The Economist Intelligence Unit's Index of Democracy
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Genome Editing with CRISPR/Cas9 in Postnatal Mice Corrects PRKAG2 Cardiac Syndrome
Cell Research (2016) 26:1099-1111. © 2016 IBCB, SIBS, CAS All rights reserved 1001-0602/16 $ 32.00 ORIGINAL ARTICLE www.nature.com/cr Genome editing with CRISPR/Cas9 in postnatal mice corrects PRKAG2 cardiac syndrome Chang Xie1, 2, *, Ya-Ping Zhang3, *, Lu Song2, *, Jie Luo1, Wei Qi2, Jialu Hu3, Danbo Lu3, Zhen Yang3, Jian Zhang2, Jian Xiao1, Bin Zhou4, Jiu-Lin Du5, Naihe Jing2, Yong Liu1, Yan Wang1, Bo-Liang Li2, Bao-Liang Song1, Yan Yan3 1Hubei Key Laboratory of Cell Homeostasis, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430072, China; 2The State Key Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China; 3Shanghai Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases, Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai 200032, China; 4Key Laboratory of Nutrition and Metabolism, Institute for Nutritional Sci- ences, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China; 5Institute of Neuroscience and State Key Laboratory of Neuroscience, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Acade- my of Sciences, 320 Yue-Yang Road, Shanghai 200031, China PRKAG2 cardiac syndrome is an autosomal dominant inherited disease resulted from mutations in the PRK- AG2 gene that encodes γ2 regulatory subunit of AMP-activated protein kinase. Affected patients usually develop ventricular tachyarrhythmia and experience progressive heart failure that is refractory to medical treatment and requires cardiac transplantation. In this study, we identify a H530R mutation in PRKAG2 from patients with famil- ial Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome. By generating H530R PRKAG2 transgenic and knock-in mice, we show that both models recapitulate human symptoms including cardiac hypertrophy and glycogen storage, confirming that the H530R mutation is causally related to PRKAG2 cardiac syndrome. -
Democratic Republic of Congo Constitution
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO, 2005 [1] Table of Contents PREAMBLE TITLE I GENERAL PROVISIONS Chapter 1 The State and Sovereignty Chapter 2 Nationality TITLE II HUMAN RIGHTS, FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTIES AND THE DUTIES OF THE CITIZEN AND THE STATE Chapter 1 Civil and Political Rights Chapter 2 Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Chapter 3 Collective Rights Chapter 4 The Duties of the Citizen TITLE III THE ORGANIZATION AND THE EXERCISE OF POWER Chapter 1 The Institutions of the Republic TITLE IV THE PROVINCES Chapter 1 The Provincial Institutions Chapter 2 The Distribution of Competences Between the Central Authority and the Provinces Chapter 3 Customary Authority TITLE V THE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COUNCIL TITLE VI DEMOCRACY-SUPPORTING INSTITUTIONS Chapter 1 The Independent National Electoral Commission Chapter 2 The High Council for Audiovisual Media and Communication TITLE VII INTERNATIONAL TREATIES AND AGREEMENTS TITLE VIII THE REVISION OF THE CONSTITUTION TITLE IX TRANSITORY AND FINAL PROVISIONS PREAMBLE We, the Congolese People, United by destiny and history around the noble ideas of liberty, fraternity, solidarity, justice, peace and work; Driven by our common will to build in the heart of Africa a State under the rule of law and a powerful and prosperous Nation based on a real political, economic, social and cultural democracy; Considering that injustice and its corollaries, impunity, nepotism, regionalism, tribalism, clan rule and patronage are, due to their manifold vices, at the origin of the general decline -
Global Peace Index 2018: Measuring Peace in a Complex World, Sydney, June 2018
Quantifying Peace and its Benefits The Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP) is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit think tank dedicated to shifting the world’s focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress. IEP achieves its goals by developing new conceptual frameworks to define peacefulness; providing metrics for measuring peace; and uncovering the relationships between business, peace and prosperity as well as promoting a better understanding of the cultural, economic and political factors that create peace. IEP is headquartered in Sydney, with offices in New York, The Hague, Mexico City and Brussels. It works with a wide range of partners internationally and collaborates with intergovernmental organisations on measuring and communicating the economic value of peace. For more information visit www.economicsandpeace.org Please cite this report as: Institute for Economics & Peace. Global Peace Index 2018: Measuring Peace in a Complex World, Sydney, June 2018. Available from: http://visionofhumanity.org/reports (accessed Date Month Year). Contents EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 2 Key Findings 4 RESULTS 5 Highlights 6 2018 Global Peace Index rankings 8 Regional overview 12 Improvements & deteriorations 19 TRENDS 23 Ten year trends in the Global Peace Index 26 100 year trends in peace 32 ECONOMIC IMPACT OF VIOLENCE 45 Results 46 The macroeconomic impact of peace 52 POSITIVE PEACE 59 What is Positive Peace? 60 Trends in Positive Peace 65 What precedes a change in peacefulness? 69 Positive Peace and the economy 73 APPENDICES 77 Appendix A: GPI Methodology 78 Appendix B: GPI indicator sources, definitions & scoring criteria 82 Appendix C: GPI Domain scores 90 Appendix D: Economic cost of violence 93 GLOBAL PEACE INDEX 2018 | 1 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY This is the twelfth edition of the Global Peace Index Afghanistan, South Sudan, Iraq, and Somalia comprise (GPI), which ranks 163 independent states and the remaining least peaceful countries. -
