Urban governance and multilateral aid organizations: The case of informal water supply systems

This paper explores the different urban governance models proposed by multilateral aid organizations in accessing water through informal supply systems, to assess the rationale and the guiding principles at the basis of their different ‘governance approaches’. There can be no doubt that most developing countries are now experiencing a rapid and unprecedented urban growth, which is bringing about a rising demand for urban services, especially those concerning water supply. To cope with this pressing issue, the response of multilateral aid organizations—such as the World Bank, UN-HABITAT and the European Union––has been represented by the design and implementation of different urban governance and management systems, called to support an equitable and efficient access to urban water supply services. This paper focuses on the different urban governance approaches through which multilateral donors support informal networks and small scale providers to provide water supply in cities of developing countries. It highlights how these different urban governance approaches address the overall issues of poverty reduction whilst in reality, in certain cases, they also aim to affect and regulate domestic public policies of Third World countries. In particular, it argues that the governance model proposed––and imposed––by the World Bank continues to belong to a neo-liberal policy agenda, which considers water and urban services as commodities to be managed through widespread competition and market mechanisms. On the contrary, UN-HABITAT, and the European Union to a certain extent, highlight the need for an urban governance system that promotes the ownership of development strategies by local communities and that rests on the principles of inclusiveness and equity.

Unintended Consequences of Local Sales Tax: Capitalization of Sales Taxes into Housing Prices

Local governments are under pressure to look for alternatives to property taxes as their main revenue source. One response has been to adopt local sales taxes. Prior studies offer little guidance on whether and how much local governments enhance their revenue capacity with local sales taxes. This article unveils the underlying mechanisms by exploring the capitalization of sales taxes into housing prices as a property tax base measure. The empirical analysis reveals a capitalization of local sales taxes into housing prices, indicating the reduction of property tax bases in higher sales tax areas from the long-term perspective. The findings suggest that a sales tax rate increase might not raise local revenue capacity as much as policymakers intend.     

The Dynamics of Enlargement in International Organizations

Most international organizations (IOs) expand their membership over the course of their lifespan. Although these enlargements tend to be heralded as normatively positive — for the IOs themselves, for the new members, and for cooperative outcomes more generally — expansions can also lead to conflicts in the organization. What conditions lead to enlargement rounds that reshape an organization in unexpected ways? We argue that, depending upon the diversity of the initial group of countries, members may vote to admit new entrants that can tilt organizational decision-making in unexpected directions. We anticipate fewer enlargements with lesser impact on the character of the organization among organizations that have either a smaller range of founding members or a relatively even initial dispersion. We develop an agent-based model that accounts for the complex decision-making environment and social dynamics that typify IO accession processes. The model helps us explain how the nature of decision-making in organizations can shift following enlargement, likely changing the organization’s output and goals.     

Dynamic latent trait models: An application to Latin American banking crises

Dynamic latent trait models combine information from a variety of manifest variables, possibly measured on different scales, that are presumed to be indicators of an unobserved latent phenomenon, while allowing appropriate consideration of the longitudinal character of time series. I use a Bayesian dynamic latent trait model of banking sector financial accounts measured at the country/quarter level to build an indicator of banking system robustness in Latin America. As a methodological innovation, I extend dynamic latent trait models to take into account country-specific effects of bank regulatory regimes through hierarchical modeling of factor loadings. I suggest how these models can be applied to other types of phenomena—for example to combine existing political regime indicators to build a more informative measure of democracy.     

Negative Adult Influences and the Protective Effects of Role Models: A Study with Urban Adolescents

We investigated whether role models (individuals adolescents look up to) contributed to the resilience of adolescents who were exposed to negative nonparental adult influences. Our sample included 659 African American, ninth-grade adolescents. We found that adolescents’ exposure to negative adult behavior was associated with increased externalizing, internalizing, and substance using behaviors, as well as more negative school attitudes and behavior. We found that role models had protective effects on externalizing and internalizing behaviors and compensatory effects on school outcomes. Collectively, our findings indicate that role models can contribute to the resilience of African American adolescents who are exposed to negative nonparental adult behavior.

