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New Emphasis (new + emphasis)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences60%

Selected Abstracts

Gender, Caste and Matchmaking in Kerala: A Rationale for Dowry

DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE, Issue 2 2008
Praveena Kodoth
ABSTRACT The matrilineal castes of northern Kerala consider dowry demeaning and resort to it only in ,exceptional' circumstances. In local discourse, dowry is transacted when women are considered ,old' by the standards of the marriage market, where over-age is a condition reached usually on account of what is considered a deficit of a normative conception of femininity. Dowry is practised openly only by poor and socially vulnerable households, as the relatively affluent could mask dowry with hidden compensations. This article explores the ways in which gender mediates matchmaking and generates a residual category of women for whom dowry is openly negotiated. Open negotiation on the margins of the marriage market expose the terms of exchange in ,respectable' society, where matchmaking strategies reveal the emphasis placed on conjugality and on caste in the social construction of women's interests and identity. Up to the mid-twentieth century, matrilineal women derived their identity from their natal families. The political economy of marriage in Kerala brought a new emphasis to bear on conjugality and on caste, which generated new restrictions on women and produced a rationale for dowry. [source]

Astrocytes,Friends or foes in multiple sclerosis?

GLIA, Issue 13 2007
Anna Williams
Abstract In multiple sclerosis (MS), the presence of demyelinating plaques has concentrated researchers' minds on the role of the oligodendrocyte in its pathophysiology. Recently, with the rediscovery of early and widespread loss of axons in the disease, new emphasis has been put on the role of axons and axon-oligodendrocyte interactions in MS. Despite the fact that, in 1904, Müller claimed that MS was a disease of astrocytes, more recently, astrocytes have taken a back seat, except as the cells that form the final glial scar after all hope of demyelination is over. However, perhaps it is time for the return of the astrocyte to popularity in the pathogenesis of MS, with recent reports on the dual role of astrocytes in aiding degeneration and demyelination, by promoting inflammation, damage of oligodendrocytes and axons, and glial scarring, but also in creating a permissive environment for remyelination by their action on oligodendrocyte precursor migration, oligodendrocyte proliferation, and differentiation. We review these findings to try to provide a cogent view of astrocytes in the pathology of MS. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

The New Mega-Projects: Genesis and Impacts

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 4 2008
FERNANDO DIAZ ORUETA
Abstract Critiques of urban renewal and large-scale developments were prominent in the period 1960,80. In particular, they emphasized the negative environmental and social consequences of these schemes and especially attacked them for displacing low-income and ethnically different populations. In the 1980s and 1990s, we saw a decline in such projects in many places, responding to popular protest and intellectual dissent, along with a new emphasis on preservation. More recently, however, we see the revival of mega-projects, often connected with tourism and sports development and incorporating the designs of world-famous architects. Frequently these are on landfill or abandoned industrial sites. The symposium for which this is an introduction shows the growing convergence of North American and European projects. This convergence is visible in their physical form, their financing, and in the role played by the state in a world marked by neoliberalism. At the same time, the new projects do display a greater environmental sensitivity and commitment to urbanity than the modernist schemes of an earlier epoch. Résumé Dans la période 1960,1980, les critiques sur les aménagements à grande échelle et les grandes rénovations urbaines étaient fréquentes. Elles soulignaient notamment les conséquences environnementales et sociales néfastes de ces programmes, en leur reprochant en particulier de déplacer les populations à faible revenu ou d'appartenance ethnique différente. Dans les années 1980 et 1990, ces projets se sont faits plus rares dans bien des endroits, répondant à la contestation populaire et au désaccord des intellectuels, parallèlement à une préoccupation nouvelle pour la préservation. Dernièrement, pourtant, les mégaprojets ont réapparu, souvent associés à un aménagement touristique ou sportif et intégrant des créations d'architectes de renommée mondiale. Ils se situent fréquemment sur le site d'anciennes décharges ou usines abandonnées. Le symposium dont ce texte sert d'introduction montre la convergence croissante des projets nord-américains et européens, convergence que l'on constate dans leur forme physique, leur financement et dans le rôle que joue l'État dans un monde empreint de néolibéralisme. En même temps, les nouveaux projets affichent une sensibilitéà l'environnement et un engagement vis-à-vis de l'urbanité plus marqués que les programmes modernistes antérieurs. [source]

Ending Wars and Building Peace: International Responses to War-Torn Societies1

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES PERSPECTIVES, Issue 1 2008
Charles T. Call
Scholars and practitioners of international relations have devoted increasing attention to how cease-fires, once achieved, may be translated into sustained peace. In recent years, the United Nations, the World Bank, and the United States and other governments have revamped their institutional architecture for addressing post-conflict reconstruction and peacebuilding. The creation in 2006 of a UN Peacebuilding Commission exemplifies these changes. The relationship between weak states and the durability of peace has acquired new emphasis in IR research. This article analyzes recent conceptual developments in post-conflict peacebuilding, relating them to new thinking about fragile states. It then analyzes the international architecture for addressing post-conflict peacebuilding, identifying gaps, and analyzing likely policy challenges in the near future. We argue that despite important analytic insights and institutional changes, serious challenges persist in efforts to prevent wars from recurring. [source]

