Dynamic Pie: A Strategy for Modeling Trade‐Offs in Compositional Variables over Time

The substance of politics involves competition that evolves over time. While our theories about competition emphasize trade‐offs across multiple categories, most empirical models tend to oversimplify them by considering trade‐offs between one category and everything else. We propose a research strategy for testing theories about trade‐off relationships that shape dynamic compositional variables. This approach improves current methods used to analyze compositional dependent variables by addressing two limitations. First, although scholars have considered compositional dependent variables, they have done so in contexts that were not dynamic. Second, current approaches toward graphical presentations become unwieldy when the compositional dependent variable has more than three categories. We demonstrate the utility of our strategy to expand current theories of party support and political budgeting. In both cases, we can extend trade‐offs across pairs of alternatives (e.g., prime minister versus all other parties or spending on defense versus everything else) to competition across multiple alternatives.     

“Memory” Revisited: What Sāmavedic Technical Literature Tells Us About Smṛti’s Early Meaning

Journal of Indian Philosophy - In this paper, I build on recent scholarship concerning the early semantic history of the word “sm?ti,” which has been shown to denote...     

Changes in the Most Cited Scholars in Five International Journals Between 2006 and 2020

Asian Journal of Criminology - The main aim of this article is to assess the most cited scholars in five international journals in three time periods: 2006–2010, 2011–2015, and...     

Optimal Dental Age Estimation Practice in United Arab Emirates’ Children

The aim of the study was to detect whether the Willems model, developed on a Belgian reference sample, can be used for age estimations in United Arab Emirates (UAE) children. Furthermore, it was verified that if added third molars development information in children provided more accurate age predictions. On 1900 panoramic radiographs, the development of left mandibular permanent teeth (PT) and third molars (TM) was registered according the Demirjian and the Kohler technique, respectively. The PT data were used to verify the Willems model and to develop a UAE model and to verify it. Multiple regression models with PT, TM, and PT + TM scores as independent and age as dependent factor were developed. Comparing the verified Willems‐ and the UAE model revealed differences in mean error of ?0.01 year, mean absolute error of 0.01 year and root mean squared error of 0.90 year. Neglectable overall decrease in RMSE was detected combining PM and TM developmental information.     

The struggle for press self-regulation in contemporary South Africa: Charting a course between an industry charade and a government doormat

Abstract

Self-regulation is widely seen as a way to balance media freedom with restraint. In South African press history, this balance has been the subject of contestation under apartheid. While the first 12 years after democracy were relatively uncontentious, concerns were raised in 2007 by proposals for statutory regulation proposals by the ruling party. The performance of the Press Council was an important component in the subsequent power-play around these proposals. This article assesses how independent performance of the system helped persuade the rulers to temporarily suspend their proposals and utilise the existing channels. However, the persistence of a narrow reactive practice of self-regulation provided space for the resumption of contestation in July 2010.     

Milton's army: The white house press corps

White House reporters follow a path constructed by presidential advisers that they hope will lead them to fulfill goals set by their news organizations. White House officials ration them facilities for work, access to newsworthy people, and reportable information in amounts that depend on the importance to the President of the type of media they work in, the status of their particular news organization, and the staff's respect for the influence and competence of a particular individual. In this context, several constraints that affect White House reporting are discussed here: those placed on reporters by their organizations; by the way their type of media covers the White House; by their relations with each other; and by their concepts of what they are required to do. The framework for this discussion and analysis is a classification by type of media and news organizations that assign journalists to the White House. Of the resulting six categories, the first three have the most structural and organizational influence and are given the most attention. The special status, unique history, and influence of photographers at the White House require that they be treated separately.     

The indirect transfer of glass fragments to a jacket and their subsequent persistence

Experiments were conducted to investigate a scenario sometimes encountered in casework, where a police officer has attended a scene and shortly afterwards arrested a suspect. The experiments involve the transfer of glass fragments from a surface scattered with broken glass to a hand, and then from the hand to the sleeve of a poorly retaining jacket. The persistence of the transferred fragments was studied by collecting the glass fragments as they fell off the jacket, whilst the wearer was walking on the spot. The recovery regime allowed the number and proportion of fragments picked up and transferred to the jacket from the hand to be determined, and the rate at which they were lost from the jacket to be monitored. The results show that large numbers of glass fragments can be picked up on a hand from a suitable surface. A subsequent firm grip to a poorly retaining jacket was found to transfer a significant proportion of the glass fragments from the hand to the jacket. In seven of nine tests performed, ten or more glass fragments were recovered from the jacket 60 minutes after the original contact between the hand and the broken glass. More than twenty fragments were recovered in three of these tests. Consequently, where possible and appropriate, the full circumstances of a case should be considered carefully before indirect transfer is ruled out as a possible explanation for recovered “matching” glass. This is the case even for poorly retaining clothing.     

Policy transfers between governments: The case of administrative reforms

Administrative reform has been a very common activity of governments in almost all industrialised democracies, including those in Western Europe. The frequent contacts among these governments, and the presence of organisations such as the OECD that are spreading the reforms, might be expected to produce widespread diffusion of administrative innovations. That diffusion is not, however, as widespread as might have been expected and there are marked differences among countries as well as among types of reform. Using Boolean algebra, this article analyses the correlates of the diffusion of reform among European countries and the implications of that diffusion for public administration in these countries.     

Who should be chef? The dynamics of valence evaluations across income groups during economic crises

In this paper, we investigate partisan rationalization in valence politics by trying to better specify the direct and indirect effects of the economy on government support. To do so, we examine how income levels moderate the influence of objective economic conditions on perceptions of which party is the best manager of the economy during a period of economic crisis, 2004–2010, in the United Kingdom. We find that low-income voters are more responsive in their assessments of the incumbent Labour government based on unemployment, as are high-income voters in terms of inflation. In addition, high-income voters tend to behave in a manner consistent with partisan rationalization, while low-income voters do not. These conclusions offer important implications for the effectiveness of electoral control of government policy, as well as the quality of representation.