More than two decades have passed since the first case of HIV infection was detected in Cambodia in 1991. Cambodia is among the countries with the highest HIV prevalence in Asia and has been experiencing the most serious HIV/AIDS epidemic in the region. The epidemic is spread primarily through heterosexual transmission and revolves largely around the sex trade.

Since the beginning of the epidemic, the Royal Government of Cambodia has made a strong political commitment to the need for prevention of HIV transmission and care for people living with HIV/AIDS. It has received some technical and financial support from national and international agencies. Several prevention and intervention programs have been successfully implemented, and the WHO/UNAIDS recognized that the Cambodia’s HIV/AIDS epidemic appeared to have stabilized in 2002.

The estimated HIV prevalence in the general adult population declined to 0.5% in 2009, down from 1.2% in 2001. Among women visiting antenatal care clinics, the prevalence also declined from 2.1% in 1999 to 1.1% in 2006. There was also a gradual increase in the percentage of HIV-infected pregnant women who received antiretroviral therapy to reduce the risk of mother-to-child transmission, from 1.2% in 2003 to 11.2% in 2007, and finally to 32.3% in 2009.

Despite the decline of HIV prevalence in the general population, the prevalence remains high among high-risk groups such as commercial sex workers, men who have sex with men, and injection drug users. Furthermore, the so-called prevention-successful-country is also seeing the growing need for HIV/AIDS treatment and care.

This seminar will highlight the past and current features of Cambodia’s HIV/AIDS epidemic, lessons learned from prevention and care policies, and future challenges that Cambodia may face in the battles against HIV/AIDS.  

Dr. Siyan Yi joins the Walter H. Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center during the 2011–12 academic year from the National Center of Global Health and Medicine and the University of Tokyo, Japan, where he jointly served as a research fellow and lecturer. He has also served as an adjunct faculty member at Cambodia’s School of Public Health, the National Institute of Public Health, and the School of International Studies at the Royal University of Phnom Penh.

*PLEASE NOTE:  This event has been moved from the Reuben W. Hills Conference Room to the CISAC Conference Room (C231) in Encina Hall Central, 2nd floor.

This lecture aims to situate the Greek War of Independence in the wider context of the clash between Tradition and Modernity in the European periphery. Focusing on the emergence of nationalism as a movement and an ideology, I explore the Greek War of Independence in terms of both its political dimensions and also its contribution to a much broader societal change. I argue that the Greek struggle for independence may be interpreted as a ‘Greek exit’ from tradition. In this respect, on the one hand, it constitutes an undoubtedly unique event of momentous importance per se, and yet, on the other hand, another instance of a prolonged and very intricate process of societal transformation.

Mediterranean Studies Forum, 2011-12 Greece & Turkey Lecture Series 
Co-sponsored by The Europe Center

Life expectancy at aged 65 is remarkably similar in the three Chinese cities of Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Taipei, even though the cities differ in levels of socioeconomic development, health systems, and other factors. Edward Jow-Ching Tu will discuss research that aims to understand this phenomenon. Despite unprecedented increases in life expectancy and attainment of similar current levels of life expectancy, the cities differ in the contributions of changes in major causes of death to the improvements in life expectancy among the elderly. Tu and colleagues have explored several possible determinants of these different patterns and trends in the three cities, including socioeconomic development, health service delivery systems, cause-of-death classification systems, and competing risks from cardiovascular disease and other diseases. Their analysis suggests that the effect of equity of health service delivery has become more important over time.

Edward Jow-Ching Tu is a senior lecturer of demography in the Division of Social Science at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. His work is focused on the impact of fertility, mortality, and migration on socio-economic changes in East Asia countries with special emphasis on nations experiencing a transition from planned economy to market economy; on causes and impacts of mortality changes and health transition on aging societies; and on the causes of lowest-low fertility in many East Asia countries. He has several active research projects ongoing in China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore. He holds graduate degress from West Virginia University, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Tennessee (Knoxville). Tu has worked extensively in Asia, and has served as an adjunct professor and taught in many universities in China, including Peking University, Peoples University, Nankai Univerity, and Fudan University. He had served as a senior research scientist at the New York State Health Department and as a research fellow (full professor) at the Institute for Social Sciences and Philosophy at Academia Sinica. Tu has also taught at the State University of New York in Albany.

The physiological factors underlying links between health and socioeconomic position in the Russian population are important to investigate. This population continues to face political and economic challenges, has experienced poor general health and high mortality for decades, and has exhibited widening health disparities. Dr. Dana A. Glei and colleagues used data from a population-based survey of Moscow residents 55 and older to investigate whether physiological dysregulation mediates the link between socioeconomic status and health. She will discuss the the results of their study, which revealed large educational disparities in health outcomes and physiological dysregulation, especially in men.

