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Ralph Gerard (Gerry) Ward died on 16th January this year in Adelaide. Whilst the subject will continue to undergoing change in the region, and the overdue assertion of Pacific voices and scholarship, we can acknowledge with gratitude the academic and institutional foundations for the study of geography laid by Gerard Ward across the Pacific, Australia and Aotearoa. Well into their later years, Gerry and Marion kept in close touch with family, friends and colleagues in Aotearoa and he remained a geographer with deep New Zealand roots. [Extracted from the article]

The increasing complexity and visibility of financial capital and processes in the global economy and in everyday lives offers both tantalising promise and pitfalls. This review of financialisation in global development develops three key themes: debates and contests over the definition, nature, and extent of financialisation ("what is it"); the erosion within these debates of distinctions between long‐held categories within development – between intentional and immanent, or "big D" and "little d" development, for example; and an exploration of how financialisation has drawn attention to more complex understandings and analyses of risk and its implications for the global economy and everyday lives in the Global South. Drawing on material from the Pacific and situating this alongside existing literature, this review uses these themes to argue that while there is much that is new in the nuance of these processes, there is nothing inherently emancipatory in the new technologies of financialisation. And the often heralded "democratisation of finance" that it represents often serves to extend the reach of capitalism and ties individuals, households, and communities more tightly into the global circuits and structures of capital. These processes themselves though are rarely uncontested, and the plethora of forms they assume reflect localised conditions, geographies, and forms of agency. Development and aid are being increasingly financialised as new financial institutions and products permeate into the developments sector. This process has profound implications for the way we understand new configurations of development and the way risk is reconstituted as a financial commodity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we investigate why environmental debates swing in one direction or another by analysing the discursive construction of water security surrounding the Waimea Community Dam in Aotearoa New Zealand. Using narrative policy analysis based on interview and documentary data, we show how an initial dominant rural water security story was reshaped into a new win‐win‐win metanarrative by absorbing concerns relating to environmental and urban water security. Opposition to the dam, in contrast, failed to gain traction because it did not sufficiently engage with the question of water security, thus increasing uncertainty and paradoxically strengthening the new metanarrative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rationale: Benzodiazepines induce electroencephalography (EEG) changes in rodents and humans that are associated with distinct behavioral effects and have been proposed as quantitative biomarkers for GABAA receptor modulation. Specifically, central EEG beta and occipital EEG delta activity have been associated with anxiolysis and sedation, respectively. The extent to which nonhuman primates show the same dose- and topography-dependent effects remained unknown. Objectives: We aimed at establishing a nonhuman primate model for the evaluation of benzodiazepine EEG pharmacology. Methods: Four adult male rhesus monkeys were prepared with fully implantable telemetry devices that monitored activity, peripheral body temperature, and contained two EEG (central and occipital), one electromyography (EMG), and one electrooculography channel. We investigated daytime alprazolam-induced changes in EEG spectral power, sleep–wake states, EMG activity, locomotor activity, and body temperature. Alprazolam (0.01–1.8 mg/kg, i.m.) or vehicle was administered acutely, and telemetry recording was conducted for 1 h. Results: Daytime alprazolam dose-dependently increased central EEG power (including beta activity), increased occipital EEG delta power, and decreased occipital EEG alpha, theta, and sigma power. There was an ~8-fold difference in the potency of alprazolam to increase central EEG beta vs. occipital EEG delta activity (based on relative EEG power). The highest dose, which increased both central EEG beta and occipital EEG delta relative power, induced sedative effects (increased time spent in N1 and N2 sleep stages) and decreased peripheral body temperature and locomotor activity. Conclusions: Alprazolam induces dose- and topography-dependent EEG changes in rhesus monkeys and provides a valuable model for studying benzodiazepine pharmacology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is one of the key objectives of, and means for, development. Its value is widely accepted though we rarely investigate the way different theories of development inform widely differing justifications and strategies for education. This article explores some of these issues and proposes five main paradigms regarding the education‐development nexus. These we term neoliberalism, retroliberalism, neostructuralism, place‐based and radical. Each is linked to particular concepts of development, each involves certain forms of education, and each is linked to particular policy discourses. Although these are largely abstract paradigms and in practice we see more hybridised forms co‐existing, we consider implications of each paradigm for education with examples from Oceania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There has been a rise in recent decades of consumer campaigns to promote more ethically responsible food and consumer goods production. These campaigns have spanned movements such as fair trade, food miles and organics. They have evoked significant if uneven response from