40‐Hz Square‐Wave Stimulation Requires Less Energy to Produce Muscle Contraction: Compared with the TASER® X26 Conducted Energy Weapon

Conducted energy weapons (CEWs) (including the Advanced TASER^® X26 model produced by TASER International, Inc.) incapacitate individuals by causing muscle contractions. In this study using anesthetized swine, the potential incapacitating effect of primarily monophasic, 19‐Hz voltage imposed by the commercial CEW was compared with the effect of voltages imposed by a laboratory device that created 40‐Hz square waves. Forces of muscle contraction were measured with the use of strain gauges. Stimulation with 40‐Hz square waves required less pulse energy than stimulation with the commercial CEW to produce similar muscle contraction. The square‐pulse stimulation, at the higher repetition rate, caused a more complete tetanus at a lower energy. Use of such a simple shape of waveform may be used to make future nonlethal weapon devices more efficient.     

Still Paying for the Past: Examining Gender Differences in Employment Among Individuals with a Criminal Record

Although many studies have examined employment outcomes of those with criminal convictions, no study to date has examined gender differences in employment outcomes of individuals with criminal convictions using a nationally representative sample of individuals from the United States. In this study, we use data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine differences in employment after a criminal conviction for females and males. Results reveal that for women with a conviction, a drug offense and having dependent children limit the number of weeks of employment. For males, race, education, age at first conviction, and a subsequent conviction predict the number of weeks employed. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.     

美国虐童防控对策研究

虐童是全球的普遍现象,美国儿童也深受其害.美国的虐童现状堪忧,原因错综复杂.虐童不仅会造成孩子身体上的伤害,还会对孩子造成心理上的伤害,这种伤害要持续很长时间甚至一生.针对此,美国形成了应对虐童的综合性防控体系,有着严格的法律保障、系统的组织保障和充足的资金保障,形成了主动先发的前瞻性预防模式,把虐童预防的重点放在了整个社会的综合预防.实践证明,美国的这种综合性防控虐童对策具有良好的防控效果.     

Development and use of a restorative justice ideology instrument: assessing beliefs

Researchers have noted that restorative justice (RJ) practices in schools seem to improve targeted outcomes (e.g. decreased office visits, increased grades, etc.). It has been acknowledged that a ‘grassroots’ (beliefs level) buy-in from teachers is necessary for the creation of a school environment that is in line with the ideals of RJ. In the current study, an operational definition for restorative justice ideology (RJI) was developed and used as the basis for the creation of a RJI measurement instrument. This is intended to facilitate understandings of the influence that RJ training has on individuals at the beliefs level, and whether the degree to which an individual holds an RJI is associated with the degree to which RJ practices are carried out at the classroom and school level. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted, a three-factor model was selected, and the instrument was tested for reliability and validity. The RJI was then used to investigate whether other individual differences were related to the RJI of teachers. The outcome of this study was the development of a psychometrically sound RJI instrument. Perspective taking, empathic concern, pupil control ideology, personal distress, and self-efficacy were identified as important characteristics of RJI.     

Control and Ownership of Assets Within Rural Ethiopian Households

This article investigates how the control and devolution of productive assets are allocated among husband and wife. Theory predicts that bargaining power within marriage depends on the division of assets upon divorce and on control over assets during marriage. Using detailed household data from rural Ethiopia, we show that assets brought to marriage, ownership of assets, control within marriage, and disposition upon death or divorce are only partly related. Productive resources are controlled by the household head. Disposition upon death or divorce only loosely depends on individual ownership during marriage but control is associated with larger claims upon divorce. Assets brought into marriage have little impact on disposition upon death, but matter in case of divorce.     

Fixers as Shadow “Public Servants”: A Case Study of Israel

Fixers can thrive in any level of political, bureaucratic, or institutional development. Paradoxically the academic research of the phenomenon of fixers is in its infancy. There exists no accepted definition of fixers; the boundaries between fixers and lobbyists remain murky, in terms of comparative administration only limited knowledge about the forces that breed different types of fixers in different political settings is available; and no deductive theory was articulated that might determine when and how fixing might become dysfunctional and corruptive. In an attempt to better understand the phenomenon of fixers more theoretically; this study analyzes fixers in view of three theories of bureaucratic corruption, and in view of the emerging theory of alternative politics. Using Israel as a case in point, the study shows that within certain national and local branches of government fixers not only create a shadow copy of official institutions, but also foster institutional corruption.     

