How Resilient are Labour Markets to Natural Disasters? The Case of the 1998 Bangladesh Flood

Natural disasters devastate economies as they impede capital accumulation. The resilience of labour markets is crucial for the poor who rely on labour to reduce risk. We evaluate how the 1998 ‘flood of the century’ affected wages in Bangladesh. We find short-term declines in agricultural and non-agricultural wages. Agricultural workers who moved towards non-agricultural employment to cope benefitted through a lower percentage reduction in short-term wages. Endowed with human capital, salaried workers were unable to mitigate income risk. Extending the eligibility of credit access or relief programmes may preserve local businesses and their employees in the years following a flood.     

Territorial dispossession: dynamics of capitalist expansion in rural territories in South America

The rural territories of the Agrarian South have been occupying a central role as epicentres for the recent dynamics of capitalist expansion. Over the last years this has led to an increase in the process of control and extraction of natural common goods by different mechanisms such as agribusiness, mining-energetic projects, mega-infrastructure building, cultural dispossession and so on. Taking the territory as the central analytical approach that involves different dimensions and scales, we analyse the recent transformations in several rural sceneries from South America where various forms of dispossession of natural goods have been presented. With this perspective, we hope to contribute to the analysis and understanding of the agrarian transformations in the Agrarian South.     

A new sensitive short pentaplex (ShoP) PCR for typing of degraded DNA

Analysis of short tandem repeat makers has become the most powerful tool for DNA typing in forensic casework analysis. Unfortunately, typing of DNA extracted from telogen shed hairs, bones buried in the soil or from paraffin-embedded, formalin-fixed tissue often reveals no results due to the degradation of DNA. The reduction in size of the target fragments by development of new primers and their combination in multiplex approaches open a new field of DNA analysis. Here we present a new sensitive short pentaplex PCR including the loci amelogenin, TH01, VWA, D3S1358 and D8S1179. Validation tests of our new method included sensitivity, mixtures, human specificity, artificial degradation of DNA by DNase I and case work analysis on a panel of different forensic samples. The detection limit was 12.5 pg of human DNA, and mixtures of 50 pg in a total of 1000 pg were clearly detectable and revealed complete profiles. Only DNA extracts of human primates displayed a few signals, whereas other animal, fungal or bacterial DNA showed no signals. Our method proved extremely valuable in the analysis of artificially degraded DNA and in forensic cases, where only poorly preserved DNA was available. This approach and other similar methods can aid in the analysis of samples where allelic drop out of larger fragments is observed. It is highly recommended to develop more of these multiplexes to improve poor quality DNA typing.     

Technological innovation within the Spanish tax administration and data subjects' right to access: An opportunity knocks

In this paper, we analyse the data subjects' right to access their personal data in the context of the Spanish Tax Administration and the legal consequences of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation. The results show that there are still difficulties related to the scope of this right, the establishment of proper storage criteria, and in the procedures used by the data controllers to provide accurate information to the data subjects. This situation highlights the necessity to incorporate such technological innovation as metadata labelling and automatic computerised procedures to ensure an optimum management of the data subjects' access to their tax related personal information.     

Business Angel and risk capital： The impact on innovation

The aim of the analysis is to understand if the risk capital carried by Business Angels （B.A.） could affect firms with high innovation propensity in creating more innovations than receiving risk capital from other financial operators. Innovation is a critical factor for the competitiveness of national system especially when the economy of the latter has come to maturity. For realizing ＂the successful exploitation of ideas, into new products, processes, services or business practices, and the critical process for achieving two complementary business goals of performance and growth, which in turn will help to close the productivity gap＂ （DTI＇s Innovation Report, 2003, p. 8）, firms have to understand which are the right competences to increase. In this context, the authors have developed a framework that measures the propensity to innovate in the firms. The model considers the firm＇s competences （grouped into four macro areas as management, organization, ITC and marketing） to improve the creation, development and diffusion of the innovation. The work is structured as an empirical analysis as follows： （1） The authors analyzed a sample of 12 business plans （choices for high level of innovation in their business） that received risk capital from B.A. and other financial operators; （2） For each firm, their innovation propensity is measured through the author＇s model during their start-up period （the data analyzed are business plan＇s data）; （3） After a period of time （3 years）, the authors checked if the firms with high innovation propensity have created real innovation and if a correlation exists between risk capital origin （from Business Angels or not） and innovation propensity. The conclusion of the work is the finns with B.A.＇s risk capital have a high innovation propensity and create after a medium term period more innovation compared with the others.     

Democracy Beyond Secrecy: Assessing the Promises and Pitfalls of Collective Voting

This paper assesses collective voting as a specific mode of democratic decision‐making and compares it to secret voting. Under collective voting, voters gather in one place and decide by the show of hands. We theorise two potential advantages and two disadvantages of collective voting so defined. We then draw on original survey data from one of the largest polities practising collective voting, the citizen assembly of the Swiss canton of Glarus. We find that both the promises and pitfalls of non‐secret voting are exaggerated. Non‐secret voting’s suspected pitfalls – social pressure and abstention – do not generally materialise in our sample, although for women they do appear to be relevant to some extent. However, the promises of collective voting – enabling cue‐taking and discursive bridging and bonding – are equally realised to a limited extent only.     

Individualism,contractarianism, and morality

This study develops the ethical implications to ascribing to both individualism and contractarianism as ethical postulates. We define moral individualism as defining the morality of all normative judgments concerning human action in reference to the extent that these actions allow individuals to achieve their interests. Contractarianism defines right and wrong in terms of the conduct proscribed in voluntarily joined contracts. This individualistic-contractarian ethics is inherently relativistic. Right and wrong are defined only with respect to the actions of the set of individuals joined in contract. Yet, it is argued that the individualist-contractarian morality can be defended because it provides both clear definitions of right and wrong and provides individuals with arguments and incentives to do that which is right.     

Archetype Transition in the German Health Service? The Attempted Modernization of Hospitals in a North German State

In this paper, we argue that, rather than aiming at universal contingency relationships, archetype theory needs to go down a path where 'local variants' can be discovered and understood by relating them to their organizational and institutional context(s). The case study of a public sector hospital group in a North German state (Hamburg) is drawn on here to elaborate the argument. We found evidence for a change from a Public Sector hospital archetype to a Public Hospital Corporation archetype. Drawing on this model permits us to explore the impact of the introduction of new forms of public management organization and the implications the managerial ideology underpinning this may have for the professional organization. The study explores the consequences of the innovations for professional/managerial relations. We also suggest that the 'archetype' approach may be particularly useful for the comparative study of organizations. This is particularly pertinent given the different – corporatist – organization of the German health care system and its different approach to public sector reform to that of the Anglo-American and Scandinavian systems where the 'archetypal' approach has so far been applied.