Traditional Avenues Research Articles

Financial action task force and the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism

PurposeThirty years after its creation, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has become a prime example of a norm-building process that transcends the traditional avenues of public international law, while compelling a high level of compliance and assuring quick adaptation to norms and practices that better address money laundering and the financing of terrorism in their evolving form. On the occasion of FATF’s 30th anniversary, this paper aims to revisit the unique characteristics of FATF and the factors behind FATF’s success as standard-setter and as implementation-reviewer in the anti-money laundering (AML)/CFT context.Design/methodology/approachThis paper draws on primary sources of law, legal scholarship, reports and other open source data to analyse the FATF norm-building process and the factors behind its success.FindingsThirty years after its creation, the FATF has established itself as the key standard-setter, implementation-reviewer and force for reform in the AML/CFT context. Though the FATF norm-building process has been very successful, owing to its flexibility, adaptability and expansiveness, significant challenges lay ahead due to the evolving nature of money laundering and financing of terrorism.Originality/valueThis is a comprehensive study examining the achievements, impact, strengths and weaknesses of the FATF norm-building process on the occasion of the organisation’s 30th anniversary.

Biomimetics and precision engineering

As robotics advances and ever more precise and specific actions are required, engineers are looking outside the traditional avenues for inspiration. Given the range of sophisticated actions honed in nature, it is natural that many should turn to biology for inspiration. This field of research, where engineers attempt to create machine versions of biological features, is known as biomimetics. This is the field of Professor Seiji Aoyagi of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kansai University, Osaka, Japan. Rather than designing and building new structures from scratch, biomimetics allows one to copy sophisticated designs from nature. 'Nature has acquired optimal shapes and movements during evolution, complex synthetic elements can be more easily achieved and this is where understanding of biomimetics can add much value,' outlines Aoyagi. 'Biomimetics creates various high-level functions by imitating nature, such as elements, systems, movements, etc., of animals and plants.' However, biomimetics cannot be conducted by a single engineer, as no one person has the skills to examine and interpret the biology, transfer the biological to mechanical and build the device. Therefore, collaboration is key. Aoyagi collaborates with a wide range of biologists, computing specialists and engineers. As one of examples, the microneedle mimicking mosquito is under development in the project he is leading, which is expected for realizing painless sampling a small amount of blood as same as a mosquito does.

What went right

Learning from process industry case histories is most often centred on management system elements, equipment components (including safety devices), and the actions of personnel that led to failure in achieving intended outcomes. Hence there can be a tendency to focus on things that went wrong. In this paper we explore the idea of focusing on things that went right – on events, resources, and concepts in which there is strong evidence of process safety success. It is concluded that learning lessons in this manner can serve as a helpful complement to the more traditional avenue of learning from process safety failure.

Periodontal disease and its prevention, by traditional and new avenues.

One of the most prevalent diseases affecting humans are those which affect the oral cavity. Several diseases can affect the mouth, such as oral cancer, dental caries, Lichen Planus and, of course, periodontal disease with its variants. This review discusses gingivitis, periodontitis and peri-implantitis with a brief focus on the different primary prevention aids, such as mechanical, chemical and the new generation of potential products to be used in the future dental market, products that are prepared from natural sources, the general trend worldwide. In this review, not all new inventions will be mentioned, yet, the role of aged garlic extract (AGE) will be described in addition to a new toothpaste which originates from the Dead Sea and the Purecare dental which produces the Ozone (H3) for the prevention of periodontal disease.

‘Our Masculine Systems’: Virtual Representation and the Formation of an Anglo-American Gender Frontier

This manuscript privileges gender as both analytical tool and investigated object to argue for its causative role in American independence. It posits the political doctrine of virtual representation that Britain’s Parliament evoked to assert sovereignty over America in the 1760s generated a transatlantic debate over who and what constituted a freeborn Englishman, a figure at the center of power in the British Empire. For American Whigs the concept both denied to them their gendered prerogative to consent to legislation and arrested the male maturation process that they deemed critical to achieving masculine autonomy. Denied access to traditional avenues of power provided by property ownership and family mastery America men began emphasizing more readily obtainable categories of identity such as sex and gender to claim access to rights. This discursive shift produced a gender frontier that prevented reconciliation and allowed for the coherence of an American identity necessary for separation.

