Who adopts MIND/FIND in INTERPOL��s fight against international crime and terrorism?

This article determines the key factors inducing INTERPOL countries to institute MIND/FIND, a technology which facilitates systematic searches of people, motor vehicles, and documents at international transit points. This integrated solution assists countries in curbing international crime and terrorism. Based on discrete-choice models, the analysis identifies income per capita, population, democratic freedoms, and anticipated searches for suspects as the key determinants of whether INTERPOL countries install MIND/FIND. Ethnic diversity, international arrivals, cost proxies, and arrests prior to adoption are not important considerations in decisions to install MIND/FIND. External financial support is an essential factor identifying likely non-adopters who installed MIND/FIND.     

American state governments as models for national science policy

In the 1980s state governments adopted an entrepreneurial stance and established an extensive array of programs targeted at encouraging university industry research collaboration, the commercial development of new technologies, the start-up of new firms, and the technological modernization of existing firms. Although these state programs are frequently presented as laboratories of democracy, their relevance to national science and technology policy is open to question. State R&D strategies reflect contrasting theories about the linkages among academic research, technological innovation, economic growth, and administrative practices. Evaluations of state technology programs have essentially remained fixed at dead center, as unproven undertakings. State experiences have not been couched in analytical frameworks conducive to assessments of national science and technology policies.     

The Bottom Line: The Effect of Written Expert Witness Statements on Juror Verdicts and Information Processing

Mock jurors recruited from jury rolls were either not given written statements of expert witnesses' direct testimony or were provided with such statements before or after the presentation of that testimony. Presentation of the statements before the testimony and cross-examination provided jurors with a schema that allowed them to distinguish more effectively among the claims of four differentially worthy plaintiffs because they processed more probative evidence than other jurors. Jurors in receipt of written statements before the testimony found the evidence to be more comprehensible than other jurors. Jurors provided with written statements following testimony and cross-examination were able to differentiate between the most and least severely injured plaintiffs, whereas jurors not in receipt of any written statements were unable to differentiate among any of the differentially worthy claimants. The limitations of this case management technique and of the study are discussed.     

A large-scale statistical analysis of barefoot impressions

In an earlier paper, outlines of footprints of persons walking normally were studied to determine whether different people make verifiably distinct footprints. Our basic null hypothesis is: given a footprint outline trace made by Subject A (Alice), then Subject B (Bob), a distinct person, cannot produce a footprint outline trace indistinguishable from that of Alice. We showed in the previous work that the probability of a chance match is less than 10(-8). In this paper we report two new advances in our research. First, we establish a rigorous mathematical framework for calculating worstcase and average chance-match probabilities. Second, we repeat the previous experiment to substantiate the earlier results, but with an expanded population sample size and a more representative and significantly bigger repeated sample. These improvements and a new automated tracing procedure for extracting all numerical measures lead to a sharpened accuracy with average chance match probabilities of 7.88 x 10-(10) for a general population. In other words, the odds of a chance match are one in 1.27 billion.     

C: Reviews: short review articles

BRITAIN'S TWO WARS WITH IRAQ 1941, 1991. By Raghid El‐Solh. Reading, Ithaca Press, 1996. 289 pp. £35.00 (hb).

FIGHTING WORLD WAR THREE FROM THE MIDDLE EAST: ALLIED CONTINGENCY PLANS, 1945–1954. By Michael J. Cohen. London, Frank Cass Publishers, 1997. 349 pp. 5 maps. £37.50 (hb).

VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE IN SOUTHERN YEMEN

A YEMEN REALITY. ARCHITECTURE SCULPTURED IN MUD AND STONE. By Salma Samar Damluji. Reading, Garnet Publishing Limited. 1991. 355 pp., 677 colour plates.