Hong Kong's Pro-Democracy Protests
Protests & Democracy: Hong Kong’s Pro-Democracy Protests Jennifer Yi Advisor: Professor Tsung Chi Politics Senior Comprehensive Project Candidate for Honors consideration April 10, 2015 2 Abstract Protests that occur in the public sphere shed light on the different types of democracy that exist in a region. A protester’s reason for participation demonstrates what type of democracy is missing, while a protest itself demonstrates what type of democracy exists in the region. This Politics Senior Comprehensive Project hypothesizes that the recent pro-democracy protests in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (“Hong Kong”), dubbed the Umbrella Movement, demonstrate an effective democracy due to active citizen engagement within the public sphere. Data is collected through personal interviews of Umbrella Movement participants that demonstrate what type of democracy currently exists in Hong Kong, what type of democracy protesters are looking for, and what type of democracy exists as a result of the recent protests. The interviews show that a true representative and substantive democracy do not exist in Hong Kong as citizens are not provided the democratic rights that define these types of democracy. However, the Umbrella Movement demonstrates an effective democracy in the region as citizens actively engage with one another within the public sphere for the purpose of achieving a representative and substantive democracy in Hong Kong. 3 I. Introduction After spending most of my junior year studying in Hong Kong, I have become very interested in the region and its politics. I am specifically interested in the different types of democracy that exist in Hong Kong as it is a special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China (“China”). -
Ascential Secure
Ascential Secure Enhanced Health & Safety Standards at Ascential’s Events in a Post-COVID-19 World 1 About Ascential Secure Ascential Secure is our approach to enhanced health and safety standards at our events following COVID-19. From exhibitors to sponsors, speakers, visitors and journalists, those who come to our events do so to gain the information, insights, connections, data and digital tools that they need, effectively and safely. The standards and practices that make up Ascential Secure are designed to provide confidence that at every Ascential event, we are striving to provide the highest standards of safety, hygiene, cleanliness and quality. Whether they are exhibitors, attendees, visitors, speakers or sponsors, people come to events to connect, learn, know more and do more business, effectively, safely and with confidence. Ascential Secure is based on a set of event industry standards, called AllSecure. The AllSecure industry standards were developed collaboratively by a group including industry associations UFI, AEO and SISO, event organisers Informa, Reed Exhibitions and Clarion, a range of event venues, suppliers and with input from health, government and local authorities. Ascential Secure is the way these industry-wide AllSecure standards are being applied to Ascential live events. You can expect to see that health and safety continues to be a priority, and that a range of measures are in place to ensure everyone involved is able to enjoy a safe, hygienic, productive and high-quality organised event experience. As a starting point, Ascential Secure events will be run according to the guidance of the government or official local authority for that location, and according to any venue-specific regulations. -
Annual Report 2020
In pursuit of progress since Annual report 2020 report Annual Annual report 2020 In pursuit of progress since Annual report 2020 report Annual Annual report 2020 CONTENTS ANNUAL REPORT STRATEGIC REPORT 2 Five-year summary 3 Group overview 4 From the chairman 6 From the chief executive 8 From the editor 9 Business review: the year in detail 13 The Economist Educational Foundation 15 The Economist Group and environmental sustainability 17 Corporate governance: the Wates Principles, our Section 172(1) statement and our guiding principles REPORT AND ACCOUNTS GOVERNANCE 22 Directors 23 Executive team 24 Trustees, board committees 25 Directors’ report 28 Directors’ report on remuneration 31 Financial review CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 35 Independent auditor’s report to the members of The Economist Newspaper Limited 38 Consolidated income statement 39 Consolidated statement of comprehensive income 40 Consolidated balance sheet 41 Consolidated statement of changes in equity 42 Consolidated cashflow statement 44 Notes to the consolidated financial statements COMPANY FINANCIAL STATEMENTS 94 Company balance sheet 95 Company statement of changes in equity 96 Notes to the company financial statements NOTICES 108 Notice of annual general meeting 1 STRATEGIC REPORT Five-year summary 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 £m £m £m £m £m Income statement—continuing business* Revenue 326 333 329 303 282 Operating profit 31 31 38 43 47 Profit after taxation 21 25 28 39 37 Profit on sale of CQ-Roll Call, Inc - 43 - - - Profit on sale of Economist Complex - - - - -
