Who should supervise students during self-report interviews? A controlled experiment on response behavior in online questionnaires

Objectives  

This study tests whether juveniles’ responses on sensitive topics such as self-reported delinquency, victimization, and substance use are comparable when teachers versus external persons supervise students while filling out online questionnaires.     

A Comparison Between Digital Radiography,Computed Tomography,and Magnetic Resonance in the Detection of Gunshot Residues in Burnt Tissues and Bone

The radiological search for GSR is crucial in burnt material although it has been rarely tested. In this study, thirty‐one bovine ribs were shot at near‐contact range and burnt to calcination in an oven simulating a real combustion. Computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) were performed before and after carbonization and compared with former analyses with DR (digital radiography); thus comparing the assistance, the radiological methods can provide in the search for GSR in fresh and burnt bone. DR demonstrated the greatest ability in the detection of metallic residues, CT showed lower abilities, while MR showed a high sensitivity only in soft tissues. Thus, DR can be considered as the most sensitive method in the detection of GSR in charred bones, whereas CT and MR demonstrated much less reliability. Nonetheless, the MR ameliorates the analysis of gunshot wounds in other types of remains with large quantities of soft tissues.     

Evaluation of a Headspace Solid‐Phase Microextraction Method for the Analysis of Ignitable Liquids in Fire Debris

The chemical analysis of fire debris represents a crucial part in fire investigations to determine the cause of a fire. A headspace solid‐phase microextraction (HS‐SPME) procedure for the detection of ignitable liquids in fire debris using a fiber coated with a mixture of three different sorbent materials (Divinylbenzene/Carboxen/Polydimethylsiloxane, DVB/CAR/PDMS) is described. Gasoline and diesel fuel were spiked upon a preburnt matrix (wood charcoal), extracted and concentrated with HS‐SPME and then analyzed with gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). The experimental conditions—extraction temperature, incubation and exposure time—were optimized. To assess the applicability of the method, fire debris samples were prepared in the smoke density chamber (SDC) and a controlled‐atmosphere cone calorimeter. The developed methods were successfully applied to burnt particleboard and carpet samples. The results demonstrate that the procedure that has been developed here is suitable for detecting these ignitable liquids in highly burnt debris.     

Publishing while editor: Transparency and behaviour in public administration journals

Journal editors serve as gatekeepers of knowledge, a role critical to preserving the quality and standards of good research. Some scholars have questioned whether editors have taken advantage of their position to publish their own work. To understand the extent to which editors of public administration journals self-publish, we examined publishing patterns over a 20-year period. We collected the names of editors from the mastheads of 13 generalist public administration journals from 1997 to 2016 and used data indexed from Web of Science to look at articles published in those journals during the same time. We found that while self-publishing behaviour is not common across the entire field, it is a trend for certain journals and individuals. We also found the practice of self-publishing is influenced by whether an individual served in a primary editorial role (e.g., editor-in-chief), length of editorial service, and overall scholarly productivity. We discuss appropriateness and ethical implications of the practice.     

Taking Intervention Politics Seriously: Media Debates and the Contestation of African Regional Interventions ‘from Below’

ABSTRACT

Scholars increasingly investigate how the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA) is contested and negotiated in practice. Yet little knowledge exists on the politics African regional interventions provoke in the societies affected by such interventions. Based on an analysis of media reports from Burkina Faso and The Gambia, we show that regional interventions are indeed contested locally, irrespective of the means of intervention applied. Our analysis demonstrates how local elites use regional norms and policies in order to claim power and define what is going (wr)on(g). With this, we provide evidence for the (contested) local effects of APSA and for the relevance of media for researching such effects.     

The Advantages of Proximity: Comparing Higher Education Policy in Scotland and Catalonia

The article claims that, following devolution, increased proximity will increase policy capacity by changing the form of policymaking and providing greater scope for policy tailoring. The hypothesis is tested against devolution of higher education responsibility in Scotland and Catalonia. Results show that devolution did not entail the development of the same form of policymaking in the two regions, but it nonetheless permitted the implementation of policies and tools that were both in contrast with global trends in higher education policy.     

Complying with Human Rights

ABSTRACT

The empirical assessment of how signatories of human rights conventions comply with their obligations has, so far, yielded conflicting results, especially regarding the compliance mechanisms that are the most promising to ensure improving human rights records. We argue that this is due to the fact that differences in compliance systems have been neglected and that different compliance mechanisms have been assessed in isolation, without considering possible interactions. To analyze this argument, we propose a novel way to assess the effect of these mechanisms by relying on a Markov-transition model. Our results show that human rights violations are time dependent and that the effect of independent variables is conditional on previous human rights violations as well as on the strength of human rights compliance systems.     

Importing Environmentalism: Explaining Petroleos Mexicanos’ Cooperative Climate Policy

Theories of environment and development tend to preemptively strip developing-country firms of environmental agency, depicting them as passive targets of market, regulatory, and ideational influences originating elsewhere. This research examines the processes by and conditions under which developing-country firms actively “import” environmental norms, programs, and practices, drawing on a case study of Petroleos Mexicanos (Pemex)—one of the world’s largest oil companies and the only nationally-owned, developing-country oil company that has adopted a cooperative corporate climate policy. The article demonstrates that the company’s decision to support action on climate change resulted from efforts by climate policy entrepreneurs within Pemex’s environment division. They showed agency in choosing to prioritize the climate issue, in scanning their institutional environment for a climate policy template, in adjusting the template to suit Pemex’s particular circumstances, and in promoting the climate policy to internal and external constituencies. The research also highlights the prominent role of private sector channels in processes of environmental norm diffusion.