Current Commitments Research Articles

Searching for Practical Sustainability Applications

Beyond current commitments, water providers will have to meet a growing demand for water supplies as the nation's population increases by another 100 million people by 2050. Increasingly, utilities will compete with reservations of water for environmental purposes and a range of other water‐dependent users, including agriculture and energy producers.

Social Security: A New Paradigm for Reducing American Poverty

AbstractAlthough not characterized as a program designed to address the problems of poverty, Social Security, the linchpin of America's social welfare enterprise, impacts poverty more significantly than most of the usually identified anti‐poverty programs. For examples, more children receive Social Security benefits than those on welfare, and Social Security payments are modified to provide low income earners with proportionately higher benefits than their higher earning counterparts. Affirming the validity of Social Security the recent National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform represents a changed environment for Social Security policy development, and it has proposed several Social Security initiatives that would expand its reach more deeply into the jungle of poverty. Recognizing the limitations of existing social welfare anti‐poverty programs, collapsing the cash assistance functions of these programs into Social Security would contribute significantly to reducing poverty in the United States. Such an endeavor, however, would not only require a realignment of America's social welfare programs, but would increase the fiscal burdens born by Social Security. Such proposals could reduce the poverty rate by 3 percent or more, but they also call further attention to the failure of the payroll tax to sustain not only current Social Security commitments, let alone satisfy any further obligations Social Security might assume by virtue of its expanded role. This paper provides the gateway for further study of the poverty reducing potential of Social Security.

Editorial: A Focus on Policy Issues in Key Areas

Our fourth issue of Latin American Policy (LAP) contains important research articles focusing on fiscal, security, legislative, mass media, environmental, border, and energy policies. The articles all reflect the amazing policy challenges witnessed by key Latin American countries in these areas. Articles by Omar Sanchez and Salvador Espinosa look at fiscal policies and the institutional constraints to improving their efficiency and transparency. Sanchez's article offers a qualitative, historical analysis on fiscal reforms that took place in Argentina during the 1990s, whereas Espinosa's study proposes a mathematical model for explaining the asymmetric effect of revenue-sharing transfers on spending by state governments in Mexico. The two papers shed light on the challenges to be overcome or considered if more efficient fiscal policies are to be implemented in Latin America. Two articles in this issue focus on the analysis of security policies in the region. Figueroa and Hagadorn's article provides geopolitical insight into how Puerto Rico could become a major partner in strengthening U.S.-led policies against drug trafficking, and Bronk and González-Aréchiga's study proposes a list of institutional changes to be accomplished to improve safety and security at the Mexico–U.S. border. These are two major contributions in the security arena, which has become a contentious topic in Latin America in general. Valeria Valle's research examines current energy policies and encourages the production of biofuels in Mexico and the United States. Her work explores the economic, social, political, and environmental implications of producing these types of fuels in the two countries. Eugenia Ibarrarán and her colleagues explore the economic, social, and environmental implications of implementing a package of policies aimed at reducing greenhouse emissions according to current commitments undertaken by the Mexican government. They present a mathematical model exploring the effect of policy through 2050 and conclude that the Mexican government must be careful regarding voluntary commitments acquired in the international context, given their economic and political costs. Gabriela Palavicini's contribution explores the effect of mass media in shaping current Mexican society, and Brenda García's article assesses the role that Mexican legislative institutions play in the politics of fiscal policy making in Mexico. This issue also includes two essays in the Perspectives section, the first one written by Felipe Ohana that focuses on the past Brazilian elections and the second written by Murillo de Aragão and Cristiano Noronha that surveys the partisan support during the first six months of Dilma Rousseff's presidency in Brazil. Two book reviews are also included, the first by Marianne Marchand, and the second by Itzel Barrera. We appreciate the effort and endurance of all contributors in finalizing their respective articles, essays, and reviews and thank them for being patient about the procedures involved in ensuring a high-quality final product, of which all of LAP's staff is proud.

