Foreign Direct Investment in Central and Eastern Europe:post-crisis perspectives

This book examines how foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to Central and Eastern Europe have changed after the Great Recession. It argues that beyond their cyclical effects, the economic crisis and the changing competitiveness of Central and Eastern European countries have had structural impacts on FDI in the region. FDI has traditionally been viewed as the key driver of national development, but the apparent structural shift means that focusing on cheap labour as a competitive advantage is no longer a viable strategy for the countries in the region. The authors argue that these countries need to move beyond the narrative of upgrading (attracting FDI inflows with increasingly higher value added), and focus on ensuring greater value capture instead. A potential way for doing this is by developing the conditions in which innovative national companies can emerge, thrive and eventually develop into lead firms of global value chains. The book provides readers with a highly informative account of the reasons why this shift is necessary, as well as diverse perspectives and extensive discussions on the dynamics and structural impacts of FDI in post-crisis Central and Eastern Europe.

What next for unions in Central and Eastern Europe? Invisibility, departure and the transformation of industrial relations

This article examines union revitalization in Central and Eastern Europe, focusing on two countries: Hungary and Latvia. Trade unions have not only had to cope with a declining membership base, but have also had to respond to austerity programmes and government cuts in public sector employment. We argue that the inability of unions to provide a strong voice for alternative policies to the current neoliberal orthodoxy has been driven by a declining membership base, but also by weakened social dialogue mechanisms, limited industrial representation and an ageing membership profile, exacerbated by net outward migration in recent years. However, we find that unions in Latvia and Hungary have responded differently to these issues.

Posterior retinal contour in adult human anisomyopia

PURPOSE. It is well documented that myopia is associated with an increase in axial length or, more specifically, in vitreous chamber depth. Whether the transverse dimensions of the eye also increase in myopia is relevant to further understanding of its development. METHODS. The posterior retinal surface was localized in two-dimensional space in both eyes of young adult white and Taiwanese-Chinese iso- and anisomyopes (N = 56), from measured keratometry, A-scan ultrasonography, and central and peripheral refraction (±35°) data, with the aid of a computer modeling program designed for this purpose. Anisomyopes had 2 D or more interocular difference in their refractive errors, with mean values in their more myopic eyes of -5.57 D and in their less myopic eyes of -3.25 D, similar to the means of the two isomyopic groups. The derived retinal contours for the more and less myopic eyes were compared by way of investigating ocular shape changes that accompany myopia, in the posterior region of the vitreous chamber. The presence and size of optic disc crescents were also investigated as an index of retinal stretching in myopia. RESULTS. Relative to the less myopic eyes of anisometropic subjects, the more myopic eyes were more elongated and also distorted into a more prolate shape in both the white and Chinese groups. However, the Chinese eyes showed a greater and more uniform relative expansion of the posterior retinal surface in their more myopic eyes, and this was associated with larger optic disc crescents. The changes in the eyes of whites displayed a nasal-temporal axial asymmetry, reflecting greater enlargement of the nasal retinal sector. CONCLUSIONS. Myopia is associated with increased axial length and a prolate shape. This prolate shape is consistent with the proposed idea that axial and transverse dimensions of the eye are regulated differently. The observations that ocular shape changes are larger but more symmetrical in Chinese eyes than in eyes of whites warrant further investigation.

Dimensional changes in the ageing cornea

The study investigated the central and peripheral corneal characteristics of groups of subjects from 20 to 90 years of age to assist the understanding of ageing changes in the cornea, and to see whether relationships between ocular parameters were revealed. After age 45 the corneal horizontal radius of curvature gradually decreased with age. This trend was shown by the Aston University subjects (group B). The effect was very significant for the hospital patients undergoing biometry before cataract extraction operation (group D). Vertical radius of curvature showed a slight decrease with age after age 45, but similar to corneal eccentricity, this showed no significant age effect. Corneal astigmatism progressed from with the rule towards against the rule, particularly after age 60. The shift seemed mainly due to the decreasing horizontal corneal curvature. In biometry no significant age relation was found for axial length, but a significant relation was found between curvature and axial length in the larger group D. Lens thickness showed a very significant relation to age and to axial length, but no significant relation to corneal curvature. Anterior chamber depth showed a very significant relation to age, lens thickness and axial length, but no significant relation to corneal curvature. A significant age effect was found for corneal thickness decreasing with age for the central, nasal and temporal regions of the right eye. Analysis of the biometry results indicated the influence of two major factors. Firstly, the natural growth of the eye in youth, leading to greater values of axial length, radius of corneal curvature, lens thickness and anterior chamber depth. Secondly, the typical ageing changes where the increasing lens thickness caused a reduction in anterior chamber depth. The decrease in corneal thickness with age shown in some corneal regions may be a sign of ageing changes in the tissue proteins and hydration balance.

