Stable isotope models to predict geographic origin and cultivation conditions of marijuana

Here we describe stable isotope based models using hydrogen and carbon isotope ratios to predict geographic region-of-origin and growth environment for marijuana, with the intent of applying these models to analyses of marijuana trafficking in the USA. The models were developed on the basis of eradication specimens and border specimens seized throughout the USA. We tested reliability of the geographic region-of-origin and growth environment models with a “blind” set of 60 marijuana eradication specimens obtained from counties throughout the USA. The two geographic region-of-origin model predictions were 60–67% reliable and cultivation environment model predictions were 86% accurate for the blind specimens. We demonstrate here that stable isotope ratio analysis of marijuana seizures can significantly improve our understanding of marijuana distribution networks and it is for that purpose that these models were developed.     

To Patent or Not: Faculty Decisions and Institutional Success at Technology Transfer

We draw on qualitative data derived from field work on two university campuses to develop an explanation for widely disparate rates of new invention disclosure. We argue that faculty decisions to disclose are shaped by their perceptions of the benefits of patent protection. These incentives to disclose are magnified or minimized by the perceived costs of interacting with technology transfer offices and licensing professionals. Finally, faculty considerations of the costs and benefits of disclosure are colored by institutional environments that are supportive or oppositional to the simultaneous pursuit of academic and commercial endeavors.     

Thirty-seven degrees frigid: US-chilean relations and the spectre of polar arrivistes, 1950-59

After its 1948 proposal to internationalize Antarctica had been rejected, the United States accepted the Chilean Escudero Plan as a necessiry for avoiding further political disputes among the seven nations that had balked at the proposal's call to renounce their sovereign rights. US and Chilean officials proceeded to discuss revisions that might enhance the Escudero Plan's acceptabiliry to the other nations, all of which shared the goal of excluding the Soviet Union. Before there had been any substantial progress, the 1957-58 International Geophysical Year legitimated the USSRs presence in the far south, and already tense US-Chilean relations entered a phase of heightened apprehensiveness. This article explores the diplomatic and contextual nuances of this bilateral interaction that proved central in bringing the Antarctic Treary of 1959 to fruition.     

The perils of ‘going local’: liberal peace-building agendas in Nepal

Responding to recent critiques, foreign aid organisations are increasingly ‘going local’ in their operations in order to integrate local actors into their peace-building and aid projects. This is done under the belief that entering into partnerships directly with grassroots actors will increase local autonomy in joint ventures, thus empowering locals as agents of change both during and after the project period. But despite its normative and conceptual appeal, we argue that this model is not workable in practice and cannot be under the current structural conditions of the international aid environment. This is due to a fundamental disconnect between the conceptualisation and rationale of ‘going local’ and the structural and institutional frameworks within which ‘local ownership’ is supposed to be operationalised and implemented. This paper uses the example of Nepal to illustrate that this disconnect not only prevents foreign aid organisations from reaching their stated goals, but exacerbates the very problems that ‘going local’ is supposed to address.     

Racial Residential Segregation and Social Control: A Panel Study of the Variation in Police Strength Across U.S Cities, 1980–2010

Despite a great deal of theoretical and empirical attention given to racial residential segregation and its influence on a number of social problems in the United States, few scholars have examined the role that this persistent form of racial inequality plays in shaping the magnitude of formal social control efforts. Our study examines this relationship by assessing the potential influence that the isolation of minorities may have on efforts to control crime in urban centers across the United States. Using a pooled time-series regression technique well suited for the analysis of aggregate, longitudinal data, we assess the potential influence of racial segregation on the size of municipal police departments in 170 U.S. cities between 1980 and 2010. After accounting for minority group size, economic threat, crime, and disorganization, we find that racial residential segregation has a significant non-linear effect on police force size. Cities with the most racially integrated populations have the smallest police presence but at very high levels of segregation, police strength levels off. This finding is consistent with expectations derived from the contact hypothesis. Under such conditions, majority group members appear to be less inclined to demand greater crime control measures such as increased police protection. Period interactions with residential segregation also suggest that this relationship has grown stronger in each decade since 1980. Overall, our study provides strong support for threat theories and the contact hypothesis but offers necessary refinements.     

A correction to Potters and van Winden (1992)

This note amends the model of informational lobbying presented in Potters and van Winden (Public Choice 74:269–292, 1992). In the original article, the authors find that only separating and pooling equilibria exist when the cost of lobbying is intermediate and the policymaker’s prior favors the interest group’s preferred policy. However, we prove that a semi-separating equilibrium also exists under these conditions. Implications for lobbying behavior are discussed.