Club theory: Thirty years later

This paper presents a self-contained survey of club theory with an emphasis on the contributions of the last fifteen years. Club goods are contrasted with pure public goods, and equilibrium and optimality notions are contrasted. After presenting three basic representations of club theory, we focus on recent advances and generalizations that include heterogeneous memberships, transaction costs, uncertain utilization, asymmetric information, and noncompetitive influences. An agenda for research is indicated that includes further analysis of asymmetric information, institutional structure, and applications.     

Denmark

European Journal of Political Research -     

Tension on the thin blue line: Police officer resistance to community-oriented policing

While over 60% of police agencies in the United States are either implementing or planning for community policing (Annan, 1995), actual implementation of community policing practices is disjointed and has produced more problems than solutions. One such problem is the resistance among officers to the philosophy itself. In a study of the orientations of noncommunity policing officers in the largest public safety department in the US, it is determined that elements of the organizational culture of the police agency are not significant predictors of support for the community policing philosophy. Rather, individual orientations toward citizen involvement in crime prevention and job involvement are predictors of officer support. Implications for police managers are discussed.     

Does context matter in academic entrepreneurship? The role of barriers and drivers in the regional and national context

With pressure on universities to better contribute to society, academic entrepreneurship is an increasingly recognised source of new knowledge and technologies as well as being a driver of the movement to a knowledge society. However, whilst growing, the level of academic entrepreneurship in Europe is still relatively low. Two reasons that are factors influencing this are inhibitors (barriers) and facilitators (drivers), however the understanding of how their interplay influences academic entrepreneurship, particularly across different context is lacking. For this reason, this study focussed on two environmental settings, European regions and countries, seeking to understand if it is the hurdle (barrier) or (and/or) tail-wind (drivers) that most impacts academic entrepreneurship and how does the regional or national context influence this. An online survey was translated into 22 languages and undertaken in 33 countries in Europe and the European Economic Area. From the original data set, 12 countries in four European regions provided a sample of 2925 responses, with a second step to focus on four ‘lead’ countries within those regions. The results show that there is a significant difference in the university-business cooperation barriers and drivers that effect academic entrepreneurship in the European regions. Furthermore, different barriers and drivers were found to significantly affect the four lead countries with barriers and drivers being able to provide a good explanation of the extent of academic entrepreneurship in the UK and Germany, and a limited explanation of entrepreneurial activity by Spanish and Polish academics. Overall the article contributes to the literature of resource-based theory and also the understanding of factors influencing European academic entrepreneurship.     

Human Identification via Lateral Patella Radiographs: A Validation Study,

This research examines the utility of patella outline shape for matching 3D scans of patellae to knee radiographs using elliptical Fourier analysis and subjective methods of human visual comparison of patellae across radiographs for identification purposes. Repeat radiographs were captured of cadaver's knees for visual comparison before patellae were extracted and skeletonized for quantitative comparisons. Quantitative methods provided significant narrowing down of the candidate pool to just a few potential matches (<5% of original sample), while the human analysts showed high capacity for correctly matching radiographs, irrespective of educational level (positive predictive value = 99.8%). The successful computerized matching based on a single quantified patella trait (outline shape) helps explain the potency achieved by subjective visual examination. This work adds to a growing body of studies demonstrating the value of single isolated infracranial bones for human identification via radiographic comparison.     

LGBTQ-Affirming Policing: Tactics Generated by Law Enforcement Personnel

Law enforcement personnel (LEP) use a variety of tactics to perform their job duties. Although LEP often receive specialized training to work with ethnocultural minorities and are sometimes trained to work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) citizens, a clear articulation of LGBTQ-affirming police tactics has not yet been established. Using qualitative content analysis and a multiple case study approach, this project identified a variety of tactics generated by LEP in written surveys and group discussion of scenarios involving LGBTQ citizens. Results showed that across all scenarios, LEP were able to generate LGBTQ-affirming tactics, including both typical police procedures, as well as approaches specific to LGBTQ citizens. Non LGBTQ-affirming tactics typically reflected reluctance to adapt general procedures to meet the needs of LGBTQ citizens. The results of this study support the use of group-based scenario training to help LEP identify and adopt LGBTQ-affirming approaches. This study is significant because it represents a first step toward identifying best practices for LGBTQ-affirming police tactics.     