producers and some government agencies. These responses, seen in changes to production methods, ownership structures, distribution systems and marketing have involved new ways of thinking and operating and can be regarded as interesting forms of Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI). Adopting combined sectoral and locality case study perspectives, this paper examines the example of the wine industry in a number of production locations (South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) and analyses how ethically responsible values of justice (fair trade), sustainability (organic production) and provenance (Geographical Indications) have been translated into forms of industrial innovation embodied and perpetuated through and in 'ethical value networks'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores key elements of women's empowerment based on findings from fieldwork in South Sulawesi, Indonesia. It argues that efforts to promote women's empowerment should recognise that empowerment requires women to make their own strategies to suit their particular circumstances. A conceptualisation of empowerment is proposed and this framework consists of 4Cs (capability, confidence, choice, commitment) and 3As (awareness, achievement, acknowledgment). The 4Cs and 3As reflect the personal, relational, and multidimensional aspects of empowerment. The framework talks uniquely to the context where women in this study live, and particularly how they engage in an empowerment project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In our quest to understand wine industries and their location and development worldwide, much emphasis has been given to key environmental, cultural and economic factors. The concept of terroir is used widely to describe, delimit and promote favoured wine regions. In this, we see constructions of rurality that tend to render invisible important connections between wine regions and urban places. However, many if not most wine regions owe much to their urban neighbours. Cities are sources of labour, capital and customers. Indeed, many wine regions are, in effect, metropolitan wine regions that owe as much to their proximity to cities than they do to any putative environmental distinctiveness and advantages. Wineries in such places develop strategies to survive and prosper not by producing bottles of wine that are widely sold on global markets – and compete on the basis on price or global reputation – but rather because they develop strong and loyal local markets tied to urban economies and because they appeal to the rural idylls held by urban consumers. This paper explores the way urban places have been critical in the development of certain wine regions in New Zealand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cue-exposure therapy (CET) is an effective approach for anxiety-related disorders, but its effectiveness for substance use disorders is less clear. One potential means of improving CET outcomes is to include a cognitive-enhancing pharmacotherapy. This study evaluated d -cycloserine (DCS) and RY-023, putative cognitive enhancers targeting glutamate and GABA systems, respectively, in a monkey model of CET for alcohol use disorder. Male rhesus monkeys (n = 4) underwent multiple cycles of the CET procedure. During baseline (Phase 1), monkeys self-administered an ethanol solution under a fixed-ratio schedule and limited access conditions such that every 5th response in a 3-h session resulted in 30-s access to a drinking spout and a change in ethanol-paired cue lights from white to red. Behavior then was extinguished (Phase 2) by omitting the ethanol solution yet retaining the ethanol-paired stimulus lights. Monkeys also received injections of vehicle, DCS (3 mg/kg), a partial agonist at the glycine modulatory site on glutamatergic NMDA receptors, or the α5GABA A receptor-selective inverse agonist RY-023 (0.03 or 0.3 mg/kg). Once responding declined, monkeys underwent a cue reactivity test (Phase 3), and then returned to self-administration the following day to assess reacquisition (Phase 4). Through multiple cycles, self-administration remained stable. Compared to vehicle, DCS facilitated extinction of ethanol seeking (Phase 2) and delayed reacquisition of ethanol self-administration (Phase 4). In contrast, RY-023 facilitated extinction (Phase 2) and reduced cue reactivity (Phase 3). Adjunctive pharmacotherapy can improve CET outcomes, but the choice of pharmacotherapy should be dependent on the outcome of interest. • Adjunctive pharmacotherapies may improve outcomes of cue-exposure therapy (CET). • D -cycloserine facilitated extinction and slowed resumption of self-administration. • RY-023 facilitated extinction and attenuated cue reactivity. • Glutamatergic and GABAergic compounds differentially enhance specific CET outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wallis and Futuna officially became a 'Sub-National Island Jurisdiction' (known as French Overseas Territory/Collectivity) in 1961 and has since adopted an economic and political structure consistent with the MIgration, Remittances, Aid, and Bureaucracy (MIRAB) model. Although the MIRAB economy has been stable, the rapid increase in migration for higher education of the younger population since the turn of the century raises questions concerning the role of education within this structure. A qualitative study discovered that education should be regarded as a key component in the MIRAB economy of the territory. Firstly, education has provided a new population outlet as young people have chosen opportunities for higher education and training overseas. Secondly, migration for education has revealed social dimensions within the model, as access to education overseas has simultaneously sustained the bureaucratic elite but has also enabled customary classes to negotiate their power and maintain a hold on the process of change. Finally, education has potentially reduced the pressure of remittances, as some qualified graduates are able to return and access high wage employment