On the Duration of Self-Employment: The Impact of Macroeconomic Conditions

The article examines the role of lending rates, imports and growth on the duration of self-employment in Zimbabwe while the country embarked on trade liberalisation. The variables were selected because of their importance as policy variables in reform programmes and also their importance to small entrepreneurs. Previous research has established the importance of an initial endowment and other measures of human capital on entry into self-employment as well as growth of the respective enterprises. We show that such initial conditions do not always give robust results. Instead, duration of self-employment is negatively related to higher lending rates, increased imports and structural change, but responds positively to growth.     

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.     

Embeddedness and Restructuring: Case Studies from Singapore

Free market ideology has continued its hegemonic reign notwithstanding considerable opposition. Under capitalism, the relationship between the political and economic realms is intricate. This inquiry on corporate restructuring in Singapore between the late 1990s and the early 2000s scrutinizes how a dominant state collaborated with the multinational corporations to reconstitute their accumulation regimes to outlast the business cycles. Based on six cases, the findings underscore the critical role of the state on the subject of restructuring. The peculiar configuration of the relations between the state and labour in Singapore shaped how they negotiated the restructuring process with the companies. While those involved reckoned that training, research and technology were pivotal, the foregoing were not the panacea that optimistic consultants had made them out to be. The interactions among capital, labour and the state remained the underpinnings of solutions.     

Hong Kong's Elite Structure,Legislature and the Bleak Future of Democracy under Chinese Sovereignty

A decade after retrocession to China, Hong Kong still has limited democracy. Only half of the legislature is directly elected by the people, and the Chief Executive – the leader of Hong Kong government – is chosen by an election committee of 800 people, most of them loyal to Beijing. In December 2007, the Chinese Central Government announced that the direct election of the Chief Executive and the whole legislature may be implemented from 2017 and 2020, respectively. Still, in this paper it is suggested that real democracy in the foreseeable future is unlikely. This paper demonstrates the existence of a “power elite” of tightly knit business-state networks in Hong Kong society and argues that this constitutes a systemic barrier against further democratic development. Central to the discussion is an analysis of the formation and composition of the legislature and the relations to the elite-interlocks among influential organisations in society. Mainly based on 2006‐07 data, the Elite Database which is subject to network analyses is composed of 1531 individuals holding 1854 seats from 40 listed corporations, 27 government committees, 20 non-governmental organisations, and eight universities.     

The Effects of Political Talk Radio On Political Attitude Formation: Exposure Versus Knowledge

The effects of political news on the mass audience are usually difficult to establish empirically. Recent models of mass communication effects have held that political knowledge is a better indicator of media reception than traditional measures of exposure. This claim is tested in two studies of attitudes toward Democratic and Republican leaders during the 1996 U.S. presidential primary campaigns. The impact of messages from three types of political talk radio (PTR) is examined: Rush Limbaugh, other conservative hosts, and liberal/moderate hosts. Political knowledge and exposure to talk radio are found to be equally good predictors of attitudes toward political leaders when studied separately. However, when tested against one another, exposure is the more effective measure. Agreement between Rush Limbaugh's messages and his audience's attitudes toward political figures is consistent and strong. Biased processing of PTR content by audience members with partisan predispositions contrary to those of the host is also examined.     

Risky business: Covering slow‐onset hazards as rapidly developing news

The emerging field of risk communication has yet to thoroughly grapple with how the mass media report risk. Through a content analysis of five newspapers noted for their science reporting, newspaper coverage of four environmental hazards is compared to media coverage of more traditional risky events. In general, these slow‐to‐develop stories are reported in much the same way as more traditional disaster stories. News accounts emphasized an event orientation, framed risks in terms of human activity rather than social and political contexts, described risk in terms of harms and benefits, and relied on traditional sources. The authors then explore how this version of mass‐mediated risk might change current definitions of risk communication and how a mediated construction of risk may influence public perception of the political choices these issues raise.     

Notes on recent articles

An increasing number of studies in political communication focus on the “sentiment” or “tone” of news content, political speeches, or advertisements. This growing interest in measuring sentiment coincides with a dramatic increase in the volume of digitized information. Computer automation has a great deal of potential in this new media environment. The objective here is to outline and validate a new automated measurement instrument for sentiment analysis in political texts. Our instrument uses a dictionary-based approach consisting of a simple word count of the frequency of keywords in a text from a predefined dictionary. The design of the freely available Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary (LSD) is discussed in detail here. The dictionary is tested against a body of human-coded news content, and the resulting codes are also compared to results from nine existing content-analytic dictionaries. Analyses suggest that the LSD produces results that are more systematically related to human coding than are results based on the other available dictionaries. The LSD is thus a useful starting point for a revived discussion about dictionary construction and validation in sentiment analysis for political communication.     

mtDNAprofiler: A Web Application for the Nomenclature and Comparison of Human Mitochondrial DNA Sequences,

Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is a valuable tool in the fields of forensic, population, and medical genetics. However, recording and comparing mtDNA control region or entire genome sequences would be difficult if researchers are not familiar with mtDNA nomenclature conventions. Therefore, mtDNAprofiler, a Web application, was designed for the analysis and comparison of mtDNA sequences in a string format or as a list of mtDNA single‐nucleotide polymorphisms (mtSNPs). mtDNAprofiler which comprises four mtDNA sequence‐analysis tools (mtDNA nomenclature, mtDNA assembly, mtSNP conversion, and mtSNP concordance‐check) supports not only the accurate analysis of mtDNA sequences via an automated nomenclature function, but also consistent management of mtSNP data via direct comparison and validity‐check functions. Since mtDNAprofiler consists of four tools that are associated with key steps of mtDNA sequence analysis, mtDNAprofiler will be helpful for researchers working with mtDNA. mtDNAprofiler is freely available at http://mtprofiler.yonsei.ac.kr .     

High‐Throughput STR Analysis for DNA Database Using Direct PCR,

Since the Korean criminal DNA database was launched in 2010, we have focused on establishing an automated DNA database profiling system that analyzes short tandem repeat loci in a high‐throughput and cost‐effective manner. We established a DNA database profiling system without DNA purification using a direct PCR buffer system. The quality of direct PCR procedures was compared with that of conventional PCR system under their respective optimized conditions. The results revealed not only perfect concordance but also an excellent PCR success rate, good electropherogram quality, and an optimal intra/inter‐loci peak height ratio. In particular, the proportion of DNA extraction required due to direct PCR failure could be minimized to <3%. In conclusion, the newly developed direct PCR system can be adopted for automated DNA database profiling systems to replace or supplement conventional PCR system in a time‐ and cost‐saving manner.