An Honorable Harvest: It Is Time for Universal Owners to Take Responsibility for Their Portfolios

There is now an established industry dedicated to making business more responsible for its impacts on the environment and society. An alphabet soup of organizations promotes “sustainability,” “corporate social responsibility” and “ESG (environmental, social and governance) integration.” To date, the efforts have been insufficient to the task, as illustrated by our failure to address the climate and water crises, growing political instability and continuing shameful abuses of human rights in supply chains. (This is by no means a criticism of sustainability efforts — things could be much worse without them; it is instead a call to find a path to success for this vital movement.) This essay argues that current efforts are failing because they require individual companies to make difficult decisions about complex social and environmental issues. However, companies are a poor locus for these decisions because they are in competition with one another to provide a return on equity capital. Even without the pressure of competition, the calculation of optimal returns on equity is incommensurable with the calculation of what businesses must do to maintain a healthy environment and society: there is no rational way for a corporate director to compare a ton of carbon and a penny per share of profit. Businesses respond to this combination of competitive pressure and incommensurability by only implementing those sustainability measures that are compatible with optimizing returns on equity, rather than those necessary to actually solve the sustainability problem. In an economy based on market competition, we cannot rely on individual businesses to self-impose basic sustainability rules that take priority over profit. By their nature, these critical sustainability boundaries must be implemented collectively in order to be effective. While law and regulation would be the traditional avenues for addressing the broad societal concerns that comprise sustainability, governments themselves suffer from collective action issues in a global economy where jurisdictions compete for jobs and revenue. The ongoing failure of either business or government to systematically address these issues has created a crisis: business practices are eroding the environmental and social structures that undergird our civilization. If we cannot devise a method for implementing difficult decisions about carbon, inequality and other systemic issues, we will continue to just tinker around the edges of concerns that threaten human thriving, rearranging deck chairs as our global economy sinks. This essay argues that at this historical moment, the global investor community is the appropriate locus for the collective decision-making necessary for a sustainable economy. The power exerted by institutional investors through allocation and stewardship of equity capital can be used to insist on more sustainable business practices. Because they are diversified across thousands of companies, these investors can bypass the competitive bottleneck for margin and capital that holds sustainability back at the company level. I urge asset owners to consider these arguments, and to act to begin establishing sustainability parameters for all businesses, as our window of opportunity is rapidly closing.

Cell-fies: sharing microbiology with global audiences through Instagram.

For the dissemination of microbiology and science in general, social media is an underutilized but increasingly powerful tool, and one that transcends traditional avenues for scientific outputs. In order to reach and potentially inspire a deeply interested and general public, scientists should engage with platforms such as Instagram to share their content to an increasingly global audience.

Evaluation of Adaptive Feedback in a Smartphone-Based Serious Game on Health Care Providers' Knowledge Gain in Neonatal Emergency Care: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial.

BackgroundAlthough smartphone-based clinical training to support emergency care training is more affordable than traditional avenues of training, it is still in its infancy and remains poorly implemented. In addition, its current implementations tend to be invariant to the evolving learning needs of the intended users. In resource-limited settings, the use of such platforms coupled with serious-gaming approaches remain largely unexplored and underdeveloped, even though they offer promise in terms of addressing the health workforce skill imbalance and lack of training opportunities associated with the high neonatal mortality rates in these settings.ObjectiveThis randomized controlled study aims to assess the effectiveness of offering adaptive versus standard feedback through a smartphone-based serious game on health care providers’ knowledge gain on the management of a neonatal medical emergency.MethodsThe study is aimed at health care workers (physicians, nurses, and clinical officers) who provide bedside neonatal care in low-income settings. We will use data captured through an Android smartphone-based serious-game app that will be downloaded to personal phones belonging to the study participants. The intervention will be adaptive feedback provided within the app. The data captured will include the level of feedback provided to participants as they learn to use the mobile app, and performance data from attempts made during the assessment questions on interactive tasks participants perform as they progress through the app on emergency neonatal care delivery. The primary endpoint will be the first two complete rounds of learning within the app, from which the individuals’ “learning gains” and Morris G intervention effect size will be computed. To minimize bias, participants will be assigned to an experimental or a control group by a within-app random generator, and this process will be concealed to both the study participants and the investigators until the primary endpoint is reached.ResultsThis project was funded in November 2016. It has been approved by the Central University Research Ethics Committee of the University of Oxford and the Scientific and Ethics Review Unit of the Kenya Medical Research Institute. Recruitment and data collection began from February 2019 and will continue up to July 31, 2019. As of July 18, 2019, we enrolled 541 participants, of whom 238 reached the primary endpoint, with a further 19 qualitative interviews conducted to support evaluation. Full analysis will be conducted once we reach the end of the study recruitment period.ConclusionsThis study will be used to explore the effectiveness of adaptive feedback in a smartphone-based serious game on health care providers in a low-income setting. This aspect of medical education is a largely unexplored topic in this context. In this randomized experiment, the risk of performance bias across arms is moderate, given that the active ingredient of the intervention (ie, knowledge) is a latent trait that is difficult to comprehensively control for in a real-world setting. However, the influence of any resulting bias that has the ability to alter the results will be assessed using alternative methods such as qualitative interviews.Trial RegistrationPan African Clinical Trials Registry PACTR201901783811130; https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/TrialDisplay. aspx?TrialID=5836International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID)PRR1-10.2196/13034