Advances in Osteometric Sorting: Utilizing Diaphyseal CSG Properties for Lower Limb Skeletal Pair-Matching

Pair-matching of bilateral elements is a major component of resolving commingled remains both in forensic and bioarchaeological contexts. This study presents a new method of osteometric pair-matching of the lower limbs which relies on 3D digital models of the femur and tibia bones. The proposed method, which is accompanied by a freely available open-source implementation, automatically computes a number of osteometric variables including cross-sectional geometric properties from an assemblage of left and right bone antimeres and calculates probabilistically the appropriate matching pairs as well as single elements, whose bones antimere is not present in the given assemblage. The method has been extensively tested on a skeletal sample comprising 396 femurs and 422 tibias from the Athens collection. Our results in testing commingled assemblages with no disparity show that the method’s sensitivity is 1 for sorting femurs and 0.997 for sorting tibias, whereas in assemblages with moderate disparity the sensitivity is 0.999 and 0.992 respectively. Our results further indicate that sensitivity is unaffected by the size of the commingled assemblage although the percentage of identified true matching pairs drops as the number of commingled elements increases. This means that all identified antimeres matched to an individual are still very accurately sorted despite not every individual being identified in very large assemblages. The proposed method can facilitate the sorting process of commingled remains both accurately and efficiently, while leaving a very small percentage of unsorted elements that may require further techniques for further individualization.     

Capitalism,Technology and Work: Interrogating the Tipping Point Thesis

Post-work politics, with a focus on universal basic income, rather than an agenda of saving jobs and improving the quality of work, has been a growth area on the left. This article challenges the views of proponents that their claims are ‘on trend' with developments in markets and technology. It does so by examining two supposed ‘tipping points' concerning crises in the production of value in capitalism and in the availability of and attachment to work. Through a rigorous examination of available evidence, the article demonstrates that the stories contained in post-work discourses about business models, technologies, labour markets and workers are not empirically sustainable. Suggestions are then made about what more credible accounts of actually existing capital, technology and labour might look like, and what the direction of alternative, progressive policy agendas might be.     

基于隐结构模型和聚类分析的2 907例支气管扩张症中医证型研究

目的 对支气管扩张症的中医证候特征进行探究。方法 基于2 907例支气管扩张症住院患者的电子病历数据,运用Lantern 5.0和SPSS 20.0软件分别进行频次描述性统计、隐结构及系统聚类分析,综合判断潜在证型,为提出支气管扩张症的临床常见中医证型提供依据。结果 纳入的2 907份病历记录中涉及43个证型,其中频率大于5%的有痰热蕴肺证（52%）、痰湿阻肺证（25.5%）、肺气阴两虚证（9.1%）、痰瘀阻肺证（7.8%）、肺脾气虚证（7.1%）、肺肾气虚证（6.6%）;共记录有219个症状,将出现频次＞30次的67个症状作为显变量,综合聚类成风热犯肺证、痰热蕴肺证、痰湿阻肺证、痰瘀阻肺证、阴虚肺热证、肺肾气虚证、肺脾气虚证、肺气阴两虚证共8个证候;对频次＞60次的52个症状进行系统聚类分析,得到风热犯肺证、痰热蕴肺证、痰湿阻肺证、肺气阴两虚证、肺脾气虚兼外感证、阴虚内热兼血瘀证、肺肾气虚证、脾气虚证、兼证络伤咳血证共10个证候。以上3种方法推断出的证型中,重复出现至少两次的证型共有8个,即可认定为支气管扩张症常见证型。结论 支气管扩张症8个常见的证型为风热犯肺证、痰热蕴肺证、痰湿阻肺证、痰瘀阻肺证、阴虚肺热证、肺肾气虚证、肺脾气虚证、肺气阴两虚证。     

General Deterrence and International Conflict: Testing Perfect Deterrence Theory

Since general deterrence necessarily precedes immediate deterrence, the analysis of general deterrence is more fundamental to an understanding of international conflict than is an analysis of immediate deterrence. Nonetheless, despite a few exceptions, the quantitative literature has ignored the subject of general deterrence, focusing almost exclusively on situations of immediate deterrence. My purpose in this essay is to fill this evidentiary gap by subjecting a recently developed theory of general deterrence—Perfect Deterrence Theory—to a systematic test by examining general deterrence from 1816–2000. The results indicate that the predictions of perfect deterrence theory are strongly supported by the empirical record.     

Conclusion – Building Regions from Below: Has the Time Come for Regionalism 2.0?

In a changing world ridden with crises and characterised by a general redistribution of power, regional organisations need to reinvent themselves. Equally, the study of regionalism has to reject its traditional Eurocentrism to embrace new conceptual categories in order to describe more effectively the variety of regional processes across the world. Against this background, this article looks at the European project and its current crisis before discussing other regional ‘experiments’ in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which rest on different principles but also manifest considerable shortcomings. The analysis points to the need to look at regionalism with a critical eye, emphasizing the undeniably important achievements but also the hidden threats that a certain model of regional integration (for instance, the classical top-down elite-driven process adopted by the EU founding fathers) can pose to the sustainability of regional cohesion and the adaptability of this model to other areas of the world.