A Spatial Model of U.S. Senate Elections

The importance of primaryelections is considered within the contextof U.S. Senate elections where senatorsserve overlapping terms and voters areassumed to balance their two senatorsagainst each other. Voters behavestrategically in the primaries butconvergence to the median position is notachieved except as a knife-edge result.More generally, constraints in the partyspace prevent the party of the sittingsenator from obtaining the median'spreference allowing the opposition party tonominate a candidate further away from themedian while still capturing the medianvoter. Empirical evidence supports thenotion that senate divergence is a functionof the state primary system.     

Democracy and the Violation of Human Rights: A Statistical Analysis from 1976 to 1996

Most studies posit and identify a linear and negative relationship between democracy and the violation of human rights. Some research challenges this finding, however, suggesting that nonlinear influences exist. Within this article, we examine the structure of the relationship between democracy and repression during the time period from 1976 to 1996. To conduct our analysis, we utilize diverse statistical approaches which are particularly flexible in identifying influences that take a variety of functional forms (specifically LOESS and binary decomposition). Across measures and methodological techniques, we found that below a certain level, democracy has no impact on human rights violations, but above this level democracy influences repression in a negative and roughly linear manner. The implications of this research are discussed within the conclusion .     

Theorizing Gender and Musical Composition in the Computerized Classroom

Classroom The increased use of information technology in schools is generally perceived as a positive, dynamic step into the future. By providing IT facilities for all children throughout their education we are affording them access to a wider range of career opportunities and educational experiences. Feminists have long debated the extent to which technology can be exclusionary for women because of its construction as a masculine domain, emphasizing 'masculine' characteristics of mastery, skill and control. By focusing on the music classroom, Armstrong explores gender and the compositional process and the effects of an overtly technological approach to composition. In the early part of the essay, she draws on Sherry Turkle's early work based on observations of male and female computer programmers. Despite observing a variety of computational styles Turkle concluded that, although technology allowed for this diversity, computer culture did not, noting that many females preferred a style that did not favour the canonical, plan-oriented, abstract thinkers who 'constitute an epistemological elite'. In her own research, Armstrong found that girls often became alienated from their own creative work because the culture of the music classroom appears to privilege a particular style of working. By focusing on the singing voice and the corporeal, Armstrong draws on aspects of cyberfeminism to illustrate how girls can transcend and subvert this masculine culture.     

Determinants of interest group formation

It is widely recognized that interest groups affect both microeconomic and macroeconomic outcomes. However, few researchers have attempted to discern empirically the factors that contribute to interest group activity. This paper provides a test of several theories of group formation in a panel setting. A nation’s stability, socioeconomic development, political system, size, and diversity all appear to contribute to interest group formation, as predicted by theory.     

The effect of the secret ballot on voter turnout rates

Secrecy in the voting process eliminated an important motivation for voting. No longer able to verify the voters' choices, political parties stopped offering payments in return for votes. Within the rational voter framework, it will be shown that these payments were a prime impetus for people to vote. Without a vote market to cover their voting costs, many voters were rational to stay away from the polls. This hypothesis is supported through a series of empirical tests culminating in a multivariate legislative regression. When other electoral laws are controlled for, the secret ballot accounts for 7 percentage points lower Gubernatorial turnout.     

Distinctive patterned injuries caused by an expandable baton

Identification and documentation of patterned blunt-force injuries at autopsy is of utmost forensic importance, particularly when the object or surface producing the injury is unknown or uncertain. Documentation of patterned injuries produced by known objects contributes to the catalogue of forensic knowledge regarding those objects and the injuries they cause. This report presents a case in which a 27-year-old male sustained multiple nonlethal patterned blunt-force injuries produced by an expandable baton and subsequent multiple gunshot wounds during apprehension by police.     

The evaluation of the extent of transporting or "tracking" an identifiable ignitable liquid (gasoline) throughout fire scenes during the investigative process

Tests have determined that boots or shoes of individuals at a fire scene do not transport sufficient contaminants ("tracking") through the fire scene to produce a positive laboratory result for the presence of gasoline in a fire scene that was not present at the time of the fire. Questions about the validity of forensic laboratory results have been raised on the basis that low-level gasoline residues detected in the laboratory samples could have been the result of transporting the residue by footwear contaminated from the fire scene ("tracking"). The data collected in this study establish that "tracking" does not lead to false-positive laboratory results. Canines trained and experienced in the detection of trace ignitable liquid residues were also utilized in this study. The canine results confirmed that properly trained canines show a higher sensitivity than do standard ASTM laboratory techniques for fire debris analysis. In a few cases, canines responded to contamination, but laboratory testing (which is the definitive indicator) did not produce positive results.