Development of the role of national anti-doping organisations in the fight against doping: from past to future

When action against doping began, sport itself was, as a rule, responsible for anti-doping measures and governments often had only a subsidiary function. However, due to doping scandals or doping allegations, the formation of independent anti-doping organisations (NADOs) was already discussed in the 1990s in some countries as guarantors for clean sports. In the course of the doping scandal at the Tour de France in 1998 and the systematic intervention of the French state, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was founded 1999 at an international level. In the following years, the WADA-model was often copied at a national level and a multitude of independent NADOs came into being. NADOs play a key role worldwide in combating doping. Their influence in developing an international anti-doping policy and implementing it in the form of standards and regulations is today, however, low; they are not directly represented in the decision-making bodies of the WADA. This should be changed with regard to elaborating the new World Anti-Doping Programme for 2014.     

Dating ivory by determination of 14C, 90Sr and 228/232Th

A method is described to determine the time of death of elephants. This is accomplished by analysis of the radionuclides 14C, 90Sr and 228/232Th in known samples of ivory, and in samples of unknown age. The reliability of this method is considerably increased by multi nuclide analysis.     

Ownership structure, regulation and the market for corporate control in the EU banking sector

This paper analyzes the efficiency of shareholder control and hostile takeovers as corporate governance mechanisms in the EU banking sector against the background of the existing corporate governance regulations and different ownership structures of banks in the EU. The results indicate the there is trade-off in EU corporate governance regulation between better investor protection and a higher efficiency of the market for corporate control. The main problem is differences in the ownership structure of banks in the EU banking sector. This implies that EU corporate governance regulations should be customized to the specific ownership structure of banks and not toward harmonising national regulations.     

Entrepreneurial ecosystems: economic,technological, and societal impacts

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Despite the overwhelming use of the metaphor ‘ecosystem’ in academia, industry, policy, and management, exact definitions of what...     

Detection of fetal DNA in a cell pellet after centrifugation of mountant

In order to obtain fetal cells (e.g., for paternity cases) after abortion, the centrifugation of mountant (in our case formalin) may be tried when the DNA examination of the fixed tissue itself gives limited or no (or not enough) information. The fixed tissue was microscopically negative for fetal cells and gave no satisfactory results when examined for DNA. Centrifugation of approximately 50 mL of reddish colored formalin resulted in a cell pellet that was examined for DNA, which gave enough information to confirm a case of sexual abuse.     

Capacity for physical action in traumatically-induced epidural hemorrhage

Authors report the case of a 55-year-old man with a nearly normal capacity to act for appr. 48 hours following epidural hematoma due to a blunt trauma of the head with skull fracture. The man was amnestic for the period of time since the trauma. According to the computertomographic findings, the cause for the mild clinical symptoms was a pre-existent atrophy of the brain.     

Small States,Large Unitary States and Federations

Employing a political-economics approach, this paper comparessmall states and unions when the former fail to internalizecross-border externalities of publicly provided goods. Itdiscusses two types of unions: federations with more than onelevel of government and unitary states. While unitary statesare unable to differentiate public spending according todiffering preferences, rents of governments in a federationare higher due to a common-pool problem. The comparison leadsto the following results. (1) Citizens prefer small states tolarge states if spillover effects are weak. (2) They benefitfrom a multi-level government only if their preferencesheavily differ from the median-voter's preferences and ifspillovers are strong. Based on this comparison the paper alsodiscusses the creation of unions. Making specific assumptionon the distribution of preferences, it analyzes strong Nashequilibria at the union formation stage.     

Are Voters Better Informed When They Have a Larger Say in Politics? – Evidence for the European Union and Switzerland

Public choice theory takes citizens as rationally ignorantabout political issues, because the costs of being informedgreatly exceed the utility individuals derive from it. Thecosts of information (supply side) as well as the utility ofinformation (demand side), however, can vary substantiallydepending on the political system under which citizens live.Using survey data from the European Union and Switzerland, wepresent empirical evidence that citizens are politicallybetter informed when they have more extended politicalparticipation rights. The results corroborate theoreticalarguments and circumstantial evidence that voter informationshould be treated as endogenously determined by politicalinstitutions.