Political Accountability, Fiscal Conditions, and Local Government Performance – Cross-Sectional Evidence from Indonesia

What makes governments tick? Why are some public institutions more successful than others in managing resources and delivering services? And even more vitally, how can malfunctioning institutions be reformed so that they perform their responsibilities more effectively? This paper contributes to our understanding of theses overarching questions by exploring the interactions between political institutions and public sector performance in the context of decentralization and local governance. It shows -both theoretically and empirically- that performance outcomes are determined by the extent to which people can hold their governments accountable through political institutions. The basic hypothesis underlying this research is that political accountability, either by encouraging sanctions upon non-compliant public agents or simply by reducing the informational gap regarding government activities, will create forceful incentives for elected officials and civil servants to reduce opportunistic behavior and improve performance. Using a cross-sectional regression the hypothesis is empirically tested against evidence from newly empowered local governments in Indonesia. The empirical findings broadly support our hypotheses. Improved public services on the ground, both in terms of quantity and quality, require informed and well functioning decision making processes that allocate resources to priority areas that meet the demand of the broader community.governance, public services, fiscal decentralization

Russia's market distorting federalism: decentralisation, governance, and economic performance in Russia in the 1990s

Der vorliegende Beitrag untersucht die Entwicklung zwischenstaatlicher Beziehungen in der russischen Föderation während der Zeit der wirtschaftlichen und politischen Transformation unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Dynamiken politischer, administrativer und fiskalischer Dezentralisierung. Der Autor analysiert auch, wie die Struktur der Macht- und Ressourcenverteilung zwischen den verschiedenen Ebenen der Regierung die staatlichen Anstrengungen in vielen Bereichen, wie z.B. bei der effizienten Bereitstellung öffentlicher Güter oder der Unterstützung des geschäftlichen Wachstums, beeinflussen. Im ersten Kapitel erfolgt ein Überblick über relevante theoretische Literatur zu diesem Themenkomplex. Die Hauptergebnisse der Debatte über die Interaktion von Institutionen, Regierungsgewalt, Dezentralisierung und Wirtschaftsentwicklung werden dabei im Kontext der postkommunistischen Transformation operationalisiert. Das zweite Kapitel konzentriert sich auf den Fall Russland. Welche relevanten Institutionen gibt es? Welche formellen und informellen Regeln gibt es im Kontext der zwischenstaatlichen Beziehungen und der Akteure innerhalb des föderalen Systems? Welche Auswirkungen haben die zeitgleiche politische und fiskalische Dezentralisierung auf die Effizienz des institutionellen Designs? Im letzten Kapitel stellt der Autor seine Hauptergebnisse und Schlussfolgerungen vor, die als Grundlage für politische Optionen und Reformempfehlungen dienen können. (ICD)"In theory fiscal decentralisation is seen as a way to overcome informational constraints and opportunistic behaviour in a political system. It can increase accountability and the efficiency of the public sector thus improving the quality of governance and enhancing economic growth. However, empirical and theoretical studies of decentralisation suggest that the positive effects associated with fiscal decentralisation heavily depend on the institutional structures governing intergovernmental relations. Since in practice decentralisation is often the outcome of an intricate political process, the evolving institutional structures can limit efficiency. Indeed, the decentralisation process in the Russian Federation has been rapid, uncoordinated and largely non-transparent, with the emerging institutional system of intergovernmental relations limiting economic efficiency. Decentralisation has been taking place in a complex environment and was pulled and pushed by a multitude of factors. The problems intertwined with intergovernmental relations include the recent history of disintegration of the Soviet Union; the ongoing violent conflicts in Chechnya; the ethno-linguistic, religious and historical differences across Russia's vast territory; great variations in the endowment of mineral resources; increasingly large economic and fiscal disparities across regions and local governments. This political complexity has resulted in a malfunctioning system of intergovernmental relations. The paper argues that various aspects of this system have created adverse incentives for sub-national governments. For most of the 90s sub-national governments faced weak fiscal incentives for responsible budgetary management and the adoption of policies conducive to entrepreneurship, fair competition, and the development of new private firms. This is reflected in the poor climate for business and investment, excessive entry barriers, licenses, fees, taxes and various types of extortion imposed by regional and local governments. Moreover, the concentration of a significant share of federal transfers in regions with rather conservative economic policies has -while smoothing income disparities- contributed to the persistence of gaps in the economic base of regions and helped to delay restructuring. Beside the incentive problems deriving directly from the institutional design of the fiscal system another important factor certainly contributing to its malfunctioning is that sub-national governments have been captured by special interest groups. Colluding with large enterprises many regions have engaged in evading the payment of federal shares of tax revenues in order to increase share remaining within the region in particular by the extensive usage of barter and money surrogates. Hence, regional governments generally contributed to stagnant growth and persisting governance problems, e.g. inefficient tax collection, lack of economic restructuring, barter and arrears in Russia in the 90s. Decentralisation, while certainly benefiting some regions and enterprises, created externalities for the country as a whole, that undercut any potential economic benefits that it might be expected to deliver." (author's abstract

