VICTORIA

The Victorian Liberal Premier, Richard Hamer, in adjourning the 1980 parliamentary session with the traditional “Christmas felicitations”, made special reference to the record number of sitting days and the longer daily average of sitting hours achieved. Labor Opposition Leader Frank Wilkes in turn drew attention to the total of 126 bills introduced during the spring session, of which 101 had been instigated by the government and 25 by private members. Such an arduous and concentrated parliamentary schedule has obvious policy implications, but also prompts a query about its administrative consequences. To what extent was the mass of legislation dealt with by the last Victorian State parliament directed towards administrative ends as well as to the Liberal government's more obvious political goals?     

Frontière Dépassée,Frontière Recomposée

La notion de frontière est au c?ur d’une ambivalence entre son caractère délimitateur, son rôle de contour spatial et la contestation des séparations qu’elle opère. La frontière juridico-politique, limite de systèmes, est soumise à de profonds bouleversements. Dès lors, elle fait l’objet d’une nouvelle acception et devient le lieu d’une coopération entre des acteurs soucieux d’un développement harmonieux et d’un retour à la normalité au bénéfice d’une nouvelle dimension de l’espace: le transfrontalier. Comment le droit a t-il accueilli ces évolutions? Quelle définition s’impose au juriste devant la notion de frontière?     

Evaluating the Short-Run Benefits of Six Department of Energy R&;D Projects

This paper evaluates the short-run benefits of research and development (R&D) projects funded by the Automotive Lightweighting Materials (ALM) Program of the Office of FreedomCAR and Vehicle Technologies of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The six ALM projects evaluated—using qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods—yielded numerous benefits in the short-run. From the qualitative assessment, all met their technical goals, increased intellectual knowledge among the research teams, and led to increased collaboration among DOE, the auto industry, its suppliers, and national laboratories. Moreover, U.S. competitiveness appeared to have increased as a result of each R&D effort. One interesting finding, however, is that most of the participants indicated their firms would not have engaged in the research efforts without DOE funding. If they had engaged in the effort, it would have been with considerably less person time and financial commitment. With respect to quantitative measures, several graduate students were supported by the projects and numerous publications and presentations resulted, although these metrics varied across the ALM R&D projects.     

Why education matters: school ‘choice’ and differing views on citizenship in Pakistan

This article discusses young Pakistanis' self-articulation of their relationship with the state, focusing in particular on the perceptions held by those aged between 15 and 25 and who are in education. The research used a mixed methods approach. Data were collected in 6 private, 11 philanthropic and 3 government schools as well as 2 madrassas and 5 universities in urban, semi-urban and rural areas in Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan. A questionnaire with qualitative and quantitative sections was distributed to class 10 students and over 1000 questionnaires were returned. The research found, on aggregate response, that there is a high sense of belonging to the nation, yet paradoxically also a high sense of alienation with regard to the state. Whilst most of those surveyed professed awareness of their rights and duties, the youth was seen by the same respondents as mostly ignorant of these. The factor that caused the greatest variation was the type of school attended where responses and attitudes regarding the state, rights, responsibilities and citizenship differed markedly. This article discusses how this school ‘choice’ is linked with particular perceptions of citizenship by looking beyond class and problematising the relationship between education and the perceptions of the state.     

The third molar as an age marker in adolescents: new approach to age evaluation

Adolescence is a relatively short period between childhood and adulthood. It is very difficult to determine adulthood based on biological indicators. The third molar may be considered a potential age marker for the period between the ages of 16–21. Our study evaluated a set of 1700 panoramic radiographs of individuals aged between 5 and 21 years. Results confirmed the statistically significant difference in the course of third molars development. The mean deviation for individuals with one third molar agenesis is ?0.98 years, for individuals with two third molars agenesis ?1.89 years, and with three molars agenesis ?3.28 years. Thus, the extent of the deviation is directly proportional to the number of unformed third molars. The calculation of age according to the mean of stages of all third molars could lead to the underestimation of age. No intergender differences were found. Age determination using third molars could be used for forensic purposes.     

Death Due to Complications of Anhidrotic Ectodermal Dysplasia

Ectodermal dysplasia comprises a group of disorders affecting ectodermal tissues. Severity depends on the genetic aberration; hyperpyrexia secondary to absence of sweat glands is a common complication. Treatment is supportive. This case report describes a 1‐month, 27‐day‐old male infant with a diagnosis of X‐linked recessive anhidrotic ectodermal dysplasia. On the day of his death, his mother swaddled him in a blanket and placed him on the couch at 5:30 am. When she picked him up at 8:00 am, he was unresponsive. At the emergency department, his rectal temperature was 40°C. Postmortem blood culture was positive for group B streptococcus, a possible etiology for fever. It is vital to teach parents that close monitoring of children with ectodermal dysplasia is necessary, as an increase in body temperature can become life threatening.     

Codecision procedure biais: the European legislation game

The European Union’s codecision procedure is analyzed as a bargaining game between the Council and the European Parliament. The model shows that the policy outcome is biased towards the ideal point of the institution that is closest to the status quo, when the negotiation leads to an agreement. If the Council’s ideal policy is closer to the status quo, as is the case for example concerning the duration of maternity leave, the resulting policy will remain closer to the Council’s than to the European Parliament’s position. Furthermore, the result of the codecision procedure is Kaldor–Hicks inefficient. The developments of common policies concerning asylum, fishery and maternity leave illustrate both the possibility of the failure of negotiations and the influence of the Council on the outcome.     

Anti-immigrant parties in Europe: Ideological or protest vote?

Abstract. In this article we address the question whether or not the votes for anti–immigrant parties can be considered as protest votes. We define protest votes by the motives underlying electoral choices, building on earlier research done by Tillie (1995) and Van der Eijk & Franklin (1996). That research showed that ideological proximity and party size are the best predictors of party preference. On this basis we designed a typology of motives for party choice and how these motives would manifest themselves empirically. Analyzing the 1994 elections for the European Parliament for seven political systems we show that anti–immigrant parties attract no more protest votes than other parties do, with only one exception: the Dutch Centrumdemocraten. Voting for anti–immigrant parties is largely motivated by ideological and pragmatic considerations, just like voting for other parties. In addition, (negative) attitudes towards immigrants have a stronger effect on preferences for anti–immigrant parties than on preference for other parties. Social cleavages and attitudes towards European unification are of minor importance as determinants of preferences for anti–immigrant parties. The overall conclusion is that a rational choice model of electoral behavior has strong explanatory power for party preferences in general, but also for the support for anti–immigrant parties in particular.