Need For Fundamental Reform Research Articles

Expanding the use of the newly discovered and new circumstances to fill gaps in legislative regulation: the agony of the institute or an illustration of a natural development?

The subject of research of this article is a particular case of extended application of the newly discovered and new circumstances in a situation that does not essentially dispose to such application, namely: regulation of the right of a creditor to appeal against a judicial act that is the basis for inclusion of another creditor's claim in a bankruptcy case of their common debtor. The reasons for such a decision of the legislator, the historical path of development of legal regulation of this situation in Russia are analyzed, other examples of cases of extended application of the newly discovered and new circumstances to fill gaps in legislative regulation are given. The hypothesis of universality of the procedural institute of revision of a judicial act on newly discovered and new circumstances and the problem of limits of the principle of legal certainty is put. The problem of expanding the cases of application of the newly discovered and new circumstances in the light of the principle of legal certainty in civil proceedings is not investigated in detail in the scientific literature or investigated indirectly, when resolving other issues. The author believes that it is important to analyze the following issues in the formulation of this fundamental problem. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that there are no grounds for extending the provisions of the institute to situations of revision of the judicial act-foundation, as well as evidence of the need for fundamental reform of approaches to the institute of newly discovered and new circumstances. The new look of the institute should ensure the balance of the principles of legality and legal certainty. The results of the work can be used for the development of procedural legislation, in the educational process.

Human-elephant conflict in the Sri Lankan dry zone: investigating social and geographical drivers through field-based methods

AbstractHuman-elephant conflict (HEC) in Sri Lanka has escalated over the recent years, with, on average, 300 elephant deaths annually and human casualties of around 90 per year. Employing field-based qualitative methods, this contribution identifies causes and contexts of human-elephant conflict in those parts of the Sri Lankan dry zone most severely affected. We have used field observations as well as semi-structured interviews with experts and affected villagers as primary data collection techniques. The findings show that (a) human-elephant conflicts are the result of land-use decisions, encroachment on elephant corridors, changes in agricultural production systems, and commercialization of land, and that (b) there is a deep division between the environmental knowledge and practices of rural people and the conservation governance provided by government authorities. Furthermore, both traditional and modern mitigation approaches fail to reign in HEC effectively. The insufficient implementation of HEC mitigation measures, and a severe disconnect between the needs and anxieties of rural people and conservation policies, render the management of human-wildlife interactions ineffective. This suggests a need for fundamental reform of elephant conservation policy in Sri Lanka.

“We Just Think of Her as One of the Girls”: Applying a Trans Inclusion Staged Model to the Experiences of Trans Children and Youth in UK Primary and Secondary Schools

Background/Context: Throughout the past decade increasing numbers of trans children are being supported in childhood, with schools in countries across the world tasked with educating a generation of (known) trans pupils. Schools can adopt diverse approaches to inclusion or exclusion of trans pupils, with consequences for trans children’s well-being and safety at school. The literature includes extensive critique of the limitations of common approaches to trans inclusion, highlighting negative impacts on trans pupils. Purpose: This article aims to reframe and bring nuance to conversations on trans inclusion in education, drawing on primary research in the UK to make explicit different approaches to trans inclusion, their ideological underpinnings, and their implications for how trans children are welcomed in our schools. Setting: The research took place in the UK, with interviews conducted at a time of escalation of anti-trans discourse in UK courts and media. Population: This article draws on data from two qualitative research projects focusing on the experiences of trans and nonbinary children and their parents in the UK: one focusing on trans children aged 3–12 years, and the other on trans young people aged 12–18 years. Research Design: Semi-structured interviews explored trans children’s experiences in education in the UK, with a focus on trans-inclusive approaches to school culture, restrooms, and team sports. Data were analyzed against the trans inclusion staged model (TISM), a framework for distinguishing between different approaches to trans inclusion. Findings: Within the TISM we differentiate between trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, and trans-emancipatory approaches to educational inclusion. Interviews highlighted the harms and injustices in nonemancipatory approaches, revealing the role of cis supremacy in forcing trans pupils into positions of vulnerability. Conclusion/Recommendations: The TISM emphasizes the structural and systemic nature of trans oppression, illuminating the power imbalances embedded in nonemancipatory approaches, and acknowledging the need for fundamental reform. We recommend analysis and recognition of school practices that are trans-oppressive, trans-assimilationist, trans-accommodative, or trans-emancipatory. We call for increased recognition of cis supremacy within education and commitment to emancipatory approaches to trans inclusion, enabling progress toward equity and gender justice in our schools.