Social Security: A New Paradigm for Reducing American Poverty

Although not characterized as a program designed to address the problems of poverty, Social Security, the linchpin of America’s social welfare enterprise, impacts poverty more significantly than most of the usually identified anti-poverty programs. For examples, more children receive Social Security benefits than those on welfare, and Social Security payments are modified to provide low income earners with proportionately higher benefits than their higher earning counterparts. Affirming the validity of Social Security the recent National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform represents a changed environment for Social Security policy development, and it has proposed several Social Security initiatives that would expand its reach more deeply into the jungle of poverty. Recognizing the limitations of existing social welfare anti-poverty programs, collapsing the cash assistance functions of these programs into Social Security would contribute significantly to reducing poverty in the United States. Such an endeavor, however, would not only require a realignment of America’s social welfare programs, but would increase the fiscal burdens born by Social Security. Such proposals could reduce the poverty rate by 3 percent or more, but they also call further attention to the failure of the payroll tax to sustain not only current Social Security commitments, let alone satisfy any further obligations Social Security might assume by virtue of its expanded role.This paper provides the gateway for further study of the poverty reducing potential of Social Security.

Major multinational food and beverage companies and informal sector contributions to global food consumption: implications for nutrition policy.

BackgroundIn recent years, 10 major multinational food and beverage companies have worked together within the International Food and Beverage Alliance (IFBA) to increase their commitments to public health. Current IFBA commitments include initiatives to improve the nutrition quality of products and how these products are advertised to children. The impact and magnitude of IFBA member contributions to the total market share of packaged foods and beverages consumed remain incompletely understood, however.MethodsIn order to evaluate this impact, we examined packaged food and soft drink company shares provided by Euromonitor, an international independent market analysis company. Packaged foods include baby food, bakery, canned/preserved food, chilled/processed food, confectionery, dairy, dried processed food, frozen processed food, ice cream, meal replacement, noodles, oils and fats, pasta, ready meals, sauces, dressings and condiments, snack bars, soup, spreads, and sweet and savoury snacks. Soft drinks include carbonates, packaged fruit/vegetable juice, bottled water, functional drinks, concentrates, ready-to-drink tea, ready-to-drink coffee and Asian specialty drinks. We calculated the market shares for IFBA companies, globally and within nine countries--the US, China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Turkey and the UK.ResultsWorldwide, the top ten packaged food companies account for 15.2% of sales, with each individual company contributing less than 3.3%. The top ten soft drink companies account for 52.3% of sales worldwide; Coca-Cola and PepsiCo lead with 25.9% and 11.5% of sales, respectively.ConclusionsAlthough the top ten soft drink companies account for half of global sales, the top ten packaged food companies account for only a small proportion of market share with most individual companies contributing less than 3.3% each. Major multinational companies need to be joined by the myriad of small- and medium-sized enterprises in developing and implementing programs to improve the health of the public, globally. Without full participation of these companies, the impact of commitments made by IFBA members and other major multinational food and beverage companies will remain limited.

Chicken Little? Why the Healthcare Sky Does Not Have to Fall

If the healthcare sky is falling, it is because we have not yet grasped the opportunity to do better. Here we comment on three points in Chappell and Hollander's lead article. First, rather than looking to new federal-provincial mechanisms, which do not currently appear on the political agenda, we propose that federal and provincial governments honour their current commitments, including an extension of the 2004 First Ministers' agreement, set to expire in 2013-2014, that flows federal healthcare dollars to the provinces. Second, we concur that small things (e.g., transportation and medication management) matter in big health systems. Access to a full range of services in integrated systems of care permits cost-effective "downward substitution" instead of more costly, and often inappropriate "upward substitution" to hospital and institutional care. Finally, given the current political climate of fiscal constraint, it is helpful to consider the lessons of successful local initiatives such as supportive housing, which can integrate care "from the ground up" including essential primary and preventive care. Rather than seeing an aging population as the harbinger of healthcare doom, we suggest seeing it as a motivator to rethink, refresh and innovate.