locally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The construction of ‘fictive place’ is ever more common in capitalist production and exchange. It could be argued that the adoption of Geographical Indications (GIs) is a form of resistance to the homogenizing effects of globalization. In some ways fictive place-making can be seen as a means of adding value to land; however, we argue that fictive place has become a factor of production in its own right. We investigate this through a discussion of fictitious capital and the rise of GIs. We draw evidence from the wine sector and suggest that other networks are increasingly constituted of similar processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article coins the term ‘retroliberalism’ to describe the aid regime that has evolved out of the post-Global Financial Crisis (GFC) world order. This approach sees a partial return to the principles of classical liberalism with respect to the role of the state vis-à-vis the market, whilst also perpetuating a number of the principles of neoliberalism. At the same time, the rejuvenation of an active state harks back to modernization principles prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s. In describing this regulatory shift we suggest that a retroliberal ‘manual’ for aid practice can be discerned. Our analysis utilizes evidence from recent reforms in a range of Western aid donors that are members of the United Nation’s DAC, including the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Netherlands. It also offers some comment on the increasing role and influence of non-traditional donors such as China in shaping the new regime. Ultimately, we argue that this state-led post-industrial modernization that serves to facilitate and sustain the accumulation of private capital harks back to the post-War development period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors bring together two theoretical and empirical strands in economic geography – established work on clusters and nascent research on ‘fictive place’ – in order to introduce the concept of ‘fictive clusters’. To explore this concept, they examine the New Zealand craft beer sector, which has evolved from non-existence since the year 2000. This growth has precipitated the rise of a dynamic and innovative cluster at the local scale in Wellington. The fictive cluster is explored through the Wellington case study, and the authors pose various questions for future work based on this discursive geographical device. The construction and complicit reproduction of what they term a ‘fictive cluster’ has been central to the evolving strategies of the involved agents. Through the use of this term, the evolution of Wellington place-based brands that are increasingly territorially specific are seen as building competitive advantage based on constructed histories, environments, and other geographic characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There has been a longstanding debate about the role of capital in agriculture. Most of this has taken place in the context of the so-called 'agrarian question'. This discussion has often been overgeneralised and simplified the specific geographies of agrarian transformations. We argue this has arisen due to a failure to characterise and analyse the different forms of capital engaged in agricultural production and how they are articulated and assembled. It is the existence of this diversity of capital that partly explains the differentiated unfolding of the geographies of the agrarian transition that we witness empirically. This paper argues that we need to understand the nature of what we refer to as 'congregations of capital' and the articulations between their different forms if we are to better appreciate the way capital engages in agriculture, the ways it shapes labour relationships, and the ways it restructures agrarian economy and society. In order to do this, we use the example of the global wine industry with particular reference to the unfolding strategies used to attach capital to land evident in the New Zealand sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent expansion of the global wine industry, especially in developing countries, has brought to light the apparent phenomenon of conspicuous production. This form of economic activity is characterised by investment decisions that seek status and reputation alongside or, in many cases, ahead of profits. This paper examines the wine industry and uncovers examples of conspicuous production occurring at different scales, from celebrities and individual investors through to national strategies. Although the empirical evidence is somewhat scattered, we argue this is a source of capital of significance in the wine industry, and possibly in other sectors of the economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Writing on a subject as all‐encompassing as globalisation from “down here” (Oceania) in a way that is relevant “up there” (Anglo‐America), while retaining the “Antipodean” perspectives we seek to represent and embody, presents significant tensions. How does a textbook on globalisation written from our viewpoint negotiate the very system it aims to critique? We reflect on writing Geographies of globalization in the context of the fraught politics and challenging logistics of writing human geographies in New Zealand and the Antipodes generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the case of Niue, a small raised atoll with a population of under 1500 that is self-governing in free association with New Zealand. Its marginality in terms of physical and economic isolation, small size and harsh environment is pronounced. However, it has survived with relatively high living standards and a range of livelihood options for its population. The paper assesses Niue's marginality and analyses its strategies for survival and development, focusing on the manner in which it has negotiated sovereignty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The rhetoric of partnerships is deeply embedded