Spatial and temporal scales of adaptive divergence in marine fishes and the implications for conservation

JOURNAL OF FISH BIOLOGY, Issue 2006
D. O. Conover
Knowledge of geographic and temporal scales of adaptive genetic variation is crucial to species conservation, yet understanding of these phenomena, particularly in marine systems, is scant. Until recently, the belief has been that because most marine species have highly dispersive or mobile life stages, local adaptation could occur only on broad geographic scales. This view is supported by comparatively low levels of genetic variation among populations as detected by neutral markers. Similarly, the time scale of adaptive divergence has also been assumed to be very long, requiring thousands of generations. Recent studies of a variety of species have challenged these beliefs. First, there is strong evidence of geographically structured local adaptation in physiological and morphological traits. Second, the proportion of quantitative trait variation at the among-population level (QST) is much higher than it is for neutral markers (FST) and these two metrics of genetic variation are poorly correlated. Third, evidence that selection is a potent evolutionary force capable of sustaining adaptive divergence on contemporary time scales is summarized. The differing spatial and temporal scales of adaptive v. neutral genetic divergence call for a new paradigm in thinking about the relationship between phenogeography (the geography of phenotypic variation) and phylogeography (the geography of lineages) in marine species. The idea that contemporary selective processes can cause fine-scale spatial and temporal divergence underscores the need for a new emphasis on Darwinian fishery science. [source]

Measuring outcomes of United Way,funded programs: Expectations and reality

NEW DIRECTIONS FOR EVALUATION, Issue 119 2008
Michael Hendricks
In 1996, United Way of America (UWA) developed and began disseminating the most widely used approach to program outcome measurement in the nonprofit sector. Today an estimated 450 local United Ways encourage approximately 19,000 local agencies they fund to measure outcomes. The authors first describe and then assess the strengths and limitations of the distinguishing features of the UWA approach, efforts to disseminate the approach, implementation by local United Ways, and actual outcome measurement by local agencies. The chapter ends with a description of United Way's relatively new emphasis on community impact and how that initiative relates to program outcome measurement. © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Problems in the Theorisation of Global Civil Society

POLITICAL STUDIES, Issue 5 2002
Gideon Baker
Existing theories of global civil society are problematical for two reasons. First, they assume that transnational organisations can assist world-wide democratisation without questioning either the representativeness of such organisations, or their accountability, or the potentially negative ramifications of their actions for international political equality. Second, despite placing new emphasis on political agency outside of the state, many accounts of global civil society ultimately reproduce statist discourse by reducing action in global civil society to a struggle for rights. This misrepresents global civil society since arguments for rights are, inter alia, arguments for the state, whereas the agency of global civil society immanently questions the legitimacy of the state. [source]

Central-local relations in the people's Republic of China: Trends, processes and impacts for policy implementation

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 3 2010
Linda Chelan Li
Abstract Central,local relations are a matter of great importance to developmentalists because they highlight an intriguing puzzle in public administration especially in large states: how policies decided at higher echelons of the formal system can possibly be implemented by the multitude of intermediary and local actors across the system. In the case of China,the most populous nation in the world, the contrast between the authoritarian façade of the Chinese regime and yet the proliferation of implementation gaps over many policy arenas adds additional complexity to the puzzle. This article reviews changes in central,local relations in the 60 years of history of People's Republic of China (PRC) as the outcome of four co-evolving processes, and clarifies the roles of each process: state building and national integration, development efficiency, career advancement and external influences. It points out the continuous pre-dominance of administrative decentralization from 1950s to present time, and the new emphasis on institutionalized power sharing in the context of new state-market boundaries since 1980s. In conclusion, the article suggests going beyond the traditional reliance on the compliance model to understand central,local interactions and the abundant implementation gaps in a context of central,local co-agency, thereby improving policy implementation. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Football fandom and post-national identity in the New Europe

THE BRITISH JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2000
Anthony King
ABSTRACT Through European club football, we can begin to detect the outlines of a new Europe of competing cities and regions which are being disembedded from their national contexts into new transnational matrices. Focusing on a specific network of Manchester United fans, broadly located in the city of Manchester, this article examines the development of European consciousness among this group of individuals. This consciousness does not consist of a European supranationalism but rather of a new emphasis on the locale of Manchester and an increasing recognition that Manchester United and the city of Manchester must compete autonomously with other major clubs and cities in Europe. [source]

Moving Toward a Grand Theory of Development: In Memory of Esther Thelen

CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 6 2006
John P. Spencer
This paper is in memory of Esther Thelen, who passed away while President of the Society for Research in Child Development. A survey of Esther Thelen's career reveals a trajectory from early work on simple movements like stepping, to the study of goal-directed reaching, to work on the embodiment of cognition, and, ultimately, to a grand theory of development,dynamic systems theory. Four central concepts emerged during her career: (1) a new emphasis on time; (2) the proposal that behavior is softly assembled from the interaction of multiple subsystems; (3) the embodiment of perception, action, and cognition; and (4) a new respect for individuality. Esther Thelen communicated these ideas to scientists and practitioners alike, so the ultimate benefactors of her work were children. [source]