Conceptualising corporate community development

Globally there is an increasing focus on the private sector as a significant development actor. One element of the private sector’s role emphasised within this new focus has been corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities, whereby the private sector claims to contribute directly to local development. There is now a substantial body of work on CSR but it is a literature that is mostly polarised, dominated by concerns from the corporate perspective, and not adequately theorised. Corporations typically do development differently from NGOs and donors, yet the nature and effects of these initiatives are both under-researched and under-conceptualised. In this paper we argue that viewing CSR initiatives through a community development lens provides new insights into their rationale and effects. Specifically we develop a conceptual framework that draws together agency and practice-centred approaches in order to illuminate the processes and relationships that underpin corporate community development initiatives.     

Democracy’s effect on economic growth: A pooled time-series analysis, 1951–1980

The relationship between democracy and economic growth has concerned social scientists since the 17th century, but recent democracy movements make this question especially important today. Do poor countries face a cruel trade-off between democracy and growth? Do democracy and growth go together as a “win-win” proposition? Or is democracy irrelevant to growth? Using pooled annual time-series data from 1951–1980 for 106 countries, including 88 non-core countries, we explore long-term and short-term direct and indirect effects of democracy on growth. Little or no direct effect emerges, but positive indirect effects appear via two mechanisms: a marginally significant effect via investment and a robust effect via government expenditure. Democracy also has a robust non-linear effect on economic growth via social unrest, inhibiting growth under non-democratic regimes and furthering it in highly democratic ones. Combining these findings, we conclude that democracy does not significantly hamper economic growth, and under many circumstances slightly boosts it.     

The impact of battered woman syndrome evidence on jury decision processes

The impact of battered woman syndrome testimony on jury decision processes in trials of battered women who kill their abusers was investigated in two separate studies. It was hypothesized that the presence of the testimony would influence jurors' verdicts via its mediating effect on the jurors' interpretations of the battered woman's beliefs and actions and that its impact would vary as a function of the degree to which it was linked to the woman on trial. In Experiment I, subjects read a homicide trial involving a battered woman who had killed her husband. They received either no expert testimony (control), expert testimony presenting general research findings on the battered woman syndrome (general expert), or expert testimony in which the expert supplemented the general information with an opinion that the defendant fit the syndrome (specific expert). The presence of the specific expert, compared to the control, led to interpretations that were more consistent with the woman's account of what occurred; these interpretations, in turn, were related to more lenient verdicts. Experiment 2 investigated the effects of the testimony on small groups of deliberating jurors. Compared to the control condition, a moderate shift in verdicts from murder to manslaughter was found in both expert conditions. Content analyses of the deliberations, as well as postdeliberation judgments, indicated that the presence of the testimony led to interpretations that were more favorable to the battered woman's claim of self-defense.Preparation of this research, was supported in part by Fellowships from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Law and Social Science Program of Northwestern University. I. wish to thank Neil Vidmar and James Olson for their invaluable advice throughout all stages of the research, as well as Shari Diamond, Tom Tyler, Richard Lalonde, and Doug McCann for their helpful comments, on earlier drafts of the article. For their diligence and patience in coding the data, I would like to thank Cindi Chandler and Audi Grant.     

Does Attentional Control Mediate the Association Between Adverse Early Experiences and Child Physical Abuse Risk?

The present study examined the extent to which attentional control mediates the relationship between adverse early life experiences (e.g., harsh discipline, low perceived support) and child physical abuse (CPA) risk in adulthood. Participants included 138 general population parents (30.4% fathers and 69.6% mothers) who completed self-report measures of early life experiences, attentional control, and CPA risk. Results revealed that attentional control partially mediated the association between adverse early environment and CPA risk scores, Sobel test = 2.65, SE = 0.86, p = .007. More specifically, individuals exposed to adverse early environments (characterized by harsh discipline and/or low perceived support) reported lower levels of attentional control, which in turn was associated with increased risk of hostile, aggressive, and abusive parenting.     

Validation of a method to detect cocaine and its metabolites in nails by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry

The objective of the present work was to compare previously published methods and provide validation data to detect simultaneously cocaine (COC), benzoylecgonine (BE) and norcocaine (NCOC) in nail. Finger and toenail samples (5mg) were cut in very small pieces and submitted to an initial procedure for external decontamination. Methanol (3 ml) was used to release analytes from the matrix. A cleanup step was performed simultaneously by solid-phase extraction (SPE) and the residue was derivatized with pentafluoropropionic anhydride/pentafluoropropanol (PFPA/PFP). Gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) was used to detect the analytes in selected ion monitoring mode (SIM). Confidence parameters of validation of the method were: recovery, intra- and inter-assay precision, as well as limit of detection (LOD) of the analytes. The limits of detection were: 3.5 ng/mg for NCOC and 3.0 ng/mg for COC and BE. Good intra-assay precision was observed for all detected substances (coefficient of variation (CV)<11%). The inter-assay precision for norcocaine and benzoylecgonine were <4%. For intra- and inter-assay precision deuterated internal standards were used. Toenail and fingernail samples from eight declared cocaine users were submitted to the validated method.     

A qualitative study of compact bone microstructure and nuclear short tandem repeat obtained from femur of human remains found on the ground and exhumed 3 years after death

Forensic identification of human remains is composed of anthropological study of race, sex, age, etc. By using these traditional methods, inconclusive or nonidentified cases could be subjected to DNA analysis. However, in spite of advances in human identification techniques, especially by PCR-amplified DNA, some limitations that affect the ability of obtaining DNA from human remains still persist. Light microscope sections of postmortem compact bones from human remains are presented here for the purpose of increasing a forensic examiner's prediction of successful nuclear DNA typing. Femoral compact bones were obtained from 7 human remains found on the ground, in different degrees of decomposition, and were cleaned by boiling to remove soft tissues, 8 collections of bones having undergone natural decomposition, not boiled (as no soft tissue was adhered), and 5 cadavers 12 to 16 hours postmortem. The histologic sections were stained by hematoxylin and eosin, the loci CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, and amelogenin were amplified by PCR, and the polyacrylamide gel was stained with silver. The results presented here clarify questions concerning the viability of DNA for identification analysis, and they also may help to establish better strategies for optimization of DNA extraction and analysis in compact bones of human remains.     

Genetic data on nine STRs (CSF1PO, TPOX, THO1, F13AO1, FESFPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820 and D13S317) and two VNTRs (D1S80 and D17S5) in Rosario population, Santa Fe Argentine

Allele frequencies for nine short tandem repeats (STRs) loci (CSF1PO, TPOX, THO1, F13AO1, FES/FPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820 and D13S317) and two variable number tandem repeats (VNTRs) were obtained from a sample of 270 unrelated individuals born in the Rosario city, Santa Fe province of Argentina.     

Reexamining Racial Attitudes: The Conditional Relationship Between Diversity and Socioeconomic Environment

Social science research notes that racial context is related to attitudes toward social issues; however, surprisingly little research has examined how the impact of racial context on attitudes is activated. The aim of this article is to examine racial context "effects" for policy preferences, but to do so within a broader perspective. This article extends the literature on racial attitudes by considering a conditional relationship between racial and ethnic context and socioeconomic context and expanding racial context to include multiple racial and ethnic groups. The findings indicate that racial and ethnic contextual effects do emerge; however, these effects are conditional on the socioeconomic context in which an individual resides. Specifically, high socioeconomic contexts and highly diverse contexts are related to higher levels of support for racial social issues; however, contexts characterized by low socioeconomic context and high racial and ethnic diversity are associated with lower levels of support for such issues .