The 1972 Memorandum to the United Nations and its repercussions: Émigré politics and Soviet Estonian dissent during the ‘era of stagnation’

The Estonian dissidents’ Memorandum to the United Nations, drafted as a call for national self-determination in 1972, set new standards for the émigré community’s campaigns. Although its political message was initially dismissed as utopian, the subsequently emerging cooperation between émigré and homeland activists via intricate courier networks significantly strengthened the authority of Estonian voices in the West. By the early 1980s, the political alliances across the Iron Curtain eventually bore fruit. The Memorandum’s core demands reappeared in political debates on Baltic issues on both sides of the Atlantic, foreshadowing the massive Western support for the Baltic cause during the Singing Revolutions.     

The Effect of Bureaucratic Responsiveness on Citizen Participation

What effect does bureaucratic responsiveness have on citizen participation? Since the 1940s, attitudinal measures of perceived efficacy have been used to explain participation. The authors develop a “calculus of participation” that incorporates objective efficacy—the extent to which an individual's participation actually has an impact—and test the model against behavioral data from the online application Fix My Street (n = 399,364). A successful first experience using Fix My Street is associated with a 57 percent increase in the probability of an individual submitting a second report, and the experience of bureaucratic responsiveness to the first report submitted has predictive power over all future report submissions. The findings highlight the importance of responsiveness for fostering an active citizenry while demonstrating the value of incidentally collected data to examine participatory behavior at the individual level.     

尸检样本乙醇分析结果的解释策略

由于死后各种复杂的人为现象的存在，使得建立死后血液酒精含量（BAC）和死亡时醉酒状态之间的关系十分困难。在日常检案中必须考虑细菌污染、发酵是否引起死后乙醇再合成．死亡时胃中未被吸收的乙醇是否向周围组织以及血中扩散等问题。本文总结了关于死后乙醇分析及结果解释相关问题的研究文献，旨在为从事法医毒物学乙醇分析的同行在调查此类案件时提供良好的开端。     

Organizational Failure in the Hollow State: Lessons from the Milwaukee Voucher Experience

In this conceptual article we use the experience of the longstanding Milwaukee private school voucher program to categorize different failure types within the hollow state. Specifically, we argue that the overall performance of the hollow state is dependent on the performance of organizations operating within the hollow state, that organizational failures are inevitable in hollow state activities, and that such failures can be categorized as marketplace failures, service failures, institutional failures, or customer service failures. We conclude that policy makers must plan for the reality of organizational failures in the hollow state if such arrangements are to be effective.     

The Significance of Seniority in Layoffs: A Comparative Analysis

The role of seniority in decisions about layoffs when firms have to downsize is discussed on the basis of comparative studies from five countries: Brazil, France, Germany, Norway, and the United States. The relevance of seniority is viewed in relation to pure norms of allocation, such as equality, contribution, needs, and productivity. Seniority is shown to have strong adherence in Norway and the United States, while it has a rather weak position in Brazil and France. Germany ranked as an intermediate between these two extremes. Reasons for the variation in the strength of the seniority principle are sought in general legal regulations, in wage agreements, and in the structure of the bargaining situation between employees and management. The future of the seniority principle is briefly discussed and it is assumed that it may lose importance due to organizational changes in the workplace.     

Development and legitimacy of Chinese informal finance

Abstract

Cambodia is facing the familiar problem of achieving sustained rates of economic growth that could help it alleviate widespread poverty. Against the background of some encouraging developments, and quite a few that are not equally reassuring, we argue that any push for development needs to consider both agriculture and industry. This is so as both labour absorption, primarily in secondary sector activities, and productivity growth in agriculture are necessary to lift large segments of the population out of the poverty associated with subsistence agriculture, landlessness and informal sector activities. Given that the major success story of the past decade – the garment and textile industry – is under threat, we conclude that Cambodia is yet to achieve an economic take-off.     

Codeine and morphine blood concentrations increase during blood loss

During extensive blood loss, a plasma volume refill will take place by transfer of extravascular fluid into the circulation. Drugs present in this fluid may follow and cause a rise or a drop in blood drug concentration, depending on their levels and accessibility in the restoration fluid. This study explored the possible changes of codeine, and its metabolite morphine, in whole blood during a standardized exsanguination in the rat. Three doses containing 5 mg codeine were given orally. In eight rats, blood loss was accomplished by slowly withdrawing 0.8 mL blood at 10 min intervals during 70 min. In control rats, blood was withdrawn only at 0 and 70 min. At 70 min, the final/initial codeine and morphine concentration ratios were 0.70 +/- 0.38 and 0.88 +/- 0.47, respectively, in controls, but increased to 1.28 +/- 0.44 (p = 0.014) and 1.41 +/- 0.34 (p = 0.021), respectively, in exsanguinated rats. It is concluded that blood loss can affect blood drug concentrations.