Benefits and challenges of micro-enterprise participation: women's cottage industry in Kaimosi,Kenya

This article investigates the perspectives of Kenyan women in the Kaimosi cottage industry regarding the benefits and challenges of producing craft commodities for the global marketplace. Utilising qualitative methods, the research provides an understanding of issues the women faced in producing and marketing goods and offers insights for NGOs into some pitfalls for the sustainability of micro-enterprises. The women asserted that participation in the micro-enterprise had improved their family's economic well-being, helped finance their children's education, and improved their community status. This supports the literature that has found that women's involvement in micro-enterprises reduces poverty and improves well-being.     

Diagnostic Value of PSA and AP Tests for the Detection of Spermatozoa in Postmortem Swabs from the Genital and Anal Region in Males

The aim of this study was to clarify whether positive results for prostate‐specific antigen (PSA) and acid phosphatase (AP) occur in postmortem swabs from the genito‐anal region in males (n = 80; 4 regions) and females (n = 20; 3 regions) and to calculate the positive predictive value (PPV) concerning the presence of spermatozoa. In male subjects, the highest incidence of positive test results was found in urethral swabs (PSA 76%, AP 71%) and the lowest frequencies appeared in perianal and rectal swabs (15–20%). Microscopic evaluation for spermatozoa was positive between 39% in urethral swabs and 1% in rectal swabs. PPV regarding positive identification of spermatozoa was 33.3% for PSA and 31.5% for AP. The combination of both tests yielded a PPV of 38.2%. In female cases, no spermatozoa were identified, and one case was PSA‐ and AP‐positive in perianal swabs. Our findings indicate that PSA and AP tests are of limited value for the postmortem detection of spermatozoa in male subjects.     

When Someday Is Today: Carrying Forward the History of Old Age and Inheritance into the Age of Medicaid

Hartog, Hendrik. 2012 . Someday All This Will Be Yours: A History of Inheritance and Old Age . Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Pp. 353. $29.95 cloth. This review essay of Hendrik Hartog's ( 2012 ) Someday All This Will Be Yours undertakes a brief overview of some of the massive changes in middle‐class planning for old age and inheritance in the United States over the course of the past century, focusing on the increased role of the state as a source of funding and regulation, the rise of the elder law bar, and the resulting new tools and motives for the transfer of property in exchange for care in the age of Medicaid.     

The Breadwinner, his Wife and their Welfare: Identity, Expertise and Economic Security in Australian Post-War Reconstruction

The architects of Australian post-war reconstruction had learned from the experience of the Depression that subordinating the social order to economic objectives could have disastrous results. In Australia as elsewhere, interwar political and civic institutions were not sufficiently robust to protect society from the instability of a system based on the economically rational choices of individual entrepreneurs. High unemployment, which had characterised the interwar years and reached catastrophic levels in the Depression, convinced the architects of post-war reconstruction that new political institutions were necessary. The civil and political institutions they attempted to create were expressed in a particular anthropology constituted around their own identity as experts and the identities of the entrepreneur, the breadwinner and his wife.     

Introduction: The state of labor in the People’s Republic of China

Studies in Comparative International Development -     

The place of women in European royal succession in the middle ages

When in 1997 Professor Michael Bennett announced his rediscovery of Edward III’s succession charter of 1376, the general press proclaimed that succession to the English throne had for the first time been made a male preserve, and that before that date there had been no barrier to a woman occupying the throne, citing, for example, the case of Matilda, daughter of Henry I. But is this correct? By examining examples from both Britain and continental Europe from c.1100 onwards, this paper seeks to establish the true position of women in the succession to European thrones before ‘effective’ female rulers – those who ruled independently of husbands or regents – became a regular feature of the political landscape from the late fifteenth century onwards.