Political Economy of Additional Development Finance

The paper considers the political obstacles and supports for additional development finance and a number of possible devices through which advantage may be taken of the supports and the obstacles circumvented. It emphasizes the need for effective negotiating alliances among developing-country governments that will draw on support from outside their own ranks. It gives particular attention to the 'innovative' methods by which funds might be mobilized by transnational activity for global disposal within a strategy for the progressive reduction of poverty. In order to eliminate one difficulty it outlines a possible arrangement through which funds so raised might be allocated.development finance, aid, Tobin Tax, global governance

European missionaries in Papua, 1874-1914 : a group portrait

EUROPEAN missionaries, through their numerical strength, their geographical spread, their proximity to the people and, above all, their commitment to conversion, were significant agents of change in Papua, as elsewhere. Yet little is known of missionaries as a social group. Perceptions of them today, as in the past, are based on pervasive stereotypes rather than factual analysis. This thesis, by presenting a group-portrait of the 327 who served in Papua up to the First World War, examines the missionaries as a distinct social group. It attempts to analyse their origins, their style of living and working in the field, and their interactions with the Papuan people, their colleagues, their counterparts in other missions and colonial society at large. It concludes by considering the endurance of the missionaries in the field, the trials that beset them and the convictions that sustained them. The reality in the Papuan mission field was much richer and more multi-faceted than any stereotype could capture. The ethnic and Social origins of the missionaries were diverse, a majority being drawn, however, from the lower (though not the lowest) ranks of European, British and colonial society (Chapter l). Despite their social diversity, there is evidence of strong and steady religious influence in the early lives of most. Their decisions to become missionaries, usually prompted by a genuine sense of vocation, were frequently reinforced by secular compulsions which either repelled them from western society or lured them to the Pacific. Their religious formation varied in both nature and scope, the one common factor being its failure to prepare them adequately (Chapter 2). In Papua, despite similarities imposed by a common environment, the missionaries organised their lives around two fundamentally different systems, lower middle class domesticity on the part of the Protestants, and community on that of the Catholics. Each had its strengths and shortcomings as a basis for mission work (Chapters 3 and U). In their perceptions of the societies which confronted them, missionaries revealed much of the complacent superiority characteristic of Europeans of the period. But more intimate association with Papuan cultures and, for some, exposure to the new discipline of anthropology, fostered growing appreciation. The extent of missionary iconoclasm depended, however, not only on their degree of perception "but also upon their own cultural and theological assumptions (Chapter 5). Throughout the period, the missionaries’ conception of their work broadened, a reflection of a growing concern for the well-being of the whole person rather than a simple preoccupation with salvation (Chapter 6). In all missions, the individual's performance was supported and constrained by the structure and organisation of the mission and his or her status within it (Chapters 7 and. 8). Although accomplices in the processes of imperialism, the missionaries defined for themselves a distinctive role which, at times setting them against both settler and official, ameliorated some of the more exploitative aspects of colonial rule (Chapter 9) Many missionaries found comfort in the rationalisations for suffering which their faith provided. Some found ultimate solace in the exaltation of martyrdom. All were sustained by a lofty selfimage, based in part on the esteem of contemporaries, but more fundamentally on their belief that they were 'co-workers with God’(Chapter 10). It was this self-image, together with convictions born of their social and religious formation, which provided the impetus for their confident and assertive intrusion into the history of Papua

The elected but neglected security council members

Many of the pressing policy challenges confronting the world’s countries and peoples—climate change, pandemics, food and water scarcity, terrorism, financial meltdown—are international in origin and nature, global in scope and effects, and require concerted multilateral action led by the major powers. However, the responsibility for making policy and the authority to mobilize the requisite coercive resources to tackle the threats remain vested in sovereign states. Absent a world government, the order, stability, and predictability in international transactions comes from global governance operating as a patchwork of authority structures which produce generally adhered-to norms to regulate behavior, and layers of mechanisms to punish noncompliance.1 The architecture of global governance consists of international and regional intergovernmental organizations; a ‘soft’ layer of informal general-purpose groupings of states—such as the old G7, new G20, and the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) groupings; as well as transnational civil society and market actors that have exploded in numbers, role, and influence

Evidence for aggressive mimicry in an adult brood parasitic bird, and generalized defences in its host.

Mimicry of a harmless model (aggressive mimicry) is used by egg, chick and fledgling brood parasites that resemble the host's own eggs, chicks and fledglings. However, aggressive mimicry may also evolve in adult brood parasites, to avoid attack from hosts and/or manipulate their perception of parasitism risk. We tested the hypothesis that female cuckoo finches (Anomalospiza imberbis) are aggressive mimics of female Euplectes weavers, such as the harmless, abundant and sympatric southern red bishop (Euplectes orix). We show that female cuckoo finch plumage colour and pattern more closely resembled those of Euplectes weavers (putative models) than Vidua finches (closest relatives); that their tawny-flanked prinia (Prinia subflava) hosts were equally aggressive towards female cuckoo finches and southern red bishops, and more aggressive to both than to their male counterparts; and that prinias were equally likely to reject an egg after seeing a female cuckoo finch or bishop, and more likely to do so than after seeing a male bishop near their nest. This is, to our knowledge, the first quantitative evidence for aggressive mimicry in an adult bird, and suggests that host-parasite coevolution can select for aggressive mimicry by avian brood parasites, and counter-defences by hosts, at all stages of the reproductive cycle.W.E.F. was funded by the Australian National University Research School of Biology studentship, and an Endeavour Research Fellowship; C.N.S. was funded by a Royal Society Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship, a BBSRC David Phillips Research Fellowship (BB/J014109/1) and the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence at the Percy FitzPatrick Institute; and N.E.L. was funded by the Australian Research Council.This is the final version of the article. It first appeared from Royal Society Publishing via http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2015.07

Post-Fragmentation Whole Genome Amplification-Based Method

This innovation is derived from a proprietary amplification scheme that is based upon random fragmentation of the genome into a series of short, overlapping templates. The resulting shorter DNA strands (<400 bp) constitute a library of DNA fragments with defined 3 and 5 termini. Specific primers to these termini are then used to isothermally amplify this library into potentially unlimited quantities that can be used immediately for multiple downstream applications including gel eletrophoresis, quantitative polymerase chain reaction (QPCR), comparative genomic hybridization microarray, SNP analysis, and sequencing. The standard reaction can be performed with minimal hands-on time, and can produce amplified DNA in as little as three hours. Post-fragmentation whole genome amplification-based technology provides a robust and accurate method of amplifying femtogram levels of starting material into microgram yields with no detectable allele bias. The amplified DNA also facilitates the preservation of samples (spacecraft samples) by amplifying scarce amounts of template DNA into microgram concentrations in just a few hours. Based on further optimization of this technology, this could be a feasible technology to use in sample preservation for potential future sample return missions. The research and technology development described here can be pivotal in dealing with backward/forward biological contamination from planetary missions. Such efforts rely heavily on an increasing understanding of the burden and diversity of microorganisms present on spacecraft surfaces throughout assembly and testing. The development and implementation of these technologies could significantly improve the comprehensiveness and resolving power of spacecraft-associated microbial population censuses, and are important to the continued evolution and advancement of planetary protection capabilities. Current molecular procedures for assaying spacecraft-associated microbial burden and diversity have inherent sample loss issues at practically every step, particularly nucleic acid extraction. In engineering a molecular means of amplifying nucleic acids directly from single cells in their native state within the sample matrix, this innovation has circumvented entirely the need for DNA extraction regimes in the sample processing scheme