Between poverty and prosperity: China’s dependent development and the ‘middle-income trap’

Despite China’s rapid economic growth in the past three decades, Chinese officials and experts are increasingly worried that the country is slowly heading towards the ‘middle-income trap’. The fear is that China might suffer the same stagnation and turbulence as Latin American economies did in the 1980s and 1990s. Will China be able to avoid this trap? Building on the insights of world-systems theory, this paper argues that China’s dependent development, although enabling it to escape the ‘poverty trap’, is likely to bog it down in the ‘middle-income trap’. China’s heavy reliance upon foreign technologies and investment has harmful effects on its economy. Dependent development not only increases China’s economic vulnerability but also truncates domestic industries. To escape the trap, the Chinese state should play a more active role in shifting its growth model away from low-end commodity manufacturing to knowledge-based, high value-added activities.     

Beyond the fallacy of coup-ism: conceptualizing civilian control of the military in emerging democracies

It is consensus in the democratization literature that civilian control of the military is a necessary ingredient for democracy and democratic consolidation. However, there is considerable disagreement on what civilian control of the military exactly entails and there is a lack of solid theoretical arguments for how weak or absent civilian control affects democratic governance. Furthermore, a considerable portion of the research literature is captured by the fallacy of coup-ism, ignoring the many other forms in which military officers can constrain the authority of democratically elected political leaders to make political decisions and get them implemented. This article addresses these lacunae by providing a new conceptual framework for the analysis of civil–military relations in emerging democracies. From democracy theory it derives a definition of civilian control as a certain distribution of decision-making power between civilian leaders and military officers. Based on this definition, the authors develop a five-dimensional concept of civilian control, discuss the effects of weakly institutionalized civilian control on the quality of democracy and address the chances for democratic consolidation.     

The NHS Information Revolution: ‘Choice of Control’ to ‘Choice’ and ‘Control’

This paper provides a novel and critical analysis of the necessary and important balance between ‘individual privacy’ and ‘collective transparency’. We suggest that the onset of the Information Revolution has created a dilemma for the National Health Service (NHS) in terms of how it addresses its obligation to use information to improve best practice in healthcare for society (‘collective transparency’) whilst also keeping sensitive personal information confidential (‘individual privacy’). There is clearly a need to consider both whether the NHS is balancing this critically important informational relationship and whether its approach is fit for purpose. We argue that the NHS's ‘proxy-individual’ information guardian role could inadvertently mask individuals' intended roles, effectively circumventing autonomy-based laws by limiting the power of individuals to be autonomous. In this article we have identified three issues – first the prevailing ‘Mindset’ (the ‘M’) of ‘privacy’, which is viewed as individualistic, resulting in an overpowering concept of confidentiality; second, the quality and control of Information (the first ‘I’); and third, the concept of innovation (the second ‘i’), which is being used as a ‘solution’ rather than a vehicle for transparency. Indeed, transparency is our target of ‘best practice,’ and we suggest that individual privacy and collective transparency are best embedded within a complementary privacy framework that offers a better fit than the current split of control between the roles of the NHS and the roles of the individual. It is suggested that when facilitated by transparency, ‘control’ and ‘privacy’ form a continuum, aligning through the desire for choice. Therefore, the choice of control could facilitate control and choice. Together, they could replace the concept of privacy by empowering ‘informed patients’ to support the NHS's ‘No decision about me, without me’ pledge.     

行政自由裁量基准质疑

行政自由裁量基准是近年来我国行政法学界和行政法治实践关注的热点,其在理论和实践中似乎都已趋于成熟.然而,这一命题存在重大理论误区和实践困惑:作为基准的规则将裁量行为变为羁束行为,将外部行为内部化,将行政个案处置抽象化,将行政权利变为行政义务.基于此,对行政自由裁量权的控制还是应当回归到法律原则中来.传统的自由裁量权控制原则如比例原则、重大事实的误认无效原则、正当目的原则和平等原则等都是有用的.在此基础上我们亦可以建构一些具有我国特色的裁量原则.