Water availability in +2°C and +4°C worlds

While the parties to the UNFCCC agreed in the December 2009 Copenhagen Accord that a 2°C global warming over pre-industrial levels should be avoided, current commitments on greenhouse gas emissions reductions from these same parties will lead to a 50 : 50 chance of warming greater than 3.5°C. Here, we evaluate the differences in impacts and adaptation issues for water resources in worlds corresponding to the policy objective (+2°C) and possible reality (+4°C). We simulate the differences in impacts on surface run-off and water resource availability using a global hydrological model driven by ensembles of climate models with global temperature increases of 2°C and 4°C. We combine these with UN-based population growth scenarios to explore the relative importance of population change and climate change for water availability. We find that the projected changes in global surface run-off from the ensemble show an increase in spatial coherence and magnitude for a +4°C world compared with a +2°C one. In a +2°C world, population growth in most large river basins tends to override climate change as a driver of water stress, while in a +4°C world, climate change becomes more dominant, even compensating for population effects where climate change increases run-off. However, in some basins where climate change has positive effects, the seasonality of surface run-off becomes increasingly amplified in a +4°C climate.

Fog in GATS Commitments – Boon or Bane?

The creation of the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), in the Uruguay Round, and its entry into force in 1995 marked a new stage in the history of the multilateral system. It was motivated essentially by the rapid expansion of international services trade within an increasingly open environment in many countries. Given the peculiarities of services trade, including the intangible nature of the products concerned and the need for direct contact between supplier and user in many cases, the Agreement contains a variety of conceptual innovations, including its extension to modes of supply beyond conventional cross-border trade (consumption abroad, commercial presence, and presence of natural persons) and its coverage, and legitimization, of various types of non-tariff restrictions. In turn, the new concepts needed time to be absorbed by the ministries and agencies involved in services trade. Further, the positive-list, or bottom-up, approach to scheduling trade commitments under the GATS meant that great flexibility was given to Members in selecting the sectors concerned and specifying the levels of access provided under individual modes. Thus, not surprisingly, the schedules that emerged from the Uruguay Round, which still account for the majority of current commitments, contain a variety of unclear or superfluous entries that may cause interpretation problems. Their solution could contribute significantly to the clarity and comparability of access obligations across sectors and WTO Members. The scheduling conventions agreed for the Doha Round thus provide specifically for the possibility of technical refinements that leave the substance of commitments unchanged. However, not only was this possibility used more sparingly to date than might have been expected, but additional flaws would be introduced if some current offers were to enter into effect. The following discussion, with a focus on a particular group of entries (market access via commercial presence), tries to explain the scope for such refinements and develop a clearer picture of the areas where further action might be needed.

Argument and persuasion in Descartes' Meditations

Introduction I. The Problem of the First-Person Point-of-View II. Epistemic Position and the First Meditation III. Imagining Mind and Body IV. The Idea of a Supreme Being V. Truth and Imprecision in the Fourth Meditation VI. Another Proof of the Existence of God VII. Embodiment and Union VIII. The Post-Meditations Meditator IX. Worries About Descartes' Method and its Implementation X. Philosophical Inquiry and the Problem of Current Commitments

The perspectives of kidney transplant recipients on medicine taking: a systematic review of qualitative studies.

Non-adherence to medication regimens after kidney transplantation is a major risk factor for acute rejection and graft loss, yet little is known about the perspectives of kidney transplant recipients on medicine taking. This study aimed to describe the beliefs, experiences and perspectives of kidney transplant recipients on medicine taking. We conducted a systematic review of qualitative studies of medicine taking after kidney transplantation. Five electronic databases (to Week 3 of January 2010) were searched. Thematic synthesis of the results and conclusions reported in each included study was performed to develop descriptive and analytical themes. We included seven studies involving 207 participants. The six themes identified were (i) attitudes towards medicine taking, its impact on lifestyle, self-image, relationships and outlook on life; (ii) inadvertent forgetfulness, preoccupation with life commitments; (iii) medication properties; (iv) structure of healthcare services, poor access to pharmacy or affordable medications and conflicting medical appointments; (v) personal efforts in managing medications, organizing and devising strategies for taking medicines on time; and (vi) availability of external social support. These underpinned five reported medicine-taking behaviours including not taking medicines, seeking to change medications or dose, missing a dose, varying the timing of doses and vigilant adherence. Considering patients' attitudes, priorities, current life events, commitments, support systems and healthcare structures can inform interventions to promote concordance between prescribed medication and medicine-taking behaviours. This may improve treatment outcomes and mitigate the risks of non-adherence-related rejection.

