotechnology companies lobby developing country governments for permission of GM crop cultivation and strict IPR protection so as to be able to charge the cultivators technology fees. While public opinion tends to be opposed to these crops, associations of big farmers tend to favor their adoption and view the IPR claims by biotechnology companies as relatively tolerable. Smaller farmers and domestic seed industry, on the other hand, seek guarantees from the state that technology adoption conditions will not be established to their disadvantage. Which agenda is prioritized in policy-making will depend not only on the political weight of each pressure group but also on the statesmen’s management of the available knowledge on such questions as how the GM plants work, who they are good for, why they may or may not be needed. I demonstrate that GM-skeptic coalitions can have a good chance at policy influence where the pro-GM producer sector is highly fragmented, but where the producer sector is strong the same opposition can be functional in obtaining a domestic producer- oriented policy by challenging the legitimacy of extensive IPR claims advanced by transnational biotechnology firms

Economic Voting and Media Influence in a Competitive Authoritarian Setting: Evidence from Turkey

It is generally assumed that individuals take national economic performance into account while voting. But the question of how perceptions about the economy may be influenced by partisan media remains understudied. Analyzing survey data from Turkey with various robust analysis techniques we demonstrate that reliance on pro government media as a news source makes voters’ economic perceptions significantly more favorable, which in turn increases the likelihood of incumbent vote. In addition, we demonstrate that the audience of pro-government media are more likely to display “sociotropic overestimation”—thinking that the national economy has done better compared to their own household experience; and “counterfactual rationalization”—thinking, regardless of how they view actual economic performance, that it could be worse under alternative leadership. The results suggest that when the economy is manifestly deteriorating, authoritarian incumbents may try to use media influence to convince the electorate that the status quo is better than the alternatives

Religiosity, Employment, and Horizontal Inequalities in Turkey

In societies that are horizontally fragmented between identity-based social groups, electoral competition is often motivated by the desire to use public office to advance group interests (Alesina et al., 1999, Bates, 1983, i Miquel, 2007). We focus on the case of Turkey to study group favoritism in such a context. Rigorous individual-level empirical study of this question has so far remained limited since official household income surveys in Turkey do not include questions about religion and religiosity. We fill this gap by exploiting individual-level polling data that spans the available 2012-2018 period in pooled cross-sectional fashion, and analyzing whether age cohorts that joined the labor market before and after AKP came to power experience varying outcomes in employment and income depending on their religion and religiosity. We find that under AKP rule pious Sunnis displayed significant improvement in the ratio of those in public sector employment (especially for women) and private high-status jobs (especially for men). In fact, for the youngest cohorts, the gap between pious Sunnis and others in public employment has already closed. Finally, gaps in income per capita between pious Sunni and others are narrowing only for the youngest cohorts. Our findings suggest that AKP governments use public employment to reward like-minded groups

Agriculture as the opportunity for sustainable development of Slovene rural areas

Vloga kmetijstva na podeželju se je bistveno spremenila, celo povečala, saj se je kmetijstvu pričelo pripisovati številne nove funkcije, od socialne do ekološke. Z vključitvijo v EU in uveljavljanjem Skupne kmetijske politike prihaja do velikih sprememb tudi v slovenskem kmetijstvu, njegovi usmeritvi, stopnji intenzivnosti, velikostni in posestni strukturi. Vprašanje pa je, ali je smer razvoja kmetijstva v Sloveniji v skladu z varovanjem in ohranjanjem naših ključnih naravnih virov?The role of agriculture in rural areas has changed significantly, it has even increased, since having been attributed numerous new functions, from social to ecologic. Also Slovene agriculture, its direction, intensity level, size and proprietal structure was subject to considerable changes as a result of inclusion of Slovenia in the EU and implementation of the Common Agricultural Policy. However it should be considered whether the direction of development of Slovene agriculture corresponds to protection and conservation of our major natural resources

In vitro Hemocompatibility Assessment of Near-IR-Emitting Ag2S Quantum Dots (QD)

Quantum Dots (QDs) emitting in the Near-Infrared region (NIRQD) are relatively new but more attractive in biotechnology and medicine, than widely used visible QDs. However, heavy metal toxicity is an important concern for their parenteral applications. Recent efforts have been directed towards development of Cd, Pb and Hg free, biocompatible QDs. Hocaoglu et al. have recently demonstrated a single-step synthesis of cytocompatible Ag2S-2MPA NIRQDs via direct addition of sulphur source to silver salt 1. Till now, very few studies have assessed the hemocompatibility of QDs. Indeed, when diluted in the blood stream nanomaterials will be able to elicit several toxicological reactions, in particular: embolisation, hemolysis, cellular activation, but also several well-known biological cascades such as coagulation, complement activation, kinin/kininogen, fibrinolysis. Compared to macroscopic materials, hemoreactivity of nanoparticles may be expected to be significantly enhanced due to very high surface/volume ratio. It is therefore easy to realize that nanoparticles may significantly interact with humoral and cellular blood components of the blood 2

Ag2S-Based NIR-emitting Quantum Dots as New Theranostic Materials

Near Infrared (NIR) emitting semiconductor quantum dots (QDs) have attracted great interest as a new class of fluorescent probes for cellular, molecular and in-vivo imaging applications, due to their stable and size-tunable absorption range, large molar extinction coefficient, long luminescence lifetime and higher penetration depth into the tissues than visible light [1, 2]. Recently, Ag2S quantum dots emerged as promising new particles because of the lower cytotoxicity compared to previously reported NIR QDs such as PbS [3], PbSe [4], CdHgTe [5]. Variety of nanoparticles are being designed and tested for gene transfection. QDs provide both a vector basis and a means for optical detection. Therefore, there is a considerable amount of effort in developing QD based gene vectors. In this study, we report the synthesis of Ag2S based theranostic materials, discuss their physical properties and cytotoxicity and demonstrate their superior transfection efficiency