Session 4: CVD, diabetes and cancer - Evidence for the use of the Mediterranean diet in patients with CHD

Diet is associated with the development of CHD. The incidence of CHD is lower in southern European countries than in northern European countries and it has been proposed that this difference may be a result of diet. The traditional Mediterranean diet emphasises a high intake of fruits, vegetables, bread, other forms of cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds. It includes olive oil as a major fat source and dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts. Many observational studies have shown that the Mediterranean diet is associated with reduced risk of CHD, and this result has been confirmed by meta-analysis, while a single randomised controlled trial, the Lyon Diet Heart study, has shown a reduction in CHD risk in subjects following the Mediterranean diet in the secondary prevention setting. However, it is uncertain whether the benefits of the Mediterranean diet are transferable to other non-Mediterranean populations and whether the effects of the Mediterranean diet will still be feasible in light of the changes in pharmacological therapy seen in patients with CHD since the Lyon Diet Heart study was conducted. Further randomised controlled trials are required and if the risk-reducing effect is confirmed then the best methods to effectively deliver this public health message worldwide need to be considered.

Terrorism Laws and Legal Accountability

This chapter explores the extent to which courts can contribute to the countering of terrorism. It suggests that the contribution will depend on the type of actor the courts are attempting to hold to account as well as on the powers that are conferred on courts by national and international legal regimes. It concludes that courts are most legitimate and effective in relation to terrorist suspects and law enforcers, but less so in relation to counter-terrorism operatives and law-makers.

Knowledge stocks, knowledge flows and innovation: Evidence from matched patents and innovation panel data

Successful innovation depends on knowledge – technological, strategic and market related. In this paper we explore the role and interaction of firms’ existing knowledge stocks and current knowledge flows in shaping innovation success. The paper contributes to our understanding of the determinants of firms’ innovation outputs and provides new information on the relationship between knowledge stocks, as measured by patents, and innovation output indicators. Our analysis uses innovation panel data relating to plants’ internal knowledge creation, external knowledge search and innovation outputs. Firm-level patent data is matched with this plant-level innovation panel data to provide a measure of firms’ knowledge stock. Two substantive conclusions follow. First, existing knowledge stocks have weak negative rather than positive impacts on firms’ innovation outputs, reflecting potential core-rigidities or negative path dependencies rather than the accumulation of competitive advantages. Second, knowledge flows derived from internal investment and external search dominate the effect of existing knowledge stocks on innovation performance. Both results emphasize the importance of firms’ knowledge search strategies. Our results also re-emphasize the potential issues which arise when using patents as a measure of innovation.

The stability of alcohol consumption between age 16 and 26: Evidence from a National Birth Cohort Study

This study examined the association between moderate drinking at age 16 (adolescence) and alcohol consumption at age 26 (young adulthood), whilst controlling for possible confounding effects at the individual and family level (assessed at birth and age 10). Using the British Cohort Study (BCS70), 6515 respondents provided data on their adolescent alcohol consumption and other behaviours. Of these, 4392 also completed the survey at age 26. Consumption patterns established in adolescence persisted, to a large degree, into early adulthood. Those adolescents who drank moderately in adolescence drank significantly less in adulthood than those adolescents who drank to heavy or hazardous levels. Implications for health promotion strategies and guidance are discussed.

Eurozone Network Connectedness During Calm and Crisis: Evidence from the MTS Platform for Interdealer Trading of European Sovereign Debt

This paper examines the connectedness of the Eurozone sovereign debt market over the period 2005–2011. By employing measures built from the variance decompositions of approximating models we are able to define weighted, directed networks that enable a deeper understanding of the relationships between the Eurozone countries. We find that connectedness in the Eurozone was very high during the calm market conditions preceding the global financial crisis but decreased dramatically when the crisis took hold, and worsened as the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis emerged. The drop in connectedness was especially prevalent in the case of the peripheral countries with some of the most peripheral countries deteriorating into isolation. Our results have implications for both market participants and regulators.

Rethinking crises and the accretion of executive power: the “War on Terror” and conditionality evidence from seven political systems

External shocks to democratic systems are likely to threaten the stability of relations between the executive and the representative assembly. This article investigates the impact of the so-called “war on terror” on executive-assembly relations in comparative perspective. We analyze data from seven countries, which varied in terms of form of government, level of democracy, culture, social structure, and geographic location, to evaluate its effects. We find that whereas in some systems the “war on terror” altered the balance of power between the executive and the assembly, in other cases the extant balance of power was preserved. We postulate various conditions under which the constitutionally sanctioned balance of power is most likely to be preserved in times of crisis.

The Olympics, transnational law and legal transplants: the International Olympic Committee, ambush marketing and ticket touting

This paper concerns the origination, development and emergence of what might be termed ‘Olympic law’. This has an impact across borders and with transnational effect. It examines the unique process of creation of these laws, laws created by a national legislature to satisfy the commercial demands of a private body, the International Olympic Committee (IOC). It begins by critically locating the IOC and Olympic law and examining Olympic law as a transnational force. Using two case studies, those of ambush marketing and ticket touting, it demonstrates how private entities can be the drivers of specific, self-interested legislation when operating as a transnational organisation from within the global administrative space and notes the potential dangers of such legal transplants.

Leverage instability and persistence: Evidence from the United States and Europe

We find that leverage behavior both in level and time-series variation is very similar between the United States and Europe throughout the 1990-2013 period. Leverage regimes are simultaneously unstable and persistent for both regions. We define instability as the extent to which firms largely deviate from their long-term leverage mean, while persistence as the extent to which today’s leverage influences its future levels. We then show that this simultaneous evidence imply a mean-reversion behavior of leverage and discuss some of its implications for future research on this field.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation: Pawn or Global Player?,

This contribution aims at exploring the significance of the new generation of UNESCO conventions for the recognition of higher education qualifications. It discusses three possible scenarios and links them to the empirical findings of a study that compares the enabling conditions of the first generation of recognition conventions established in the 1970s and 1980s with the ones establishing the second generation today. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the paper argues that the changes illustrate a more general shift in the architecture of the global order and highlights a new role of UNESCO.