Weight estimations with time-reversed point-light displays

Interpreting other’s actions is a very important ability not only in social life, but also in interactive sports. Previous experiments have demonstrated good estimation performances for the weight of lifted objects through point-light displays. The basis for these performances is commonly assigned to the concept of motor simulation regarding observed actions. In this study, we investigated the weak version of the motor simulation hypothesis which claims that the goal of an observed action strongly influences its understanding (Fogassi, Ferrari, Gesierich, Rozzi, Chersi, & Rizzolatti, 2005). Therefore, we conducted a weight judgement task with point-light displays and showed participants videos of a model lifting and lowering three different weights. The experimental manipulation consisted of a goal change of these actions by showing the videos normal and in a time-reversed order of sequence. The results show a systematic overestimation of weights for time-reversed lowering actions (thus looking like lifting actions) while weight estimations for time-reversed lifting actions did not differ from the original playback direction. The results are discussed in terms of motor simulation and different kinematic profiles of the presented actions. © 2020, The Author(s)

TENNIS GROUND STROKES FROM A BIRD’S EYE VIEW - A ESTIMATE OF ANGULAR MOMENTUM ABOUT THE LONGITUDINAL BODY AXIS

In this paper, a simple 2D video method will be outlined to estimate the angular momentum about the longitudinal body axis in tennis ground strokes from the base line. From a bird’s eye view, ground strokes of 19 young male experienced tennis players with two different skill levels were analyzed when returning balls released from a ball machine with three different ball frequencies. The angle between the shoulder axis and the base line was used as an estimate for the angular momentum about the longitudinal body axis. A validation procedure with a fully automated 3D motion capture system as adopted to evaluate the error involved in the 2D motion analysis. The results of this study show that for forehand and backhand strokes advanced young tennis players show consistently larger shoulder-baseline angles across all ball frequencies than players with a lower skill level

Beyond braid anyons: A lattice model for one-dimensional anyons with a Galilean invariant continuum limit

Anyonic exchange statistics can emerge when the configuration space of quantum particles is not simply-connected. Most famously, anyon statistics arises for particles with hard-core two-body constraints in two dimensions. Here, the exchange paths described by the braid group are associated to non-trivial geometric phases, giving rise to abelian braid anyons. Hard-core three-body constraints in one dimension (1D) also make the configuration space of particles non-simply connected, and it was recently shown that this allows for a different form of anyons with statistics given by the traid group instead of the braid group. In this article we propose a first concrete model for such traid anyons. We first construct a bosonic lattice model with number-dependent Peierls phases which implement the desired geometric phases associated with abelian representations of the traid group and then define anyonic operators so that the Hamiltonian becomes local and quadratic with respect to them. The ground-state of this traid-anyon-Hubbard model shows various indications of emergent approximate Haldane exclusion statistics. The continuum limit results in a Galilean invariant Hamiltonian with eigenstates that correspond to previously constructed continuum traid-anyonic wave functions. This provides not only an a-posteriori justification of our model, but also shows that our construction serves as an intuitive approach to traid anyons. Moreover, it contrasts with the non-Galilean invariant continuum limit of the anyon-Hubbard model [Keilmann et al., Nat.\ Comm.~\textbf{2}, 361 (2011)] describing braid anyons on a discrete 1D configuration space. We attribute this difference to the fact that (unlike braid anyons) traid anyons are well defined also in the continuum in 1D.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

FAS-Based Cell Depletion Facilitates the Selective Isolation of Mouse Induced Pluripotent Stem Cells

Cellular reprogramming of somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) opens up new avenues for basic research and regenerative medicine. However, the low efficiency of the procedure remains a major limitation. To identify iPSC, many studies to date relied on the activation of pluripotency-associated transcription factors. Such strategies are either retrospective or depend on genetically modified reporter cells. We aimed at identifying naturally occurring surface proteins in a systematic approach, focusing on antibody-targeted markers to enable live-cell identification and selective isolation. We tested 170 antibodies for differential expression between mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEF) and mouse pluripotent stem cells (PSC). Differentially expressed markers were evaluated for their ability to identify and isolate iPSC in reprogramming cultures. Epithelial cell adhesion molecule (EPCAM) and stage-specific embryonic antigen 1 (SSEA1) were upregulated early during reprogramming and enabled enrichment of OCT4 expressing cells by magnetic cell sorting. Downregulation of somatic marker FAS was equally suitable to enrich OCT4 expressing cells, which has not been described so far. Furthermore, FAS downregulation correlated with viral transgene silencing. Finally, using the marker SSEA-1 we exemplified that magnetic separation enables the establishment of bona fide iPSC and propose strategies to enrich iPSC from a variety of human source tissues

Urinary T Cells Identify Renal Antineutrophil Cytoplasmic Antibody-Associated Vasculitis and Predict Prognosis: A Proof of Concept Study