Annual Report 2012
BRINGING How we have performed KNOWLEDGE FIN ANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS • Record adjusted diluted EPS up 7.7% to 40.7p (2011: 37.8p), ahead of market expectations TO LIFE • Full year dividend increased by 10.1% – second interim dividend of 12.5p giving a total 2012 dividend of 18.5p (2011: 16.8p) Businesses, professionals and • Revenue broadly flat despite Robbins Gioia and European academics worldwide turn to Informa Conference disposals – £1.23bn (2011: £1.28bn) for unparalleled knowledge, up-to- • Adjusted operating profit up 4.0% to £349.7m the minute information and highly (2011: £336.2m); organic growth of 2.8% specialist skills and services. • Record adjusted operating margin of 28.4% (2011: 26.4%) Our ability to deliver high quality • Adjusted profit before tax of £317.4m up 7.3% (2011: £295.9m) knowledge and services through • Statutory profit after tax of £90.7m (2011: £74.3m) multiple channels, in dynamic and rapidly changing environments, • Strong cash generation – operating cash flow up 5.7% to £329.0m (2011: £311.2m) makes our offer unique and • Balance sheet strength maintained – net debt/EBITDA extremely valuable to individuals ratio of 2.1 times (2011: 2.1 times) and organisations. OPEAI R T ONAL HIGHLIGHTS • Proactive portfolio management drives significant Annual Report & Financial Statements for the year ended December 31 2012 improvement in the quality of Group earnings • Total product rationalisation reduced Group revenue by 2% • Investment in new products, geo-cloning and platform development • Acquisition of MMPI and Zephyr -
1 Hybrid Regimes, the Rule of Law, and External Influence on Domestic Change
9780415451024-Ch01 4/16/08 7:00 PM Page 1 1 Hybrid regimes, the rule of law, and external influence on domestic change Amichai Magen and Leonardo Morlino Introduction At the beginning of the twenty-first century, two sets of phenomena are challenging our understanding of democracy and democratization. First, transition from authoritarian regimes into some form of democracy is no longer understood to constitute the most prevalent or important change in worldwide democratization processes. Second, contemporary processes of domestic political change are unfolding within a radically transformed inter- national environment compared to even two decades ago (Gershman 2005; Whitehead 2004). As the Freedom House organization has been underlining in its reports over the last decade,1 etc. the stable, closed authoritarian regime has become something of a rarity. While in 1974 – the year that heralded the launch of the “third wave” of global democratization with the Portuguese Revolução dos Cravos (Huntington 1991) – the number of democracies on the planet stood at a mere 39, at the end of 2006, out of 193 independent countries, 123 ranked as electoral democracies (Freedom House 2006). Thus, for the first time in human history, democracy had become not only a universal aspiration, but the predominant form of government in the world, and the only form enjoying broad international legitimacy (McFaul 2004; Gershman 2005; Sen 1999). The triumph of democracy, moreover, has (so far at least) proven steadier than many would have expected, with cases of outright breakdowns and reversions to autocracy, and fears of a “reverse wave” to autocracy, largely held at bay (Diamond 2000; 2005). -
Surviving Through the Post-Cold War Era: the Evolution of Foreign Policy in North Korea
UC Berkeley Berkeley Undergraduate Journal Title Surviving Through The Post-Cold War Era: The Evolution of Foreign Policy In North Korea Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4nj1x91n Journal Berkeley Undergraduate Journal, 21(2) ISSN 1099-5331 Author Yee, Samuel Publication Date 2008 DOI 10.5070/B3212007665 Peer reviewed|Undergraduate eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Introduction “When the establishment of ‘diplomatic relations’ with south Korea by the Soviet Union is viewed from another angle, no matter what their subjective intentions may be, it, in the final analysis, cannot be construed otherwise than openly joining the United States in its basic strategy aimed at freezing the division of Korea into ‘two Koreas,’ isolating us internationally and guiding us to ‘opening’ and thus overthrowing the socialist system in our country [….] However, our people will march forward, full of confidence in victory, without vacillation in any wind, under the unfurled banner of the Juche1 idea and defend their socialist position as an impregnable fortress.” 2 The Rodong Sinmun article quoted above was published in October 5, 1990, and was written as a response to the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union, a critical ally for the North Korean regime, and South Korea, its archrival. The North Korean government’s main reactions to the changes taking place in the international environment during this time are illustrated clearly in this passage: fear of increased isolation, apprehension of external threats, and resistance to reform. The transformation of the international situation between the years of 1989 and 1992 presented a daunting challenge for the already struggling North Korean government. -
