Substantive Progress or Neoliberalism in Disguise? An Analysis of the World Bank’s Discourse on Corruption since 1995

I undertake a discourse analysis of World Bank documents from 1995 to the present to explore scholarly debates surrounding the question, “To what extent are the World Bank’s efforts to combat corruption evidence of its attempts to further the neoliberal agenda, characterized by the original Washington Consensus?” Since the late 1990’s, the World Bank has been a leader in the fight against corruption, integrating anti-corruption into its operations worldwide and making it a major issue addressed in World Development Reports, Presidential speeches, and specific anti-corruption strategies. While some scholars see this as an evolutionary move away from neoliberalism, others see the focus on corruption as a way for the Bank to continue to advance and expand the neoliberal agenda after the failure of structural adjustment programs. I argue that while the World Bank’s anti-corruption strategy featured distinctly neoliberal ideals in its early years, over time it has moved away from a focus on liberalization and competition to a more holistic focus on transparency and civic participation as pillars of good governance

Genome-wide differentiation in closely related populations: the roles of selection and geographic isolation.

Population divergence in geographic isolation is due to a combination of factors. Natural and sexual selection may be important in shaping patterns of population differentiation, a pattern referred to as 'Isolation by Adaptation' (IBA). IBA can be complementary to the well-known pattern of 'Isolation by Distance' (IBD), in which the divergence of closely related populations (via any evolutionary process) is associated with geographic isolation. The barn swallow Hirundo rustica complex comprises six closely related subspecies, where divergent sexual selection is associated with phenotypic differentiation among allopatric populations. To investigate the relative contributions of selection and geographic distance to genome-wide differentiation, we compared genotypic and phenotypic variation from 350 barn swallows sampled across eight populations (28 pairwise comparisons) from four different subspecies. We report a draft whole genome sequence for H. rustica, to which we aligned a set of 9,493 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Using statistical approaches to control for spatial autocorrelation of phenotypic variables and geographic distance, we find that divergence in traits related to migratory behavior and sexual signaling, as well as geographic distance together, explain over 70% of genome-wide divergence among populations. Controlling for IBD, we find 42% of genome-wide divergence is attributable to IBA through pairwise differences in traits related to migratory behavior and sexual signaling alone. By (i) combining these results with prior studies of how selection shapes morphological differentiation and (ii) accounting for spatial autocorrelation, we infer that morphological adaptation plays a large role in shaping population-level differentiation in this group of closely related populations. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved

Crowd wisdom enhanced by costly signaling in a virtual rating system

Costly signaling theory was developed in both economics and biology and has been used to explain a wide range of phenomena. However, the theory’s prediction that signal cost can enforce information quality in the design of new communication systems has never been put to an empirical test. Here we show that imposing time costs on reporting extreme scores can improve crowd wisdom in a previously cost-free rating system. We developed an online game where individuals interacted repeatedly with simulated services and rated them for satisfaction. We associated ratings with differential time costs by endowing the graphical user interface that solicited ratings from the users with “physics,” including an initial (default) slider position and friction. When ratings were not associated with differential cost (all scores from 0 to 100 could be given by an equally low-cost click on the screen), scores correlated only weakly with objective service quality. However, introducing differential time costs, proportional to the deviation from the mean score, improved correlations between subjective rating scores and objective service performance and lowered the sample size required for obtain ingreliable, averaged crowd estimates. Boosting time costs for reporting extreme scores further facilitated the detection of top performances. Thus, human collective online behavior, which is typically cost-free, can be made more informative by applying costly signaling via the virtual physics of rating devices

Low Variation in the Polymorphic Clock Gene Poly-Q Region Despite Population Genetic Structure across Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica) Populations

Recent studies of several species have reported a latitudinal cline in the circadian clock gene, Clock, which influences rhythms in both physiology and behavior. Latitudinal variation in this gene may hence reflect local adaptation to seasonal variation. In some bird populations, there is also an among-individual association between Clock poly-Q genotype and clutch initiation date and incubation period. We examined Clock poly-Q allele variation in the Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica), a species with a cosmopolitan geographic distribution and considerable variation in life-history traits that may be influenced by the circadian clock. We genotyped Barn Swallows from five populations (from three subspecies) and compared variation at the Clock locus to that at microsatellite loci and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). We found very low variation in the Clock poly-Q region, as >96% of individuals were homozygous, and the two other alleles at this locus were globally rare. Genetic differentiation based on the Clock poly-Q locus was not correlated with genetic differentiation based on either microsatellite loci or mtDNA sequences. Our results show that high diversity in Clock poly-Q is not general across avian species. The low Clock variation in the background of heterogeneity in microsatellite and mtDNA loci in Barn Swallows may be an outcome of stabilizing selection on the Clock locus

A Data-Acquisition Model for Learning and Cognitive Development and Its Implications for Autism

A data-driven model of learning is proposed, where a network of nodes and links is constructed that represents what has been heard and observed. Autism is viewed as the consequence of a disorder in the data-acquisition component of the model---essentially, it is the result of getting an ``inappropriate'' distribution of data. The inappropriate data distribution leads to problems in data segmentation, which, in turn leads to a poor network representation. It is shown how the model, given inappropriate data distributions, can reproduce the main cognitive deficits associated with autism, including weak central coherence, impaired theory of mind, and executive dysfunction. In addition, it is shown how the model itself can explain the inappropriate data distribution as the result of an inappropriate initial network. Finally, we discuss the relationships between our model and existing neurological models of autism, and the possible implications of our model for treatment.Halpern's work supported in part by NSF under Grant IIS-0090145, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and a grant from the NWO. Sabbatical support from CWI and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem is also gratefully acknowledged