THE VALLEY OF MUD BRICK ARCHITECTURE. SHIBAM, TARIM & WAADI HADRAMUT. By Salma Samar Damluji. (Ancient to Contemporary Design). Reading, Garnet Publishing Limited, 1992. xxi, 472 pp, c.500 plates and 85 line drawings.

CALLIGRAPHIC SIGNIFICANCES : CATALOGUES OF THE NASSER D. KHALILI COLLECTION OF ISLAMIC ART

THE ABBASID TRADITION: QUR'ANS OF THE 8TH TO THE 10TH CENTURIES AD. By François Déroche (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, General Editor Julian Raby, Vol. I), The Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992. 192pp.

THE MASTER SCRIBES: QUR'ANS OF THE 10TH TO 14TH CENTURIES AD. By David James (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, General Editor Julian Raby, Vol. II,) The Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992. 240pp.

AFTER TIMUR: QUR'ANS OF THE 15TH AND 16TH CENTURIES AD. By David James (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, General Editor Julian Raby, Vol. III,) The Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1992. 256pp.

THE ART OF THE PEN: CALLIGRAPHY OF THE 14TH TO 20TH CENTURIES AD. By Nabil Safwat (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, General Editor Julian Raby, Vol. V,) The Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1996. 248pp.

BILLS, LETTERS AND DEEDS: ARABIC PAPYRI OF THE 7TH TO THE 11TH CENTURIES AD. By Geoffrey Kuan (The Nasser D. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art, General Editor Julian Raby, Vol. VI,) The Nour Foundation in Association with Azimuth Editions and Oxford University Press, 1993. 292pp.     

Organizational Structure as a Determinant of Academic Patent and Licensing Behavior: An Exploratory Study of Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Pennsylvania State Universities

This paper examines the influences of university organizational structure on technology transfer performance. The analysis treats the organizational structure of the technology-transfer office as an independent variable that accounts, in part, for measured differences in inter-institutional patenting, licensing, and sponsored research activities. We derive and investigate three hypotheses that link attributes of organizational form – information processing capacity, coordination capability and incentive alignment – to technology transfer outcomes. A detailed analysis of three major research universities – Johns Hopkins University, Pennsylvania State University, and Duke University – provides evidence of the existence of alternative organizational structures. The data also suggest that these organizational capabilities result in differences in technology transfer activity.     

Effects of Financial Incentives on Saving Outcomes and Material Well‐Being: Evidence From a Randomized Controlled Trial in Uganda

The use of savings products to promote financial inclusion has increasingly become a policy priority across sub‐Saharan Africa, yet little is known about how families respond to varying levels of savings incentives and whether the promotion of incentivized savings in low‐resource settings may encourage households to restrict expenditures on basic needs. Using data from a randomized controlled trial in Uganda, we examine: (1) whether low‐income households enrolled in an economic‐empowerment intervention consisting of matched savings, workshops, and mentorship reduced spending on basic needs and (2) how varied levels of matching contributions affected household savings and consumption behavior. We compared primary school‐attending AIDS‐affected children (N = 1,383) randomized to a control condition with two intervention arms with differing savings‐match incentives: 1:1 (Bridges) and 1:2 (Bridges PLUS). We found that: (1) 24 months post‐intervention initiation, children in Bridges and Bridges PLUS were more likely to have accumulated savings than children in the control condition; (2) higher match incentives (Bridges PLUS) led to higher deposit frequency but not higher savings in the bank; (3) intervention participation did not result in material hardship; and (4) in both intervention arms, participating families were more likely to start a family business and diversify their assets.     

Accrual Accounting and the Government's Intertemporal Budget Constraint

In its standard form, the intertemporal budget constraint requires the present value of a government's future primary cash surpluses to be at least equal to the value of its outstanding debt. In an effort to help link accrual accounting to fiscal analysis, this paper shows how the constraint can also be expressed in terms of the surpluses and balance sheets of the accrual-based accounts and fiscal statistics that are increasingly supplementing and sometimes replacing traditional cash-only accounting.