State ownership and control in the Czech Republic

We analyze the extent of the integrated control of the state over privatized firms during the post-privatization decade (1995?C2005) in the Czech Republic. During this period the integrated control potential of the state resembled a corporate pyramid. While pyramidal control was not fully utilized, the golden share in the hands of the state substantially enhanced its ability to control firms. In terms of corporate performance we show that state control resulted in declining and even negative corporate performance. Integrated state control was shown to be mostly inferior when compared with private types of ownership. State ownership positions are in striking contrast with the lack of capacity to push corporate performance in order to collect larger tax volumes. Lack of focus and inter-agency cooperation as well as the simple inefficiency of the state bureaucracy are the most likely reasons behind our findings.     

Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study

Objectives

To empirically examine the absolute and relative impact of situational characteristics and confidence in the criminal justice system on public support for vigilantism.

Methods

In an experimental study with a between-subjects design, members of a Dutch household panel (n = 1,930) responded to vignettes about vigilantism that were varied across two experimental factors: (1) type of precipitating crime and (2) type of formal sentence for the precipitating offender. In the measurement of support, we distinguished between outrage at vigilantism, empathy with the vigilante, and desired punishment for the vigilante. Confidence was assessed 1?month later.

Results

Our findings show that situational characteristics have a substantial and independent influence on support for vigilantism, in addition to the role of confidence. This means that when citizens express support for those who take the law into their own hands, this is not necessarily rooted in a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, all three measures of support were affected more by the situational characteristics than by confidence.

Conclusions

Citizens are nuanced in their judgment of vigilantism and sensitive to contextual information, which is in line with other recent findings regarding public punitiveness. Future studies should assess whether the findings can be generalized to other settings where citizens cannot rely (as much) on the state to deal with crime.     

Face to Face (II): Semiotics of Interactivity

Faces challenge the sender-receiver model as the major scheme of thought for appropriately understanding interaction between human individuals. The openness and indeterminacy of faces lead to establish a semiotically relevant distinction between interaction and interactivity. The latter is our proposed articulation of the dynamic energy that thrives through the existence of signs and the uses of a semiotics. Facial expressions sustain and express the vital dynamism of making meaning in life. This often occurs at a bewildering distance to legal life and discourses established by legal terminologies.     

A mixed effects model of birth spacing for pre-transition populations: Evidence of deliberate fertility control from nineteenth century Netherlands

It has often been argued that there are good theoretical and historical reasons to expect that deliberate birth spacing has played an important role in fertility patterns before the demographic transition. Yet, it has proved difficult to find hard empirical evidence. In this article, we propose a new model of the speed of parity progression that includes both fixed and random effects and that efficiently captures unobserved heterogeneity between couples in fecundability and postpartum amenorrhea. With this model, we demonstrate that pre-transition couples in the Netherlands indeed spaced their births during about the first ten years of marriage. In addition, we have found strong differentials in birth intervals by socio-economic position and religion. Finally, we also show how and why the model can be used with left-censored census data.     

How do disciplinary tribunals evaluate the "gut feelings" of doctors? An analysis of Dutch tribunal decisions, 2000-2008

A sense of alarm, which is a form of "gut feeling" sometimes plays a part in the decisions of medical disciplinary tribunals in The Netherlands. Since these judgments are regarded as setting standards for professional attitudes in The Netherlands, the question arises how Dutch tribunals have evaluated gut feelings, and how tribunals in other European countries deal with them. An exploratory study searched two Dutch digital databases (2000-2008) and asked 26 national representatives of the European General Practice Research Network for information about the role of gut feelings in tribunals' decisions. A sense of alarm was mentioned in judgments in 34 Dutch cases. Defendants were hardly ever reproached for missing the correct diagnosis, but mostly for not acting in a professional manner. The sense of alarm was referred to as a diagnostic tool to assess a patient's situation, although the judgments indicate that it must be followed by further diagnostic steps. The role of gut feelings in decisions of disciplinary tribunals in Europe is unclear. The authors conclude that the sense of alarm as a diagnostic tool has been taken seriously by Dutch tribunals. Its timely development is considered to be an element of the professional standards for doctors.     

Assessing trait memory distrust: Psychometric properties of the Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire

Purpose. When people suffer from memory distrust, they evaluate their memory in negative terms. Memory distrust plays an important role in police interrogations because it may underlie false confessions. The Squire Subjective Memory Questionnaire (SSMQ) intends to be a simple measure of trait memory distrust. To our knowledge, no data have been published about the psychometric properties of the SSMQ. Methods. Relying on five samples (Ns = 70–819) of healthy individuals and patients, we studied the psychometric characteristics of the SSMQ. Participants were recruited at the university, a neuropsychological unit or through advertisements in newspapers. They were asked to complete the SSMQ and several other tests. In this way, reliability and validity parameters could be assessed. Results. Principle component analysis showed that the SSMQ has a one‐dimensional structure referring to subjective memory evaluation. The SSMQ was found to have adequate reliability and good construct validity. Furthermore, it appears to correlate in a theoretically meaningful way with age and cognitive failures. Conclusions. All together, the SSMQ is a psychometrically sound screening tool that can be helpful in assessing subjective memory evaluations in the legal domain. In this way, vulnerable suspects can be identified in an early stage.     

Community benefit activities of private, nonprofit hospitals

The definition of hospital community benefits has been intensely debated for many years. Recently, consensus has developed about one group of activities being central to community benefits because of its focus on care for the poor and on needed community services for which any payments received are low relative to costs. Disagreements continue, however, about the treatment of bad debt expense and Medicare shortfalls. A recent revision of the Internal Revenue Service's Form 990 Schedule H, which is required of all nonprofit hospitals, highlights the agreed-on set of activities but does not dismiss the disputed items. Our study is the first to apply definitions used in the new IRS form to assess how conclusions about the adequacy of nonprofit hospital community benefits could be affected if bad debt expenses and Medicare shortfalls are included or excluded. Specifically, we examine 2005 financial data for California and Florida hospitals. Overall, we find that conclusions about community benefit adequacy are very different depending on which definition of community benefits is used. We provide thoughts on new directions for the current policy debate about the treatment of bad debts and Medicare shortfalls in light of these findings.     

Analysis of Explosives by GC‐UV

A mixture of explosives was analyzed by gas chromatography (GC) linked to ultraviolet (UV) spectrophotometry that enabled detection in the range of 178–330 nm. The gas‐phase UV spectra of 2,4,6‐trinitrotoluene (TNT), 2,4‐dinitrotoluene (DNT), ethylene glycol dinitrate (EGDN), glycerine trinitrate (NG, nitroglycerine), triacetone triperoxide (TATP), and pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) were successfully recorded. The most interesting aspect of the current application is that it enabled simultaneous detection of both the target analyte and its decomposition products. At suitable elevated temperatures of the transfer line between the GC instrument and the UV detector, a partial decomposition was accomplished. Detection was made in real time and resulted in overlaid spectra of the mother compound and its decomposition product. Hence, the presented approach added another level to the qualitative identification of the explosives in comparison with traditional methods that relies only on the detection of the target analyte. As expected, the decomposition product of EGDN, NG, and PETN was NO, while TATP degraded to acetone. DNT and TNT did not exhibit any decomposition at the temperatures used.