Global report on preterm birth and stillbirth (5 of 7): advocacy barriers and opportunities

BackgroundEfforts to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to improve maternal and child health can be accelerated by addressing preterm birth and stillbirth. However, most global health stakeholders are unaware of the inextricable connections of these adverse pregnancy outcomes to maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH). Improved visibility of preterm births and stillbirths will help fuel investments and strengthen commitments in the discovery, development and delivery of low-cost solutions globally. This article addresses potential barriers and opportunities to increasing global awareness and understanding.MethodsQualitative research was conducted to analyze current knowledge, attitudes and commitments toward preterm birth and stillbirth; identify advocacy challenges; and learn more about examples of programs that successfully advocate for research and appropriate interventions. Forty-one individuals from 14 countries on six continents were interviewed. They included maternal, newborn, and child health advocates and implementers, United Nations agency representatives, policymakers, researchers, and private and government donors.ResultsA common recognition of three advocacy challenges with regard to preterm birth and stillbirth emerged from these interviews: (1) lack of data about the magnitude and impact; (2) lack of awareness and understanding; and (3) lack of low-cost, effective and scalable interventions. Participants also identified advocacy opportunities. The first of these opportunities involves linking preterm birth and stillbirth to the MDGs, adding these outcomes to broader global health discussions and advocacy efforts, and presenting a united voice among advocates in the context of broader MNCH issues when addressing preterm birth and stillbirth. Another key opportunity is putting a human face to these tragedies—such as a parent who can speak to the personal impact on the family. Lastly, several interviewees suggested identifying and engaging champions to garner additional visibility and strengthen efforts. Ideal champions will work collaboratively with these and other maternal, newborn and child health issues. Conclusion: Advocacy efforts to add preterm births and stillbirths to broader MNCH goals, such as the MDGs, and to identify champions for these issues, will accelerate interdisciplinary efforts to reduce these adverse outcomes. The next article in this report presents an overview of related ethical considerations.

The Contemporary Commonwealth — In Search of a Strategy

This article investigates the evolution, problems and prospects of the modern Commonwealth and the search for a strategic consensus among the governments and the people of the organisation, which has been headed by the Commonwealth Secretariat since 1965. The successor to the British empire, the Commonwealth has played an influential role in world affairs, from decolonisation to development, from the Cold War to the post-apartheid era. Reflecting on Rhodesia, South Africa, Biafra, international development and current commitments to democracy and human rights, this article places Commonwealth affairs in historical perspective and discusses the strategic importance of Commonwealth history.

Beguiled By Metaphors: The “Living Tree” and Originalist Constitutional Interpretation in Canada

Constitutional interpretation in Canada is dominated by the metaphor of the “living tree”. Living tree constitutional interpretation is usually defined in terms of its incompatibility with what is understood in Canada to be the central commitment of originalist interpretation: that the constitution is, in some sense, “frozen at the moment of adoption. But the tenets of originalism that are used as a definitional contrast are not widely held by originalist constitutional scholars today, and are in fact expressly rejected in the new originalist theories that have been developed principally (but not exclusively) in the United States over the past 20 years. There has not been a meaningful engagement in Canada with contemporary schools of originalist interpretation. The originalism rejected by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1985 (and periodically reaffirmed thereafter), is not the new originalism, and a rejection of this new family of interpretive theories does not necessarily follow from the fact of the Supreme Court of Canada’s rejection of original intent originalism. Unfortunately, the Canadian courts have continued to affirm living tree constitutional doctrine and denounce originalism without providing much of an account of what they are accepting or rejecting. This paper is a prefatory study to an engagement with new originalist scholarship. I attempt a statement of the current commitments in Canadian living constitutional doctrine (pausing to engage with theoretical arguments that have been made in its defence) and, in passing, note the Supreme Court’s attitudes towards originalism. My purpose is to determine what the central commitments of living tree constitutional doctrine are, as a preliminary step towards a later study to determine the extent to which Canadian doctrine is truly incompatible with orginalist interpretation. I explore what I observe to be the four central commitments to living tree constitutionalism in Canada: (1) the doctrine of progressive interpretation; (2) the use of a purposive methodology in progressive interpretation; (3) the absence of any necessary role for the original intent or meaning of framers in interpreting the constitution; and (4) the presence of other constraints on judicial interpretation.

