Staff growth in international organizations: A principal-agent problem? An empirical analysis

The analysis covers 27 international organizations in the years 1950–2001. From the first to the last year, staff increased at a compound average rate of 3.2% per annum, while the number of member states rose by only 2.5%. The pooled analysis of 817 observations (including task proxies and organization dummies) reveals that (i) the elasticity of staff to membership is much larger than unity (1.36), (ii) United Nations organizations have significantly more staff, (iii) international organizations in the United States and Switzerland have significantly less staff, (iv) heterogeneity in terms of per capita income limits the size of an international organization and that (v) its staff is larger if its membership comprises many industrial or (former) communist countries. In a reduced sample, the financing share of the largest contributor in combination with the party or programmatic orientation of its government has a significantly negative effect on staff because the size of the largest financing share determines the incentive to monitor. U.S. exit from an international organization reduces its staff significantly. Most of these results depend on the condition that the non-stationary component of staff size is not taken account of by time dummies or trends.     

Gunshot residue patterns on skin in angled contact and near contact gunshot wounds

The goal of this study was the reproduction of shape and pattern of gunshot residues in near contact and contact gunshot wounds by a series of experimental gunshots on a skin and soft tissue model. The aim was to investigate the shape and direction of soot deposits with regard to the muzzle according to different muzzle-target angles, firing distances, type of ammunition and weapon and barrel length. Based on a review of the literature and on the results of the experiments the authors could make the following statements of gunshot residues in angled contact and close contact gunshot: (1) gunshot residues on the target surface can be differentiated in a "inner" and "outer powder soot zone"; (2) the outer powder soot zone is much less visible than the inner powder soot zone and may lack on human skin; (3) with increasing muzzle target distance both inner and outer powder soot halo increase in size and decrease in density; (4) in angled shots the inner powder soot halo shows an eccentric, elliptic shape which points towards the muzzle, regardless of ammunition, calibre and barrel length; (5) the outer powder soot points away from the muzzle in angled contact and close contact shots.