X‐ray Diffraction and Rietveld Refinement in Deferrified Clays for Forensic Science

Soil vestiges might provide information about a crime scene. The Rietveld method with X‐ray diffraction data (RM‐XRD) is a nondestructive technique that makes it possible to characterize minerals present in the soils. Soil clays from the metropolitan region of Curitiba (Brazil) were submitted to DCB treatment and analyzed using XRD with CuK_α radiation in the step‐scan mode (0.02° 2θ/5 s). The GSAS+EXPGUI software was used for RM refinement. The RM‐XRD results, together with the principal component analysis (PCA) (52.6% total variance), showed the kaolinite predominance in most analyzed samples and the highest quartz contents in “site 1.” Higher anatase, and gibbsite and muscovite contents influenced discrimination, mainly in “site 3” and “site 1,” respectively. These results were enough to discriminate clays of four sites and two horizons using a reduced amount of sample showing that the technique can be applied to the investigation into soil vestiges.     

“We Are the Visible Proof”: Legitimizing Abortion Regret Misinformation through Activists’ Experiential Knowledge

Since 2010, many abortion policies emerging at the state level have been designed around the idea of “abortion regret,” a scientifically discredited assertion that abortion causes long‐term health problems for women. Studies have examined the legal significance of regret claims in case law as well as the role scientific misinformation and uncertainty play in the policy process. However, scholars have given less attention to the intersection between abortion regret experiences and misinformation. We address this gap in the literature by examining how antiabortion activists' experiential knowledge continues to reinforce and legitimize misinformation contained in state policies. We explore the process of substantiating abortion regret misinformation by attaching it to activists' experiential expertise. Based on twenty‐three interviews with antiabortion activists, we argue that misinformation receives validation through the certainty of experiential knowledge, which activists mobilize around and use as a source of evidence in the policy process.     

Economic status,religion, and demography in an Ulster town in the early twentieth century

The paper offers an analysis of the demography of the confessionally-divided and heavily industrialized northern Irish town of Lurgan in the early twentieth century. Its main source is the individual household forms of the Irish population census of 1911. This was the first Irish census to provide household-level data on the number of children born—and the number still surviving—to married couples co-resident at the time of the census. The paper begins by producing standard cross-tabulations of socio-economic status, as represented by literacy, numeracy, occupation, and the labour force participation of married women, by religion. It then presents econometric analyses of female labour force participation, marital fertility, and infant and child mortality. The greater poverty of Catholic households forced a higher proportion of mothers to work outside the home, mainly as unskilled workers in the town's linen mills. The analysis of the marital fertility suggests that confessional affiliation did not influence family size much at this juncture. The analysis of infant and child mortality suggests that religious affiliation was to a significant extent a cloak for living standards and socio-economic advantage.     

Determinants of Financial Transparency in Government

ABSTRACT

The search for enhanced transparency and accountability in government organizations has inspired studies to identify the key factors that facilitate greater disclosure of public financial information. With the advantages provided by the meta-analysis technique, applied to a sample of studies, we identify the most significant factors and incentives underlying the decisions adopted by public managers on policy strategies regarding information transparency and public responsibility. Our study shows the variables analyzed to be positively associated with the disclosure of public financial information, but also that this depends on the context in which the research is carried out. The most influential variables were the moderator variables of the administrative culture and of the measurement unit for the variables.     

Veni,vidi, vici: postcolonial studies comes of age

This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quayson's Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.     

Aid Absorption and Spending in Africa: A Panel Cointegration Approach

This article focuses on the macroeconomic management of large inflows of foreign aid. It investigates the extent to which African countries have coordinated fiscal and macroeconomic responses to aid surges. In practice, we construct a panel dataset to assess the level of aid ‘absorption’ and ‘spending’. This article departs from the recent empirical literature by utilising better measures for aid inflows and by employing cointegration analysis. The empirical short-run results indicate that, on average, Africa's low-income countries have absorbed two-thirds of (grant) aid receipts. This suggests that most of the foreign exchange provided by the aid inflows has been used to finance imports. The other third has been used to build up international reserves, perhaps to protect economies from future external shocks. In the long run, absorption increases but remains below its maximum. Moreover, we also show that aid resources have been fully spent, especially in support of public investment. There is only weak evidence that a share of aid flows have been ‘saved’. Overall, these findings suggest that the macroeconomic management of aid inflows in Africa has been significantly better than often portrayed in comparable exercises. The implication is that African countries will be able to efficiently manage a gradual scaling up in aid resources.     

Running for office again: evidence from Portuguese municipal elections

Using a data set that covers all Portuguese mainland municipalities for the period 1979–2005, this study performs an empirical analysis of the economic determinants of mayors’ decisions to run for another term in office. The literature on the subject is mainly centered on the United States and, as far as we know, there are no papers addressing the economic factors influencing those choices. Probit panel estimations show that local economic conditions matter more than the national or regional economic environment. The results also confirm that political variables are important and that they influence the likelihood of seeking reelection in much the same way as they affect vote and popularity functions.