Home About us Contact
|
Home About us Contact | ||
|
|
||
Contrasting Views (contrasting + views)
Selected AbstractsEconomy of Dreams: Hope in Global Capitalism and Its CritiquesCULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY, Issue 2 2006Hirokazu Miyazaki In this article, I respond to Vincent Crapanzano's recent call for attention to the category of hope as a term of social analysis by bringing it into view as a new terrain of commonality and difference across different forms of knowledge. I consider the efforts of participants active in the capitalist market to reorient their knowledge in response to neoliberal reforms side by side with the efforts of academic critics of capitalism to reorient their critique. These efforts to reorient knowledge as a shared method of hope bring to light contrasting views on where such a reorientation might lead. [source] Poverty and Local Governments: Economic Development and Community Service Provision in an Era of DecentralizationGROWTH AND CHANGE, Issue 3 2009LINDA LOBAO ABSTRACT Social scientists have given substantial attention to poverty across U.S. localities. However, most work views localities through the lens of population aggregates, not as units of government. Few poverty researchers question whether governments of poorer localities have the capacity to engage in economic development and service activities that might improve community well-being. This issue is increasingly important as responsibilities for growth and redistribution are decentralized to local governments that vary dramatically in resources. Do poorer communities have less activist local governments? Are they more likely to be engaged in a race to the bottom, focusing on business attraction activities but neglecting services for families and working people? We bring together two distinct literatures, critical research on decentralization and research on local development efforts, that provide contrasting views about the penalty of poverty. Data are from a unique, national survey of county governments measuring activity across two time points. The most consistent determinants of activity are local government capacity, devolutionary pressures, and inertia or past use of strategies. Net of these factors, levels and changes in poverty do not significantly impact government activity. There is no evidence the nations' poorest counties are racing to the bottom. Findings challenge views that poverty is a systematic structural barrier to pursuing innovative economic development policies and suggest that even poorer communities can take steps to build local capacity, resources, and networks that expand programs for local businesses and low-wage people. [source] A New Social Security Reform Consensus?INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 1 2000The ISSA's Stockholm Initiative At a meeting of the ISSA Bureau in Stockholm in 1996, theInternational Social Security Association under the author's presidency launched what became known as the Stockholm Initiative, under the title "The social security reform debate: In search of a new consensus". The objective was to bring together the often contrasting views of national and international experts involved in the social security reform debate, in a first phase with particular regard to public pensions. A broad consensus emerged among specialists about the need to balance social goals and macroeconomic requirements when designing and implementing reforms. This article reviews the background to the Initiative, outlines its achievements and surveys the issues which need to be faced. [source] Saltmarsh erosion and restoration in south-east England: squeezing the evidence requires realignmentJOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY, Issue 5 2005MINEKE WOLTERS Summary 1Saltmarshes in south-east England have been eroding rapidly since 1960. Recently, Hughes & Paramor (2004) and Morris et al. (2004) have presented contrasting views on the extent to which physical and biological processes might contribute to the erosion. There are three contentious issues: (i) saltmarsh erosion is the result of coastal squeeze, where sea walls prevent a landward migration of a saltmarsh in response to sea level rise; (ii) saltmarsh erosion is linked to bioturbation and herbivory of seedlings by the ragworm Nereis diversicolor; (iii) new saltmarshes will not develop on managed realignment sites where existing sea walls have been removed because of the effects of ragworms. 2In this paper, we provide a literature review of physical and biological processes relevant to the above three issues, and discuss the relative importance of these processes at different spatial and temporal scales. 3Our synthesis shows that, at a regional scale, the combination of strong winds, high tides and increased wave height appears to be responsible for the increased rate of marsh erosion and creek dissection recorded in the 1970s. There is also some laboratory evidence that bioturbation and herbivory from populations of Nereis can lead to sediment instability and loss of pioneer plant species, such as Salicornia spp. However, the field evidence is more equivocal and has been conducted at small spatial scales. 4At a large number of different managed realignment sites there is strong evidence that even if bioturbation and herbivory by Nereis have occurred, overall the effects have been insufficient to restrict plant succession of exposed sediment. 5Synthesis and applications. There is an urgent need for long-term field studies that integrate and quantify physical and biological processes and the related feedbacks at different spatial and temporal scales. Until this is completed, terms such as coastal squeeze will remain contentious and management decisions will invite criticism. [source] Evolutionary genetics and biogeographic structure of Rhizobium gallicum sensu lato, a widely distributed bacterial symbiont of diverse legumesMOLECULAR ECOLOGY, Issue 13 2005CLAUDIA SILVA Abstract We used phylogenetic and population genetics approaches to evaluate the importance of the evolutionary forces on shaping the genetic structure of Rhizobium gallicum and related species. We analysed 54 strains from several populations distributed in the Northern Hemisphere, using nucleotide sequences of three ,core' chromosomal genes (rrs, glnII and atpD) and two ,auxiliary' symbiotic genes (nifH and nodB) to elucidate the biogeographic history of the species and symbiotic ecotypes (biovarieties) within species. The analyses revealed that strains classified as Rhizobium mongolense and Rhizobium yanglingense belong to the chromosomal evolutionary lineage of R. gallicum and harbour symbiotic genes corresponding to a new biovar; we propose their reclassification as R. gallicum bv. orientale. The comparison of the chromosomal and symbiotic genes revealed evidence of lateral transfer of symbiotic information within and across species. Genetic differentiation analyses based on the chromosomal protein-coding genes revealed a biogeographic pattern with three main populations, whereas the 16S rDNA sequences did not resolve that biogeographic pattern. Both the phylogenetic and population genetic analyses showed evidence of recombination at the rrs locus. We discuss our results in the light of the contrasting views of bacterial species expressed by microbial taxonomist and evolutionary biologists. [source] The cytoplasmic structure hypothesis for ribosome assembly, vertical inheritance, and phylogeny,BIOESSAYS, Issue 7 2009David S. Thaler Abstract Fundamental questions in evolution concern deep divisions in the living world and vertical versus horizontal information transfer. Two contrasting views are: (i) three superkingdoms Archaea, Eubacteria, and Eukarya based on vertical inheritance of genes encoding ribosomes; versus (ii) a prokaryotic/eukaryotic dichotomy with unconstrained horizontal gene transfer (HGT) among prokaryotes. Vertical inheritance implies continuity of cytoplasmic and structural information whereas HGT transfers only DNA. By hypothesis, HGT of the translation machinery is constrained by interaction between new ribosomal gene products and vertically inherited cytoplasmic structure made largely of preexisting ribosomes. Ribosomes differentially enhance the assembly of new ribosomes made from closely related genes and inhibit the assembly of products from more distal genes. This hypothesis suggests experiments for synthetic biology: the ability of synthetic genomes to "boot," i.e., establish hereditary continuity, will be constrained by the phylogenetic closeness of the cell "body" into which genomes are placed. [source] | |||||||||||||