Legislature size and government spending in Italian regions: Forecasting the effects of a reform

We analyze the effect of different legislature size on per capita regional expenditure in Italy. According to the theory, legislature size has an indefinite effect on government spending because logrolling and transaction costs may have canceling effects. We find a large and significantly positive effect of the number of legislators. We use these findings to forecast the effects of the increase in the number of legislators that is taking place in some regions: a 10% increase in legislature size commands on average a 12% increase in per capita regional expenditure.     

Women Victims of Violent Partners: The Italian Situation Amid Culture and Psychopathology

In 2006, the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT) conducted a survey over the entire national territory of women victims of sexual, physical, and psychologic violence, a few years after the first survey, conducted in 2002. For the 2002 survey, respondents were 60,000 women, 22,759 of whom were aged 14–59 years. For the 2006 survey, the sample consisted of 25,000 women aged 16–70 years. Owing to the sensitivity of the issues, the telephone survey technique seems best suited because it provides more anonymity and guarantee of protection. The survey showed that the phenomenon of violence against women is most commonly perpetrated by the partner or ex‐partner, even in cases of homicide. A comparison of the Italian data with those of the U.S.A. for the period 2001–2006 showed a specificity of Intimate Partner Violence in Italy, that seems to be related to cultural elements and psychologic and psychopathologic factors.     

Fighting terrorism with nonviolence: an ideological perspective

ABSTRACT

This article explores the potential of using nonviolence as a counter-ideology against terrorism. I analyse the current scholarship on nonviolence and terrorism, highlighting that terrorist ideology is crucial but is not directly addressed by nonviolent scholars. I outline a different approach to nonviolence, one which interprets the latter as an ideology of praxis centred on the interrelatedness of life, freedom and plurality. This ideology shares with terrorist ideologies the emphasis on action and conflict to overcome a grievance, but it offers a completely different path centred on diverse citizenship, building alternative social mechanisms (going beyond the focus on institutions), and omnicracy.     

An Experimental Investigation of Electoral Delegation and the Provision of Public Goods

How effectively do democratic institutions provide public goods? Despite the incentives an elected leader has to free ride or impose majority tyranny, our experiment demonstrates that electoral delegation results in full provision of the public good. Analysis of the experimental data suggests that the result is primarily due to electoral selection: groups elect prosocial leaders and replace those who do not implement full contribution outcomes. However, we also observe outcomes in which a minimum winning coalition exploits the contributions of the remaining players. A second experiment demonstrates that when electoral delegation must be endogenously implemented, individuals voluntarily cede authority to an elected agent only when preplay communication is permitted. Our combined results demonstrate that democratic delegation helps groups overcome the free‐rider problem and generally leads to outcomes that are often both efficient and equitable.     

Determination of stature from skeletal and skull measurements by CT scan evaluation

The aim of this article is to find a correlation between height and femur/skull measurements through Computed Tomography (CT) scans and derive regression equations for total skeletal height estimation in the Caucasian population. We selected 200 Caucasian patients from March 2010 to July 2011 who had to perform a CT scan for cancer restaging. The mean age is 64.5 years. Both sexes are represented by the same number of persons. Patients have executed a total body CT scan with contrast; once scan accomplished, we measured height through a digital scales. We analyzed CT scans of each patient, obtaining multiplanar reconstruction in sagittal and coronal planes with 1mm of thickness, and we measured 10 diameters of skull and femur. Then we performed a single and a multiple regression analysis considering the three diameters that better correlated with height. The skeletal diameters with the highest correlation coefficients with stature were femur lengths, length of cranial base (Ba-N), and distance from the posterior extremity of the cranial base to the inferior point of the nasal bone (Ba-NB). Although both femur and skull are skeletal segments used for stature estimation, in our sample femur gave stronger correlation with height than skull. h=35.7+1.48·BaN+2.32·BaNB+2.53·FEM and h=3.06·FEM+72.6 are the formulae that provided the most accurate stature assessment using multiple and single regression analysis respectively.     

The recovery of latent text from thermal paper using a simple iodine treatment procedure

Faded, or actively removed text on thermally printed paper samples may be enhanced and retrieved through the use of a simple iodine fuming procedure. The recovery of printed documentation evidence in this fashion is neither affected by prior fingerprint enhancement techniques (such as ninhydrin or DFO), nor by sample age. This method allows, for the first time, evidence to be obtained from completely faded thermal paper samples (receipts, for example) as well as allowing deliberately removed printed text (a consequence of solvent washing pre-treatment in latent fingerprint enhancement procedures) to be recovered.     

The Impact of Federal Preemption of State Antipredatory Lending Laws on the Foreclosure Crisis

State antipredatory lending laws (APLs) are designed to protect borrowers against predatory lending that can increase the risk of default and deplete the home equity held by borrowers. Federal regulators instituted preemption that limited the scope and reach of state antipredatory lending regulations for certain lenders. Based on the variation in state laws and the variation in the regulatory environment among lenders, this paper identifies the effects of federal preemption of state APLs on the quality of mortgages originated by preempted lenders. The results provide evidence of a relatively higher increase in default risk among loans exempted from strong state antipredatory laws. These results are most robust among refinance mortgages with adjustable interest rates—a large and highly dynamic market in the period of analysis. The findings provide initial evidence that preemption of state mortgage lending regulations may result in an increase in mortgage default risk, thus limiting consumer protection in the residential mortgage market.     

Calculating likelihood ratios for a mixed DNA profile when a contribution from a genetic relative of a suspect is proposed

This technical note describes a practical method for evaluating evidence in the case of a two person conditioned DNA mixture where the defence proposition is that the unknown contributor is genetically related to the suspect. A conditioned mixture is one where the presence of DNA from one of two individuals is accepted by both prosecution and defence. A typical example would be a vaginal swab in an alleged rape case, where the presence of the complainant's DNA would be expected and samples have been taken from the complainant and a suspect. Much has been written about the interpretation of such mixtures and the calculation of the conditional genotype probabilities that must be carried out. In general, such treatments assume that the unknown contributor, under the defence proposition, is unrelated to the known individuals. In this paper, we consider the case where the defence proposition is that the unknown contributor is genetically related to the suspect. We describe a method, incorporating a flow chart and reference tables that facilitate manual calculations of the likelihood ratio for several postulated genetic relationships.