The Goldilocks Path of Legal Scholarship in a Digital Networked World

Traditional legal scholarship often comes under fire. Commentators lament that law review articles are too long, too stuffy, too heavily footnoted—just “too traditional.” Legal scholars have responded by seeking out less traditional avenues of publication such as online blogs, social media, and op-eds. These also come with attendant risk—lack of nuance, lack of depth, and assertions outside one’s area of expertise. In this article, written for a symposium on the future of legal scholarship, I propose the “Goldilocks Path” of scholarship as an optimal method of spreading knowledge and ideas. This Goldilocks Path lies in a balance between producing traditional and nontraditional pieces. Doing so engages academics and broadens their audience, allowing for more diverse readership, an opportunity to obtain early critique of theories, and a chance for scholarship to create a stronger impact. Walking the multi-outlet path, where the non-traditional enhances the traditional, can facilitate a more meaningful dialogue within the legal community and with the public at large.

The Past and Present of Historical Morphology of Rural and Urban Forms in Poland

One of the key traditional scientific avenues of Polish historical geography is reconstruction of the cultural landscape while the studies of the origins and the external and internal composition of the settlement forms are its vital element. The article hereby attempts to summarise the state of the art in the field of historical morphology in Poland, which covers the works on genesis, historical physiognomy, and development of the spatial layouts of the villages and towns. It aims to systematise the scientific achievements so far by identifying the major research directions from a chronological and problem-oriented perspective and indicating the development paths of particular disciplines of historical geography in the foreseeable future. The beginnings of morphological research stem from studies of the influence of legal, political and economic conditions on the spatial layout of villages and towns. The geographical studies on the landscape attempting to determine the role of the environmental factors on the settlement forms also played a key part. However, after the WWII the morphological- genetic works, which scrutinised the process of settlement forms’ emergence and the changes in their spatial layout was most commonly represented. Such works were mostly based on source materials in the form of plans confronted with historical written sources. In Polish geohistoriography of towns’ and villages’ morphology, four basic scientific avenues can be observed: monographical-regional (aimed at studying particular settlement units or their collection within a particular area), problem-oriented (concentrating on selected planning aspects or particular morphogenetic factors), theoretical-methodological (attempting to understand the entirety of the process of development of spatial layouts via different methods and approaches), and synthetic-typological (aimed at creating comprehensive country- wide overviews and typologies on the basis of comparative studies). As far as morphological works are concerned, there are a number of scientific approaches observable: morphogenetic (i.e. a reconstruction of the overall circumstances of emergence and development of settlement forms), morphofunctional approach (i.e. an explanation of variability of planning forms regarding to the evolution of their socio-economic function), morphostructural (i.e. the study on the planning elements from the perspective of their spatial relations), and morphochorological (attempting to identify the types of spatial systems in time). The analysis conducted for the purpose of the article provides grounds for a conclusion that the state of the art in historical morphology of villages and towns in Poland can be deemed satisfactory, though some of the areas still require some in-depth studies and verification with use of new technological solutions.