The detection of clandestine graves in an arid environment using thermal imaging deployed from an unmanned aerial vehicle

The Middle East is one of the world regions that has frequently suffered from armed conflicts that resulted in mass burials. However, the detection of clandestine graves in such an arid environment by deploying remote sensing payload on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has received little attention. The present study used a UAV equipped with a thermal sensor aimed at narrowing down the search area of possible gravesites in the arid climate of Kuwait. The enclosed research area, which includes both control and experimental mass graves, was imaged for 18 months. The variation in topsoil temperature and soil moisture between the graves and their surroundings was evaluated. The results of the analysis demonstrated the effectiveness of thermal imaging techniques in detecting heat produced from buried sheep carcasses and detecting the change in grave soil moisture for our research environment for 7 and 10 months, respectively. The buried animals significantly influenced the topsoil temperature (p = 0.044), while the height from which the images were captured had an insignificant effect on the measured temperature within the range tested (p = 0.985). Furthermore, there was a negative correlation (−0.359) between grave temperature and the calculated soil moisture. The results from these cost- and time-effective search methods presented in this study confirm their potential for the detection of burial sites in an arid environment.     

Determination of vehicle speed from recorded video using the open-source software Kinovea

Video devices of different kind often record traffic accidents, including vehicle-pedestrian collisions and hit-and-run accidents. In these cases, the vehicle speed is valuable information because it can assist the investigators in an accident reconstruction. This paper examines the use of Kinovea, an open-source video annotation tool designed for sport analysis, to estimate vehicle speed in forensic videos. Kinovea does not require a complex methodology, and it can be used to make the calculation easily. A series of vehicle driving experiments using an appropriately calibrated speed radar system (so called Scout Speed) were carried out, and measurements were compared with the estimated speed. In controlled conditions, the comparison of Scout reference speed and calculated average vehicle speed by means of Kinovea found an average difference of 0.43 km/h, with a margin of error of ±0.64 km/h. In addition, further preliminary tests were carried out to check the reliability of the measurements under lower resolution conditions. Also, in these cases the calculations were in line with the ground truth. Therefore, in the tested conditions, Kinovea demonstrated to be an easy and reliable tool available for forensic video examiners. Further tests need to be conducted in order to address the applicability of the measurement technique with true CCTV/surveillance video recordings.     

Development and validation of a LC–MS/MS method for analysis of vortioxetine in postmortem specimens. First data from an authentic case

Vortioxetine is an antidepressant recently licensed in USA and EU for the treatment of major depressive disorder. Neither fatal case due to overdose nor data about postmortem concentrations on blood or other specimens have been reported. The aims of this study were the development and validation of a method for vortioxetine analysis by Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry (LC–MS/MS) in postmortem samples and its application in an authentic case. The method was validated and applied on blood, vitreous humor, bile, brain, liver, kidney, and gastric content. After protein precipitation, the supernatant was directly injected into LC–MS/MS. Analysis was carried out by Multiple Reaction Monitoring (MRM) mode. The authentic case concerned a 38 years-old woman, affected by depression, who was found hanged at home. The method determined an acceptable sensitivity, selectivity, linearity, precision, and accuracy for all matrices. No interference was shown for all matrices. The matrices do not significantly reduce the peak intensity of vortioxetine. No carryover was shown. Toxicological analysis of the authentic case showed vortioxetine in blood (234 ng/ml), vitreous humor (10.5 ng/ml), brain (490 ng/g), lung (479 ng/g), liver (3751 ng/g), kidney (798 ng/g), bile (2267 ng/ml) and gastric content (253 ng/ml). Our case suggests that even at blood concentrations of vortioxetine equal to 234 ng/ml, the subject was able to stage and carry out the hanging. Vortioxetine concentrations found in the other cadaveric samples (biological fluids, organs, and gastric content) may be helpful to evaluate further similar comparable cases.