Perceptions of Federal Aid Impacts on State Agencies: Patterns, Trends, and Variations Across the 20th Century

American federalism is a dynamic process involving the viewsand interactions among state and national officials. Based onmultiple mail surveys of state agency heads across 75 years,this article traces the perspectives of state executives towarda core component of state–national relationships—federalaid. The time frame dates from the 1920s and covers a periodin which federal aid programs to the states grew enormously,as did state administrative establishments. There was a long-termrise in the perceived intrusiveness of federal aid as well asincreased policy distortion effects. Despite substantial fluctuationsin perceived aid impacts, there was a four-decade consistencyin the penetration of federal aid into and across the existing3,000 state agencies. Furthermore, when perceptions of nationalinfluence are combined in an index of perceived national fiscalinfluence, there was a roller coaster effect with an overallsecular "decline" in national influence since 1974.     

Does Membership on the UN Security Council Influence Voting in the UN General Assembly?

Recent studies report that temporary members of the UN Security Council receive favorable treatment from the IMF, the World Bank, or in US foreign aid in exchange for their political support for permanent members. Nevertheless, few studies have examined whether this favorable treatment and these benefits have actually made any significant changes in the member states’ voting behavior in the United Nations. To explore this question, we investigate whether membership on the UN Security Council influences a state’s voting in the UN General Assembly. In the analysis of panel data for 197 countries over the period from 1946 to 2008, the empirical results show that elected members of the UN Security Council tend to behave similarly with permanent members, especially with the United States, as the number of loan programs signed with the IMF and the World Bank increases. Also, US foreign aid significantly increases temporary members’ vote coincidence with the United States and other permanent members. In this regard, this article contributes to our understanding of state voting behavior and power politics in international organizations.     

Three-party competition in parliamentary democracy with proportional representation

This article studies the long-run dynamics of policy choices, government formations, and voting behavior under a parliamentary constitution and proportional representation. I develop an infinite period game where, in each period, voters participate in a proportional representation election, and three farsighted parties bargain over one-dimensional policy programs and government positions. The model incorporates the interaction between elections and coalition bargaining, which is the essence of politics in most parliamentary systems, as well as a dynamic environment of policymaking: a policy once implemented remains in effect until another replaces it. I find a Markov perfect equilibrium in which (1) there is no majority party in any election; (2) election results converge over time to a stable vote distribution; (3) policy outcomes change over time but eventually stay within a set of three points; (4) minimal winning coalitions and minority governments are formed with positive probability and alternate over time.     

A Preliminary Study of the Reliability of Anatomical Facial Landmarks Used in Facial Comparison

Anatomical landmarks are considered the most objective indicators for use in forensic facial comparisons. Therefore, accurately identifying and locating these landmarks is the beginning of reliable facial comparison. This study evaluated the accuracy with which facial landmarks are located and examined their reliability according to type of landmark, head posture, and image quality. Nine operators located a series of landmarks on prepared facial images used to produce comparison images. Then, the average distances between the reciprocal landmarks (ADRL) on the reference and the comparison images were measured as indicators of landmark reliability. We found that a set of landmarks had higher or lower reliability as a function of the head angle and image quality. More reliable landmarks were associated with certain head postures and degrees of image quality. These should be used for facial comparison analysis depending on various head and image conditions.     

Gender Differences in the Nature of the Intimate Partner Violence and Effects of Perpetrator Arrest on Revictimization

The majority of research on intimate partner violence (IPV) has addressed male-to-female violence, although a small but growing body of literature has developed that explores males victimized by female partners. This study used data from the National Crime Victimization Survey from 1987 to 2003 to examine male victimization by comparing the nature of violence to female victimization and by exploring the effect of perpetrator arrest on preventing revictimization. The sample was comprised of 2,462 female and 298 male victims. Study variables included gender, arrest, revictimization, type of violence, injury, and use of a weapon. Results showed that men were victimized by IPV less frequently than women and received fewer injuries, although they were more likely to experience more severe violence. Police arrested female perpetrators, but generally only if injury was involved; however, arrest did not reduce male victims’ chance of revictimization.     

Automated Mapping of Explosives Particles in Composition C‐4 Fingerprints*†‡

Abstract: A method is described to perform automated mapping of hexahydro‐1,3,5‐trinitro‐1,3,5‐triazine (RDX) particles in C‐4 fingerprints. The method employs polarized light microscopy and image analysis to map the entire fingerprint and the distribution of RDX particles. This method can be used to evaluate a large number of fingerprints to aid in the development of threat libraries that can be used to determine performance requirements of explosive trace detectors. A series of 50 C‐4 fingerprints were characterized, and results show that the number of particles varies significantly from print to print, and within a print. The particle size distributions can be used to estimate the mass of RDX in the fingerprint. These estimates were found to be within ±26% relative of the results obtained from dissolution gas chromatography/μ‐electron capture detection for four of six prints, which is quite encouraging for a particle counting approach. By evaluating the average mass and frequency of particles with respect to size for this series of fingerprints, we conclude that particles 10–20 μm in diameter could be targeted to improve detection of traces of C‐4 explosives.     

Population-specific histological age-estimating method: a model for known African-American and European-American skeletal remains

Previously developed histological age-estimating methods have been based on samples lacking interpopulation variability. A comparison of age-associated rib histomorphometrics between an European-American sample and an African-American sample indicates that ethnicity can have a significant effect on osteon population density (OPD), osteon cross-sectional area (On.Ar), and relative cortical area (Ct.Ar/Tt.Ar). Based upon these findings, new histological age-predicting formulae are presented that are recommended when estimating age for African-American or European-American skeletal remains. A general formula that is applicable to remains of unknown ethnicity is also provided.     

Motherless case in paternity testing

In paternity test using the DNA evidence, the analysis of the deficient case that the DNA profiles of mother or alleged father are not available is different from that of the trio case analyzed routinely. However, the motherless case that the genotypes of mother is not available has been requested and analyzed like the trio case. In this paper, we compared the motherless case and the trio case through the mean exclusion chance describing the probability of exclusion for a genetic marker system and the distribution of the probability of paternity calculated using the three current methods. We have also shown a case which can be falsely discriminated if it were requested in the analysis of the motherless case, and conclude that the analysis of the motherless case should be carefully conducted and the level for the discrimination should be different from that of the trio case.