Air power and the future battlespace

The aim of this paper is to consider the role of air power in the future, within the wider security environment and across the full spectrum of conflict. The key is to make some reasonable assumptions about the future strategic environment for the next ten to fifteen years, extrapolating from our experience since the end of the cold war and our existing knowledge of potential state threats and substate threats and challenges. One of our failings since the end of the cold war has been to focus on the operational level of war at the expense of thinking hard about national strategy. The formulation of national strategy is supposed to be directed by government, but if that government fails to provide strategic direction, as it has done over recent years, the result is short-termist perspectives, and a ‘hand to mouth’ approach to crisis management. This has been reinforced further by financial constraint and the electoral cycle. Ideally, a strategic perspective helps us not only to set our current age in a much wider context, thus preventing or making us less inclined to ‘knee-jerk’ reactions to single events, but it also assists in the making of correct judgements about the nature of a conflict or scenario, thus enabling us to apply the appropriate type of tool (air power or otherwise). History is littered with instances of the inappropriate use of military force, and air power is no exception, and we cannot afford nugatory manpower and material expenditure. The challenge is, therefore, enormous: to meet current commitments, while preparing for future possibilities.

Cross layer dynamic resource allocation with targeted throughput for WCDMA data

We consider resource allocation for elastic wireless applications that measure utility by target connection average throughput and achieved throughput. We construct a framework for connection access control and rate scheduling that supports this class of applications by maximizing long term average utility. We present a decomposition of the problem into connection access control and rate scheduling layers. The connection access control layer considers current commitments and decides whether to admit new sessions. For admitted users, the layer sets a target throughput to be achieved of the lifetime of the session. The rate scheduling layer adjusts the instantaneous rates of each connection on the basis of how well it is achieving each performance goal and on the relative strength of each connectionpsilas current channel. We illustrate how commonly used connection access control and rate scheduling techniques can be applied to design these two layers using an exchange of information regarding future target throughputs and achieved throughputs. Through numerical analysis, we show how wireless channel time diversity and multi-user diversity can be exploited to construct a rate scheduling algorithm that is superior to proportional fairness. Finally, this utility-based framework is compared to a method that does not use utility.

Developmental Typologies of Identity Formation and Adjustment in Female Emerging Adults: A Latent Class Growth Analysis Approach

The developmental interplay between identity and adjustment was examined in a seven‐wave longitudinal study of 428 European female college students (Mage=18.8 years) over a period of 3 years, with semi‐annual measurement waves each year. Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA) was used to identify developmental typologies of both identity formation (i.e., dimensions of commitment and exploration) and adjustment (i.e., depressive symptoms and self‐esteem). Four trajectory classes emerged for identity, three of which had been suggested earlier in the literature (Josselson, 1996): Pathmakers, Guardians, and Searchers. The fourth trajectory class was labeled Consolidators and consisted of individuals characterized by a strong focus on strengthening their current identity commitments, at the expense of a thorough exploration of alternative options. Three trajectory classes were identified for adjustment: Optimal Adjustment, Moderate Adjustment, and Stable Maladjustment. Each of the four identity trajectory classes was associated with a specific profile of adjustment, with the Searchers showing the poorest profile and the Pathmakers and Consolidators the most positive profile. Practical implications and suggestions for future research are outlined.

International Funding for Malaria Control in Relation to Populations at Risk of Stable Plasmodium falciparum Transmission