The effect of beta-adrenergic receptor antagonists on the temporal accommodative response

In this thesis a modified Canon IR optometer was used to record static and continuous responses of accommodation during sustained visual tasks. The instrument was assessed with regard to the ocular exit pupil used, its frequency response and noise levels. Experimental work concerned essentially the temporal characteristics and neurological basis of the accommodative mechanism. In the absence of visual stimuli, the accommodative system assumes a resting or tonic accommodative (TA) position, which may be modified by periods of sustained fixation. The rate of regression from a near task to TA in darkness has exhibited differences between regression rates for enunetropes (EMMs) compared with late-onset myopes (WMs). The rate of accommodative regression from a task set at 3D above TA was examined for a group of 10 EMMs and 10 LOMs for 3 conditions: saline, timolol and betaxolol. Timolol retarded the regression to TA for a sub-group of EMMs. The patterns of regression for the remaining emmetropes mirrored that for the LOMs, the drugs showing no difference in rate of regression compared with the saline condition. This provides support for the conjecture that LOMs and certain EMMs appear to be deficient in a sympathetic inhibitory component to the ciliary muscle which may attenuate adaptational changes in tonus and which leave them susceptible to the development of LOM. It is well established that the steady-state accommodative response is characterised by temporal changes in lens power having 2 dominant frequency components: a low frequency component (LFC: < 0.6Hz) and a high frequency component (HFC: 1.0-2.2Hz). This thesis investigates various aspects of these microfluctuations of accommodation.The HFC of accommodative fluctuations was shown to be present in central and peripheral lens zones, although the magnitude of the rms of accommodative microfluctuations was found to be reduced in the lens periphery. These findings concur with the proposal that the lens capsule acts as a force distributor, transmitting the tension from the zonules evenly over the whole of the lens surface.An investigation into the correlation between arterial pulse and the HFC of accommodative fluctuations showed that the peak frequency of the HFC was governed by the arterial pulse frequency. It was proposed that the microflucutations comprised a combination of neurological control (LFC) and physiological variations (HFC).The effect of timolol maleate on the steady-state accommodative response for a group of 10 emmetropes showed that timolol reduced significantly the rms of accommodative microfluctuations in treated but not untreated eyes. Consequently, the effect was considered to be locally, rather than systemically induced.The influence of the sympathetic system on within-task measurements of accommodation was examined by recording the accommodative response of 3 subjects to a sinusoidally moving target at 6 temporal frequencies from 0.05Hz to 0.5Hz for 3 drug conditions: saline, timolol and betaxolol. Timolol caused a reduced gain for frequencies below 0.3 whereas betaxolol reduced accommodative gain for all frequencies. It was proposed that the results for timolol were consistent with temporal response characteristics of sympathetic innervation of the ciliary muscle whereas the betaxolol results were thought to be a manifestation of fatigue resulting from the CNS depressant effect of the drug.

