Service Charters: Reshaping Trust in Government—The Case of Spain

Service charters are located at the intersection between public administration reforms and governance initiatives for improving citizen trust in governments. Service charters in Spain show the will to shift from a legal tradition to one that meets citizens' needs and makes government more accessible, transparent, and open to the public. The article examines the role and performance of service charters and the contribution of charters to change in Spanish public administration, to the empowerment of citizens in the improvement of service standards, and to citizen participation in the organization of public services. It aims to investigate the factors that drive the introduction of charters and the performance that can be obtained. To test the potential of service charters in Spain, we interviewed public-sector managers at the central level by applying the Delphi method and statistical techniques.     

A Short-Term Longitudinal Study of Pubertal Change,Gender, and Psychological Well-Being of Mexican Early Adolescents

This study examined the role of pubertal development on depression, externalizing behavior problems, self-esteem, and body-image of 951 Mexican early adolescents. The 5th through 7th grade students were assessed at the beginning and end of the school year. The main finding of this study is that the acute experience of menarche adversely affected Mexican adolescent girls psychological well-being, most specifically in terms of depressive symptomatology. On the other hand, pubertal change in Mexican boys, as measured by voice-change, did not appear to adversely affect psychological well-being above and beyond a nonsignificant minimal and temporal readjustment and in fact had a positive effect on body-image. Results suggest that perceived maternal control, prior social–emotional adjustment, and menstrual attitudes may moderate the effects of pubertal change.     

Hungarian adolescents' self-concept

Hungarian and United States adolescents' self-image was studied using the Offer Self-Image Questionnaire (OSIQ). In Hungary, 1,163 younger and older male and female adolescents were studied using a Hungarian translation of the OSIQ. Analyses of endorsement patterns of OSIQ items showed that Hungarian and American adolescents endorsed many items in the same way. Similarities in endorsement patterns were much more common between the two countries than were differences. Analyses of OSIQ scales showed that for most scales younger Hungarian adolescents reported better adjustment than younger American adolescents. Differences were not as great or reversed in the older age groups. Implications for cross-cultural studies of adolescent self-image were drawn based on these results.Received M. D. from the Semmelweis Medical university in Budapest. Research interest is complex somato-mental health care of adolescents.Received M. D. from the University of Chicago. Major interests are concepts of mental health and the developmental psychology of adolescence.Director, Forensic Psychology, Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center. Received J. D. from the University of Chicago School of Law; received Ph. D. in human development from the University of Chicago. Research interests are adolescence and delinquency.Professor of Psychology, Northwestern University. Received Ph. D. in psychology from the University of Chicago. Major interests are psychotherapy research and adolescence.     

Elucidation and chemical identification of a heart strength and heart rate-increasing substance from human kidney extracts

Bioassays involving the measurement of cardioactivity have been used in the past to determine glycoside concentration in post-mortem specimens following glycoside poisoning. This paper describes the presence of a cardioactive principle in alcoholic extracts of kidney that could interfere with these bioassays and which has been identified as tyramine. For the analysis of tyramine a combination of purification methods was employed, including cation exchange with Sephadex CM C-25, gel filtration and HPLC. Detection was achieved using mass spectrometry after careful cation-exchange treatment. The fragmentation pattern with and without prior formation of the TFA-derivative corresponded to that tyramine. IR and UV spectra also indicated the presence of tyramine. Under suitable experimental conditions, positive inotropic and positive chronotropic effects on the right guinea-pig atrium and positive inotropic effect on the left guinea-pig atrium produced by the kidney extract can be shown to differ from those cardiac glycosides. These investigations bring into question earlier court decisions made in legal processes which have been based upon the results of bioassays for the evaluation of cardiac glycoside toxicity.     

Guatemala's Party Universe: A Case Study in Underinstitutionalization

The article examines the degree of institutionalization of the Guatemalan party universe across four areas: the pattern of inter‐party competition; the rootedness of parties in society; the legitimacy accorded to parties and democratic institutions; and the nature of internal party organization. Guatemala displays an extremely inchoate party structure across all these variables. There is no stability in the identity of the main parties in the polity. After more than two decades of electoral democracy, no single party has been able to avert a drift into electoral irrelevance or outright disappearance. With respect to the basic facets of internal party organization, Guatemalan parties exhibit a feebleness so pronounced that their very status as parties is questionable. In general, Guatemalan “parties” only fulfill Sartori's minimalist definition as organizations that field candidates for public office, but offer nothing more substantive.