Globalization and the Political : in the Borderlands with the Zapatista Movement

This study explores the meaning, content and significance of the political as manifest in the Mexican Zapatista movement as historically and geopolitically situated struggle. The case study undertakes a critical analysis of the development, organization, practice and discourse of the movement by drawing on fieldwork experiences, interviews, discussions, documents, films and other material produced by the movement, and the critical engagement with the research of others, especially in Latin America and Mexico. The dissertation poses the need to reconsider what constitutes and what we understand by the political , related particularly to the challenges provided by the critical globalization literature, decolonization and the study of social movements. The analysis encompasses several inter-related levels: the theoretical knowledge regarding the conceptualization of the political; the methodological level, regarding how such research can and should be conducted and knowledge claims formulated given the inescapable context and effects of global power relations; and the substantive level of adding specific information and analytical insights to existing knowledge of the Zapatista movement. As a result of conceptualization of a range of practices and processes, distinct understandings of the political can be underlined. Firstly, the conception of the indigenous and the struggles as indigenous movements as specifically political, not just a cultural or ethnic identity or a static quality but rather, an active consciousness integrally linked both to a longer history of oppression and as political articulation in the concrete context and lived experience of contemporary struggle. Secondly, the practice of autonomy as central to an understanding of the political in the context of the Zapatista struggle as a practical response to the situation of oppression, counter-insurgency, siege and conflict in Chiapas, as well as a positively informed mode of political self-understanding, expression and practice in its own right. Thirdly, the notion of geopolitical positioning as important to understanding of the political that encompasses the historicity of specific context and the power relations which shape that context, developed in two different ways: in regard to the positioning of the researcher and knowledge production with and about the Zapatistas, and in regard to the practice and knowledge of the Zapatistas as a decolonizing force in their encounters, interaction and relations with others, especially the global civil society. Finally, the role of silence, absence, invisibility, revelation and hiding in political practice as a deliberate strategy in response to oppressive power. -

Hydropower Project Design Incorporating Submergence Costs

Submergence of land is a major impact of large hydropower projects. Such projects are often also dogged by siltation, delays in construction and heavy debt burdens-factors that are not considered in the project planning exercise. A simple constrained optimization model for the benefit~ost analysis of large hydropower projects that considers these features is proposed. The model is then applied to two sites in India. Using the potential productivity of an energy plantation on the submergible land is suggested as a reasonable approach to estimating the opportunity cost of submergence. Optimum project dimensions are calculated for various scenarios. Results indicate that the inclusion of submergence cost may lead to a substanual reduction in net present value and hence in project viability. Parameters such as project lifespan, con$truction time, discount rate and external debt burden are also of significance. The designs proposed by the planners are found to be uneconomic, whIle even the optimal design may not be viable for more typical scenarios. The concept of energy opportunity cost is useful for preliminary screening; some projects may require more detailed calculations. The optimization approach helps identify significant trade-offs between energy generation and land availability.

PERFECT Stroke : PERFormance, Effectiveness, and Costs of treatment episodes in Stroke

Stroke is a major cause of death and disability, incurs significant costs to healthcare systems, and inflicts severe burden to the whole society. Stroke care in Finland has been described in several population-based studies between 1967 and 1998, but not since. In the PERFECT Stroke study presented here, a system for monitoring the Performance, Effectiveness, and Costs of Treatment episodes in Stroke was developed in Finland. Existing nationwide administrative registries were linked at individual patient level with personal identification numbers to depict whole episodes of care, from acute stroke, through rehabilitation, until the patients went home, were admitted to permanent institutional care, or died. For comparisons in time and between providers, patient case-mix was adjusted for. The PERFECT Stroke database includes 104 899 first-ever stroke patients over the years 1999 to 2008, of whom 79% had ischemic stroke (IS), 14% intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH), and 7% subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH). A 18% decrease in the age and sex adjusted incidence of stroke was observed over the study period, 1.8% improvement annually. All-cause 1-year case-fatality rate improved from 28.6% to 24.6%, or 0.5% annually. The expected median lifetime after stroke increased by 2 years for IS patients, to 7 years and 7 months, and by 1 year for ICH patients, to 4 years 5 months. No change could be seen in median SAH patient survival, >10 years. Stroke prevalence was 82 000, 1.5% of total population of Finland, in 2008. Modern stroke center care was shown to be associated with a decrease in both death and risk of institutional care of stroke patients. Number needed to treat to prevent these poor outcomes at one year from stroke was 32 (95% confidence intervals 26 to 42). Despite improvements over the study period, more than a third of Finnish stroke patients did not have access to stroke center care. The mean first-year healthcare cost of a stroke patient was ~20 000 , and among survivors ~10 000 annually thereafter. Only part of this cost was incurred by stroke, as the same patients cost ~5000 over the year prior to stroke. Total lifetime costs after first-ever stroke were ~85 000 . A total of 1.1 Billion , 7% of all healthcare expenditure, is used in the treatment of stroke patients annually. Despite a rapidly aging population, the number of new stroke patients is decreasing, and the patients are more likely to survive. This is explained in part by stroke center care, which is effective, and should be made available for all stroke patients. It is possible, in a suitable setting with high-quality administrative registries and a common identifier, to avoid the huge workload and associated costs of setting up a conventional stroke registry, and still acquire a fairly comprehensive dataset on stroke care and outcome.

