Cops, Teachers, and the Art of the Impossible: Explaining the lack of diffusion of impossible job innovations

In their now classic Impossible Jobs in Public Management, Hargrove and Glidewell (1990) argue that public agencies with limited legitimacy, high conflict, low professional authority, and weak agency myths have essentially impossible jobs. Leaders of such agencies can do little more than cope, which is also a theme of James Q. Wilson (1989), among others. Yet in the years since publication of Impossible Jobs, one such position, that of police commissioner has proven possible. Over a sustained 17-year period, the New York City Police Department has achieved dramatic reductions in crime with relatively few political repercussions, as described by Kelling and Sousa (2001). A second impossible job discussed by Wilson and also by Frederick Hess (1999), city school superintendent, has also proven possible, with Houston and Edmonton having considerable academic success educating disadvantaged children. In addition, Atlanta and Pittsburgh enjoyed significant success in elementary schooling, though the gains were short-lived for reasons we will describe. More recently, under Michelle Rhee, Washington D.C. schools have made the most dramatic gains among city school systems. These successes in urban crime control and public schooling have not been widely copied. Accordingly, we argue that the real conundrum of impossible jobs is why agency leaders fail to copy successful innovations. Building on the work of Teodoro (2009), we will discuss how the relative illegitimacy of clients and inflexibility of personnel systems combine with the professional norms, job mobility and progressive ambition of agency leaders to limit the diffusion of innovations in law enforcement and schooling. We will conclude with ideas about how to overcome these barriers

“Dirty” Workplace Politics and Well-Being: The Role of Gender

We build and empirically test an integrative model of gender, workplace politics, and stress by integrating social role theory and prescriptive gender stereotypes with the transactional theory of stress. To examine the effect of gender on the relation between exposure to non-sanctioned political influence tactics (NPITs; e.g., self-serving and socially undesirable behaviors such as manipulation and intimidation) and stress outcomes, we employed a daily diary design with 64 employed adults over the course of 12 working days. In support of our hypotheses, exposure to NPITs––that is, “dirty politics”––elicited a threat appraisal that, in turn, related to the activation of negative emotions. Moreover, unlike men, women who reported higher levels of NPITs experienced heightened levels of threat appraisal and ultimately negative emotions. We demonstrate that pairing social role theory with the transactional theory of stress is a useful approach for researchers interested in better understanding gender differences in the occupational stress process. Anyone interested in reducing stress in the workplace is encouraged not only to reduce the occurrence of NPITs, but also to consider ways to reduce the threat associated with them, especially for women

Spitzer Observations of IC 2118

IC 2118, also known as the Witch Head Nebula, is a wispy, roughly cometary, ~5 degree long reflection nebula, and is thought to be a site of triggered star formation. In order to search for new young stellar objects (YSOs), we have observed this region in 7 mid- and far-infrared bands using the Spitzer Space Telescope and in 4 bands in the optical using the U. S. Naval Observatory 40-inch telescope. We find infrared excesses in 4 of the 6 previously-known T Tauri stars in our combined infrared maps, and we find 6 entirely new candidate YSOs, one of which may be an edge-on disk. Most of the YSOs seen in the infrared are Class II objects, and they are all in the "head" of the nebula, within the most massive molecular cloud of the region.Comment: Accepted to Ap

Cryptic Leishmania infantum infection in Italian HIV infected patients

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Visceral leishmaniasis (VL) is a protozoan diseases caused in Europe by <it>Leishmania (L.) infantum</it>. Asymptomatic <it>Leishmania </it>infection is more frequent than clinically apparent disease. Among HIV infected patients the risk of clinical VL is increased due to immunosuppression, which can reactivate a latent infection. The aims of our study were to assess the prevalence of asymptomatic <it>L. infantum </it>infection in HIV infected patients and to study a possible correlation between <it>Leishmania </it>parasitemia and HIV infection markers.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>One hundred and forty-five HIV infected patients were screened for the presence of anti-<it>Leishmania </it>antibodies and <it>L. infantum </it>DNA in peripheral blood. Statistical analysis was carried out by using a univariate regression analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Antibodies to <it>L. infantum </it>were detected in 1.4% of patients. <it>L. infantum </it>DNA was detected in 16.5% of patients. Significant association for PCR-<it>Leishmania </it>levels with plasma viral load was documented (p = 0.0001).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>In our area a considerable proportion of HIV infected patients are asymptomatic carriers of <it>L. infantum </it>infection. A relationship between high HIV viral load and high parasitemic burden, possibly related to a higher risk of developing symptomatic disease, is suggested. PCR could be used for periodic screening of HIV patients to individuate those with higher risk of reactivation of <it>L. infantum </it>infection.</p