Dana A. Glei is a senior research investigator at Georgetown University and has worked on the Social Environment and Biomarkers of Aging Study (Taiwan) since 2001. From 2002 to 2009, she also served as project coordinator for the Human Mortality Database, a collaborative project involving research teams at the University of California, Berkeley and the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. Over the past 18 years, she has published articles on a variety of topics related to health, mortality, marriage and the family, and poverty. Her current research focuses on sex differences in health and mortality, the impact of stressors on subsequent health, and how bioindicators mediate the links between psychosocial factors and health outcomes. She has an MA from the University of Virginia and a PhD from Princeton University.

In 2011 Yingluck Shinawatra became the 1st female prime minister of Thailand,  the 3^rd member of her family to become prime minister, and the 13th member of her extended family to gain a seat in parliament.  Scholarship on family politics in advanced democracies has been scarce, perhaps because family politics are quasi-aristocratic and therefore do not align with the egalitarianism that informs democratic principles.  What literature does exist tends to treat family politics in terms of political inheritance or occupational following, and as a legacy of the past that is certain to wane with modernization.  When it comes to new democracies, in contrast, scholarship has been more abundant and has treated family politics in terms of corruption, “bossism,” hybridism, and closed games.  Professor Ockey will discuss these differences and present some preliminary findings on the scope and nature of family politics in Thailand, drawing on a database of elected members of parliament since the overthrow of the absolute monarchy in 1932.

Jim Ockey is associate professor (reader) and coordinator in the Department of Political Science at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand.  He is an expert on Southeast Asian politics, with a particular focus on democratization in Thailand.

Abstract:

Nunn's paper examines the effect of U.S. food aid on conflict in recipient countries. To establish a causal relationship, he and Nancy Qian exploit time variation in food aid caused by fluctuationsin U.S. wheat production together with cross-sectional variation in a country's tendency to receive any food aid from the United States. Their estimates show that an increase in U.S. food aid increases the incidence, onset and duration of civil conflicts in recipient countries. The results suggest that the effects are larger for smaller scale civil conflicts. No effect is found on interstate warfare.

Speaker Bio: 

Professor Nunn was born in Canada, where he received his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2005.  In 2009, Professor Nunn was selected as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow and grant recepient.

Professor Nunn’s primary research interests are in economic history, economic development, political economy and international trade. One stream of Nunn’s research focuses on the long-term impact that historic events can have on current economic development. In “Historical Legacies: A Model Linking Africa’s Past to its Current Underdevelopment”, published in the Journal of Development Economics in 2007, Nunn develops a game-theoretic model showing how the slave trade and colonial rule could have had permanent long-term effects on economic performance. In “The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s Slave Trades” (Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2008), Nunn documents the long-term adverse economic effects of Africa’s slave trades. His current research continues to examine the specific channels through which the slave trade affects current development within Africa. In "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa" (American Economic Review, forthcoming), coauthored with Leonard Wantchekon, he empirically documents how the slave trade engendered a culture of mistrust amongst the descendants of those heavily threatened by the slave trade.

A second stream of Professor Nunn’s research focuses on the importance of hold-up and incomplete contracting in international trade. He has published research showing that a country’s ability to enforce written contracts is a key determinant of comparative advantage (“Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts and the Pattern of Trade,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2007). Other work, coauthored with Daniel Trefler, examines the relationship between the cross-industry structure of a country's tariffs and its long-term economic growth (“The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth,” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 2010). The study identifies growth-promoting benefits of a tariff structure focused in skill-intensive industries. It also shows how and why governments that succumb to political influence and rent-seeking are unable to focus tariffs in these key industries.

The life sciences have many examples of where research results and technologies can be used for good, but also for bad purposes. Because such scenarios are so common, it is critical to identify that research which is particularly bad and would be classified as dual use research of concern (DURC). Attributes that might result in a DURC designation include how immediate a threat it represents, the magnitude of the threat, the availability of safeguards to defend against its nefarious use and its relative risk to benefits ratio. Several policy forums have studied this problem and the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB) is currently the official U.S. government advisory group for DURC policy. Recently, NSABB was asked to review two manuscripts that reported adaptation of the high-path avian influenza virus H5N1 to transmission in a mammalian model. This virus rarely infects humans but when it does, it has catastrophic consequences with ~60% mortality. The board weighed the risks and the benefits of the work and recommended that the papers not be published as written, but only in a highly redacted form that would prevent the rapid and direct replication of the work. NSABB also argued for a communication pause so that the consequences of these papers and this research focus be evaluated by a broad cross section of science, public health and society. The US government accepted these recommendations and the two journals (Science and Nature) have thus far not published the papers. Multiple additional forums are planned to discuss the issues and recommendations. The future for policy development in the area of pathogen research and DURC will be shaped by these recommendations and subsequent activities.