International flavours

It is an Olympic year and we have just witnessed the fantastic games hosted by Rio de Janeiro. Well done to team USA for winning the most medals overall but also well done to so many other nations and individuals who performed so well or were ambassadors in other ways. Teenage swimmer Yusra Mardini who swam for the refugee team and South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk who broke the longstanding 400 m record of Michael Johnson that has stood since 1999. Of course, we must mention sprinter Usain Bolt and swimmer Michael Phelps, who have now transcended superstar status and entered a new level of icon. My personal highlight was the sportsmanship witnessed in the 5000 m when American Abbey D’Agostino was accidentally felled by New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin. D’Agostino helped Hamblin back to her feet but slumped to the track after realising her own injury. Hamblin helped her up and stayed with her so that both completed the race. The International Olympic Committee has awarded both with the prestigious Pierre de Coubertin award, also known as the International Fair Play Trophy. Fair play is of paramount importance in publishing in peer-reviewed papers. At CLAE we try and maintain, as do other journals, this by ensuring double blind peer review and allowing authors to select the most appropriate handling editor for their submission. Our handling editors are placed across the world (2 in Europe, 1 in the Americas, 1 in Australia and 1 in Asia) and part of their role is to encourage submissions from their region. Over the last decade we certainly have seen more and more papers from places that haven’t previously published in CLAE. In this issue of CLAE we have a true international blend of papers. We have papers from authors from the UK, USA, Iran, Jordan, France, Poland, Turkey, Nigeria, France, Spain and Brazil. I think it's a testament to the continued success of the journal that we are attracting new writers from so many parts of the world and retain papers from more established authors and research centres. We do continue to attract many weaker papers that are rejected early in the review process. Often these will be unexceptional case reports or papers describing a surgical technique. Case reports are published but only those that offer something original and especially those with interesting photographs. In this issue you will see Professor James Wolffsohn (UK) has an interesting paper around a lot of the focus of his recent research activity into clinical evaluation of methods of correcting presbyopia. In this paper he highlights predictors to aid success of presbyopic contact lenses. If you have been involved in any clinical work or research in the field of dry eye disease then you will know well the CLDEQ (Contact Lens Dry Eye Questionnaire) devised by Robin Chalmers and her colleagues (USA). This issue of CLAE details the latest research using the CLDEQ-8 (the 8 item version of the CLDEQ). The Shahroud Eye Cohort Study has produced many papers already and in this issue we see Fotouhi Akbar (Iran) looking at changes in central and peripheral corneal thickness over a five year period. These days we use a lot of new instrumentation, such as optical low-coherence reflectometry. In this issue Emre Güler (Turkey) compares that to a new optical biometry unit. Dry eye is more common and in this issue we see a study by Oluyemi Fasina (Nigeria) to investigate the disease in adults in South-West Nigeria. The TearLab™ is now commonly used to investigate osmolarity and Dorota Szczesna-Iskander (Poland) looks at measurement variability of this device. Following the theme of dry eyes and tear testing Renaud Laballe (France) looks at the use of scleral lenses as a reservoir-based ocular therapeutic system. In this issue we have a couple of papers looking at different aspects of keratoconus. Magdalena Popiela (UK) looks at demographics of older keratoconic patients in Wales, Faik Orucoglu (Turkey) reports a novel scoring system for distinguishing keratoconus from normal eyes, Gonzalo Carracedo (Spain) reports the effect of rigid gas permeable lens wear on dry eye in keratoconus and Hatice Nur Colak (Turkey) compares topographic and aberrations in keratoconus. Other interesting papers you will find are Mera Haddad (Jordan) investigates contact lens prescribing in Jordan, Camilla Fraga Amaral (Brazil) offers a report on the use of ocular prosthetics, Naveed Ahmed Khan (Malaysia) reports of the use of dimethyl sulfoxide in contact lens disinfectant and Michael Killpartrick (UK) offers a short piece with some useful advice on contamination risk factors that may occur from the posterior surface of disposable lenses. So for this issue I would say that the Gold Medal for biggest contribution in terms of papers has to go to Turkey. I could have awarded it to the UK too, but Turkey has three full papers and the UK has two plus one short communication. Turkey is also one of the countries that has shown the largest increase in submissions over the last decade. Finally, welcome aboard to our newest Editorial Board Member Nicole Carnt from Australia. Nicole has been an active researcher for many years and acted as a reviewer for CLAE many times in the past. We look forward to working with you.

Significant alterations in peripheral blood lymphocyte subsets in patients with somatoform disorder

Objective: Previous studies have suggested that somatoform disorders (SFD) might be associated with changes in the function of the central and autonomic nervous systems. The aim of this study was to examine the possible immunological differences between SFD and healthy controls. Methods: Twenty-four patients with SFD and 13 healthy individuals completed the psychological questionnaires to assess symptom reporting [Symptom Checklist-90 Revised (SCL-90-R)] and to diagnose for SFD [Screening for Somatoform Symptoms scale (SOMS-scale)]. Participants also provided a blood sample taken in the morning, which was analysed with an automated cell counter to determine the number of leucocytes per μl and with flow cytometry to determine lymphocyte subsets. Results: With the exception of a higher T4/T8 ratio in the patient group, which was mainly because of lower CD8 counts, there were no significant differences in the absolute number of lymphocytes (subsets) between patients with SFD and healthy subjects. A positive correlation between B-lymphocyte subsets (CD19+CD22+, CD19+CD5+, CD19+CD3-) to all scales of the SCL-90-R, except somatisation, were found in SFD. Additionally, a positive correlation was found in SFD between CD14+CD16+ monocytes and somatisation (0.573) on the SCL-90-R scale. Conclusion: These data indicate that patients with SFD have an enhanced humoral immunity as shown by increased B-cell numbers and furthermore an elevated T4/T8 ratio because of lower CD8 suppressor cells. Further studies will be required to determine whether these alterations in lymphocyte subsets are directly involved in the pathophysiology of SFD. © 2007 Blackwell Munksgaard.