in development policy and practice. Critiques of both participatory development in general and partnerships in particular, however, have argued that the rhetoric of partnerships, implying local control and ownership and mutual responsibility and accountability, is matched instead in practice by highly asymmetrical power relationships and continuing dominance and control by northern agencies. Such criticisms can apply to international volunteering in development partnerships, where northern sending agencies maintain control of ‘their’ volunteers and are driven primarily by supply-side factors: the availability, aspirations and capabilities of the volunteers. This paper examines the case of a local development agency in South Africa – Aspire – and finds that it has been particularly effective in promoting its own version of partnership arrangements with volunteers. Through a combination of assertive attitudes, careful use of language and integrated management systems, Aspire is able to implement a demand-driven capabilities approach to its international ‘recruits’ in such a way as to give substance to the transformative promise of robust international partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Rugby World Cup, held in New Zealand in 2011, was a showcase for a rapidly globalising sport involving competition between twenty national teams, comprising over 600 players. This paper analyses the geography of the players' team affiliations and reveals patterns of labour mobility that disrupt and render complex concepts and definitions of 'national' identity. We see that the dominance of professional rugby, particularly by European clubs, is concentrating player resources and revenue generation in ways that suggest an evolving core-periphery relationship. We suggest that the players themselves exercise agency by finding, manipulating and exploiting cracks and opportunities in the complex regulatory framework of the sport. We build a case for a research agenda that maps out these geographies of rugby and traces their implications for understandings of identity and the political economy of globalising sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the evolving relationship between class and capital in the neoliberalised global wine industry. Wine is a unique sector that is possessed of intricate and underexplored aspects of class formation. Having investigated the recent restructuring of the industry under neoliberalism the paper goes on to analyse class formations in the production and consumption spheres. In this discussion we note not only the concrete economic and social dynamics of change, in terms of the differing fortunes of consumers, investors, landowners and workers, but also the physical and symbolic expressions of class in and through the countryside, as manifested in changing landscapes, discourses and idylls. In conclusion we analyse relationship between capital, class formation and accumulation across and within different scales in the context of a rapidly globalising sector that is so rooted in place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wine industry is becoming increasingly globalized as consumer demand, capital investment, and industry restructuring lead to higher volumes of trade, greater levels of multinational ownership, and the evolution of new networks of production and consumption that link the four corners of the world economy. While there are some tendencies towards increasingly homogenized and low-cost production, wine is an industry that exemplifies the complex and contradictory elements of globalization. This article outlines some key parameters of globalization drawing on empirical evidence from key cases. In particular, it focuses on the role of geography and how place and scale matter in production, marketing, and consumption. As globalization unfolds, restructuring in the wine industry is leading to the increased economic and social differentiation of rural space. The resultant geographies of place are influenced by a complex combination of local development history, national policy context, and the nature of the insertion of the given locality into global value chains for wine. As such, globalization has and will continue to produce increasingly complex and intricate geographies. La industria del vino se ha venido globalizando cada vez más como una demanda del consumidor, inversión de capital y la restructuración de la industria da lugar a mayores volúmenes de comercio, mayores niveles de participación multinacional, y la evolución de nuevas redes de producción y consumo que unen las cuatro esquinas de la economía mundial. Mientras hay algunas tendencias hacia una producción cada vez más homogenizada y de bajo costo, el vino es una industria que ejemplifica los elementos complejos y contradictorios de la globalización. Este artículo subraya algunos parámetros claves de globalización sobre la base empírica de casos claves. Se enfoca particularmente en el rol de la geografía y cómo el lugar y la escala importan en la producción, mercadeo y consumo. A medida que la globalización evoluciona, la restructuración de la industria del vino da origen a un aumento en la diferenciación social y económica del espacio rural. Las geografías resultantes del lugar están influenciadas por una combinación compleja del desarrollo de la historia local, el contexto de la política nacional y la naturaleza de la inserción de la localidad dada, dentro de las redes del valor global para el vino. Como tal, la globalización ha producido y seguirá produciendo cada vez más complejas e intrincadas geografías. 葡萄酒产业正变得越来越全球化，消费需求、资本投入和产业结构重组都导致更高的贸易额、更扩大的跨国公司所有权以及连接世界经济各个角落的生产与消费新网络的演进。当存在日益同质化、低成本生产的一些趋势时，葡萄酒成为一种表征全球化复杂和矛盾要素的产业。本文通过引用来自关键案例的经验性证据来概括全球化的一些关键性参数。尤其是，本文关注地理扮演的角色以及地理位置和规模在生产、销售、消费中如何起作用。随着全球化的展开，葡萄酒产业的结构重组正导致乡村之间更大的经济和社会差异。其结果，一个地方的地理布局正受到当地发展的历史、国家政策背景以及特定地方纳入全球葡萄酒价值链的性质所形成复杂组合体的影响。因此，全球化已经并将继续产生更为错综复杂的地缘情况。 소비자 수요, 자본 투자, 산업재구조화가 무역량의 증대, 다국적 소유권, 전세계를 연결시키는 생산과 소비의 네트워크의 진화로 이어지면서 포도주 산업은 점차 세계화되고 있다. 점차 동질화된 저비용 생산 경향이 있지만, 포도주 산업은 세계화의 복합적이고 모순적인 요소를 잘 보여주고 있는 산업이다. 