In-Network Computation in Random Wireless Networks: A PAC Approach to Constant Refresh Rates with Lower Energy Costs

We propose a method to compute a probably approximately correct (PAC) normalized histogram of observations with a refresh rate of Theta(1) time units per histogram sample on a random geometric graph with noise-free links. The delay in computation is Theta(root n) time units. We further extend our approach to a network with noisy links. While the refresh rate remains Theta(1) time units per sample, the delay increases to Theta(root n log n). The number of transmissions in both cases is Theta(n) per histogram sample. The achieved Theta(1) refresh rate for PAC histogram computation is a significant improvement over the refresh rate of Theta(1/log n) for histogram computation in noiseless networks. We achieve this by operating in the supercritical thermodynamic regime where large pathways for communication build up, but the network may have more than one component. The largest component however will have an arbitrarily large fraction of nodes in order to enable approximate computation of the histogram to the desired level of accuracy. Operation in the supercritical thermodynamic regime also reduces energy consumption. A key step in the proof of our achievability result is the construction of a connected component having bounded degree and any desired fraction of nodes. This construction may also prove useful in other communication settings on the random geometric graph.

Costs and Benefits of a Shared Digital Long-Term Preservation System

This paper describes the cost-benefit analysis of digital long-term preservation (LTP) that was carried out in the context of the Finnish National Digital Library Project (NDL) in 2010. The analysis was based on the assumption that as many as 200 archives, libraries, and museums will share an LTP system. The term ‘system’ shall be understood as encompassing not only information technology, but also human resources, organizational structures, policies and funding mechanisms. The cost analysis shows that an LTP system will incur, over the first 12 years, cumulative costs of €42 million, i.e. an average of €3.5 million per annum. Human resources and investments in information technology are the major cost factors. After the initial stages, the analysis predicts annual costs of circa €4 million. The analysis compared scenarios with and without a shared LTP system. The results indicate that a shared system will have remarkable benefits. At the development and implementation stages, a shared system shows an advantage of €30 million against the alternative scenario consisting of five independent LTP solutions. During the later stages, the advantage is estimated at €10 million per annum. The cumulative cost benefit over the first 12 years would amount to circa €100 million.

Essays on labour demand and wage formation

The first essay in this thesis is on gender wage differentials among manufacturing sector white-collar workers. The wage differential is decomposed into firm, job (within-firm) and individ-ual-level components. Job-level gender segregation explains over half of the gap, while firm-level segregation is not important. After controlling for firm, job and individual characteristics, the remaining unexplained wage cap to the advantage of men is six per cent of men s mean wage. In the second essay, I study how the business cycle and gender affect the distribution of the earnings losses of displaced workers. The negative effect of displacement is large, persistent and strongest in the lowest earnings deciles. The effect is larger in a recession than in a recov-ery period, and in all periods women s earnings drop more than men s earnings. The third essay shows that the transition from steady employment to disability pension de-pends on the stringency of medical screening and the degree of experience-rating of pension costs applied to the employer. The fact that firms have to bear part of the cost of employees disability pension costs lowers both the incidence of long sick leave periods and the probabil-ity that sick leave ends in a disability pension. The fourth and fifth essays are studies on the employment, wage and profit effects of a re-gional payroll tax cut experiment conducted in northern and eastern Finland. The results show no statistically significant effect on any of the response variables.

