359 research outputs found
The persistence of legal uncertainty on EU citizens' access to social benefits in Germany.
Legal uncertainty may hinder the effective implementation of public policies. Still, the political and legal dynamics that underpin its persistence are underexplored. This article proposes that legal uncertainty is more likely to persist in multi-level political and legal systems where actors with authority on the same issue hold different interpretations of rules. Also, it suggests that, under these conditions, actors can use legal uncertainty as an opportunity to advance their own interests. We illustrate this argument by investigating the legal uncertainty concerning EU citizens' access to social benefits in Germany. Through the analysis of social legislation and courts' rulings, the article shows that different interpretations of EU law by domestic actors hindered the possibilities of settling uncertainty: national courts of different levels used litigation processes and referrals to the Court of Justice of the European Union to advance their legal interpretations and the German government profited from the uncertainty to exclude EU citizens from social benefits
Large-Area Liquid Scintillation Detector Slab
A low-cost detector 18' x 2' x 5" has been developed for an underground cosmic ray neutrino experiment. The liquid employed is a high-clarity mineral oil-based mixture, and light is guided to the ends of the detector by total internal reflection at the surface of the Lucite container. Signals from 2 five-inch photomultipliers at each end give energy and event location for single penetrating particles, with relatively good discrimination against natural radioactivity by virtue of the substantial thickness. Data are presented on the response function of the tank, energy resolution, rates and thresholds. A number of modifications that have been tried are also described
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A new trigonal huntite material and subgroup relationships between crystallographic space groups
The use of an adjacency matrix to determine distant (not maximal or
minimal) subgroup and supergroup relationships between crystallographic spacegroup
types is described. Full lists of space-group types that are supergroups and
subgroups for every space-group type were compiled. A list of the space-group
types connected to each space-group type by combined maximal subgroup!
minimal supergroup paths was compiled. Each of these lists was also compiled in
matrix form, showing for each pair of space-group types whether one is a subgroup
of the other and how many maximal subgroup, minimal supergroup, or
combination of maximal subgroup and minimal supergroup steps are required to
connect them. A method for using these lists and matrices to construct shortest
path subgroup/supergroup graphs between space-group types was developed.
From the matrices, statistics were compiled on the number of subgroup and
supergroup paths of lengths one to six between space-group types, the average,
median, and expected shortest path length between space-group types, and the
number of space-group types each space-group type has as subgroups and
supergroups. Correlations were sought between these properties and the number of
organic and inorganic crystal structures of each space-group type. It was
determined that organic compounds tend to crystallize in space-space groups that
have many space-group types as supergroups and few space-group types as
subgroups.
The 17 most prevalent organic structure space-group types, comprising 90%
of organic structures, were found to be closely related (paths of length 1 or 2) by
subgroup/supergroup paths to each of two space-group types: P2â and P2â/c. Other
space-group type were found to be related to space-group types comprising more
than 90% of organic structures by paths of length one or two.
Properties of graphs and frees consisting exclusively of type I or type II
subgroup relationships are discussed.
The subgroup relationships work was motivated by the structure
determination of a new trigonal huntite material, yttrium lanthanum scandium
borate. Linear and nonlinear optical properties, the structure, and the composition
range of this material are discussed
Increased Radiative Lifetime of Rare Earth-doped Zinc Oxyhalide Tellurite Glasses
We have investigated the structural and optical properties of rare earth-doped zinc tellurite glasses modified by the substitution of ZnF2. Raman and phonon sideband spectroscopies were employed to characterize changes in the glass structure as well as to probe vibrational behavior in the immediate vicinity of the rare earth ion. These measurements are combined with photoluminescence and optical absorption to monitor the effect of halide substitution upon the optical behavior of the rare earth dopant. A substantial increase in the intrinsic radiative lifetime of Nd3+ is observed with increasing halide concentration
Large-Area Liquid Scintillation Detector Slab
A low-cost detector 18' x 2' x 5" has been developed for an underground cosmic ray neutrino experiment. The liquid employed is a high-clarity mineral oil-based mixture, and light is guided to the ends of the detector by total internal reflection at the surface of the Lucite container. Signals from 2 five-inch photomultipliers at each end give energy and event location for single penetrating particles, with relatively good discrimination against natural radioactivity by virtue of the substantial thickness. Data are presented on the response function of the tank, energy resolution, rates and thresholds. A number of modifications that have been tried are also described
Cultural Theories of Postpartum Bleeding in Matlab, Bangladesh: Implications for Community Health Intervention