BackgroundThe international financing of malaria control has increased significantly in the last ten years in parallel with calls to halve the malaria burden by the year 2015. The allocation of funds to countries should reflect the size of the populations at risk of infection, disease, and death. To examine this relationship, we compare an audit of international commitments with an objective assessment of national need: the population at risk of stable Plasmodium falciparum malaria transmission in 2007.Methods and FindingsThe national distributions of populations at risk of stable P. falciparum transmission were projected to the year 2007 for each of 87 P. falciparum–endemic countries. Systematic online- and literature-based searches were conducted to audit the international funding commitments made for malaria control by major donors between 2002 and 2007. These figures were used to generate annual malaria funding allocation (in US dollars) per capita population at risk of stable P. falciparum in 2007. Almost US$1 billion are distributed each year to the 1.4 billion people exposed to stable P. falciparum malaria risk. This is less than US$1 per person at risk per year. Forty percent of this total comes from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Substantial regional and national variations in disbursements exist. While the distribution of funds is found to be broadly appropriate, specific high population density countries receive disproportionately less support to scale up malaria control. Additionally, an inadequacy of current financial commitments by the international community was found: under-funding could be from 50% to 450%, depending on which global assessment of the cost required to scale up malaria control is adopted.ConclusionsWithout further increases in funding and appropriate targeting of global malaria control investment it is unlikely that international goals to halve disease burdens by 2015 will be achieved. Moreover, the additional financing requirements to move from malaria control to malaria elimination have not yet been considered by the scientific or international community.

Russian natural gas exports—Will Russian gas price reforms improve the European security of supply?

In this paper we use both theoretical and numerical tools to study potential effects on Russian gas exports from different Russian domestic gas prices and production capacities in 2015. We also investigate whether a fully competitive European gas market may provide incentives for Gazprom, the dominant Russian gas company, to change its export behaviour. Our main findings suggest that both increased domestic gas prices and sufficient production capacities are vital to maintain Gazprom's market share in Europe over the next decade. In fact, Russia may struggle to carry out its current long-term export commitments if domestic prices are sufficiently low. At the same time, if Russian prices approach European net-back levels, Gazprom may reduce exports in favour of a relatively more profitable domestic market.

High-Resolution Atmospheric Modeling of Fluorotelomer Alcohols and Perfluorocarboxylic Acids in the North American Troposphere

A high spatial and temporal resolution atmospheric model is used to evaluate the potential contribution of fluorotelomer alcohol (FTOH) and perfluorocarboxylate (PFCA) emissions associated with the manufacture, use, and disposal of DuPont fluorotelomer-based products in North America to air concentrations of FTOH, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), and perfluorononanoic acid (PFNA) in North America and the Canadian Arctic. A bottom-up emission inventory for PFCAs and FTOHs was developed from sales and product composition data. A detailed FTOH atmospheric degradation mechanism was developed to simulate FTOH degradation to PFCAs and model atmospheric transport of PFCAs and FTOHs. Modeled PFCA yields from FTOH degradation agree with experimental smog-chamber results supporting the degradation mechanism used. Estimated PFCA and FTOH air concentrations and PFCA deposition fluxes are compared to monitoring data and previous global modeling. Predicted FTOH air concentrations are generally in agreement with available monitoring data. Overall emissions from the global fluorotelomer industry are estimated to contribute approximately 1-2% of the PFCAs in North American rainfall, consistent with previous global emissions estimates. Emission calculations and modeling results indicate that atmospheric inputs of PFCAs in North America from fluorotelomer-based products will decline by an order of magnitude in the near future as a result of current industry commitments to reduce manufacturing emissions and lower the residual fluorotelomer alcohol raw material and trace PFCA product content.

Counting the Ways: The Structure of Federal Spending

Public discussion of federal fiscal policy typically focuses on several familiar metrics of performance, including the total deficit, the level of public debt and percentage of federal spending committed to mandatory spending and net interest payments. While useful, these measures are based on accounting conventions developed years ago, and do not capture many of the ways in which the federal government now commits public resources, including obligated budget authority, guarantees associated with various government insurance programs, retirement benefits for federal workers and military personnel, and - most substantially - federal social insurance programs such as Social Security and Medicare. Collectively these programs and activities represent substantial and largely overlooked current commitments of future federal resources. After reviewing current measures of fiscal performance, the article presents several alternative ways to quantify federal financial performance over the first half of this decade utilizing more comprehensive measures of mounting federal financial obligations. So, for example, while the commonly reported total deficit of the federal government in FY2005 was $318 billion, a more comprehensive measure of fiscal results over the course of the same year would have shown a deterioration in the country's net financial position in excess of $3.3 trillion - that is, an order of magnitude larger. To promote more informed debate and encourage more responsible public leadership, the more comprehensive measures of fiscal performance described in this article should be adopted as the primary metrics for reporting the financial performance of the federal government. (US, Canada).