A brain penetration after Taser injury: Controversies regarding Taser gun safety

We report the case of a 27 year old man who was injured by a Taser gun device which penetrated the frontal part of the skull and damaged the underlying frontal lobe. Cerebral penetration was revealed by a brain CT scan. A neurosurgical procedure was required to remove the dart from the skull and brain and the evolution was successful allowing discharge of the patient one week later. There were no additional lesions, particularly electrifying lesion, as only one probe had penetrated the skull. We also observed the length of a Taser dart is sufficient to allow brain penetration. Fortunately, no infection or neurological complication occurred following brain injury. This case study underlines the potential risk induced by the use of Taser stun gun. Although generally regarded as a safe alternative, serious injuries have however been reported and questions regarding the safety of the device still remains unresolved.     

Determinanten der Arbeitslosigkeit in den Schweizer Kantonen ‐ Eine empirische Untersuchung zu den Disparitäten in den kantonalen Arbeitslosenquoten

Dieser Beitrag analysiert die Disparitäten in den Arbeitslosenquoten der Schweizer Kantone zwischen 1992 und 2000. Im Zentrum der erklärenden Grössen stehen dabei legal‐rechtliche Institutionen des Arbeitsmarktes in den Kantonen, insbesondere das Ausrichten von Arbeitslosenhilfe sowie die Sanktionstätigkeit bei Missbrauch gegen die Arbeitslosenversicherung. Sie sind wichtige Bestandteile der kantonalen Arbeitsmarktpolitiken und schaffen nicht zuletzt unterschiedliche Anreizstrukturen und damit dauerhafte Unterschiede auf den kantonalen Arbeitsmärkten. Die Analyse zeigt, dass der kantonalen Arbeitsmarktpolitik ein nicht vernachlässigbarer Stellenwert für die Erklärung der kantonalen Unterschiede in den Arbeitslosenquoten zukommt. Kantone, die Missbräuche gegen die Arbeitslosenversicherung relativ stark ahnden und auf über das AVIG hinausgehende Leistungen an Arbeitslose verzichten, weisen eine signifikant geringere Arbeitslosenquote auf, als Kantone mit weniger rigider Sanktionspraxis und zusätzlicher Arbeitslosenhilfe. Während konjunkturelle Grössen zwar das Niveau der Arbeitslosigkeit allgemein, jedoch nicht die grossen Unterschiede zwischen den Kantonen erklären können, sorgen nicht zuletzt diese politisch‐institutionellen Faktoren für eine unterschiedliche Antwort der Kantone auf die konjunkturellen Rahmenbedingungen.     

Stumbling block or stepping stone? The influence of direct democracy on individual participation in parliamentary elections

This paper evaluates whether direct democracy supplements or undermines traditional representative democracy. While a first approach assumes that a culture of active direct democracy stimulates citizens’ political interest and ultimately bolsters participation in parliamentary elections, a competing hypothesis proposes a negative relationship between the frequency of ballot measures and electoral participation due to voter fatigue and decreased significance of elections. Our multilevel analysis of the 26 Swiss cantons challenges recent studies conducted for the U.S. states: In the Swiss context, where direct democracy is more important in the political process than the less salient parliamentary elections, greater use of direct democratic procedures is associated with a lower individual probability to participate in elections. Furthermore, by distinguishing between short and long-term effects of direct democracy, we show that the relationship observed is of a long-term nature and can therefore be seen as a result of adaptive learning processes rather than of instantaneous voter fatigue.     

Prime ministers and the electoral cost of using the confidence vote in legislative bargaining: evidence from France

Do prime ministers pay an electoral penalty for using procedural force to pass laws? Influential theories of parliamentary governance and legislative bargaining assume that the use of the confidence vote procedure – parliamentary governments’ most powerful legislative weapon – entails an electoral cost, but evidence on this important claim has been scarce. This article provides the first estimates of how prime ministers’ public approval responds to their use of the confidence vote. Analysing time series data from France 1979–2008, it is found that prime ministers experience a considerable drop in approval after their use of the confidence vote that is not accounted for by standard economic and political covariates. The effect size is similar to a 1 per cent decline in economic growth. The findings help explain French prime ministers’ selective use of the confidence vote procedure. They also suggest that political costs constrain the bargaining power conferred by the confidence vote.     

