Dental and Chronological Age in Children Under Oncological Treatment

The current oncology treatment has improved the survival of children with several types of cancer, and the effect of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy treatment on dental maturation in comparison with chronological age is not widely known. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the impact of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy treatment during dental maturation with chronological age in Chilean children diagnosed with cancer. Study Design was cross‐sectional study on children diagnosed with different types of cancer and treated with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy when they were ages of 0.1 to 13 years. Demirjian tables for both girls and boys are used to determine the dental age. The association between chronological and dental age was highly significant. Nevertheless, a linear relation between chronological and dental age was not observed when the data were stratified by BMI and type of treatment. This study confirmed that dental age is an indicator of chronological age but that other variables, such as body mass index, in children with cancer could be confounder variables. Thus, further studies are necessary to investigate the influence of BMI on tooth eruption/maturation in children under oncological treatment.     

Is Small Beautiful? Testing the Direct and Nonlinear Effects of Size on Municipal Performance

Although the relationship between managerial capacity and local government performance is well established, research into the direct effect of population size on performance has yielded mixed findings. Using data for 787 municipalities in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais, this article examines the direct and nonlinear effects (moderating and curvilinear) of population size on municipal performance. Performance is measured in terms of property tax collection and averaged for the 2005–07 mayoral administration. Mayor's age (a proxy for experience) and educational attainment serve as measures of managerial capacity. After controlling for political and economic factors, both municipal size and mayoral capacity are positively correlated with property tax collection. However, population size neither moderates managerial capacity nor relates curvilinearly to municipal performance. These findings challenge the promoters of fragmentation, which has been the trend in transitional and developing economies.     

Decisional Capacity to Consent to Clinical Research Involving Placebo in Psychiatric Patients

Evidence from a few studies indicates the existence of several issues related to psychiatric patients' decisional capacity to give informed consent to clinical research. Clinicians often face difficulties in acquiring valid informed consent in clinical practice and even more so in drug trials. Participants often fail to fully understand or retain information regarding the actual implications of research protocols. The Brief Assessment for Consent to Clinical Research (BACO) was developed to investigate capacity to consent to clinical trials and further compare patients with schizophrenia and healthy comparisons' decisional capacity. A method to avoid possible confounding effects of choosing a treatment regarding a current disease was applied. The study groups were administered the BACO and the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Psychiatric patients performed poorer in comprehending, appreciating, and reasoning abilities, than their healthy counterparts. Impaired cognitive functioning and psychiatric symptoms severity were associated with reduced capacity to consent.     

The Meaning of Students’ Personal Belief in a Just World for Positive and Negative Aspects of School-Specific Well-Being

In two cross-sectional questionnaire studies with N = 1792 German and Indian students, aged between 12 and 17 years, we investigated the relation between personal belief in a just world (BJW) and positive as well as negative dimensions of school-specific well-being. Furthermore, we considered students’ personal experience of teacher justice as possible mediator in this relation and controlled for confounding effects of gender, neuroticism, and locus of control. In Study 1, we used multilevel modeling to analyze the German data and to control for class-level effects. In accordance with our hypotheses, Study 1 showed that the more students believed in a personal just world, the better their positive attitudes toward school, their academic self-esteem, and their enjoyment in school were, and the less somatic complaints in school, social problems in school, and worries toward school they experienced. These associations partly differed between classes, but generally persisted when controlled for sex, neuroticism, and locus of control. Finally, the association between personal BJW and well-being was at least partly mediated by students’ personal experience of teacher justice. In Study 2, we focused on the generalizability of the pattern of results across different cultural contexts. However, we did not aim to carry out comparative research. Results from bootstrap mediation analyses were predominantly the same as in Study 1. The adaptive functions of BJW and implications for future school research are discussed.     

True and false memories in middle childhood: the relationship with cognitive functioning

This study was designed to investigate developmental changes in true and false memories and to detect links among them in middle childhood. Participants were 372 Italian children (from 6 to 11 years, 174 males) divided into two age groups. After hearing a story, children provided a free-recall and their true and false retrieved information was measured. Then children were repeatedly asked some true and misleading questions about the story and their cued-recall and interrogative suggestibility were measured. Finally, children again recalled the story to assess the post-event misinformation effect of the suggested information. Individual differences in fluid intelligence, working memory and executive functions were also assessed to investigate their relationships with true and false memories. Typical age effects were found in memory recall and interrogative suggestibility. Interesting links among true, spontaneous and suggested false memories were found. Finally, analyses did not reveal the existence of a relationship between suggestibility and cognitive functioning.     

Germany's ‘Right to be forgotten’ – between the freedom of expression and the right to informational self-determination

Although never having defined it explicitly, German law and jurisprudence imparted a right to be forgotten which could be described as a right to delete long ago. Its basis can be found in the constitution where it is torn between the freedom of expression and the right to informational self-determination. Also, German legislature introduced non-constitutional provisions ensuring the deletion of personal data in specific cases that are applied regularly. This article aims to give an overview of the “German” right to be forgotten, its legal framework and its application in court.     

Subnational Government Performance: Testing Multiple Dimensions of Governors' Experience

This article tests whether governors' work experience explains their state performance. Although the experience‐performance relationship has been researched, empirical studies report inconsistent results. This inconsistency might be due to the dissimilar conceptualization and operationalization of the work experience construct, for it can be conceptualized in qualitative or quantitative components. To address this disparity, the authors follow Tesluk and Jacob's conceptualization by operationalizing gubernatorial experience across three dimensions: type (qualitative component), number of jobs, and years of work experience (quantitative component). The study tests the moderating effects of state context (level of violence) on the experience‐performance relationship, relying on data derived from 32 Mexican states over 16 years. Education outputs (high school enrollment) and health outcomes (infant mortality rate) are used to assess state performance. Results indicate that only the qualitative dimension of governors' work experience boosts state performance by reducing infant mortality and increasing high school enrollment. However, this positive effect is undermined by state violence. The number of jobs decreases gubernatorial performance, magnified by the degree of state violence.     

Placebo scrutiny? Far-right extremism and intelligence accountability in Germany

The post-9/11 era has seen a proliferation of special, or one-off parliamentary inquiries into intelligence. This article examines the question of what quality such inquiries can achieve, exploring the scandal surrounding the case of the German far-right terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU). The article introduces a theoretical framework, with remit, rigor and reception as the key pillars of analysis. While special inquiries are often seen as a way of overcoming imperfections of the traditional accountability system, they can also create a placebo effect – an illusion of accountability which allows intelligence services to go uncontrolled under a blanket of democracy.