Determinants of Online Reporting of Accounting Information by Spanish Local Government Authorities

This paper examines the features of Spanish local governments that influence the degree of their voluntary reporting of financial information on the Internet. Following an agency theory approach, we propose five hypotheses regarding the relationship between voluntary financial disclosure and the size, leverage, capital investment, political competition and press visibility of a local authority. The empirical application of these hypotheses shows that size, capital investment and political competition are positively associated with the degree of online reporting. We also found a negative and significant relationship between press visibility and voluntary financial disclosure.     

Interest mobilization in public health and social insurance: Argentina,Colombia, and Mexico in comparative perspective

One revealing test for gauging the extent to which pluralist democracy has advanced in the recently (re)democratized countries of Latin America is to determine the extent to which interest groups have come to participate in policy making in formal, open, extensive, and accepted ways as they mostly do in advanced liberal democracies. In other words, is this a new era or more of the same? To provide insights into this question, using six hypotheses, this article compares social insurance reform in Argentina and Mexico, and public health reform in Colombia. It appears that the political processes through which the reforms were adopted were fairly democratic, although aspects of the old regimes in all three countries, particularly corporatist relationships, were indispensable backups. The weaknesses that were apparent, however, stem less from the old ways of doing political business and more from the immaturity of the democratic process. Plus, pressures were felt by the executive branches and their allies to show to the international community that their country was a safe place in which to invest. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Statistical analyses of 14 short tandem repeat loci in Brazilian populations from Rio de Janeiro and Mato Grosso do Sul states for forensic and identity testing purposes

This work describes the statistical features of a database for two Brazilian populations (one from the Rio de Janeiro State (southeast region), and one from the Mato Grosso do Sul State (central western region) using fourteen short tandem repeat loci (STR).     

Chimpanzee homologous of human Y specific STRs. A comparative study and a proposal for nomenclature

Eleven Y specific microsatellites, previously studied in humans, were typed for fragment length and sequenced in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).The primers described by Ayub et al. (Nucleic Acids Res. 28, 2000, 2) for amplifying DYS434, DYS435, DYS436, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439 and those described by White et al. (Genomics, 57, 1999, 433) for GATA A10, A7.1, A7.2, C4, and H4, were used to amplify DNA samples from chimpanzees.Primers described for Y GATA A4 were found to amplify the same region as reported for DYS439. Moreover, the GATA A4 forward primer only matches the repeat flanking region in 14 of the 28bp, being responsible for a very weak amplification. Therefore, this system was not included in this study.The analysis of the repeat and sequence structure observed in chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes allowed evolutionary comparisons as well as the basis for improving Y STR nomenclature and therefore, a unified nomenclature for these novel STRs is proposed to the scientific community following ISFG recommendations.     

Development Context and the Political Behavior of Remittance Recipients in Latin America and the Caribbean

Political Behavior - Remittances have become a chief source of family income in developing countries. As such, these revenue streams have the potential to impact recipients’ political...     

Information exchange networks at the climate science‐policy interface: Evidence from the Czech Republic,Finland, Ireland,and Portugal

Scientifically informed climate policymaking starts with the exchange of credible, salient, and legitimate scientific information between scientists and policymakers. It is therefore important to understand what explains the exchange of scientific information in national climate policymaking processes. This article applies exponential random graph models to network data from the Czech Republic, Finland, Ireland, and Portugal to investigate which types of organizations are favored sources of scientific information and whether actors obtain scientific information from those with similar beliefs as their own. Results show that scientific organizations are favored sources in all countries, while only in the Czech Republic do actors obtain scientific information from those with similar policy beliefs. These findings suggest that actors involved in climate policymaking mostly look to scientific organizations for information, but that in polarized contexts where there is a presence of influential denialists overcoming biased information exchange is a challenge.     

Sex-symmetric effects of coercive behaviors on mental health? Not exactly

The present study tested a section of the model of coercion in intimate partner violence (IPV) by investigating the relationships among coercion, IPV and mental health symptoms. The study's sample consisted of 573 culturally diverse university students (age M = 21.4) who completed a survey that measured past IPV victimization, coercive behaviors, and mental health symptoms. Structural equation modeling analyses revealed that coercion was a stronger predictor of adverse mental health symptoms than was IPV victimization. In addition, the study found that the adverse effect of coercive behaviors on mental health symptoms was stronger among female victims of IPV than among male IPV victims. The results have implications for theory building, future research, and mental health professionals who work with female and male victims of IPV.     

Uncertainty and the use of force among Venezuelan police officers

Literature often emphasizes the use of force as a distinctive feature of police work, while risky encounters and uncertainty are conditions under which such work is carried out daily. Conditions leading to the use of force by the police have been associated with the presence of menacing minorities, losing verbal control, the youth and lack of experience of officers, and critical physical proximity between officers and suspects. Additionally, defiance towards the police has often been linked to increased force used by the police. It is here proposed that uncertainty also fosters police officers’ dispositions to use force. In this study, four focus groups were conducted with officers from two Venezuelan municipal police departments in October 2003, presenting a hypothetical scenario progressing from contact with suspects towards an open confrontation involving a shooting. Officers perceived, through different phases of the scenario, an encounter of no easily predictable outcome with suspects, involving potential harm to the police and bystanders. A pattern seemed to appear among officers in which overcoming real or assumed resistance became the central issue. When physical confrontation with suspects became evident, self defence was the clearest justification for the use of force, though the use of force was also defended by officers without further elaboration on the requirements and conditions for effectively thwarting aggression. It appears that uncertainty about the outcome of a situation fosters both the disposition and the justification for using force.

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