The Cost of Empowerment: Multiple Sources of Women’s Debt in Rural India

Abstract

Poor women borrow from multiple sources. This study examines whether the source of debt matters for women’s role in household financial decisions. Drawing on a household survey from rural Tamil Nadu, we categorise women’s loans along the lines of accessibility and formality into ‘planned loans’ and ‘instant loans’. We find that ‘instant loans’ support women’s bargaining power in various types of household financial decisions, whereas ‘planned loans’ have no impact. This surprising result is better understood when the nature of ‘instant loans’ is examined – these are frequently usurious, involve coercive enforcement methods and are considered socially debasing. Hence women who use them perform a convenient role for their households and in return gain some negotiating power.     

Remarks on Compassion and Altruism in the Pratyabhijñā Philosophy

Journal of Indian Philosophy - According to Utpaladeva and Abhinavagupta, a subject who has freed himself from the bondage of individuality is necessarily compassionate, and his action, necessarily...     

How Large-Scale Land Protests Succeed in China: the Role of Domestic Media

Land protests account for a large proportion of all protests in China, but existing scholarship on the topic does not explain the conditions under which large-scale land protests succeed or fail. Focusing on the role of domestic media in four of the largest land protests in China from 2012 to 2017, we argue that protests are more likely to succeed –i.e., to accomplish some or all publicly stated goals—when the domestic media side with villagers; conversely, if the domestic media adopt the government’s framing of the events or if they do not report on them, protests are less likely to accomplish their goals. This article makes two theoretical contributions to the literature on media and protests: first, we show that domestic media may function as catalysts or watchdogs in protest outcomes in authoritarian states; and second, we differentiate between short-term and long-term protest outcomes, highlighting how initial short-term concessions are often reversed or followed by repression some months or years later, after unrest dies down.

     

Migrant Network and Immigrants’ Occupational Mismatch

This article defines new measures of horizontal and vertical occupational mismatch based on the difference between the skill content of occupations in which individuals have a self-assessed productive advantage, and that of their actual job. It then investigates the impact of network use to find a job on occupational mismatch in the case of immigrants, using original survey data collected among Senegalese immigrants in four host countries. Estimation results show that migrants who obtained their job through the migrant network have a lower probability of negative vertical mismatch. By contrast, network use is not found to significantly affect horizontal mismatch.     

On the Distinction Between Epistemic and Metaphysical Buddhist Idealisms: A Śaiva Perspective

Modern scholarship has often wondered whether Indian Buddhist idealism is primarily epistemic or metaphysical: does this idealism amount to a kind of transcendental scepticism according to which we cannot decide whether objects exist or not outside of consciousness because we can have no epistemic access whatsoever to these objects? Or is it rather ontologically committed, i.e., does it consist in denying the very existence of the external world? One could deem the question anachronistic and suspect that with such an inquiry we project onto Ancient and Medieval India a distinction that remains profoundly alien to it, were it not for a few preserved texts where Indian authors themselves distinguish between two such kinds of idealism within the Buddhist philosophical tradition. As already pointed out by Dan Arnold, this is the case in the commentary by Manorathanandin on Dharmakīrti’s Pramā?avārttika; but the difference between two varieties of Buddhist idealism is also alluded to in Hindu sources, both Mīmā?saka and ?aiva. The present article offers a new analysis of Manorathanandin’s short and somewhat ambiguous distinction, and it examines in this connection some important remarks found in the works of the ?aiva nondualists Utpaladeva (c. 925–975) and Abhinavagupta (c. 975–1025). It shows that according to these authors, in fact the epistemic version of the Buddhist argument in favour of idealism is already metaphysical insofar as it necessarily involves a denial of the existence of the external world, and it attempts to assess the faithfulness of this ?aiva interpretation to its Buddhist sources.