Book review: accelerating democracy: transforming governance through technology

John O. McGinnis demonstrates how new technologies combine to address a problem as old as democracy itself: how to help citizens better evaluate the consequences of their political choices. Ana Polo Alonso thinks we can support or dismiss McGinnis’s proposals, but we cannot deny that the author makes a major effort to bring forth ingenious measures to really ‘accelerate democracy.’ Accelerating Democracy: Transforming Governance through Technology. John O. McGinnis. Princeton University Press. December 2012

Acts or events? A perspective from the marketing mix

La literatura existente en torno a las relaciones píublicas, el ceremonial y el protocolo alterna como sinónimos los términos actos y eventos. A través de una revisión teóricoconceptual, el principal objetivo de este trabajo es demostrar que ambos términos obedecen a realidades diferentes. Los resultados demuestran que, mientras que la organización de actos responde, desde la perspectiva de las relaciones públicas, a las necesidades comunicativas de las organizaciones; los eventos son herramientas que, desde la perspectiva del Mix de Marketing, permiten satisfacer las necesidades económicas, fundamentalmente, de las empresas.The existing public relations, ceremonial and protocol literature alternates the terms acts and events as synonyms. Through a theoretical-conceptual revision, the main objective of this work is to demonstrate that both terms obey different realities. The results show that, while the organization of acts responds, from the perspective of public relations, to the communicative needs of the organizations; Events are tools that, from the perspective of the Marketing Mix, allow meeting, mainly, the economic needs of companies

Book review: The violent image: insurgent propaganda and the new revolutionaries

"The Violent Image: Insurgent Propaganda and the New Revolutionaries." Neville Bolt. Hurst. May 2012. --- Fast-moving, self-propelled ‘violent images’ have radically changed the nature of insurgency in the modern world. The global media has revolutionised the way ideas, messages and images are disseminated, and the speed with which they travel. Neville Bolt investigates how today’s revolutionaries have rejuvenated the nineteenth century ‘propaganda of the deed’ so that terrorism no longer simply goads states into overreacting, thereby losing legitimacy. Ana Polo Alonso finds an elegantly-written and well-researched read, suitable for students of media studies and terrorism

Corporate governance of banks: the current state of the debate.

Since banks are among the most important sources not only of finance but also of external governance for firms, the corporate governance of banks is a crucial factor for growth and development. Despite its importance, this topic has been explored only by a few studies. While some authors support, with different arguments in the course of time, the specificity of banks, other authors, among whom Ross Levine and his co-authors from the World Bank, question heavily the present banking regulatory framework. The debate on the corporate governance of banks has a direct bearing on the current discussions on the future of banking regulatory design: should the regulatory intervention be the most important corporate control mechanism in banking or should regulators focus on introducing incentives for appropriate market behaviour?Financial economics; Corporate Governance; Banking; Regulation and Supervision; Market Discipline; Securities Law

Challenges for the development of a biotic ligand model predicting copper toxicity in estuaries and seas

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2011 SETAC.An effort is ongoing to develop a biotic ligand model (BLM) that predicts copper (Cu) toxicity in estuarine and marine environments. At present, the BLM accounts for the effects of water chemistry on Cu speciation, but it does not consider the influence of water chemistry on the physiology of the organisms. We discuss how chemistry affects Cu toxicity not only by controlling its speciation, but also by affecting the osmoregulatory physiology of the organism, which varies according to salinity. In an attempt to understand the mechanisms of Cu toxicity and predict its impacts, we explore the hypothesis that the common factor linking the main toxic effects of Cu is the enzyme carbonic anhydrase (CA), because it is a Cu target with multiple functions and salinity-dependent expression and activity. According to this hypothesis, the site of action of Cu in marine fish may be not only the gill, but also the intestine, because in this tissue CA plays an important role in ion transport and water adsorption. Therefore, the BLM of Cu toxicity to marine fish should also consider the intestine as a biotic ligand. Finally, we underline the need to incorporate the osmotic gradient into the BLM calculations to account for the influence of physiology on Cu toxicity.Brunel Universit