The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes
The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes WITH A FOREWORD BY JOHN J. DEGIOIA, PRESIDENT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY Anthony P. Carnevale Nicole Smith Lenka Dražanová Artem Gulish Kathryn Peltier Campbell 2020 Center on Education and the Workforce McCourt School of Public Policy Reprint permissions [TK] Reprint Permission The Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce carries a Creative Commons license, which permits noncommercial reuse of any of our content when proper attribution is provided. You are free to copy, display, and distribute our work, or include our content in derivative works, under the following conditions: Attribution: You must clearly attribute the work to the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and provide a print or digital copy of the work to [email protected]. Our preference is to cite figures and tables as follows: Source: Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes, 2020. Noncommercial Use: You may not use this work for commercial purposes. Written permission must be obtained from the owners of the copy/literary rights and from Georgetown University for any publication or commercial use of reproductions. Approval: If you are using one or more of our available data representations (figures, charts, tables, etc.), please visit our website at cew.georgetown.edu/publications/reprint- permission for more information. For the full legal code of this Creative Commons license, please visit creativecommons.org. Email [email protected] with any questions. 2 THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN TAMING AUTHORITARIAN ATTITUDES The Role of Education in Taming Authoritarian Attitudes WITH A FOREWORD BY JOHN J. -
Democracy Promotion and Civil Society
Armine Ishkanian Democracy promotion and civil society Book section Original citation: Ishkanian, Armine (2007) Democracy promotion and civil society. In: Albrow, Martin and Glasius, Marlies and Anheier, Helmut K. and Kaldor, Mary, (eds.) Global Civil Society 2007/8 : Communicative Power and Democracy. Global Civil Society - Year Books . SAGE publications Ltd, London, UK, pp. 58-85. ISBN 9781412948005 © 2007 SAGE Publications This version available at: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/37038/ Available in LSE Research Online: June 2011 LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author’s submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher’s version if you wish to cite from it. GCS_Democracy_CH4/5/6/7:GCS Part 2_Issues 12/7/07 22:16 Page 2 CHAPTER 4 DEMOCRACY PROMOTION AND CIVIL SOCIETY Of the various strands of democracy promotion, in this chapter I focus on civil society strengthening Armine Ishkanian programmes and ask the following questions. -
THE RISE of COMPETITIVE AUTHORITARIANISM Steven Levitsky and Lucan A
Elections Without Democracy THE RISE OF COMPETITIVE AUTHORITARIANISM Steven Levitsky and Lucan A. Way Steven Levitsky is assistant professor of government and social studies at Harvard University. His Transforming Labor-Based Parties in Latin America is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press. Lucan A. Way is assistant professor of political science at Temple University and an academy scholar at the Academy for International and Area Studies at Harvard University. He is currently writing a book on the obstacles to authoritarian consolidation in the former Soviet Union. The post–Cold War world has been marked by the proliferation of hy- brid political regimes. In different ways, and to varying degrees, polities across much of Africa (Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbab- we), postcommunist Eurasia (Albania, Croatia, Russia, Serbia, Ukraine), Asia (Malaysia, Taiwan), and Latin America (Haiti, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru) combined democratic rules with authoritarian governance during the 1990s. Scholars often treated these regimes as incomplete or transi- tional forms of democracy. Yet in many cases these expectations (or hopes) proved overly optimistic. Particularly in Africa and the former Soviet Union, many regimes have either remained hybrid or moved in an authoritarian direction. It may therefore be time to stop thinking of these cases in terms of transitions to democracy and to begin thinking about the specific types of regimes they actually are. In recent years, many scholars have pointed to the importance of hybrid regimes. Indeed, recent academic writings have produced a vari- ety of labels for mixed cases, including not only “hybrid regime” but also “semidemocracy,” “virtual democracy,” “electoral democracy,” “pseudodemocracy,” “illiberal democracy,” “semi-authoritarianism,” “soft authoritarianism,” “electoral authoritarianism,” and Freedom House’s “Partly Free.”1 Yet much of this literature suffers from two important weaknesses.