Mutual Funds Hitches and Outlook: An Empirical Study

A lot of structural changes and innovations have occurred both at international and national financial system. Simultaneously, household savings and investment attitude and preference have increased. Emergence of new financial institutions and instruments came into existence to cater the needs of public. Mutual Funds are one of the ideal avenues available to investors. The growth of Mutual Funds industry is comparatively higher than other industries in India. But compared to global outlook, the share of Mutual Funds industry does not touch even 5 percent (Anonymous). Indian investors prefer to invest more in traditional avenues as compared to Mutual Funds. All this, in aggregate, heightens researcher concern that why Mutual Funds could not succeed in India? With this background, an attempt is made in this research to study the perceived problems and perspectives of retail investors for investment in Mutual Funds.

Education Service Quality, Value and Satisfaction on Student Customer Intentions and Behaviour

Traditional avenues of accreditation, module review and teaching evaluations are not the only ways to assess education service quality and related issues. In order to evaluate the education service provided by a private university in Ireland, this investigation utilized an extension of Cronin, Brady and Hult’s (2000) model examining the effects of quality, value and customer satisfaction on customer intentions and behaviour. The model predicts that positive perceptions of quality, value and satisfaction in relation to the education service encounter will lead to positive word of mouth, and future intention to use the service again. The Arts undergraduate student sample size was 260. The perception of a high price for the education service provided did not translate to high service value, and service quality was only shown to have an indirect effect on satisfaction, word of mouth behaviour and intentions to return to the university. Despite a slight majority stating that the service quality was above average, and the majority stating they were satisfied overall, only a minority indicated that they would use the service again. The underlying reasons for and implications from these findings and others are discussed.

CRISPR editing validation, immunostaining and DNA sequencing of individual fixed bovine embryos.

CRISPR technologies used for mammalian embryology have wide implications from basic research to applications in agriculture and biomedicine. Confirmation of successful gene editing following CRISPR/Cas9 delivery is often limited to either protein expression or sequencing analyses of embryos but not both, due to technical challenges. Herein we report an integrative approach for evaluating both protein expression and genotype of single embryos from fixed bovine embryos previously subjected to CRISPR/Cas9 microinjection. The techniques described facilitate investigation of functional genomics in bovine embryos compatible with gene editing in livestock after zygotic CRISPR microinjection. These methods avoid traditional avenues that necessitate the use of gene-edited cell lines followed by nuclear transfer that hinder efficiency, limit physiological relevance and contribute to technical challenges.

A Qualitative Analysis of Requests for Financial Help via GoFundMe by Victims of Intimate Partner Violence

Research suggests that a lack of financial resources contributes to victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) both remaining in and returning to abusive intimate relationships. Requesting financial assistance via crowdfunding has emerged as a new alternative for victims of IPV to access financial assistance. Therefore, our study explores how victims of IPV frame requests for financial assistance via the crowdfunding website GoFundMe.com. We qualitatively analyze a sample of 27 women’s requests. We find that victims of IPV may internalize the stigma of seeking assistance and therefore actively work to redefine their character in a positive manner. We also discover that victims’ requests speak to guidelines reflected in aid-based organizations and to judgments they anticipate facing when requesting help from informal social ties. Our findings suggest that seeking financial assistance through crowd funding may reflect similar challenges of accessing help through more traditional avenues.

Marketing and Artists

This paper explores the relationship between Marketing and Artists and proposes that it is a relationship that is beneficial to both parties. Once there was a perception that art must be non-commercial to be considered art. This does not take into account that art must be recognized and accepted by society to attain the value and recognition [1] the artist desires. We postulate that this acceptance can be gained by exposure through marketing as well as traditional artistic avenues. Examples are given of how some of the most famous art today became famous not because of the artistry, but because of an external force unrelated to the art. We examine 4 artists – Warhol, Lautrec, Rockwell and Steinlen – who are as famous, or even more famous, due to their commercial art. Examples are given of how some of the most famous art today became famous not because of the artistry but because of an external force unrelated to the art. We examine 4 artists – Warhol, Lautrec, Rockwell and Steinlen – who are as famous, or even more famous, due to their commercial art. Would Lautrec or Steinlen ever have been heard of if not for their iconic poster ads of the late 1800’s? And while Warhol and Rockwell didn’t become famous for advertising exactly, Warhol gained fame by painting a can of soup, and Rockwell was best known for his Saturday Evening Post covers. Art and marketing are natural allies.

