Barriers to prosperity: the harmful impact of entry regulations on income inequality

Public Choice - Entry regulations, including fees, permits and licenses, can make it prohibitively difficult for low-income individuals to establish footholds in many industries, even at the...     

The Mediterranean and the Global Sustainable Development Goals

Are global development initiatives such as the Sustainable Development Goals (agreed in September 2015) in any way relevant to a crisis-ridden region such as the Mediterranean? The SDGs are much more expansive than the MDGs; they cover a range of socio-economic and political issues, which certainly are of acute relevance to the Mediterranean. It is noteworthy that states from the region were not strongly involved in the formulation of the SDGs. Pan-regional institutions such as the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) could derive a new lease of life from leading efforts to implement them (in particular goals related to the environment, energy, water and infrastructure). However, the UfM remains a weak institution. There are commonalities between the EU’s development policy and the SDG norms, but there are also many elements of EU economic policy that diverge sharply from the global ideals. The SDGs are an effort at global norm promotion which are unlikely to affect much of the Mediterranean, at least while the conflicts continue.     

Human Identification Using Automatic and Semi‐Automatically Detected Facial Marks

Continuing advancements in the field of digital cameras and surveillance imaging devices have led law enforcement and intelligence agencies to use analysis of images and videos for the investigation and prosecution of crime. When determining identity from photographic evidence, forensic analysts perform comparison of visible facial features manually, which is inefficient. In this study, we will address research efforts to use facial marks as biometric signatures to distinguish between individuals. We propose two systems to assist forensic analysts during photographic comparison: an improved multiscale facial mark system in which facial marks are detected automatically, and a semi‐automatic facial mark system that integrates human knowledge within the improved multiscale facial mark system. Experiment results employ a high‐resolution time‐elapsed dataset acquired at the University of Notre Dame between 2009 and 2011. The results indicate that the geometric distributions of facial mark patterns can be used to distinguish between individuals.     

Smartphone Image Acquisition During Postmortem Monocular Indirect Ophthalmoscopy

The medical usefulness of smartphones continues to evolve as third‐party applications exploit and expand on the smartphones’ interface and capabilities. This technical report describes smartphone still‐image capture techniques and video‐sequence recording capabilities during postmortem monocular indirect ophthalmoscopy. Using these devices and techniques, practitioners can create photographic documentation of fundal findings, clinically and at autopsy, without the expense of a retinal camera. Smartphone image acquisition of fundal abnormalities can promote ophthalmological telemedicine—especially in regions or countries with limited resources—and facilitate prompt, accurate, and unbiased documentation of retinal hemorrhages in infants and young children.     

The Scary World of Online News? Internet News Exposure and Public Attitudes Toward Crime and Justice

Objectives

A substantial body of literature indicates that certain forms of media consumption may increase anxiety about crime and support for social controls. However, few studies have examined whether Internet news consumption is positively associated with such attitudes. The void is significant given the public’s increasing use of online news sources. This study addresses this research gap.

Methods

We draw on data from four national surveys conducted between 2007 and 2013, which collectively include interviews with more than 13,000 Americans. Using OLS and logistic regression, we assess the relationships between exposure to traditional and online media and perceptions of victimization risk, support for punitive crime policies, and views about police powers.

Results

Consistent with prior work, we find positive relationships between exposure to traditional forms of media—television news and crime programming—and anxiety about victimization and support for harsh crime policies. In contrast, Internet news exposure is generally not associated with anxieties about crime or support for getting tough on criminals. However, there is evidence of an interactive relationship between political ideology and Internet news exposure.

Conclusions

The results provide little support for cultivation theory in the context of Internet news consumption. We discuss the import of our findings, and suggest new lines of research to explore the correlates and the effects of exposure to online news sources.

     

Validation of the full and brief Externalizing Spectrum Inventory in Dutch forensic inpatients

The Externalizing Spectrum Inventory (ESI) was designed for assessing a broad spectrum of externalizing problems, including impulsive-aggressive behavior and substance abuse. After translation of the ESI into Dutch, a computerized version of the full Dutch ESI (ESI-NL) was administered to a mixed sample consisting of inpatients in forensic and addiction care (n = 99) and non-psychiatric community participants (n = 104). Internal consistencies, test–retest reliabilities, ‘predictive’ validity of the full and 160-item ESI-NL total scores and subscales were examined, along with the correlations between these two versions. The results indicated high reliability and predictive validity for both versions and a strong similarity between the two in direct comparisons. The 160-item Dutch ESI is recommended for clinical studies on violence proneness and externalizing problem behavior.     

The Relevance of Hannah Arendt’s Reflections on Evil: Globalization and Rightlessness

The centenary of Hannah Arendt’s birth in 2006 has provided the catalyst for a body of literature grappling with the legacy of her thought, especially the question of its enduring political relevance. Yet this literature largely excludes from consideration a significant aspect of Arendt’s legacy, namely, her account of evil and its devastating political reality. This article contends that the neglect of Arendt’s understanding of the dynamic reality of evil unnecessarily delimits the opportunities her legacy affords to diagnose forms of evil today. In particular, I propose that Arendt’s notion of evil and her unique insight into its dynamic reality remain very much pertinent in light of a globalizing world where the conditions of extreme deprivation and exclusion have become thoroughly bound up with the structurally unequal conditions of the global political economy. The persistent global poverty knowingly reproduced in and through policies and practices of economic globalization effectively renders vast numbers of people superfluous and “rightless,” resulting in a distinctive form of political evil. I conclude that more attention should be paid to the deeper pertinence of Arendt’s concepts of evil, human superfluousness, and rightlessness for contemporary political life.     

Do Masculine Names Help Female Lawyers Become Judges? Evidence from South Carolina

This paper provides the first empirical test of the Portia Hypothesis:Females with masculine monikers are more successful in legalcareers. Utilizing South Carolina microdata, we look for correlationbetween an individual's advancement to a judgeship and his/hername's masculinity, which we construct from the joint empiricaldistribution of names and gender in the state's entire populationof registered voters. We find robust evidence that nominallymasculine females are favored over other females. Hence, ourresults support the Portia Hypothesis.     

Explaining Institutional Change in Tough Cases of Collaboration: "Ideas" in the Blackfoot Watershed

Current theories of community-based collaborative governance arrangements rely on the presence (or absence) of certain antecedent community conditions as well as incentives for institutional change deriving from the sociopolitical and economic environment. The combination of antecedent conditions and incentives is helpful in understanding why collaboratives emerge and succeed in "easy" cases (strong incentives, conducive antecedent conditions). Yet the combination is of little help in understanding the institutional change puzzle for collaboratives in "tough" cases (strong incentives, poor antecedent conditions). Examination of a "tough" case in the Blackfoot watershed (Montana), which eventually blossomed into a successful collaborative, shows the importance of a particular set of new ideas, or shared norms, around which participants coalesced. These new ideas for understanding public problems, the community itself, and the relationships among stakeholders, became a broad conceptual framework for guiding stakeholder interaction as they attempted to manage the many public problems facing the watershed.