A unique case of congenital bilateral absence of parietal bones in a neonate

The remains of an unidentified female neonate were discovered in a field in central Missouri. Examination revealed bilateral absence of the parietal bones. A search of the literature describing similar defects suggests that the present case represents a unique condition, described here for the first time.     

Is full better than half? Examining the longitudinal effects of full‐day kindergarten attendance

Kindergarten policy varies widely both across and within states. Over the past decade, a number of states have instituted a full‐day kindergarten requirement and others are considering it as a way to increase educational achievement. Many parents also support full‐day kindergarten as a source of child care. This paper uses the Early Child Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Class of 1998–1999 to evaluate the efficacy of this policy. In ordinary least squares, probit, county fixed effects, and instrumental variables models, we find that there are initial benefits for students and the mothers of students who attend full‐day kindergarten, but that these differences largely evaporate by third grade. Contrary to claims by some advocates, attending full‐day kindergarten is found to have no additional benefit for students in families with income below the poverty threshold. © 2006 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Bricks in the wall: the politics of housing in Europe

Abstract

Housing has important economic, political, and social ramifications for Western Europe and beyond. Despite its importance in shaping economic and political outcomes, however, housing remains in the peripheral vision of major comparative political economy debates. This introduction to the special issue accomplishes four objectives. First it demonstrates how housing defies current political economy typologies by failing to conform to their theoretical and empirical predictions. Second it summarises the current state of housing research within political science, which still remains in its infancy. Third it highlights how the contributions in this special issue expand our understanding of how housing causes and is shaped by political and economic outcomes in Europe. Finally, this introduction concludes by outlining how the special issue contributions demonstrate housing’s importance for the welfare state, political preferences and electoral shifts, regulatory and redistributive policies, and financialisation and household indebtedness in Europe.     

Teen Dating Relationships: How Daily Disagreements are Associated with Relationship Satisfaction

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Being in a satisfying romantic relationship in adolescence is associated to many short- and long-term benefits. However, more research is needed to better...     

The Politics of Security and Technology in Switzerland

Technologies play crucial roles in security politics. In a recent push to understand the dynamic interplay between technologies and politics, IR scholars increasingly draw on reflexive research traditions. The aim is to understand the social and political practices that influence the shape, design and use of security technologies instead of assuming that technologies have linear, independent effects on politics. This SPSR debate draws on this new perspective and applies it to topics salient in Swiss public debate. Its contributions analyze how cybersecurity, predictive policing, drones, artificial intelligence, targeted sanctions, urban design and spyware are deliberated, negotiated, programmed and critiqued in Switzerland. They chart different analytical avenues with which to address the recursive and non‐linear relationship between security politics and technologies, and, by familiarizing readers with the tenets and diversity of reflexive political science research, seek to give that longstanding scholarly research tradition better visibility in the Swiss political science community.     

State,Society, and Informality in Cities of the Global South

Contemporary urbanization in the Global South merits greater attention from scholars of comparative politics. Governance, associational life, and political behavior take distinctive forms in the social and institutional environments created by rapid urbanization, particularly within informal settlements and labor markets. In this special issue, we examine forms of collective action and claims-making in these spaces. We also consider how the state assesses, maps, and responds to the demands of informal sector actors. Tackling questions of citizen and state behavior in these informal urban contexts requires innovative research strategies due to data scarcity and social and institutional complexity. Contributors to this symposium offer novel strategies for addressing these challenges, including the use of informal archives, worksite-based sampling, ethnographic survey design, enforcement process-tracing, and crowd-sourced data.     

Big change,little change? Punctuation,increments and multi-layer institutional change for English local authorities under austerity

This paper draws on new institutionalist theories to consider how we might characterise the process and outcomes of change occurring in English local government as a result of the UK’s austerity policies. It uses national and local empirical data to argue that changes are best understood as multi-layer processes, whereby radical ‘punctuated’ shifts in national funding can be mitigated to incremental adjustments in service delivery at a local level. However, the paper also suggests that the incremental appearance of change may be temporary, and that diminishing institutional resilience and emergent discursive shifts potentially prefigure a paradigm change in local governance.