Farmers' Trust in Sources of Production and Climate Information and Their Use of Technology

A regionally representative survey of 900 Inland Pacific Northwest farmers showed that farmers trust other farmers and agribusiness most for production management decisions but trust university Extension most for climate change information. Additionally, in responding to questions about use of the Internet and mobile applications for making farm management decisions, many farmers indicated that they use the Internet daily but mobile applications much less regularly to access farm-related information. These results suggest that university Extension personnel have an important role to play in informing farmers about climate change and can do so effectively by using certain digital tools alongside other more traditional avenues for information delivery.

Shaping Educational Policy Through the Courts: The Use of Social Science Research in Amicus Briefs in Fisher I

Different from more traditional policy-making avenues, the courts provide an antipolitical arena that does not require broad agreement from various constituents for policy enactment. Seeking to guide court decisions on these policy issues, individuals and organizations have filed amicus briefs that increasingly include social science to support their arguments. The Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin Supreme Court case presents an ideal example to study the use of social science evidence in amicus briefs to shape educational policy. Findings from this study identify differences in the use of social science research that suggest many ways in which our current understanding of the efforts of actors to shape educational policy via the highest court in the nation is incomplete. This study also highlights why developing this understanding could be extremely useful to both the creation of educational policy and the use of antipolitical approaches to change such policy.

Surrogate war: politics of conflict in sports and space

ABSTRACTStates seek avenues of international conflict to satisfy domestic and foreign policy aims within an anarchic world system. The methods of conflict have changed from century to century to encompass different methods of attaining state objectives. Today there exists a lacuna in terms of international contestation in less traditional avenues of state conflict, such as sports competitions and technological development. Extant theories on international relations have broadened their scope to include arms races, economic sanctions, cyber conflict, and other ‘new’ methods of interstate conflict. This study adds to current literature and theoretical trends by shaping a theory on surrogate war that examines state conflict manifested through international contest. While the possible applications are quite broad, this study offers plausibility probes in international sports policy and space policy to demonstrate the application and versatility of surrogate war.

Reducing Days in the Hospital with Cardiomems Device in Patients with Left Ventricular Assist Device

Even after therapy for cardiomyopathy with a left ventricular assist device (LVAD), maintenance of euvolemic state can be a challenge. Recently, ambulatory pulmonary artery pressure (PAP) monitoring devices have been shown to provide significant benefit to patients with heart failure (HF). Close hemodynamic monitoring post LVAD is necessitated by RV failure and the inability of increase pump speed. Use of Cardiomems for hemodynamic monitoring may provide further treatment options since traditional avenues, such as increasing speed, are not possible. We investigate the utility of concurrent therapy with Cardiomem device and LVADs.

Challenges in financing public sector low-carbon initiatives: lessons from private finance for a school district in British Columbia, Canada

ABSTRACTGovernments are major investors in climate change mitigation, but aversion to public indebtedness has led to reliance on private finance to deliver public assets. Compounding this challenge, financing through Energy Service Contracts is ruled out by accounting rules. With public and traditional private funding avenues closed, government departments have sought contracts that do not disclose the full cost of borrowing, such as the Public–Private Partnership (PPP) described in this case study. We unpack the utility contract filed with the provincial regulator to show that circumventing budgetary constraints cost the Delta School Board (DSB) 8.75% per annum on borrowed private funds while public finance would have cost 4%pa. All levels of the public sector are keen to play their role in climate mitigation. Climate policy is about not passing our burden of unbridled fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions to future generations. If we do not exempt public sector capital investments for decarbonization from deficit regulations, we risk passing an unnecessary economic burden to future generations.Key policy insightsTransition to a low-carbon economy requires public sector investments that exceed budget deficit regulations and political aversion in many jurisdictions;Private–Public Partnerships are currently viewed as the solution to this self-imposed fiscal constraint;PPPs without clear performance targets or contractual templates will expose less experienced public sector investors to high costs and emissions above expectations.