Evaluation of a Teen Dating Violence Prevention Intervention among Urban Middle-School Youth Using Youth Participatory Action Research: Lessons Learned from <Emphasis Type="Italic">Start Strong Boston</Emphasis>

Almost half of adolescents aged 11 to 14 have dated and between 10 and 30% report experiencing Teen Dating Violence (TDV). However, there are no evidence-based TDV prevention interventions designed for afterschool, community-based settings with middle-school youth, in high-risk neighborhoods. Start Strong Boston (SSB) is a model that fills all three gaps, founded on partnerships between the Boston Public Health Commission, community afterschool sites, academic experts and evaluators, and youth. Here, we describe the SSB program and discuss how this collaboration built upon successes of this peer-engaged intervention, by developing and implementing a youth participatory action research (YPAR) evaluation study of SSB. Use of the YPAR framework tested the feasibility of employing Peer Researchers in an interdisciplinary evaluation team. We describe how through participation in evaluation research, Peer Researchers improve professional and leadership skills while informing measurement and conceptualization of a program affecting their own neighborhoods. Lessons learned are presented.     

SNPs in forensic genetics: a review on SNP typing methodologies

There is an increasing interest in single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) typing in the forensic field, not only for the usefulness of SNPs for defining Y chromosome or mtDNA haplogroups or for analyzing the geographical origin of samples, but also for the potential applications of autosomal SNPs. The interest of forensic researchers in autosomal SNPs has been attracted due to the potential advantages in paternity testing because of the low mutation rates and specially in the analysis of degraded samples by use of short amplicons. New SNP genotyping methods, chemistries and platforms are continuously being developed and it is often difficult to be keeping up to date and to decide on the best technology options available. This review offers to the reader a state of the art of SNP genotyping technologies with the advantages and disadvantages of the different chemistries and platforms for different forensic requirements.     

The Impact of Political Factors on Local Government Decentralisation

ABSTRACT

The process of local decentralisation of public services delivery has attracted research attention because of the wide range of factors that induce governments to make this decision. Nonetheless, most such studies have focused on economic and financial aspects, ignoring the impact of political factors. The scarce previous research about political factors is the motivation for this study. We used panel data models based on 153 Spanish municipalities with populations over 50,000 for the period 1999–2007. The process of decentralisation is disaggregated according to the legal form of the entities: corporations and foundations. Our results show that more corporatisation processes are carried out in environments where political competition is lower and the party in power enjoyed greater support in the last elections. Additionally, decentralisation processes usually take place in the years immediately following elections, especially through foundations. Furthermore, both forms of decentralisation are more likely to be initiated by right-wing politicians.     

Hacia un proyecto “democrático-expansivo” de transparencia

This work explores the paradox of normative and institutional improvements vis-à-vis political and practical deficiencies through the analytical lens of an increasing clash among three different and opposing projects of transparency: the “bureaucratic”, the “public-relation,” and the “democratic-expanding” approaches. Mexico’s failure to fulfill the promises of its institutional reforms is due to the preeminence of the first two approaches. Mexico, as well as other countries in a similar situation, needs to transcend such superficial, one-sided approaches to fully embrace a project aimed at deepening and expanding democracy itself.     

A New Predictor of Local Financial Distress

The development of predictive models for financial distress is a recurring topic in both private and public contexts, although currently its repercussions are greater in the public sphere, where efforts are being made to define new warning systems for fiscal crises. The present study thus aims first to show the similarities and differences between the absolute and relative models based on a 10-point scale, in order to subsequently combine the positive aspects of both proposals to find a system that can determine local fiscal distress in a more robust way.

The results obtained show that the optimum predictive system is a slight variant of the model proposed by Kloha et al. (2005) Kloha, P., Weissert, C. S. and Kleine, R. 2005. Developing and testing a composite model to predict local fiscal distress. Public Administration Review, 65(3): 313–323. [Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]. This variant consists of the inclusion of two indicators of financial independence proposed by Zafra-Gómez et al. (2009a) Zafra-Gomez, J. S., López-Hernández, A. M. and Hernández-Bastida, A. 2009a. Developing an alert system for local governments in financial crisis. Public Money &; Management, 29(3): 175–82. [Taylor &; Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] for which an alert threshold has been empirically determined.     

Beyond Kyoto: The EU's Contribution to a More Sustainable World Economy

The EU has been leading the world fight against climate change since the late 1990s. This activism on the international scene has served as a stimulus for a common action against global warming that has, in the last 10 years, become a world referent and the central issue in the EU environmental policy. The most relevant initiative is the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions trading scheme (ETS), adopted in fulfilment of the Kyoto Protocol. In 2008, the EU adopted a new set of measures on climate and energy for the post‐Kyoto period (2013–2020). This new legal framework, coupled with the provisions introduced by the Treaty of Lisbon and the ‘Europe 2020’ strategy, represents the EU's commitment to promote a more sustainable European and world economic model.