AN APPLICABILITY OF THE LIVELIHOODS APPROACH IN THE ASSESSMENT OF POVERTY IN URBAN CHINA

The paper aims to examine an applicability of the livelihoods approach to poverty studies in urban China. Basically, the approach identifies the poor as active agents tackling the problem with the type and level of capabilities, assets, activities on which they draw for their livelihoods. It highlights the multifaceted reality of their struggles against poverty. This paper argues that the livelihoods approach, which takes a people-centred approach to reduce poverty, can be a new platform for the assessment of poverty in urban China.     

Messages from a middle power: participation by the Republic of Korea in regional environmental cooperation on transboundary air pollution issues

This paper addresses the question whether or not regional middle power states are capable of making a significant contribution to enhancing regional cooperation via regime creation processes. A combination of “nonregime” and the middle power analysis is applied to produce hypotheses about less-developed cases of regime creation in Northeast Asia. Among the attractions of such an approach are that (1) cases of failure to create international regimes as well as cases of success are important to understand the emergence of global governance institutions, and (2) the different roles of various state actors should be understood beyond hegemonic power. The explanatory power of this approach is illustrated by transboundary air pollution issues in Northeast Asia, chosen because the international relations literature has emphasized the development of European regional environmental cooperation and global environmental issues. The paper examines participation by the Republic of Korea (ROK) in both comprehensive and issue-specific environmental cooperative mechanisms to tackle transboundary air pollution. It concludes that the ROK as a middle power has played a promising role to initiate and lead some positive competition between member countries, but at the same time, it highlights challenges that need to be met for creating solid regional environmental cooperation.     

WHAT WORKS BEST AND WHEN: ACCOUNTING FOR MULTIPLE SOURCES OF PURESELECTION BIAS IN PROGRAM EVALUATIONS

Most evaluations are still quasi‐experimental and most recent quasi‐experimental methodological research has focused on various types of propensity score matching to minimize conventional selection bias on observables. Although these methods create better‐matched treatment and comparison groups on observables, the issue of selection on unobservables still looms large. Thus, in the absence of being able to run randomized controlled trials (RCTs) or natural experiments, it is important to understand how well different regression‐based estimators perform in terms of minimizing pure selection bias, that is, selection on unobservables. We examine the relative magnitudes of three sources of pure selection bias: heterogeneous response bias, time‐invariant individual heterogeneity (fixed effects [FEs]), and intertemporal dependence (autoregressive process of order one [AR(1)]). Because the relative magnitude of each source of pure selection bias may vary in different policy contexts, it is important to understand how well different regression‐based estimators handle each source of selection bias. Expanding simulations that have their origins in the work of Heckman, LaLonde, and Smith ( 1999 ), we find that difference‐in‐differences (DID) using equidistant pre‐ and postperiods and FEs estimators are less biased and have smaller standard errors in estimating the Treatment on the Treated (TT) than other regression‐based estimators. Our data analysis using the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) program replicates our simulation findings in estimating the TT.     

1H NMR spectroscopic identification of a glue sniffing biomarker

Organic solvent abuse typically involves sniffing organic solvents to experience the mind-altering conditions they induce. In Republic of Korea, organic solvent abuse is a serious social problem, especially among teenagers. Several studies have addressed the effects of organic solvent abuse on mind and body, but there are no simple methods by which such abuse can be positively identified. In this report, we describe a method for analyzing toluene metabolites (toluene is the main ingredient of glue) in glue-sniffers' urine using (1)H NMR spectroscopy. Toluene is a commonly used solvent in the rubber, paint, plastics, leather, printing, and chemical industries. Inhaled toluene is metabolized to hippuric acid in the liver and excreted in the urine. Hippuric acid is known as a good biomarker for biological monitoring of toluene exposure. We have scanned hippuric acid and other toluene metabolites by NMR spectroscopy and performed statistical multivariate analysis of the data. Based on this analysis, we sought to determine parameters by which glue-sniffing (toluene inhalation) behavior may be verified. We also demonstrate the use of a pattern recognition method for accurate and efficient analysis of NMR data. In comparison to conventional methods, such as mass spectroscopy coupled with liquid chromatography or gas chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy has several advantages, including simple sample preparation, non-destructive sampling, accuracy, short acquisition time, and reproducibility in the determination of urinary hippuric acid.     

The "AIDS and MDGs" approach: what is it, why does it matter, and how do we take it forward?

Progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) has been mixed, and many observers have noted the tendency for development actors to address individual MDGs largely in isolation from one another. This in turn has resulted in missed opportunities to catalyse greater interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation towards MDG achievement. The term 'AIDS and MDGs' is gaining currency as an approach that aims to explore, strengthen and leverage the links between AIDS and other health and development issues. Drawing from academic literature and from MDG country reports, this article sets out three important pillars to an AIDS and MDGs approach: 1) understanding how AIDS and the other MDGs affect one another; 2) documenting and exchanging lessons learned across MDGs; and 3) creating cross- MDG synergy. We propose broader policy level implications for this approach and how UNDP and other partners can take this agenda forward. Because the MDGs explicitly locate HIV within a broader international commitment to human development targets, they provide a critical platform for development partners to galvanise resources, political will and momentum behind a broader, systematic and structural approach to HIV, health and development.     

"I want you to listen to my side of this": is there a role for mediation early in the health care complaints process?

The resolution of disputes that arise out of the provision of health care services has historically taken place at an institutional level, with the hospital administrative unit conducting the process, or through the legal system with the parties traversing the relevant courts and tribunals. Increasingly, the wide range of decisions which must be made in relation to the delivery of patient and client care and the broad scope of variations in expectations as to what a health service is capable of delivering, are providing fertile ground for conflict. This column considers the potential role of mediation as an early intervention strategy to resolve health care disputes.     

Testing the Moderating Effect of Parent–Adolescent Communication on the Acculturation Gap–Distress Relation in Korean American Families

Although the acculturation gap generally has been associated with poor mental health outcomes among Asian American children, some studies have failed to find a significant relationship between the gap and distress. Using two different methods of operationalizing the gap between mothers and their children, the current study addressed this tension in the literature by testing the following hypotheses in a sample of Korean American families. It was hypothesized that mother–adolescent discrepancies in acculturation and enculturation levels would be associated with youth internalizing and externalizing symptoms and that parent–adolescent communication would moderate the gap–distress relationship. Multi-informant questionnaires were administered to 77 Korean American mother–adolescent dyads from the Midwest. Surprisingly, results indicated that consonance in low levels of mother–adolescent enculturation was associated with the highest levels of externalizing symptoms (interaction term method). Adolescents’ perception of communication with their fathers significantly moderated the relationship between the enculturation gap and internalizing symptoms, such that in dyads with a greater enculturation gap, less perceived open communication with fathers was associated with more internalizing symptoms (difference score method). Clinically, the findings indicate a potential target (i.e., parent–adolescent communication) for treatment programs that aim to improve family relations and youth adjustment in immigrant families.     

disowning dependence: single women's collective struggle for independence and land rights in northwestern India

In April 2008 over 2,600 single women marched for three days to Shimla, the state capital of the northwestern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, to demand rights to land, health care and ration cards for single women. The march was organized by a new social movement called Ekal Nari Shakti Sangathan, comprising divorced, abandoned, never-married women, widows and wives fleeing domestic violence who are demanding rights from the state in their own names (rather than as wives, daughters or mothers); in so doing they are directly challenging the construct of the ‘dependent woman’ naturalized in pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial discourses. The most radical of the demands of this new social movement is the struggle for land rights and the creation of new women-centred family formations. Through an analysis of their collective demands, I argue that the normative, dependent woman is mutually constituted not only at the intersections of gender, kinship and heterosexuality, but also spatially, through denial of rights to land. As single women disown their dependence upon husbands/fathers/brothers and demand land rights, they simultaneously re-imagine gendered selves by envisioning new marital families and re-working the division of labour.     

Exploiting expressed sequence tag databases for the development and characterization of gene-derived simple sequence repeat markers in the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) for forensic applications

Simple sequence repeat (SSR) markers in the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) were identified from an expressed sequence tag (EST) database comprised of 20,340 sequences. In total, 2780 SSR-containing sequences were identified. The most frequent microsatellite had an AT/TA motif (37%). Twenty-two opium poppy EST-SSR markers were presently developed and polymorphisms of six markers (psom 2, 4, 12, 13, 17, and 22) were utilized in 135 individuals under narcotic control investigation. An average of three alleles per locus (range: 2-5 alleles) with a mean heterozygosity of 0.167 was detected. Six loci identified 29 unique profiles in 135 individuals. The EST-SSR markers exhibited small degrees of genetic differentiation (fixation index = 0.727, p < 0.001). Other variable markers will be needed to facilitate the forensic identification of the opium poppy for future cases. To determine the potential for cross-species amplification, six markers were tested in five Papaver genera species and two Eschscholzia genera. The psom 4 and psom 17 primer pair was transferable. This is the first study to report SSR markers of the opium poppy.