INTRODUCTION: Necrotizing crescentic glomerulonephritis is a major contributor to morbidity and mortality in Antineutrophil cytoplasmic antibodies (ANCA)-associated vasculitis (AAV). Because therapy relies on immunosuppressive agents with potentially severe adverse effects, a reliable noninvasive biomarker of disease activity is needed to guide treatment. METHODS: We used flow cytometry to quantify T cell subsets in blood and urine samples from 95 patients with AAV and 8 controls to evaluate their biomarker characteristics. These were compared to soluble markers, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1), soluble CD163 (sCD163), soluble CD25 (sCD25), and complement C5a (C5a), measured using multiplex analysis. Available kidney biopsies (n = 21) were classified according to Berden. RESULTS: Patients with active renal AAV (rAAV) showed significantly higher urinary cell counts than those in remission, or those with extrarenal manifestation, or healthy controls. Urinary T cells showed robust discrimination of disease activity with superior performance compared to MCP-1 and sCD163. Patients whose kidney biopsies had been classified as “crescentic” according to Berden classification showed higher urinary T cell counts. Discordant regulatory T cells (Treg) proportions and CD4+/CD8+ ratio in blood and urine suggested that urinary cells reflect tissue migration rather than mere micro-bleeding. Furthermore, urinary Treg and T helper cells (TH17) patterns were associated with clinical response and risk of renal relapse. CONCLUSION: Urinary T cells reflect the renal inflammatory milieu in AAV and provide further insights into the pathogenesis of this chronic condition. Their promising potential as noninvasive diagnostic and prognostic biomarkers deserves further exploitation

Análise de timol em cera de abelha por micro-extracção em fase sólida (SPME)

A aplicação contínua de acaricídas lipofílicos sintéticos no tratamento das abelhas conduz a uma acumulação que depende da frequência, lipofilicidade e quantidade de princípio activo utilizada. Este efeito é mais acentuado na cera de abelha que no mel, no entanto, e porque a persistência destes resíduos é elevada, provoca o aparecimento de resistências e a perda do seu efeito acaricida.[1] Esta razão levou à pesquisa de outros compostos alternativos não tóxicos e não persistentes, com efeito sobre o ácaro das abelhas, Varroa Jacobsoni. Entre estes compostos encontra-se o timol, um composto fenólico, volátil, presente no tomilho. Dos diversos componentes dos óleos essenciais este é sem dúvida o que demonstrou maior efeito acaricida, utilizando-se no tratamento das abelhas directamente ou como componente de diversas formulações.[2] Em Portugal, foi introduzido muito recentemente sob a forma comercial de APIGUARD: um gel, à base de timol, que controla termicamente a libertação do princípio activo. O controlo dos resíduos de timol na cera de abelha e no mel é assim um desafio actual quer do ponto de vista sanitário quer de qualidade alimentar. A micro-extracção em fase sólida (SPME) é uma técnica de preparação de amostras que se baseia na sorção de analítos no revestimento de uma fibra de sílica fundida e posterior desorção térmica no injector de um cromatógrafo em fase gasosa (GC). Para além de combinar num único processo etapas de extracção, purificação e concentração dos analitos, a técnica de SPME apresenta uma série de vantagens relativamente às técnicas de extracção convencionais, como a extracção líquido-líquido e extracção em fase sólida, nomeadamente a sua relativa simplicidade e rapidez, reduzido custo e não utilização de solventes para a extracção de analitos, para além de permitir a extracção por imersão directa na amostra gasosa ou líquida e extracção por amostragem do espaço-de-cabeça da amostra líquida ou sólida.[3] Ao contrário das técnicas tradicionais, que permitem uma extracção quantitativa dos analitos, a técnica de SPME baseia-se num equilíbrio de partição do analito. Esta particularidade torna a técnica de SPME bastante sensível a parâmetros experimentais que possam afectar os coeficientes de partição dos analitos e, consequentemente, a sensibilidade e reprodutibilidade dos resultados.[4] O objectivo deste trabalho é o desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para a análise de timol em ceras contaminadas, utilizando como padrão interno a benzofenona. Em primeiro lugar, procedeu-se à optimização da técnica através da determinação da quantidade de cera, temperatura de análise e período de contacto da fibra com o espaço-de-cabeça da amostra mais adequados para o caso em estudo. Numa segunda fase, procedeu-se à análise de diversas lâminas de cera contaminadas propositadamente com timol e sujeitas a diferentes condições de armazenamento: em frio, ao ar e em estufa. Finalmente, procedeu-se à construção da curva de calibração e quantificação do timol presente nas diversas amostras de cera analisadas. Considerando-se os resultados, para os níveis de contaminação avaliados, as condições analíticas mais adequadas ocorrem com a utilização de 1 g de cera, mantendo-se a fibra em contacto com o espaço-de-cabeça durante 40 minutos a uma temperatura de 60 ºC. Nestas condições experimentais foi possível obter uma boa correlação linear (r2=0,990) no intervalo de concentrações [3,5-14 mg/g]. A quantidade de timol encontrada nas amostras é significativamente inferior à colocada durante o processo de fabrico das lâminas, pelo que o processo de conservação não é o mais adequado, sendo evidente uma menor quantidade de timol quando a lâmina de cera é colocada na estufa