An Analysis of the Concept of Citizenship: Legal, Political and Social Dimensions

The thesis aims at analyzing concept of citizenship in political philosophy. The concept of citizenship is a complex one: it does not have a definitive explication, but it nevertheless is a very important category in contemporary world. Citizenship is a powerful ideal, and often the way a person is treated depends on whether he or she has the status of a citizen. Citizenship includes protection of a person’s rights both at home and abroad. It entails legal, political and social dimension: the legal status as a full member of society, the recognition of that status by fellow citizens and acting as a member of society. The thesis discusses these three dimensions. Its objective is to show how all of them, despite being insufficient in some aspects, reach something important about the concept. The main sources of the thesis are Civic Republicanism by Iseult Honohan (Routledge 2002), Republicanism by Philip Pettit (Clarendon Press 1997), and Taking Rights Seriously by Ronald Dworkin (1997). In addition, the historical part of the thesis relies mainly on the works of Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, Adam Smith, Quentin Skinner, James Pocock and James Tully. The writings of Will Kymlicka, John Rawls, Chantal Mouffe, and Shane Phelan are referred to in the presentation and critique of the liberal tradition of thought. Hannah Arendt and Seyla Benhabib’s analysis of Arendt’s philosophy both address the problematic relations between human rights and nation-states as the main guarantors of rights. The chapter on group rights relies on Peter Jones’ account of corporate and collective rights, after which I continue to Seumas Miller’s essay on the (liberal) account of group rights and their relation to the concept of citizenship. Republicanism and Political Theory (2002) edited by Cécile Laborde and John Maynor is also references. David Miller and Maurizio Viroli represent the more “rooted” version of republicanism. The thesis argues that the full concept of citizenship should be seen as containing legal, political and social dimensions. The concept can be viewed from all of these three angles. The first means that citizenship is connected with certain rights, like the right to vote or stand for election, the right to property and so on. In most societies, the law guarantees these rights to every citizen. Then there is also the social dimension, which can be said to be as important as the legal one: the recognition of equality and identities of others. Finally, there is the political dimension, meaning the importance of citizens’ participation in the society, which is discussed in connection with the contemporary account of republicanism. All these issues are discussed from the point of view of groups demanding for group-specific rights and equal recognition. The challenge with these three aspects of citizenship is, however, that they are difficult to discuss under one heading. Different theories or discourses of citizenship each approach the subject from different starting points, which make reconciling them sometimes hard. The fundamental questions theories try to answer may differ radically depending on the theory. Nevertheless, in order to get the whole image of what the citizenship discourses are about all the aspects deserve to be taken into account.

Costs and benefits of the presence of leopards to the sport-hunting industry and local communities in Niassa national reserve, mozambique

Sport hunting is often proposed as a tool to support the conservation of large carnivores. However, it is challenging to provide tangible economic benefits from this activity as an incentive for local people to conserve carnivores. We assessed economic gains from sport hunting and poaching of leopards (Panthera pardus), costs of leopard depredation of livestock, and attitudes of people toward leopards in Niassa National Reserve, Mozambique. We sent questionnaires to hunting concessionaires (n = 8) to investigate the economic value of and the relative importance of leopards relative to other key trophy-hunted species. We asked villagers (n = 158) the number of and prices for leopards poached in the reserve and the number of goats depredated by leopard. Leopards were the mainstay of the hunting industry; a single animal was worth approximately U.S.$24,000. Most safari revenues are retained at national and international levels, but poached leopard are illegally traded locally for small amounts ($83). Leopards depredated 11 goats over 2 years in 2 of 4 surveyed villages resulting in losses of $440 to 6 households. People in these households had negative attitudes toward leopards. Although leopard sport hunting generates larger gross revenues than poaching, illegal hunting provides higher economic benefits for households involved in the activity. Sport-hunting revenues did not compensate for the economic losses of livestock at the household level. On the basis of our results, we propose that poaching be reduced by increasing the costs of apprehension and that the economic benefits from leopard sport hunting be used to improve community livelihoods and provide incentives not to poach.