About the speakers:

Dr. Paul Keim holds the E. Raymond and Ruth Cowden Endowed Chair in Microbiology at Northern Arizona University (NAU), where he is also a Regents Professor of Biology. In addition, he directs the Pathogen Genomics Division at The Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen). Both institutions are based in Flagstaff, Arizona. His biological interests span many types of organisms and microbes, but revolve around genetic diversity and its organization in populations and species. This necessarily has involved systematic and phylogenetic analyses to understand how observable genetic diversity is based upon past evolutionary processes. Biodefense programs have capitalized upon his approach of using genomic analysis to understand bacterial pathogen populations for microbial forensics and molecular epidemiological analyses. His laboratory was heavily involved in analysis of evidentiary material from the 2001 anthrax-letter attacks. He has published extensively on the evolution and population genetics of Bacillus anthracis, Yersinia pestis, Francisella tularensis, Burkholderia pseudomallei, Burkholderia mallei, Brucella spp., and Coxiella burnetii. Recently, these same principles have been applied to other public health-related and clinically important pathogens such as S. aureus and E. coli. In all, he has published over 230 scientific or policy papers. Dr. Keim received his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from Northern Arizona University in 1977 and his Ph.D. in Botany in 1981 from the University of Kansas. Dr. Keim has previously served on the editorial boards of Crop Science and Molecular Breeding; he currently serves on the editorial boards of Infection Genetics and Evolution, Investigative Genetics, and Biotechniques.

Dr. David Relman is a professor of medicine – infectious diseases, and of microbiology and immunology at Stanford. He joined CISAC as an affiliated faculty member in November 2011. He is also chief, Infectious Diseases Section, at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Among his other activities, Dr. Relman currently serves as Vice-President of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Chair of the U.S. National Academies of Science Institute of Medicine's Forum on Microbial Threats, and member of the National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity. He received a S.B. in biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1977) and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School Medicine (1982).

This seminar is based on a recently published article that reviews the history of the September 22, 1979 double flash recorded by the VELA satellite and concludes that the flash was an Israeli nuclear test assisted by South Africa. The work of a government panel created at the time to determine the cause of the flash is discussed as is the author's own involvement in the issue.

About the speaker:

Leonard Weiss is an affiliated scholar at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He is also a national advisory board member of the Center for Arms control and Non-Proliferation in Washington, DC. He began his professional career as a PhD researcher in mathematical system theory at the Research Institute for Advanced Studies in Baltimore. This was followed by tenured professorships in applied mathematics and electrical engineering at Brown University and the University of Maryland. During this period he published widely in the applied mathematics literature. In 1976 he received a Congressional Science Fellowship that resulted in a career change. For more than two decades he worked for Senator John Glenn as the staff director of both the Senate Subcommittee on Energy and Nuclear Proliferation and the Committee on Governmental Affairs. He was the chief architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978 and legislation that created the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board. In addition, he led notable investigations of the nuclear programs of India and Pakistan. Since retiring from the Senate staff in 1999, he has published numerous articles on nonproliferation issues for the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Arms Control Today, and the Nonproliferation Review. His current research interests include an assessment of the impact on the nonproliferation regime of nuclear trade with non-signers of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, and more generally the relationship of energy security concerns with nonproliferation.

Our objective is to formulate and then build a capability that could focus on the design of influence in Global CASoS. Such a capability would allow evaluation of the cost benefit for policies imposed at a variety of scales and thus the design of policy combinations to most effectively achieve high levels of individual and/or communal health. Many of these policies have to do with Security: land and boarder security, food security, water security, energy security, commerce security, etc. As such, this effort lays a foundation for development of Trans-spectrum (i.e., resource, entity, scale) Global Security. An overview of this work will be presented for discussion.

About the speaker:

Robert Glass, Jr. is the 2011-2012 Perry Fellow at CISAC. Before coming to CISAC, he was a Senior Scientist in the office of Complex Adaptive Systems of Systems Engineering Initiative at Sandia National Laboratories, New Mexico. He has published in peer reviewed journals such as Critical Infectious Diseases, Emerging Infectious Diseases and Physica A.

He received a PhD and a M.S. from Cornell University in Agricultural and Biological Engineering and a B.S. from Haverford College.

In 2005, California enacted its first anti-trafficking law to make human trafficking a felony in this state and assist victims in rebuilding their lives. Speakers Lt. John Vanek and Sgt Kyle Oki from the San Jose Human Trafficking Task Force, and Deputy Chief Antonio Parra from the San Francisco Human Trafficking Task Forece will speak about identifying cases and victims. They offer a unique perspective on the extent of the problem in California as well as if we are doing enough to protect and assist victims, prosecute traffickers and prevent this violation of human rights.