Student’s innovative competence as a priority direction of educational management

Introduction. The research is topical due to the need for fundamental reforms in the field of educational management. The problem of acquiring innovative competencies by the students arises against the background of the continual transformation of social relations. Future specialists who are currently students of higher educational institutions (HEIs) must meet all socio-economic challenges in the future. Methods: an adapted questionnaire was used to assess the level of skills in students of pedagogical HEIs and the method of diagnosis of the individual measure of reflexivity, the Rokeach Value Survey; methods of data collection and coordination, statistical and mathematical processing of results through Pearson’s formulas. Results: In the experimental and control groups, 7.6% of respondents have a low level, 82.6% — a medium level, and 9.8% — a high level. The experimental group (45%) showed a higher level of high reflexivity results than the control group (30%). Conclusion: Based on the processing of the obtained results, it is concluded that the development of innovative competencies in students of pedagogical HEIs after the application of pedagogical conditions increases quantitatively. Prospects: further research should be aimed at identifying key relevant innovation competencies.

Scientific support to plant breeding and seed production in Siberia in the XXI century.

Agriculture in the Russian Federation is fundamental to the country’s economic performance, living standards, the wellbeing of people and state safety. Considerations relating to food security, prospects of and challenges before plant breeding in the Siberian Federal District (SFD), the largest agricultural area of the Russian Federation, are provided in the article. The agricultural area used in the SFD is about 50 million hectares and accounts for 13 % of the country’s gross grain production. The need for the introduction of modern molecular biological methods, bioengineering and IT technology is demonstrated and discussed. As Russia as a whole, Siberia is largely engaged in unpromising extensive farming practices, which rely on natural soil fertility, and this factor should be taken into account. Another issue is noncompliance with intensive farming technologies used for cultivating new-generation commercial cultivars. Although capital investments in plant breeding are the most cost effective investments in crop production, breeders’ efforts remain underfunded. The article explains the need for fundamental reform in this economic sector: the recognition of plant breeding as being a fundamental science; a fair increase in its funding; the development of a breeding strategy, nationally and regionally; the further expansion of the network of the Breeding Centers; the re-establishment and improvement of the universities’ departments specialized in plant breeding and seed production; having more state-funded places in the universities for training plant breeders to be able to maintain and cement the country’s advanced position in plant breeding and to develop new globally competitive next-generation cultivars of main crops. Should these issues be ignored, all the problems that have accumulated to date will lead to risks of long-term instability in this economic sector. The need for the careful preservation of continuity in plant breeders and plants being bred is stated. The regulatory functions of the state and agricultural science in plant breeding, plant industry and seed production are considered.

Critical policy frontiers: The drugs-development-peacebuilding trilemma

Recent years have seen the emergence of a policy consensus around the need for fundamental reforms of global drug policies. This is reflected in the call for ‘development-oriented drug policies’ that align and integrate drug policies with development and peacebuilding objectives, as captured in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). These calls have been important in acknowledging the damage caused by the war on drugs and in drawing attention to how drugs are inextricably linked to wider development and peacebuilding challenges. Yet there is surprisingly limited academic research that looks critically at the drugs-development-peace nexus and which asks whether the goals of a ‘drug-free world’, ‘sustainable development’ and ‘the promotion of peace’ are commensurate with one another, can be pursued simultaneously, or are indeed achievable. This article studies these policy fields and policy-making processes from the geographical margins of the state – frontiers and borderland regions – because they offer a privileged vantage point for studying the contested nature of policymaking in relation to the drugs-development-peace nexus. We set out a historical political economy framework to critically assess the assumptions underlying the integrationist agenda, as well as the evidence base to support it. By developing the notion of a policy trilemma we are critical of the dominant policy narrative that ‘all good things come together’, showing instead the fundamental tensions and trade-offs between these policy fields. In exploring the interactions between these policy fields, we aim to advance discussion and debate on how to engage with the tensions and trade-offs that this integrationist agenda reveals, but which have to date been largely ignored.

United States Gives Notice of Withdrawal from UNESCO, Citing Anti-Israel Bias

On October 12, 2017, the United States announced its intent to withdraw from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), citing “concerns with mounting arrears …, the need for fundamental reform in the organization, and continuing anti-Israel bias.” The United States will remain a full UNESCO member until December 31, 2018, when the withdrawal becomes effective. Thereafter, it will continue to engage with UNESCO as a non-member observer state.

Authors' response — WHO must prioritise its roles and then be positioned and supported to execute effectively

We are pleased to see that our article has incited debate and discussion. While the responses reflect a wide range of perspectives, what is clear is that there is a...

