Look Who's Talking: The Impacts of the Intrahousehold Allocation of Mobile Phones on Agricultural Prices

Using data from the Philippines, we study the impact of mobile phones on the prices agricultural producers receive for their cash crop. We first look at the impact on price of mobile phone ownership at the household level. Because this masks a considerable amount of heterogeneity, we then look at the impact on price of the intrahousehold allocation of mobile phones. We find that whether the household owns a mobile phone has no impact on price, but whether a farmer or spouse owns a mobile phone is associated with a 5- to 8-per cent increase in price.     

WHEN WAL-MART WIMPED OUT

Abstract

This article offers one China analyst's perspective on a variety of questions related to the unionization of all sixty-six Wal-Mart outlets in China. Why did China force Wal-Mart to unionize? If, as Marx, paraphrasing Hegel, wrote, “all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice,” is Mao making his comeback? Or if, as Marx immediately continued in his own right, “He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce,” is Hu Jintao playing Louis Bonaparte to Mao's Napoleon? Is the Chinese state acting out of a new level of confidence that it can now challenge the world's most prepossessing corporate giants in order to make good on its communist commitments? Is it running scared in the face of a working class that has at last managed to score a victory? Or is it actually strengthening its power through time-honored tactics of mass organizational control that have not really changed despite the new market context? Are China's workers being protected, empowered, or co-opted and subjected to new forms of state control? And why did one of the world's most militantly antiunion corporations go along? Did they have a choice? Did they fear China's state-run union federation? And finally, what does all this portend for the future of labor relations in China?     

Raman Spectroscopy as a Simple,Rapid, Nondestructive Screening Test for Methamphetamine in Clandestine Laboratory Liquids

Raman spectroscopy has found increased use in the forensic controlled substances laboratory in recent years due to its rapid and nondestructive analysis capabilities. Here, Raman spectroscopy as a screening test for methamphetamine in clandestine laboratory liquid samples is discussed as a way to improve the efficiency of a laboratory by identifying the most probative samples for further workup among multiple samples submitted for analysis. Solutions of methamphetamine in ethanol, diethyl ether, and Coleman fuel were prepared in concentrations ranging from 0.5% to 10% w/v, and Raman spectra of each were collected. A concentration‐dependant Raman peak was observed at 1003 per cm in each solution in 4% w/v and greater solutions. Case samples were analyzed and also found to reliably contain this diagnostic peak when methamphetamine was present. The use of this diagnostic indicator can save the forensic controlled substances laboratory time and materials when analyzing clandestine laboratory liquid submissions.     

A Review of Alcohol‐Impaired Driving: The Role of Blood Alcohol Concentration and Complexity of the Driving Task

The operation of a motor vehicle requires the integrity of sensory, motor, and intellectual faculties. Impairment of these faculties following the consumption of alcohol has been studied extensively through laboratory, closed‐course and on‐road driving, and epidemiological studies. The scientific literature was reviewed critically, with a focus on low‐to‐moderate blood alcohol concentrations (BAC ≤ 0.100%), to identify the most reliable determinants of alcohol‐impaired driving. Variables such as age, gender, driving skill, and tolerance were shown to have limited impact on impairment. It was concluded the most relevant variables are BAC and complexity of the driving task. The scientific literature provides a high degree of confidence to support the conclusion that a BAC of 0.050% impairs faculties required in the operation of a motor vehicle. Whether impairment is apparent depends upon the complexity of the driving task, which applies to both study design and actual driving.     

Justinian's Institutional Classification and the Class of Quasi-Delict

This article examines the records of free-standing proof-of-age hearings from their probable introduction around the mid thirteenth century to their formal consolidation by the beginning of the fourteenth. It traces the gradual establishment of a hybrid legal form, unique to proof hearings, whereby individual jurors were routinely questioned as to the basis of their knowledge of an heir's birth and replied with a statement of plausible personal connection with the birth. It shows in detail how a rationalising legal bureaucracy encountered the expectations and practices of local jurors and recorders and the compromises that resulted in an enduring legal form.     

Sacrificial lambs,women candidates,and district competitiveness in Canada

Women's continued political underrepresentation suggests that women candidates might be more likely than men to be ‘sacrificial lambs’ – that is, more likely than men to serve as party standard bearers in districts where their party has little chance to win. Using data from the 2004–2011 Canadian federal elections, we find support for the sacrificial lamb hypothesis when district competitiveness is measured dynamically, rather than statically. Our dynamic measurement of district competitiveness further shows that women incumbents' seats are not as safe as are men's. We conclude that these two factors help to explain why women remain underrepresented in Canadian federal politics.     

“Another World is Possible”: Theorizing the Radical Politics of Democracy,North and South

This article examines the cultural politics of organizing in the Occupy LA movement. Utilizing ethnographic methods and the analysis of digital media sources produced by a variety of Occupy activists, this study focuses on how members of Occupy LA, in the post camp eviction period, made efforts to infuse a new kind of class politics among members of the newly and structurally dispossessed in the Los Angeles area. It focuses mainly on their efforts to build bridges among a variety of community based social movements during specific actions such as May Day 2012 and their efforts to ally themselves with organizations fighting the gentrification of Downtown Los Angeles and Skid Row in particular. Utilizing the theoretical lens of David Harvey's notion of “accumulation by dispossession” it concludes that Occupy LA has helped to open up new opportunities for rethinking the concept of “class consciousness” and its relationship to the structural dispossession of black and Latino communities. It also concludes that while this new politics is tentative and fragile, it has also opened up a creativity in thinking through the practical organizational issues of dealing with organizing across lines of race, class, and gender.     

The parliamentary reforms of the Witte administration (October 19, 1905‐April 23, 1906)

SUMMARY

This article examines mobility across constituencies among members of parliament in eighteenth-century Britain, using quantitative methods. Recent historiography has suggested that more attention should be paid to those members who changed seats during their careers in the House of Commons. The scale and significance of that movement, however, has remained unexplored. The article begins by showing that about half of the 2,217 members examined changed seats at least once during their careers and that the frequency of movement varies with the type of constituency they represented. For example, members sitting for English independent constituencies (counties and open boroughs) tended to change scats rather infrequently. Mobility was more apparent for boroughs under the control of patrons. This article also considers why this occurred, by paying attention to the inclination of members to take office under the crown. Members sitting for independent constituencies were less inclined to take office, because they were usually local men and tended to have closer relations with their electorates, who were suspicious of office-holding members. In contrast, members who owed their seats to patrons could behave more autonomously, for they did not depend upon electorates. Thus they probably changed scats more frequently in order to avoid the constraints of locality and patronage.