Public opinion about social assistance in Sweden

Abstract. When studying public opinion about income-tested programmes, it is important to distinguish between expenditures and parameters regulating supply of social assistance. We suggest that the latter might be the most interesting. Using data from a survey study over a Swedish sample, we investigate public opinion about income thresholds in Swedish welfare programmes. The results show the public as being in favour of rather higher income thresholds, as compared to that decided by the politicians. We found that public opinion is more homogeneous concerning the income needs of adults than those of children. Although data on several background characteristics were available, we had difficulties in relating the answers to systematic factors of the individuals in the sample. Thus, we conclude that the Swedish population is rather homogeneous in their opinions about income thresholds in welfare programmes.     

Apoha and the nominalist/conceptualist controversy

Journal of Indian Philosophy -     

Differentiation of inks on documents by dequenching of ultraviolet fluorescence: A case report

Detection of chemical erasure and differentiation of inks by examination under long- and short-wave ultraviolet light generally solves many Questioned Documents problems. Many dyestuff-based inks fluoresce when examined under ultraviolet light, when the dye component fluoresces under the direct ultraviolet light. Sometimes, however, this fluorescence becomes quenched when the dye becomes bonded to some other, non-fluorescent compound, and does not fluoresce under ultraviolet rays. When the dye is freed from its bonded state it regains its fluorescence.In a recent case, two specimens of writing in ink of apparently the same colour were differentiated when aqueous spots of the ink from the disputed and original entries were transferred direct to a filter paper and examined under ultraviolet rays. The spots from the fraudulent entry fluoresced under the ultraviolet, but not the spots from the original entry. Neither the original nor the fraudulent entry showed any fluorescence when examined directly under ultraviolet light.     

Determination of the Chronological Order of a Laser Printing and Gel Pen Writing Without any Crossing Strokes

Laser printers and writing instruments are being exploited by the forgers to produce fabricated documents. They often produce such documents by appending genuine signature on a blank sheet and later printing on it. Often these fabricated documents do not contain intersection of strokes and may pose a difficulty to forensic document examiners in analyzing cases related to such documents. Keeping in mind the limited research work done on nonintersecting strokes, the present study has been conducted with an aim to determine the sequence of nonintersecting strokes of gel pens and laser printers. Three hundred samples of nonintersecting strokes of gel pen ink and laser printing were prepared. Of these 300, 150 had laser-printed text below the gel pen strokes and the remaining 150 were prepared with gel pen stokes below the laser-printed text. The samples have been analyzed using Nikon SMZ 800N stereomicroscope. Three micro-conformation features, that is, pattern of toner distribution, ink distribution, and fiber distribution have been observed in the samples. The results demonstrate the successful establishment of sequence of nonintersecting strokes in case of gel pen and laser-printed documents by the determination of micro-conformation features.     

Celebrating INEA’s authors and editors

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Editorial Access and Allocation in Earth System Governance

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics -     

Foot‐march: Large‐scale mobilization for a public cause or a tool for fanning political ambition

We present the case of an awareness campaign, strategically crafted by a local student political leader, based on a national level policy for urban poor and marginalized, in the city of Ahmedabad in India. The campaign, designed in the form of a foot‐march, was aimed at mobilizing the urban poor, but with a clear ambition of gaining visibility for political mileage. This study reinforces that the mediation role taken up by local leaders transcends the traditional policymaking, in democracies with blurred boundaries between the state and citizens. Further, in local governance structures, with weak participatory spaces for the poor, foot‐marches have the potential to become an extended invited participatory space.     

Exploring Aggregate vs. Relative Public Trust in Administrative Agencies that Manage Spent Nuclear Fuel in the United States

Trust is a key component of democratic decision‐making and becomes even more salient in highly technical policy areas, where the public relies heavily on experts for decision making and on the information provided by federal agencies. Research to date has not examined whether the members of the public place different levels of trust in the various agencies that operate within the same policy subsystem, especially in a highly technical subsystem such as that of nuclear energy and waste management. This paper explores public trust in multiple agencies operating within the same subsystem, trust in each agency relative to aggregate trust across agencies that operate within the nuclear waste subsystem, and trust in alternative agencies that have been suggested as possible players in the decision‐making process. We find that trust accorded to different federal agencies within the nuclear waste subsystem varies. The variation in trust is systematically associated with multiple factors, including basic trust in government, perceptions about the risks and benefits of nuclear energy/waste management, party identification, and education. These findings have significant implications for research on public trust in specific government agencies, alternative policy entities, and for policy makers who want to design robust and successful policies and programs in highly technical policy domains.     

Receiving information about rice seeds on mobile phones in eastern India

This article examines how farmers use mobile phones to obtain information about rice varieties in eastern India and investigates if this contributes to rice varietal replacement. The findings show that farmers located farther away from the market were more likely to pay for the calls. Moreover, about 26% of the farmers who had to pay to receive calls purchased seeds of at least one rice variety that they had never planted before, while less than 16% of farmers who received no calls did so. Regression results confirmed that paying charges to receive rice varietal information is associated with varietal replacement.