Public Health in the Age of Ebola in West Africa

The Ebola epidemic, with its fast-growing toll and real potential for spreading into much of Africa, including major cities, has the makings of a “Black Swan” event. Such events, using the term coined by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, are: 1) unpredictable, outside the realm of regular expectations; 2) have a major impact, and; 3) are rationalized after the fact as being explainable and predictable. We have learned from this outbreak the potential for an infectious disease to be politically, economically, and socially destabilizing, and that what kills us may be very different from what frightens us or substantially affects our social systems. This has important implications for resource allocation. Health threats like Ebola may not have historically have not killed large numbers of people, but because of possible scenarios under which they can have a devastating impact, require a greater share of limited resources, such as for developing a vaccine. More creative imagination is needed in considering future infectious disease scenarios and in planning accordingly. Further, this Ebola epidemic could transform global governance for health. It demonstrates the need for fundamental reform at the WHO, including for greater funding, as WHO's response – unable to mobilize sufficient funding, too slow to declare this a Public Health Emergency of International Concern – indicates that the Organization is presently poorly positioned to fulfill its constitutional role as the global health authority. Meanwhile, the leadership role that the United Nations is assuming suggests the emergence of an era of direct United Nations engagement in health threats that could destabilize nations and regions.

About The Amendment to the Law on Higher Education

About The Amendment to the Law on Higher Education

Counting Once, Counting Twice: The Precarious State of Subsidy Regulation

Subsidy regulation is in a precarious state. While it has been so ever since the conception of the current subsidy regulation regime, the recent disputes between the United States and China over the “double counting” or “double remedies” of subsidies have threatened the mere functionality of the current regime. This Article argues that the double counting controversy reveals the self-contradictions of the current subsidy regulation regime as to the fundamental question of why subsidies need to be regulated. These self-contradictions make it impossible to devise a coherent solution to the double counting problem within the framework of the current subsidy regulation regime and sharpen the need for fundamental reforms of the current regime. This Article puts forward a reform proposal that will solve the double counting problem and, more importantly, will help restore the intellectual foundation of the current subsidy regulation regime.

The importance of teaching: pedagogical constraints and possibilities in working-class schools

This paper starts from the propositions that (a) pedagogy is central to the achievement of socially just education and (b) there are existing pedagogical approaches that can contribute to more socially just outcomes. Given the ostensible commitments of the current English Government to reducing educational inequality and to the importance of teaching, we set out to explore the conditions that would need to be put in place to enable these approaches to be developed and sustained consistently in disadvantaged schools in England. We start by analysing classroom observation and interview data from four primary schools with contrasting socio-economic composition, highlighting the different pedagogical practices that emerge in working- and middle-class schools and also in working-class schools in different circumstances. Interviews with pupils show the impact of these practices on learner identities. We then draw on a variety of literatures on school composition, markets, leadership and teacher identities to present an account of the ways in which these different pedagogies are consciously or unconsciously produced. We point to systemic constraints: a mismatch between student demands and organisational capacity; teachers’ attitudes and professional identities and performative pressures on school leaders. All of these suggest the need for fundamental reforms to educational purposes and system architecture, rather than the naïve reliance on teacher agency to transform educational outcomes. Nevertheless, the current policy environment in England does offer some possibilities for action and we close the paper with some suggestions about ways in which capacity for more socially just pedagogy could be built within English schools.

Accountable Care Organizations: Principles and Implications for Hospital Administrators

With the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in 2010, broad agreement has been reached on the need for fundamental reform of healthcare delivery and payment systems. Accountable care organizations (ACOs) have become one of the most discussed provisions of the ACA, and Medicare's Shared Savings Program (SSP), the incentive program tied to ACOs, has the potential to change the delivery of healthcare. The SSP will attempt to improve the quality of care while reducing the growth in expenditures by encouraging the formation of ACOs. The SSP is voluntary, and organizations that wish to participate will encounter advantages and disadvantages in its adoption. This article provides hospital administrators with basic information about the ACO requirements set forth by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and helps frame decision making about hospital participation in ACOs.

Economics fit for the Queen: a pessimistic assessment of its prospects

The widespread failure of economists to predict the 2008 credit crunch and subsequent Global Financial Crisis led Her Majesty the Queen to ask what had gone wrong. She received very different responses from representatives of mainstream and heterodox perspectives. The mainstream economists' perspective on the crisis contained elements of truth, but it did not concede that there is any need for fundamental reform of how the discipline is taught and the kind of research that is conducted. This paper critically examines ways in which the degenerating mainstream research programme can attempt to fend off claims that major changes are needed. It also considers barriers to curriculum change in economics and the incentive structures that work against economics becoming more pluralistic and focused on real‐world problems. It concludes by suggesting ways in which pressures might be imposed from the outside for reform within the economics discipline.

