Denture marking--patient preference of various methods

Dental forensic organizations world wide have recommended that dental prostheses should be labeled with at least the patient's (wearer's) name and preferably with further unique identifiers such as social security number. A range of methods are available and the purpose of this study was to determine, via the means of a visual questionnaire, which are the most preferable to those patients who wear complete dentures. One hundred edentulous patients attending the Manchester Dental Hospital were shown a range of denture labeling methods and asked to rank these according to their preference. The most preferred method was that of an embedded radio frequency identification microchip (38% rated this as first) and the second was an inclusion technique using onion paper (24% rated this as first). The least preferred method was the use of a groove cut into the denture flange with 71% of patients rating this as the poorest in terms of esthetics. The study demonstrates that the method of denture labeling is important to patients and to ensure that denture labeling is performed routinely esthetic preferences must be considered.     

Comparative Analysis and Economic Policies with Special Reference to Financial Crises

Policies for preventing or mitigating unfavorable economic conditions, such as inflation, balance-of-payments deficits, and recessions are usually determined by successful policies used in the past, but these policies may not be relevant for certain problems in the future due to changes in conditions. In the past, developing countries with balance of payments problems seeking help from the IMF were usually required to reduce their budget deficits, restrict the money supply, and make other macroeconomic restrictions. However, financial crises experienced by the East Asian countries in 1995–1996 arose mainly from declines in their securities markets accompanied by capital exports and sharp currency depreciation. The IMF provided generous assistance conditioned on the recipients' applying restrictive macroeconomic measures, even though there was no inflation or excessive monetary expansion. The cause of the financial crises was primarily capital outflows generated by defaults on loans made by banks largely for real estate projects, and in some cases resulting bank failures. The capital outflow and the sharp depreciation of the currencies, coupled with macroeconomic restrictions, led to recession and unemployment in these countries. The article goes on to discuss the policies the IMF should have promoted. Its credits should have been used to sustain imports rather than to support currencies and maintain debt service repayments.     

Failure of authoritarian learning: explaining Burma/Myanmar’s electoral system

What explains why some authoritarian governments fail to take all the steps they can to preserve their positions of power during democratic transitions? This article examines this question using the example of the leading pro-military party in Myanmar, which lost badly to the National League for Democracy (NLD) in the transitioning elections of 2015. This article argues that a key to understanding how the military failed to perpetuate its power in the electoral sphere resides in its choice of electoral system. In 2010, the military junta chose an electoral system, first-past-the-post, that was distinctly ill-suited to preserve its power. We explore several hypotheses for why this occurred and ultimately conclude that the military and its allies did not understand electoral systems well enough to act strategically and that they overestimated their support relative to the NLD. This failure of authoritarian learning has important implications for understanding authoritarian politics, democratic transitions, and the challenges faced by authoritarian governments seeking to make such transitions.     

Resolving Conflict Across Languages

English is increasingly used as an indispensable interlanguage, the commonthird language of non-native speakers, in international negotiations.In technical or commercial talks, where interlocutors share a stock ofexpert knowledge, semantic problems are relatively easily overcome. Inemotive and complex negotiations to resolve protracted international conflict,however, intriguing problems of interpretation arise. Though interlocutorsspeak in English, they are unlikely to think or work in English.Back home the political debate is conducted in the mother tongue. Thus thesemantic fields, the full range of meanings and connotations, of keyabstract concepts at the heart of the negotiation may not be conveyed intranslation. The ill-fated Syrian-Israeli peace talks are drawn upon to exemplifythe argument.