The role of institutional and governance factors in public–private partnerships infrastructure investments in emerging economies

The overall development and sustained growth of any economy depend heavily on its infrastructure provisioning. Emerging economies are usually characterised by constrained public investments in infrastructure. Budgetary constraints of the governments are one of the major hurdles to these investments. Due to these reasons that governments of emerging economies continuously seek collaborations with the private sector for additional sources of funding infrastructure. Economies with solid institutional and governance frameworks are known to provide a conducive environment for enhanced private sector attraction in the sector. However, emerging economies face greater institutional and governance issues than developed economies, and they sometimes fall short of luring private investments in the infrastructure sector. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate the role of institutional and governance aspects in private sector attraction in emerging economies. This study provides empirical evidence with a sample of 114 emerging economies over a period of 20 years. Various econometric estimates were developed to explore the interplay between public-private partnership investments and governance factors. The results of the study provide an evidence of a positive association between these factors and private investments in public-private partnership arrangements.     

Exposure of Air Pollution and Its Health Effects in Traffic Police Persons of Gwalior City,India

This article examines the perceived health effects of air pollution among traffic police persons of Gwalior city, India. The first part of the results reveals the health effects of air pollution on respondents and the second part reports the awareness of respondents regarding air pollution, pollutants, particulate pollutants, gaseous pollutants, and sources of pollutants etc. This perceptional study examines twenty-two types of health effects and an option for other health effects was also included. Eye irritation and sleeplessness were found consistently while difficulty in concentration, headache, sneezing, and nose irritation were found in less extant. A part of health effects were very serious and not curable. Traffic police persons were neither aware adequately regarding air pollutants nor used any type of personal protective equipment. The study covers respondents of four age categories: 15–24, 25–34, 35–44, and 45-above.     

Educational Space Settlement: Mantavya

The goal of the Educational Space Settlement proposed herein, which is called Mantavya (Hindi for “to prepare the preliminary sketch”), is to act as an all-encompassing education and training hub in space. The structure is designed with an awareness of the physiological, psychological, and aesthetic needs of future colonists in space to offer an almost Earth-like environment. There are six segments of the settlement serving educational, residential, and agricultural needs, which are built up around a central axis. These segments will be used to provide education in various research and development areas, which include study of agriculture, communication, life support systems, robotics, medical sciences, material sciences, and astronomy. The variable gravity at different locations will provide new horizons of research for the inhabitants. An unpressurized region below the segmented parts of the hub will provide a microgravity training zone for space walks and disaster management.     

Cybersex with minors: forensic implications.

This paper is designed to assist forensic psychiatrists/psychologists who evaluate adults who commit sexual crimes against children on the Internet. The typical offender is an adult male who logs onto the Internet and enters a chat room in which children congregate. Unbeknownst to the offender, undercover police officers are posing as minors in the chat rooms. The undercover officer (pretend kid) and offender engage in increasingly explicit, sexual conversation; the offender may transmit erotic photographs to the undercover officer and/or arrange to meet at a motel in order to have sexual intercourse. The authors will discuss the relevant legal, clinical, and ethical aspects of examining these offenders, and describe specific cases that the author (2) evaluated.     

A social theory of war: Clausewitz and war reconsidered

This article presents a new theory of war that is grounded in the insights of Clausewitz on the social nature of conflict. Clausewitz had argued that war is a political process; he therefore distinguished between ‘war’—understood in political terms—and warfare—understood as fighting. He then created a typology covering a spectrum of war ranging from total to limited, the political stakes of a conflict determining where it would fall on the spectrum. I develop and modify this basic framework by arguing that the social organization of the actors has a determining role in predicting the stakes of war. I then show how this framework helps us understand some key problems in the political science literature on war and conflict. I attempt to show two main things: (1) that there are different types of wars (and that these differences are not necessarily related to the standing of the actors, i.e. the presence or absence of sovereignty); and (2) that how war and warfare are related is more complicated than previously understood and that this has implications for the political science literature on order, conflict and violence.