Gauging the Effects of Social Accountability on Services,Governance, and Citizen Empowerment

Engaging citizens in holding public officials and service providers accountable, referred to as social accountability, is a popular remedy for public sector performance weaknesses, figuring prominently in many international donor‐funded projects and leading to widespread replication. However, the contextual factors that influence the successful transfer of social accountability are debated. Demand‐side factors (civil society and citizens) are overemphasized in much of the literature. Yet supply‐side factors (state structures and processes) and the nature of state–society relations are also important. This article examines four projects in developing countries to explore how these contextual factors influenced social accountability aims and outcomes. The salience of supply factors in enabling social accountability for service delivery and government performance stands out, particularly the degree of decentralization and the availability of space for citizen engagement. The capacity and motivation of citizens to occupy the available space, aggregate and voice their concerns, and participate with state actors in assessing service delivery performance and problems are critical.     

“Un nodo avviluppato”. Rossini’s La Cenerentola as a prototype of multimodal resemiotisation

ABSTRACT

Since its early beginnings in Italy in the sixteenth century, opera has always been a multimodal text, integrating verbal, musical, and stage resources. Verbal resources can be unpacked in lyric verse for vocal pieces in closed form, narrative verse or prose for recitative, and stage directions; musical resources include instrumental and vocal music, whereas stage resources incorporate stage design, singers’ and dancers’ kinesics, and set and costume arrangements. However, opera has been rarely studied in multimodal terms, as it has been mainly explored from musicological standpoints, hence prioritising music and barely taking into account the interplay of other resources. As a case study, epitomising the Golden Age of opera, La Cenerentola by Rossini has been selected, as it exemplifies how the theatrical and compositional conventions of the genre work concurrently with its metatextual components. Stage adaptations will be also analysed in two film operas, that is, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle’s La Cenerentola (Germany, 1981) and Carlo Verdone’s Cenerentola, Una favola in diretta (Italy, 2014). Opera will be interpreted as a prototype of multi-level resemiotisation, also in a critical light, as the libretto is resemiotised (1) as a musical composition; (2) as a mise-en-scène, and (3) as a film opera.     

Crisis or Zemblanity? Viewing the ‘Migration Crisis’ through a Greek Lens

This intervention traces how Europe is being (re-)produced through ‘crises’ on three scales. Firstly, at the level of national territory, looking at the crisis-ridden Greek state. Secondly, through everyday border practices on the island of Lesbos and, finally, in the Mediterranean that acts as Europe’s primary locus for its aggregate (and often experimental) bordering practices.     

Brain Fluid Content Related to Body Position and Postmortem Interval – An Animal Model

Adult male Sprague Dawley rats were euthanized and placed in a horizontal or vertical (head‐down) position at room temperature, after which brain fluid content was measured by a moisture analysis technique at variable time points. No significant difference in brain fluid content was observed between horizontal and vertical postmortem positions. A significant increase in brain fluid content was demonstrated 3, 6, and 24 h after death, with maximal fluid content observed at 24 h. Specifically, the brain fluid content of control animals was 77.79 ± 0.36%, increasing to 80.05 ± 0.22% at 24 h (p < 0.0001). This study has demonstrated no significant differences in brain fluid content related to postmortem position, suggesting that a head‐down position is not associated with increased brain fluid content or swelling. However, significant temporal increases in brain fluid content after death, most likely related to cerebral liquefaction, occur.     

Counterfeit Adderall Containing Aceclofenac from Internet Pharmacies

A nontargeted approach based on liquid chromatography equipped with a quadrupole time‐of‐flight mass detector (LC‐MS Q‐TOF) joined to nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) analysis allowed rapid identification and quantification of the anti‐inflammatory drug aceclofenac in illegal Adderall tablets. The largest chromatographic peak had m/z = 354.030 and m/z = 376.012 matching, respectively, the ionic structures (M + H)⁺ and (M + Na)⁺ of a molecule M. The accurate mass data generated the molecular formula C₁₆H₁₃Cl₂NO₄. A screening of the pharmaceutical active substances having that molecular formula together with the MS/MS fragmentation pattern suggested aceclofenac. Aceclofenac structure was unambiguously confirmed by ¹H and ¹³C NMR experiments. The aceclofenac content was 90 mg/tablet (RSD 2%) as detected by quantitative NMR. Information on the identity and content of illegal drugs is required for legal purposes; it supports in evaluating the effective impact on users safety, and it is useful for control laboratories using a targeted approach in their analytical activities.     

Partner Violence Entrapment Scale: Development and Psychometric Testing

This article describes the development and testing of the psychometric properties of the Partner Violence Entrapment Scale (PVES), an instrument that evaluates the women’s perceived reasons for staying in violent partner relationships. After initial pilot testing, the scale was administered to 213 Spanish women who were victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). An exploratory factor analysis identified six factors: Socio-Economic Problems, Attachment and Fear of Loneliness, Blaming Oneself and Resignation, Impact on Children, Fear of Harm and Worry for the Partner, and Feelings of Confusion. Discriminant validity was established by demonstrating associations between PVES factors and socio-demographic, clinical and abuse variables. The scale appears to be a useful assessment tool for social and clinical settings. Its factor structure, reliability, and validity need to be replicated in other populations and samples.     

University–Industry collaboration in the biopharmaceuticals: the Italian case

We investigate the determinants of University–Industry (U–I) interactions in the biopharmaceuticals in Italy over the period 2004–2010, choosing co-publishing as a proxy of U–I partnerships. We construct a novel dataset of co-published articles, that contains measures of proximities, agglomeration, firms’ and universities’ characteristics. Following a consolidated methodology, we integrate our dataset of effective interactions with the set of all potential interactions, to estimate probabilistic models for the occurrence and the intensity of U–I interactions. Our main findings confirm and extend the predictions of the previous literature: (1) geographical proximity and prior partnership increase the probability and the intensity of co-publication; (2) the proximity of a firm to other biopharmaceutical firms and universities attenuates the relevance of geographical proximity; (3) there exists complementarity between prior partnerships and geographical proximity. A novel result is that firms’ and Universities’ size, firms’ R&D and patents expenditure and the composition of the academic staff as well as quality of academic research exert a significant impact on the intensity of co-publishing.