이 논문은 핵심 사례를 통하여 경험적인 증거를 가지고 세계화의 핵심적인 특성을 다룬다. 특히 지리의 역할과 생산, 마케팅과 소비에서 어떻게 장소와 규모가 문제가 되는지에 초점을 맞춘다. 지구화가 전개되면서, 포도주 산업의 구조조정이 농촌 공간의 경제적, 사회적 분화로 이어졌다. 결과적으로 공간의 지리가 지역 발전의 역사, 국가적 정책 맥락과 지역이 지구적 포도주 가치사슬에 편입되는 방식 간의 복합적인 결합에 의해서 영향을 받았다. 그 결과, 세계화는 점차 더 복잡하고 뒤얽힌 지리를 만들어 내고 있고 앞으로 더 그럴 것이다. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The aid effectiveness agenda has placed much emphasis on issues of recipient ownership, alignment, and donor harmonisation. It has affected the policies and practices of many donor agencies and promoted a drive to consult widely with partners in governments and civil society and encourage their active involvement in aid-funded development activities. Yet, when we look closely at small island states – in this case Tuvalu – we can see how this participation and consultation is placing considerable burdens on such agents and institutions to the point where their effectiveness and even their putative ownership is compromised. Comment gérer la participation dans les petits États insulaires : le cas de l'aide à Tuvalu L'ordre du jour de l'efficacité de l'aide a fortement mis l'accent sur les questions relatives à l'appropriation par les récipiendaires, l'alignement et l'harmonisation entre bailleurs de fonds. Il a influé sur les politiques générales et les pratiques de nombreuses agences donatrices et encouragé les efforts en vue de consulter largement les partenaires au sein des gouvernements et de la société civile et d'encourager leur participation active aux activités de développement financées par l'aide. Or, lorsque nous nous penchons sur les petits États insulaires – dans ce cas Tuvalu – nous constatons que cette participation et cette consultation font peser des fardeaux considérables sur ces agents et institutions, à tel point que leur efficacité, voire leur appropriation putative, sont compromises. Lidando com a participação em pequenos Estados insulares: o caso da ajuda em Tuvalu A agenda da efetividade da ajuda humanitária tem dado muita ênfase a questões de propriedade dos que recebem ajuda, alinhamento e harmonização dos doadores. Isto tem afetado as políticas e práticas de várias agências doadoras e promovido amplamente consultas a parceiros em governos e na sociedade civil e incentiva seu envolvimento ativo nas atividades de desenvolvimento de ajuda financiada. Porém, quando examinamos com cuidado pequenos Estados insulares – neste caso, Tuvalu – podemos observar como esta participação e consulta estão impondo um considerável fardo para tais agentes e instituições a ponto de sua efetividade e mesmo seu senso de propriedade estarem comprometidos. Salir adelante en pequeños estados insulares a través de la participación: un caso sobre la ayuda en Tuvalu El discurso sobre la eficacia de la ayuda se ha centrado en la apropiación por parte de los beneficiarios, el alineamiento y la armonización entre donantes. Este discurso ha afectado las políticas y prácticas de muchas agencias donantes que han desembocado en esfuerzos para hacer consultas amplias entre las contrapartes gubernamentales y de la sociedad civil, y para impulsar su participación activa en acciones de desarrollo apoyadas por donantes. Sin embargo, al examinar detenidamente los pequeños estados insulares –en este caso Tuvalu– es evidente que esta participación y el proceso de consultas constituyen una carga para tales actores e instituciones, a tal grado que su eficacia y hasta su supuesto protagonismo están en riesgo. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Casablanca region of Chile has emerged in recent decades as a highly specialised wine region, a relatively small producer by volume by Chilean standards, but one characterised by a high degree of varietal specialisation, export orientation and supposed high quality. Unlike other regions, grapes were hardly in evidence 30 years ago, but now they dominate the landscape of the valley. Wine companies, mainly Chilean owned and operated, have invested heavily in the region, learning that the region's environment is suited to the production of white grape varieties, principally chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. These have come to dominate the area's vineyards just as they have come to define Casablanca in the minds of many consumers. As the industry expands, new trends are emerging, such as the involvement of larger Chilean wine companies, acquiring Casablanca wines as part of their brand portfolio and the broadening of Casablanca-based operations to relocate some of their non-white wine production to other regions. In these ways, Casablanca is being remade in productive and imaginary senses and stands at the forefront of the Chilean industry as a region trying to forge a distinctive identity in domestic and export markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spatial integration and infrastructure provision generally, and transport in particular, are commonly seen as key elements of rural development strategies. Yet there is little in the literature which seeks the perspectives of rural communities regarding their connections to the outside world. Furthermore, geographies of development and even, as yet, recent post-development perspectives have done little to challenge the dominant view that spatial integration is desirable. This paper presents the findings of research in an isolated rural village in Ethiopia which, despite being linked only by a long and dangerous walking track, has actively resisted the construction of a road to link it to the outside world. Isolation, according to the residents of the village, has benefited them by protecting them historically from outside control and exploitation. Local conceptions of development, whilst being far from uniform, then have questioned and reimagined the role of transport in the people's sense of well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a product, wine is closely associated with place. The industry has devised various strategies in order to delimit space and create places that are marketable as