Co-benefits, trade-offs, barriers and policies for greenhouse gas mitigation in the agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector

The agriculture, forestry and other land use (AFOLU) sector is responsible for approximately 25% of anthropogenic GHG emissions mainly from deforestation and agricultural emissions from livestock, soil and nutrient management. Mitigation from the sector is thus extremely important in meeting emission reduction targets. The sector offers a variety of cost-competitive mitigation options with most analyses indicating a decline in emissions largely due to decreasing deforestation rates. Sustainability criteria are needed to guide development and implementation of AFOLU mitigation measures with particular focus on multifunctional systems that allow the delivery of multiple services from land. It is striking that almost all of the positive and negative impacts, opportunities and barriers are context specific, precluding generic statements about which AFOLU mitigation measures have the greatest promise at a global scale. This finding underlines the importance of considering each mitigation strategy on a case-by-case basis, systemic effects when implementing mitigation options on the national scale, and suggests that policies need to be flexible enough to allow such assessments. National and international agricultural and forest (climate) policies have the potential to alter the opportunity costs of specific land uses in ways that increase opportunities or barriers for attaining climate change mitigation goals. Policies governing practices in agriculture and in forest conservation and management need to account for both effective mitigation and adaptation and can help to orient practices in agriculture and in forestry towards global sharing of innovative technologies for the efficient use of land resources. Different policy instruments, especially economic incentives and regulatory approaches, are currently being applied however, for its successful implementation it is critical to understand how land-use decisions are made and how new social, political and economic forces in the future will influence this process.

Bioenergy and climate change mitigation: an assessment

Bioenergy deployment offers significant potential for climate change mitigation, but also carries considerable risks. In this review, we bring together perspectives of various communities involved in the research and regulation of bioenergy deployment in the context of climate change mitigation: Land-use and energy experts, land-use and integrated assessment modelers, human geographers, ecosystem researchers, climate scientists and two different strands of life-cycle assessment experts. We summarize technological options, outline the state-of-the-art knowledge on various climate effects, provide an update on estimates of technical resource potential and comprehensively identify sustainability effects. Cellulosic feedstocks, increased end-use efficiency, improved land carbon-stock management and residue use, and, when fully developed, BECCS appear as the most promising options, depending on development costs, implementation, learning, and risk management. Combined heat and power, efficient biomass cookstoves and small-scale power generation for rural areas can help to promote energy access and sustainable development, along with reduced emissions. We estimate the sustainable technical potential as up to 100EJ: high agreement; 100-300EJ: medium agreement; above 300EJ: low agreement. Stabilization scenarios indicate that bioenergy may supply from 10 to 245EJyr(-1) to global primary energy supply by 2050. Models indicate that, if technological and governance preconditions are met, large-scale deployment (>200EJ), together with BECCS, could help to keep global warming below 2 degrees degrees of preindustrial levels; but such high deployment of land-intensive bioenergy feedstocks could also lead to detrimental climate effects, negatively impact ecosystems, biodiversity and livelihoods. The integration of bioenergy systems into agriculture and forest landscapes can improve land and water use efficiency and help address concerns about environmental impacts. We conclude that the high variability in pathways, uncertainties in technological development and ambiguity in political decision render forecasts on deployment levels and climate effects very difficult. However, uncertainty about projections should not preclude pursuing beneficial bioenergy options.

A mean-reverting stochastic model for the political business cycle

In this article, we look at the political business cycle problem through the lens of uncertainty. The feedback control used by us is the famous NKPC with stochasticity and wage rigidities. We extend the New Keynesian Phillips Curve model to the continuous time stochastic set up with an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. We minimize relevant expected quadratic cost by solving the corresponding Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation. The basic intuition of the classical model is qualitatively carried forward in our set up but uncertainty also plays an important role in determining the optimal trajectory of the voter support function. The internal variability of the system acts as a base shifter for the support function in the risk neutral case. The role of uncertainty is even more prominent in the risk averse case where all the shape parameters are directly dependent on variability. Thus, in this case variability controls both the rates of change as well as the base shift parameters. To gain more insight we have also studied the model when the coefficients are time invariant and studied numerical solutions. The close relationship between the unemployment rate and the support function for the incumbent party is highlighted. The role of uncertainty in creating sampling fluctuation in this set up, possibly towards apparently anomalous results, is also explored.

Mixing ventilation can reduce energy costs

The article provides information on a study on the potential of mixing ventilation in reducing energy costs in buildings such as theaters and schools. The study found that neither Manchester’s Contact Theatre and the Garrick Theatre in Lichfield in England is operating according to the displacement-ventilation principle upon which they were designed. Hybrid mixing ventilation has an important impact on both the ventilation rate and the thermal comfort of the theatres.