“The big sleep: Elucidating the sequence of events in the first hours of death to determine the postmortem interval”

Recent developments on postmortem interval estimation (PMI) take an advantage of the autolysis process, pointing out to the analysis of the expression of apoptosis and autophagy genes towards this purpose. Oxidative stress plays a role in this signaling as a regulatory mechanism and/or as a consequence of cell death. Additionally, melatonin has been implicated on apoptosis and autophagy signaling, making melatonin a suitable target for PMI determination. The aim of this study was to investigate the early PMI through the analysis of the expression of autophagy genes as well as oxidative stress and melatonin receptor. Our results demonstrated a rapidly increased on the expression of autophagy genes according to the expected sequence of events, then a marked decrease in this expression, matched with the switch to the apoptosis signaling. These results revealed potential candidates to analyze the PMI in the first hours of death, helping to estimate the time-since-death.     

Coalition politics and accountability

The paper introduces the possibility of coalition government into the theoretical study of political accountability and analyzes the accountability of coalitions as a problem of team production. It is shown that coalition governments can be held accountable in the presence of an electoral alternative. Accountability becomes problematic if it is certain that at least one of the coalition parties stays in power after the elections. Such a coalition (sometimes called a ‘unity government’) can not be given appropriate collective incentives. To incentivate government performance, voters make one coalition party responsible for the outcome. This, however, makes the other coalition party interested in sabotage. The paper analyzes the resulting conflict and characterizes optimal voter strategy.     

The long march: the lessons of China's economic transition

It is widely known that Chinese transition to market economy was influenced by the newly industrialized Asian countries—Malaysia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong—but it is not as much evident that Chinese reform was also influenced by the economic reforms of Hungary. Hungary started market-oriented reforms in the late 1960s by introducing market-orientated measures in agriculture, in manufacturing, in retail trade, and in finances, which made Hungarian economy more flexible and efficient than other European socialist countries. It could be shown that the first market-oriented reform measures applied in China during the 1980s and 1990s have large similarities to the Hungarian reform introduced earlier. In that respect, we can say that Chinese economic reform has adapted lots of elements of the early Hungarian economic reform. At the same time, Hungarian reforms have died away, but after the “lost decade of the 1980s,” there was an extremely rapid transition to market economy, which—in spite of the seemingly successful beginning—could not contribute to a long-term and healthy economic development. Meanwhile in China, economic reform was rather successful, resulting in an unprecedented economic development at the end of the twentieth century. Authors of the present article analyse similarities of the Hungarian and Chinese reforms and try to explain the causes of the Hungarian failure and the Chinese success. “Let China Sleep, for when the Dragon awakes, she will shake the world.” The saying is attributed to Napoleon and he seems to have been right. Now that China has reversed the process of globalization and has become the winner, we should resignedly accept that China is wide awake. The country's economy has followed a rapid growth path thus China's economic dominance is felt in the entire Far East; moreover, the country with the highest population in the world the country is taking steps to emerge as a world power. The dragon is awake, and she is not going to take a great leap forward but instead it is now on the long march. In lieu of her specific tools, China is about to win: she is already one of the winners, if not the only winner of globalization.     

CEO qualities and codes of ethics

Ethical issues have received growing attention recently, after corporate scandals and during the current economic crisis. Several initiatives have been adopted to restore confidence and trust in businesses, such as ethics codes. In addition, as a result of those scandals and financial frauds, several rules have focused on the role played by Boards of Directors in the planning and monitoring of codes of ethics. However, the empirical evidence is still scarce and needs some degree of extension. The purpose of this study is to determine the influence of several corporate governance features—particularly, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO)—on the decision of developing an ethics code, among Spanish companies. Our main findings point out the lack of influence of the CEO’s characteristics (except for CEO reputation) on the likelihood of having a corporate code, indicating that this decision has to do with a choice made by the company overall, perhaps because of regulatory reasons or stakeholders’ expectations. Also, we have checked how other variables, such as the extent of a firm’s participation in defence or other government contracts or multiple listings of the company in different financial markets, can influence the decision of developing an ethics code.     

Ethnic diversity and its spatial change in Latvia, 1897–2011

Utilizing data from five census enumerations of Latvia (including the most recent 2011 census), this study analyzes temporal and spatial trends in ethnic diversity in the country at the national and municipal levels. The measure employed, the ethnic diversity index (EDI), makes possible a more sophisticated interpretation of the dynamics of ethnic diversity than an analysis of the changing percentage shares of Latvia's various ethnic groups over time. At the national level, a trend of declining ethnic diversity prior to Latvia's incorporation into the Soviet Union was followed by a rapid increase during the Soviet period, before the onset of gradually decreasing diversity during the post-Soviet period. These national-level trends obscure a number of trends evident at the municipal level, including salient (depending on the period) ethnic diversity gradients Rīga–Latvia, cities/towns–countryside, and the east–west. Latvia remains one of the most ethnically diverse countries of Europe, and the study outlines some of the implications of the recent stagnation of regional EDIs at rather high levels for the economic and political life of the country.     

Organizational Learning Capacity and Its Impact on the Results in a Government Agency in Chile

ABSTRACT

Rising demand for quality, efficiency, and openness in the management of collective problems and their solutions has prompted successful government agencies to consider knowledge as a key resource. Government agencies make intensive use of human capital and knowledge in the performance of their duties. Knowledge represents the most important strategic resource, and its skillful management is a key capability in institutional performance. Using structural equation modeling, we analyze the relationship between the learning capability of an organizational system, characterized by the dynamic interaction of stocks and flows of knowledge, and its impact on performance. Our results support the view that learning capability, especially knowledge flows and stocks, has a positive impact on the performance of public institutions.