brands. Although demarcated by supposedly ‘natural’ features, these spaces are socially constructed in order to maximise accumulation. This article reports on the use of place-making strategies in the case of the New Zealand wine sector and the role of capital and agency in their production. Two case studies—Martinborough and Gimblett Gravels—are offered where contrasting geographical strategies have been employed. The work concludes that the employment of flexible delimitation is a strategy that allows contestation in creatively destructive ways. Such an approach allows for specialised identity construction within the framework of semi-porous boundaries. This calls for local economic policy that sits between the two extremes of open-ended neoliberal capital accumulation and arbitrary regional planning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Theories and practices of international aid have stressed the need for the full participation of recipients. This approach has been strengthened by international agreements such as the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness in 2005, which called for 'ownership' of development strategies by recipient agencies. This seemed to promise recipient governments an increased stake in the way aid was used for development and poverty alleviation. However, in practice, the new aid agenda has actually increased demands on recipients with new conditions over the management of aid funds, the setting of development strategies and the meeting of other global obligations. This issue is of particular concern in small Pacific Island states where the small size of government is coupled with increasing demands from donors for consultation, accountability and engagement to create what we argue is an 'inverse sovereignty' effect: despite the rhetoric of ownership and independence, recipient states are actually losing control over their development strategies, policies and programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 2000s a new aid regime evolved. This promised to move beyond the former neoliberal approach in a number of ways. It would involve greater consultation between donors and recipients, shift the focus from economic growth to broader factors, including poverty, and hand back the responsibility for this to the nation-state. This approach bears strong resemblance to the rise of neostructuralism, a development paradigm that has become highly influential in Latin America. In this article we trace the shifts in the aid regime and ask to what extent the contemporary regime can be defined a postneoliberal paradigm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simulation games have a long history in education and are well suited to learning about negotiation, power, relationships and uncertain outcomes. This paper reflects on the experience of using a semester-long simulation game to introduce postgraduate students to development policy. It focuses on three issues identified in the literature-realism, the role of staff and assessment-and maintains that the risks and uncertainties associated with simulation games are beneficial in ensuring effective learning about policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Recently randomized controlled trials have been advocated to compare radiofrequency ablation (RFA) and hepatic resection (HR) in resectable tumours and determine whether differences in observed survivals result from the heterogeneity in previous studies between RFA (treating unresectable lesions) and HR (treating lesions deemed resectable). We reviewed the literature that directly compares the treatments and employed an evidence-based approach to examine the data. Materials and Methods: All studies comparing RFA and HR were included. Primary outcomes were the overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) at 3 and 5 years. A subgroup analysis was conducted for solitary or small tumors (<4 cm for colorectal metastases (CRM) or <5 cm for hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)). Results: Most studies were retrospective. For CRM, HR was markedly superior to RFA in respect of 3- and 5-year OS as well as 5-year DFS including tumours smaller than 4 cm and solitary lesions. For HCC, HR was markedly superior to RFA for 3- and 5-year OS as well as 3-year DFS, and produced a better OS at 3 years for solitary lesions and DFS at 3 years for small tumours. Conclusions: Multiple factors determine outcomes following treatment of liver tumours. Small or solitary lesions seem the most appropriate ones to study as this reduces the number of confounding variables, but even in these cases HR confers a better OS and DFS than RFA for both CRM and HCC. If our data are confirmed it will be important to examine other factors influencing the response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While 'rights-based' approaches to development - those in which development and poverty alleviation are viewed through the lens of human rights - have become the language of choice among the international development community, less is known about how human rights are used for development at the local level. Using a case study of Fiji, this research investigates how local NGOs understand and use human rights for development. It demonstrates some of the tensions involved in translating broad and supposedly universal approaches to human rights into local contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that existing categories defining the geography of the world's wine industry, principally the Old World/New World dichotomy, are flawed. Not only do they fail to represent adequately the complexity of production and marketing in those two broad regions but also, crucially, they do not acknowledge the significant and rapidly expanding production and consumption of wine in 'Third World' developing countries. Rather than argue for the addition of a 'Third World' category, we instead use the lens of recent work on globalisation to argue that such production requires us to re-examine the dichotomous Old/New distinction