Early recognition can reduce maternal disability and deaths due to postpartum haemorrhage. This study identified cultural theories of postpartum bleeding that may lead to inappropriate recognition and delayed care-seeking. Qualitative and quantitative data obtained through structured interviews with 149 participants living in Matlab, Bangladesh, including women aged 18-49 years, women aged 50+ years, traditional birth attendants (TBAs), and skilled birth attendants (SBAs), were subjected to cultural domain. General consensus existed among the TBAs and lay women regarding signs, causes, and treatments of postpartum bleeding (eigenvalue ratio 5.9, mean competence 0.59, and standard deviation 0.15). Excessive bleeding appeared to be distinguished by flow characteristics, not colour or quantity. Yet, the TBAs and lay women differed significantly from the SBAs in beliefs about normalcy of blood loss, causal role of the retained placenta and malevolent spirits, and care practices critical to survival. Cultural domain analysis captures variation in theories with specificity and representativeness necessary to inform community health intervention
Role of neutral evolution in word turnover during centuries of english word popularity
Š The Author(s). Here, we test Neutral models against the evolution of English word frequency and vocabulary at the corpus scale, as recorded in annual word frequencies from three centuries of English language books. Against these data, we test both static and dynamic predictions of two neutral models, including the relation between corpus size and vocabulary size, frequency distributions, and turnover within those frequency distributions. Although a commonly used Neutral model fails to replicate all these emergent properties at once, we find that modified two-stage Neutral model does replicate the static and dynamic properties of the corpus data. This two-stage model is meant to represent a relatively small corpus of English books, analogous to a âcanonâ, sampled by an exponentially increasing corpus of books among the wider population of authors. More broadly, this model â a smaller neutral model within a larger neutral model â could represent more broadly those situations where mass attention is focused on a small subset of the cultural variants
Mineração de dados para identificar atributos genĂŠticos associados Ă caracterĂsticas de interesse econĂ´mico Ă pecuĂĄria.
Pesquisadores da ĂĄrea de melhoramento genĂŠtico possuem cada vez mais acesso a dados genĂŠticos e genĂ´micos e demandam por um mĂŠtodo ou ferramenta robusta que atendam Ă s suas necessidades na descoberta de conhecimento
Intrinsic honesty and the prevalence of rule violations across societies
Deception is common in nature and humans are no exception. Modern societies have created institutions to control cheating, but many situations remain where only intrinsic honesty keeps people from cheating and violating rules. Psychological, sociological and economic theories suggest causal pathways to explain how the prevalence of rule violations in peopleâs social environment, such as corruption, tax evasion or political fraud, can compromise individual intrinsic honesty. Here we present cross-societal experiments from 23 countries around the world that demonstrate a robust link between the prevalence of rule violations and intrinsic honesty. We developed an index of the âprevalence of rule violationsâ (PRV) based on country-level data from the year 2003 of corruption, tax evasion and fraudulent politics. We measured intrinsic honesty in an anonymous die-rolling experiment. We conducted the experiments with 2,568 young participants (students) who, due to their young age in 2003, could not have influenced PRV in 2003. We find individual intrinsic honesty is stronger in the subject pools of low PRV countries than those of high PRV countries. The details of lying patterns support psychological theories of honesty. The results are consistent with theories of the cultural co-evolution of institutions and values, and show that weak institutions and cultural legacies that generate rule violations not only have direct adverse economic consequences, but might also impair individual intrinsic honesty that is crucial for the smooth functioning of society
Niche as a determinant of word fate in online groups
Patterns of word use both reflect and influence a myriad of human activities
and interactions. Like other entities that are reproduced and evolve, words
rise or decline depending upon a complex interplay between {their intrinsic
properties and the environments in which they function}. Using Internet
discussion communities as model systems, we define the concept of a word niche
as the relationship between the word and the characteristic features of the
environments in which it is used. We develop a method to quantify two important
aspects of the size of the word niche: the range of individuals using the word
and the range of topics it is used to discuss. Controlling for word frequency,
we show that these aspects of the word niche are strong determinants of changes
in word frequency. Previous studies have already indicated that word frequency
itself is a correlate of word success at historical time scales. Our analysis
of changes in word frequencies over time reveals that the relative sizes of
word niches are far more important than word frequencies in the dynamics of the
entire vocabulary at shorter time scales, as the language adapts to new
concepts and social groupings. We also distinguish endogenous versus exogenous
factors as additional contributors to the fates of words, and demonstrate the
force of this distinction in the rise of novel words. Our results indicate that
short-term nonstationarity in word statistics is strongly driven by individual
proclivities, including inclinations to provide novel information and to
project a distinctive social identity.Comment: Supporting Information is available here:
http://www.plosone.org/article/fetchSingleRepresentation.action?uri=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0019009.s00
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