Civil Society Fragmentation and Agrarian Reform : Focus on CARPER in the Philippines

CURRY, MARK STEVENSON 이화여자대학교 국제통상협력연구소 2013 Asian International Studies Review Vol.14 No.1

Civil society fragmentation may have significant implications for rural development initiatives, such as agrarian reform program implementation. This paper assesses the issue by looking at civil society participation and cleavages in the enactment of the 2009 Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program Extension with Reforms (CARPER) in the Philippines. CARPER was promoted by a coalition of social and political movements, including the Catholic Church and peasant and farmer groups aligned with centre-left political organizations. It was however opposed by two discordant groups: the leftist national democratic bloc of people’s organizations and legislators, and conservative landlords. A Gramscian framework is adapted to describe the hegemonic relations affecting three engaged organizations from the civil society spectrum and to assess potential convergences among them.

South Korea's Scramble for Africa : Complexities and Implications

MARK CURRY Institute for International Trade and Cooperation, 2010 Asian International Studies Review Vol.11 No.1

South Korea has recently made agreements to secure large- scale land deals in Tanzania, among other places, to secure cheap, long term agricultural supplies. Having limited experience in Africa, the potential for problems with Korea's partners is great. The feasibility, desirability and legitimacy of such projects must be examined to forestall difficulties. Africa's volatility and Tanzania's complex historical context likewise need to be understood alongside Korea's own history of colonization if its businesses are to be involved in the appropriation of Tanzanian indigenous people's land. Also, Korea's geopolitical standing and emergence as a developed country are implicated by such ventures. Significantly, securing future food resources by controlling large territories in distant continents is relevant to any discussion of Korea's security and international relations.

Patchwork vs. Proactive Social Protection Policies : CCTs and Social Expenditure in Brazil and the Philippines

MARK STEVENSON CURRY 이화여자대학교 국제통상협력연구소 2014 Asian International Studies Review Vol.15 No.2

Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programs disburse cash grants to targeted recipient families under requirements for education and maternal health. These programs have been widely adopted with international donor assistance since the 1990s. Most CCT research examines program effectiveness at the demand level-the cash provision and compliance outcomes. This paper considers the respective supply-side question of health and education budgeting in Brazil and the Philippines during the relevant period of CCT implementation. The data provide that whereas Brazil has improved such access to services to complement its CCT programs, the Philippines has underinvested in supply-side provision. Brazil thus exhibits an integrated conceptualization of social protection for development. The Philippines exhibits a patchwork scheme for short term goals.

Enabling Conditions for Structures of Domination: Java’s Colonial Era “Cultivation System” and Indonesia’s Palm Oil Plantation System in Comparative Analysis

MARK STEVENSON CURRY 이화여자대학교 국제지역연구소 2016 Asian International Studies Review Vol.17 No.2

Historians of colonial-era Java have produced considerable debate about how the Dutch colonial era Cultivation System (1830-1870) brought prosperity to the Netherlands in contrast with the fortunes of Javanese societies under the imposition of mandatory production quotas. Separately, palm oil plantation agriculture in contemporary Indonesia, since the mid-1990s, has sparked a different debate on the state’s power to direct development over biodiversity and the rights and existence of Indigenous People. In comparative-historical analysis, the structures of domination in each era provide useful symmetries: the speed of implementation; the realization of extraordinary profits; the adverse incorporation of local communities; and environmental impacts. However, the enabling conditions that underpinned and sustained both the colonial era Cultivation System and the contemporary palm oil boom remain to be explored and applied to the paired agencies of investment capital and the developmental state. From historical accounts, four enabling conditions emerge: a catalyzing crisis; close control over information flows; maintaining an official monopoly over order and violence; and an official discourse intolerant of dissent or resistance. These symmetries in comparison permit an assessment of the state’s role as an agent for an anti-development double-action: what Harvey calls “Accumulation by Dispossession” and Santos (2007) calls “Epistemicide.”

Prospects for Obtaining an Efficient Organolanthanide-Based Infra-red Light Emitting Diode

R. J. Curry 한국통신학회 2002 한국통신학회 기타 간행물 Vol.2002 No.10

Political Crisis and Institutional Resilience: Conditional Cash Transfers under Scrutiny in Brazil and Philippines

MARK STEVENSON CURRY 이화여자대학교 국제지역연구소 2017 Asian International Studies Review Vol.18 No.2

Extraordinary political transitions in 2016 in two middle-income developing countries, Brazil and the Philippines, may adversely affect efforts to reduce poverty and gender/social inequalities through Conditional Cash Transfers (‘CCTs’). This paper investigates institutional conditions governing CCTs in these two countries and reflects on the potential impacts of policy incursions. The proposition here is that sound developmental programmes can produce broad and compelling within-institution influences as well as causal cross-institution linkages in other domains. New and quickly successful programmes can also be targets for policy assaults and subversions. How resilient are social protection institutions like CCTs to political shocks? Applying Levitsky and Way’s (2015) concept of timing and sequencing in authoritarian regime durability to the question of institutional resilience, this comparative-historical case study aims to examine three issues: the processes traced by CCT evolution that in each case relate to institutional resilience, the factors contributing to policy shocks, and the resilience of CCTs in response to seismic macro-political change. The approach takes varieties of knowledge as a valuable alternative to neoliberal structures of domination and contributes to the important and urgent need to understand social protection institutions as human development resources of variable durability.