Does Private Islamic Schooling Promote Terrorism? An Analysis of the Educational Background of Successful American Homegrown Terrorists

Some commentators argue that private religious schools are less likely to inculcate the attributes of good citizenship than traditional public schools, specifically proposing that private Islamic schools are relatively more likely to produce individuals sympathetic to terrorism. This study offers a preliminary examination of the question by studying the educational backgrounds of Western educated terrorists. While data are limited, in accord with prior work findings indicate the vast majority of both Islamic and reactionary terrorists attended traditional public schools and had no religious education; hence findings suggest that early religious training and identification may actually encourage prosocial behavior

Cryo-electron tomography of cells: connecting structure and function

Cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) allows the visualization of cellular structures under close-to-life conditions and at molecular resolution. While it is inherently a static approach, yielding structural information about supramolecular organization at a certain time point, it can nevertheless provide insights into function of the structures imaged, in particular, when supplemented by other approaches. Here, we review the use of experimental methods that supplement cryo-ET imaging of whole cells. These include genetic and pharmacological manipulations, as well as correlative light microscopy and cryo-ET. While these methods have mostly been used to detect and identify structures visualized in cryo-ET or to assist the search for a feature of interest, we expect that in the future they will play a more important role in the functional interpretation of cryo-tomograms

Complement component 3 (C3) expression in the hippocampus after excitotoxic injury: role of C/EBPβ

[Background] The CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β (C/EBPβ) is a transcription factor implicated in the control of proliferation, differentiation, and inflammatory processes mainly in adipose tissue and liver; although more recent results have revealed an important role for this transcription factor in the brain. Previous studies from our laboratory indicated that CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β is implicated in inflammatory process and brain injury, since mice lacking this gene were less susceptible to kainic acid-induced injury. More recently, we have shown that the complement component 3 gene (C3) is a downstream target of CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β and it could be a mediator of the proinflammatory effects of this transcription factor in neural cells.[Methods] Adult male Wistar rats (8–12 weeks old) were used throughout the study. C/EBPβ+/+ and C/EBPβ–/– mice were generated from heterozygous breeding pairs. Animals were injected or not with kainic acid, brains removed, and brain slices containing the hippocampus analyzed for the expression of both CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β and C3.[Results] In the present work, we have further extended these studies and show that CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β and C3 co-express in the CA1 and CA3 regions of the hippocampus after an excitotoxic injury. Studies using CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β knockout mice demonstrate a marked reduction in C3 expression after kainic acid injection in these animals, suggesting that indeed this protein is regulated by C/EBPβ in the hippocampus in vivo.[Conclusions] Altogether these results suggest that CCAAT/enhancer-binding protein β could regulate brain disorders, in which excitotoxic and inflammatory processes are involved, at least in part through the direct regulation of C3.This work was supported by MINECO, Grant SAF2014-52940-R and partially financed with FEDER funds. CIBERNED is funded by the Instituto de Salud Carlos III. JAM-G was supported by CIBERNED. We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer reviewe

The Presidency and the Executive Branch in Latin America: What We Know and What We Need to Know

The presidential politics literature depicts presidents either as all- powerful actors or figureheads and seeks to explain outcomes accordingly. Th e president and the executive branch are nonetheless usually treated as black boxes, particularly i n developing countries, even though the presidency has evolved into an extremely complex branch of government. While these developments have been studied in the U nited States, far less i s known in other countries, particularly in Latin America, where presi dential systems have been considered the source of all goods and evils. To help close the knowledge gap and explore differences in policymaking characteristics not only between Latin America and the US but also across Latin American countries, this paper s ummarizes the vast literature on the organization and resources of the Executive Branch in the Americas and sets a research agenda for the study of Latin American presidencies.Fil: Bonvecchi, Alejandro. Universidad Torcuato Di Tella. Departamento de Ciencia Política y Estudios Internacionales; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Scartascini, Juan Carlos. Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo; Estados Unido