which structures much of the thinking around the global wine industry. It also requires us to more closely link changes in patterns of global wine consumption with developments in global production. Changing geographies of wine production have been driven, to a large extent, by the rapid expansion of both local wealthy elites and burgeoning middle classes in countries such as China and India. This has resulted in the development of local wineries, large and small, throughout the developing world. It has also seen new flows of investment both from established wine regions to these new sites of production and from companies and individuals in the developing world who have invested in established wine regions, whether in France or Australia. Increasingly, the various worlds of wine will become more complex, accommodating new regions and also different forms of production and marketing, from traditional and modern artisanal production, closely tied to place and vintage, to large-scale industrial production for a mass market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The melanocortin4 receptor (MC4R) is a G-protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) and a key molecule in the regulation of energy homeostasis. At least 159 substitutions in the coding region of human MC4R (hMC4R) have been described experimentally; over 80 of those occur naturally, and many have been implicated in obesity. However, assessment of the presumably functionally essential residues remains incomplete. Here we have performed a complete in silico mutagenesis analysis to assess the functional essentiality of all possible nonnative point mutants in the entire hMC4R protein (332 residues). We applied SNAP, which is a method for quantifying functional consequences of single amino acid (AA) substitutions, to calculate the effects of all possible substitutions at each position in the hMC4R AA sequence. We compiled a mutability score that reflects the degree to which a particular residue is likely to be functionally important. We performed the same experiment for a paralogue human melanocortin receptor (hMC1R) and a mouse orthologue (mMC4R) in order to compare computational evaluations of highly related sequences. Three results are most salient: 1) our predictions largely agree with the available experimental annotations; 2) this analysis identified several AAs that are likely to be functionally critical, but have not yet been studied experimentally; and 3) the differential analysis of the receptors implicates a number of residues as specifically important to MC4Rs vs. other GPCRs, such as hMC1R. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the application on the Western notions of research ethics in Uzbekistan. The author points out the need to take vital ethical considerations in conducting development-related research. The barriers to the adoption of new technologies includes human rights and repression, ethical principles of self-determinism, non-malfeasance, and justice and beneficence. Finally, it is wrong to replace local notions on what constitutes appropriate behavior assessment with Western ethical concepts.

Comments on several books about coups d'etat. "Coup: Reflections on the Political Crisis in Fiji," edited by Brij V. Lal and Michael Pretes; "Government by the Gun: The Unfinished Business of Fiji's 2000 Coup," by Robbie Robertson and William Sutherland; "Crisis: Collapse of the National Bank of Fiji," by Roman Grynberg, Doug Munro and Michael White.

Studies the dosimetry modeling of highly soluble reactive gases in the respiratory tract. Distribution of absorbed gases; Absorption of unreactive gas with a larger solubility.

In December 1998 Professor R. Gerard Ward retired after 27 years as Professor of Geography in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University. Ward’s contributions to his discipline, the social sciences, and the discourses about development in the Pacific region have been very considerable. This paper reviews some of the achievements of one of the twentieth century’s eminent Pacific geographers. After establishing his academic roots in the Department of Geography at the University of Auckland in the 1950s, we outline the major clusters of his writing on land use and land tenure, population dynamics and urbanisation, Pacific history and prehistory, Pacific development issues, informal markets, transport systems and tele-cost worlds. The paper concludes with an assessment of three unusual features of Ward’s writing: the breadth of his interests, the range of scales he felt comfortable working at, and the innovative nature of ideas introduced into debates about Pacific development. A comprehensive list of Ward’s publications is attached to this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discourses about development have contributed to profound socio-economic transformation in all parts of the world. This paper examines the development debate in Fiji with particular reference to two distinctive approaches: state-led developmentalism (vakamatanitū) and a discourse about custom-led development (vakavanua). Political and economic dimensions of these alternative discourses are reviewed with particular reference to land tenure systems in Fiji. Challenges to both vakamatanitū and vakavanua from an emerging literature on globalism will shift the focus of debate from ‘intentional’ to ‘immanent’ development in Fiji. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the relationship between trust and colonialism with reference to the Pacific Island region. Discourses on colonialism and trusteeship; Concepts of trust and trusteeship in the political geography of the Pacific Islands.

Editorial. Introduces a series of articles about the Asia-Pacific region. Analysis of the poetry of Pacific Island writers to create the environment for a more sensitive understanding of people, places, and processes in Oceania; Reconstruction of Maori land claims in the Taupo region; Discussion of the contributions of scholar R. Gerard Ward to Pacific island geography.