Restricted Blood Flow Exercise in Sedentary, Overweight African-American Females May Increase Muscle Strength and Decrease Endothelial Function and Vascular Autoregulation

Bond, Vernon,Curry, Bryan Heath,Kumar, Krishna,Pemminati, Sudhakar,Gorantla, Vasavi Rakesh,Kadur, Kishan,Millis, Richard Mark KOREAN PHARMACOPUNCTURE INSTITUTE 2017 Journal of pharmacopuncture Vol.20 No.1

Objectives: Exercise with partially restricted blood flow is a low-load, low-intensity resistance training regimen which may have the potential to increase muscle strength in the obese, elderly and frail who are unable to do high-load training. Restricted blood flow exercise has also been shown to affect blood vessel function variably and can, therefore, contribute to blood vessel dysfunction. This pilot study tests the hypothesis that unilateral resistance training of the leg extensors with partially restricted blood flow increases muscle strength and decreases vascular autoregulation. Methods: The subjects were nine normotensive, overweight, young adult African-Americans with low cardiorespiratory fitness who underwent unilateral training of the quadriceps' femoris muscles with partially restricted blood flow at 30% of the 1-repetition maximum (1-RM) load for 3 weeks. The 1-RM load and post-occlusion blood flow to the lower leg (calf) were measured during reactive hyperemia. Results: The 1-RM load increased in the trained legs from $77{\pm}3$ to $84{\pm}4 kg$ (P < 0.05) in the absence of a significant effect on the 1-RM load in the contralateral untrained legs (P > 0.1). Post-occlusion blood flow decreased significantly in the trained legs from $19{\pm}2$ to $13{\pm}2mL{\cdot}min^{-1}{\cdot}dL^{-1}$ (P < 0.05) and marginally in the contralateral untrained legs from $18{\pm}2$ to $16{\pm}1mL{\cdot}min^{-1}{\cdot}dL^{-1}$ (P = 0.09). Changes in post-occlusion blood flow to the skin overlying the trained and the contralateral untrained muscles were not significant. Conclusion: These results demonstrate that restricted blood flow exercise, which results in significant gains in muscle strength, may produce decrements in endothelial dysfunction and vascular autoregulation. Future studies should determine whether pharmacopuncture plays a role in treatments for such blood vessel dysfunction.

A Performance Analysis of OFDM Systems in Excessively Dispersive Multipath Channels

W. Lee,C. S. Curry,C. Cordeiro,D. P. Agrawal 한국통신학회 2006 Journal of communications and networks Vol.8 No.3

Nonlinear Conte-Zbilut-Federici (CZF) Method of Computing LF/HF Ratio: A More Reliable Index of Changes in Heart Rate Variability

Vernon Bond, Jr,Curry, Bryan H,Kumar, Krishna,Pemminati, Sudhakar,Gorantla, Vasavi R,Kadur, Kishan,Millis, Richard M KOREAN PHARMACOPUNCTURE INSTITUTE 2016 Journal of pharmacopuncture Vol.19 No.3

Objectives: Acupuncture treatments are safe and effective for a wide variety of diseases involving autonomic dysregulation. Heart rate variability (HRV) is a noninvasive method for assessing sympathovagal balance. The low frequency/high frequency (LF/HF) spectral power ratio is an index of sympathovagal influence on heart rate and of cardiovascular health. This study tests the hypothesis that from rest to 30% to 50% of peak oxygen consumption, the nonlinear Conte-Zbilut-Federici (CZF) method of computing the LF/HF ratio is a more reliable index of changes in the HRV than linear methods are. Methods: The subjects of this study were 10 healthy young adults. Electrocardiogram RR intervals were measured during 6-minute periods of rest and aerobic exercise on a cycle ergometer at 30% and 50% of peak oxygen consumption ($VO_{2peak}$). Results: The frequency domain CZF computations of the LF/HF ratio and the time domain computations of the standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN) decreased sequentially from rest to 30% $VO_{2peak}$ (P < 0.001) to 50% $VO_{2peak}$ (P < 0.05). The SDNN and the CZF computations of the LF/HF ratio were positively correlated (Pearson's r = 0.75, P < 0.001). fast Fourier transform (FFT), autoregressive (AR) and Lomb periodogram computations of the LF/HF ratio increased only from rest to 50% $VO_{2peak}$. Conclusion: Computations of the LF/HF ratio by using the nonlinear CZF method appear to be more sensitive to changes in physical activity than computations of the LF/HF ratio by using linear methods. Future studies should determine whether the CZF computation of the LF/HF ratio improves evaluations of pharmacopuncture and other treatment modalities.

A Performance Analysis of OFDM Systems in Excessively Dispersive Multipath Channels

Lee Woo-Kwon,Curry Christopher S. The Korea Institute of Information and Commucation 2006 Journal of communications and networks Vol.8 No.3

For orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM), the discrete Fourier transform (DFT)-based processing at the receiver has been perceived equivalent to the matched filter (MF)-based processing. In this paper, we revisit the equivalence and mathematically show that when the guard interval is insufficient, the well-known DFT-based processing inherently causes more intersymbol and interchannel interference (ISI/ICI) than the MF-based processing. Then, with the adverse increase of interference, analytical expressions for the link performance are derived in terms of bit error rate (BER). Numerical results from computer simulation and analysis are presented to justify our claims.