Does Health Aid Reduce Infant and Child Mortality from Diarrhoea in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Achieving sustained improvements in health outcomes remains a challenge for sub-Saharan Africa, where diarrhoea remains a leading cause of death in children under the age of five. This paper examines the impact of foreign aid to the health sector on diarrhoea mortality in children under five in 47 sub-Saharan African countries, using panel data on the sectoral allocation of official development assistance in conjunction with country-level data on health outcomes. After controlling for fixed effects and the potential endogeneity of health aid, we find that increased health aid and increased public health expenditure are associated with lower diarrhoea mortality in children under five. In addition, health aid increases government spending on health, suggesting that the overall impact of health aid on diarrheal death rates could exceed the direct effect. Furthermore, increased access to improved sources of water and sanitation are important in reducing child mortality from diarrhoea.     

The Ongoing Debate Regarding the Duty to Defend and the Use of Extrinsic Evidence

Most courts agree that the duty to defend is broader than the duty to indemnify. Many courts also agree that the duty to defend should be determined by the four or eight corners rule. There is not agreement, however, whether extrinsic evidence may be used to expand, narrow, or eliminate the duty to defend. This article provides an overview of the issue and contends that extrinsic evidence is only appropriate in circumstances where a policyholder seeks to establish a defense obligation or where the insurer is aware of information independent of the complaint that confirms a defense obligation.     

Quantitative analysis of pulmonary neuroendocrine cell distribution of the fetal small airways using double-labeled immunohistochemistry

Pulmonary neuroendocrine cells (PNECs) are supposed to play an essential role in development of fetal lung and neonatal respiratory adaptation. Some previous studies have suggested the close relation between PNECs and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). To investigate how PNECs distribute to the thermal bronchioli of fetal lung may be a clue to clarify this relation. Since it is difficult to distinguish bronchiole from alveolus in fetal lung, we performed double immunostaining with antibody against chromogranin A (CGA) and alpha-smooth muscle actin (SMA) which can make clear distinction between them. In this study, formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded lung tissues from 18 autopsy cases from 16 to 28 weeks of gestation were assessed. CGA immunopositive cells were counted and the length of basement membranes of terminal bronchioli was measured with computed image analyzer. Density of PNECs was expressed as the number of immunopositive cells per millimeter of basement membrane. Terminal bronchiole stained with SMA was clearly distinguished from alveolus at 16 weeks. With gestational age, CGA immunopositive PNECs were gradually increased in 2 folds by the 25th week. After that, their density wasn't changed significantly until termination. It is suggested that PNECs in terminal bronchiole was playing an important role in morphogenesis of alveolar ducts and alveolar sacks.     

Surpassing the word: Aileen Wuornos

This article explores the dynamics of Richard Move's drag performance of the late Martha Graham. Drag dance is remarkably self-aware as historiography, and it employs a rhetoric of bodies becoming other bodies: channeling, paying homage, re-embodying, reliving, being possessed. This article argues that drag dance has a historical project for dance history; specifically, that drag bodies can become a new medium through which aesthetic/kinetic histories are transmitted. In the case of Richard Move, the exaggeration and excess of the ageing Martha Graham become modalities that align with the ‘wrongness’ of his body. This is drag dance as a strategy of re-embodiment after the original body has been lost, and Richard Move presents his performance as a ‘haunting,’ much like the feeling Martha Graham describes as the result of a dancer's “first death,” when she watches someone else dance a role she had originated. Ballets like Graham's Lamentation and Cave of the Heart give Move the opportunity to portray Graham's struggle to continue to dance after this “first death,” using drag as a strategy to show up the eerie perfection of voice against the hollowness of the ageing dancer's body. Combining vaudeville and séance, moving from the restless gay “underworld” of the Meatpacking District to the right to presume himself the heir to the mother of modern dance, Richard Move first embodies and then moves beyond Susan Sontag's camp “etc etc” of Graham's self-performance.     

Supporting the underdog: feminism,animal rights and citizenship in the work of Alice Morgan Wright and Edith Goode

Abstract

In this article, the author examines the overlap between feminism and animal causes, particularly through the lives of two women, the sculptor, Alice Morgan Wright (1881-1975), and her friend, Edith Goode (1882-1970). Feminism and animal causes had connections in the late nineteenth century, particularly in campaigns to abolish vivisection. Wright and Goode held to these politics throughout their lives, and were ‘precursors of a generation yet to come’ who would argue the connections – as many ecofeminists do today. Both women were involved in suffrage campaigns, and continued to be involved in women's organisations such as the National Woman's Party. They were, however, opposed to all injustice, including human mistreatment of animals. Feminism was, to Wright and Goode, part of a wider set of problems; animal cruelty reflected a greater barbarism leading to mistreatment of humans. Accordingly, they actively campaigned for legislation to protect animals and the environment, and lobbied the fledgling United Nations to include such measures. That challenge to the United Nations represented a unique attempt to bring animals into citizenship' a move being made again today, through initiatives such as the Great Ape Project.     

Deconstructing the Construction Defect Insurance Claim

This article provides a practical overview of the issues presented by a construction defect insurance claim. It begins with a discussion of establishing standing under the typical comprehensive general liability insurance policy, with a particular emphasis on additional insured issues. The article then describes the typical issues faced in proving an “occurrence” took place in the context of a construction claim. Thereafter, the article addresses the so-called business risk exclusions and their potential application in a construction defect case.