In the last decade, Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) has earned a prominent position in policy spheres by offering forward-looking approaches and a framework for reflecting on the societal impact of research and innovation. Nevertheless, RRI remains an immature and relatively narrow area of inquiry, with a top-down approach and guided by standardized principles. Further, the field lacks focus on how researchers, firms and other actors actually perform responsible research and innovation. By unveiling the heterogeneity of responsibility practice, this special issue broadens RRI's scope in two ways. First, by expanding RRI's narrow focus on the research processes towards an approach that also takes into account how new knowledge and new ideas are becoming research-based innovations in society. Second, by including a wider spectrum of responsible innovation processes, and not only those that are research-driven. This special issue includes 10 investigations of heterogeneous responsible innovation practices that cross sectors and regions. Using the lessons these contributions teach, we close the issue with suggestions for a new multidimensional, multi-scale avenue for RRI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This is the second of a two‐part series of review articles on ethical agro‐food networks (AFNs) in global peripheries, with a focus on Latin America. This article focuses on origin or locality‐based strategies, including geographical indications (GIs) as well as alternative approaches to valorising place–product connections. It compares the impacts of origin‐based networks to fair trade and organics and identifies possibilities for alternative or hybrid conceptualisations of these networks. It concludes by suggesting some directions for future research on ethical AFNs in the Global South. These include more study of local agro‐food networks in the South, more explicit attention to the role of the State, and analysis of the discursive as well as material construction of ethical AFNs in global peripheries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Rapid global growth of ethical agro‐food networks such as fair trade, organics, and geographical indications has been accompanied by an increasing volume of research, but, as yet, there has been little comparative or integrated study of these networks from the perspective of development geography. Focussing particularly on Latin America, this two‐part series of articles summarises the state of the art and proposes an integrated research agenda on the significance of ethical agro‐food networks as strategies for de‐commodification in global peripheries. The first article provides an overview of research on fair trade and organic networks, which has mainly focussed on export commodities such as coffee, cacao, and bananas. Despite evidence of some livelihood benefits from fair trade and organic networks for well‐organised small producers and their communities, these studies show a general tendency for recommodification and the capture of added value by powerful market players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The global aid world has changed, partly in response to the reconfigurations of geopolitical power and to the global financial crisis (GFC). Paradoxically, in the face of recession in most northern economies, collectively foreign aid contributions have not fallen. However there has been a qualitative shift in its narrative and nature. This new regime—which we term retroliberalism—projects the concept of “shared prosperity,” but constitutes a return to explicit self‐interest designed to bolster private sector trade and investment. Drawing evidence from New Zealand and the United Kingdom, we argue that aid programmes are increasingly functioning as “exported stimulus” packages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The impact variant-specific immune evasion and waning protection have on declining COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness remains unclear. Using whole-genome-sequencing (WGS), we examined the contribution of these factors on the decline observed following the introduction of the Delta variant. Further, we evaluated the utility of calendar-period-based classification as an alternative to WGS.Methods: We conducted a test-negative-case-control study among people who received SARS-CoV-2 RT-PCR testing in the Yale New Haven Health System between April 1 and August 24, 2021. Variant classification was performed using WGS and calendar-period.Results: Overall, 2,029 cases (RT-PCR positive, sequenced samples [infections]) and 343,985 controls (negative RT-PCRs) were included. VE 14-89 days after 2nd dose was significantly higher against WGS-classified Alpha-infection (84.4%, CI: 75.6-90.0%) than Delta-infection (68.9%, CI: 58.0-77.1%, p-value = 0.013). The odds of WGS-classified Delta-infection were significantly higher 90-149 than 14-89 days after 2nd dose (p-value = 0.003). VE estimates against calendar-period-classified infections approximated estimates against WGS-classified infections, however, calendar-period-based classification was subject to outcome misclassification (35%: Alpha-period, 4%: Delta-period).Conclusions: Both waning protection and variant-specific immune evasion contributed to the lower effectiveness. While VE estimates against calendar-period-classified infections mirrored those against WGS-classified infections, our analysis highlights the need for WGS when variants are co-circulating and misclassification is likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible that education in the Global South leads to emigration and is therefore detrimental to development prospects? For the Pacific Islands region, this issue is particularly pertinent, given the high rates of migration and the strong emphasis placed on education as a basis for development. Although our knowledge of the bilateral relations between, respectively, education and development, education and migration, and migration and development have advanced, we know very little of the complex interplay between the three. In this article, we suggest a new approach to the trilateral relationship among education, migration and development in the Pacific Islands which may have implications beyond that region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]