On the need for integrative phylogenomics, and some steps toward its creation

Recently improved understanding of evolutionary processes suggests that tree-based phylogenetic analyses of evolutionary change cannot adequately explain the divergent evolutionary histories of a great many genes and gene complexes. In particular, genetic diversity in the genomes of prokaryotes, phages, and plasmids cannot be fit into classic tree-like models of evolution. These findings entail the need for fundamental reform of our understanding of molecular evolution and the need to devise alternative apparatus for integrated analysis of these genomes. We advocate the development of integrative phylogenomics for analyzing these genomes and their histories, with tools suited to analyzing the importance of lateral gene transfer (LGT) and of DNA evolution in extra-cellular mobile genetic elements (e.g., viruses, plasmids). These phenomena greatly increase the complexity of relationships among interacting genetic partners, as they exchange functional genetic units. We examine the ontology of functional genetic units, interacting genetic partners, and emergent genetic associations, argue that these three categories of entities are required for a successful integrated phylogenomics. We conclude with arguments to suggest that the proposed new perspective and associated tools are suitable, and perhaps required, as a replacement for the bifurcating trees that have dominated evolutionary thinking for the last 150 years.

WTO Doha Round Agriculture Negotiations: The ‘Development Component’ and Africa

This paper examines the role of developing country coalitions with an exclusive or significant African membership within the agriculture debate in the ongoing Doha Development Agenda. In 2001, the Doha Declaration commenced the current World Trade Organization (WTO) round of negotiations, highlighting the desirability of enabling economic development around the world through fairer trade rules. The Doha Round heralds an historic negotiation pertaining to special and differential treatment (S&D) for developing countries, as well as non-trade concerns, by expressly noting the need for fundamental reform in the world agricultural markets within its mandate. Focusing on food security, livelihood security and rural development, I consider the roles which four developing country coalitions - Cotton 4, G-20, G-33, and G-90 - all of which were formed in 2003, a pivotal year in the agriculture negotiations, have played so far regarding these issues in the Round. Accordingly, I consider formally submitted proposals and positions held by the coalitions on these issues. My research questions how the four selected developing country coalitions have impacted the Doha Round Agriculture negotiations in this area since their inception in 2003. The objective of the paper is to help inform policy contributions which may be applied by developing countries towards improved effectiveness in negotiating these issues during the rest of the Doha round negotiations and beyond.

The ‘Biedenkopf Commission’ sees no need for fundamental reform of German co-determination

The ‘Biedenkopf Commission’ sees no need for fundamental reform of German co-determination

Overcoming Cynicism: Youth Participation and Electoral Politics

AbstractYoung people have not lost their civic spirit. Studies indicate a much higher level of volunteerism in today's generation of young people than in that of their more politically active parents thirty years ago.Yet voter turnout among youth is lower than ever before. Structural barriers to youth voting account for some of the problem, but attempts to engage youth in politics must take into account the need for fundamental reforms to make the system more open, fairer, and more accountable.

The Hubble hypothesis and the developmentalist's dilemma.

Developmental psychopathology stands poised at the close of the 20th century on the horns of a major scientific dilemma. The essence of this dilemma lies in the contrast between its heuristically rich open system concepts on the one hand, and the closed system paradigm it adopted from mainstream psychology for investigating those models on the other. Many of the research methods, assessment strategies, and data analytic models of psychology's paradigm are predicated on closed system assumptions and explanatory models. Thus, they are fundamentally inadequate for studying humans, who are unparalleled among open systems in their wide ranging capacities for equifinal and multifinal functioning. Developmental psychopathology faces two challenges in successfully negotiating the developmentalist's dilemma. The first lies in recognizing how the current paradigm encourages research practices that are antithetical to developmental principles, yet continue to flourish. I argue that the developmentalist's dilemma is sustained by long standing, mutually enabling weaknesses in the paradigm's discovery methods and scientific standards. These interdependent weaknesses function like a distorted lens on the research process by variously sustaining the illusion of theoretical progress, obscuring the need for fundamental reforms, and both constraining and misguiding reform efforts. An understanding of how these influences arise and take their toll provides a foundation and rationale for engaging the second challenge. The essence of this challenge will be finding ways to resolve the developmentalist's dilemma outside the constraints of the existing paradigm by developing indigenous research strategies, methods, and standards with fidelity to the complexity of developmental phenomena.

Sustainable Agriculture, People and the Resource Base: Impacts on Food Production

Summary Jules N. Pretty, ‘Sustainable Agriculture, People and the Resource Base: Impacts on Food Production’, Forum for Development Studies, 1997:1, pp. 7–32. As this century draws to a close, agricultural development faces some unprecedented challenges. But the views on how to proceed vary hugely, and there are five distinct schools of thought. Sustainable agriculture seeks the integrated use of a wide range of pest, nutrient, soil and water management technologies. Contrary to popular opinion, such regenerative and low-input (but not necessarily zero-input) agriculture can be highly productive, provided farmers participate fully in all stages of technology development and extension. But there remains a huge challenge to find ways to spread or ‘scale up’ the processes which have brought about these transitions. For sustainable intensification of agriculture to spread widely, there is a need for fundamental reform of both policies and policy formulation processes.