3,855 research outputs found
ENRICHING JUDICIAL INDEPENDENCE: SEEKING TO IMPROVE THE RETENTION VOTE PHASE OF AN APPOINTIVE SELECTION SYSTEM
This article discusses the problems and potential solutions with the system of judicial appointment in the state of Nebraska. The article focuses on how improving public awareness about the existing system, its goals, and its current weaknesses, and implementing steps to address those weaknesses, will help to keep everyone moving toward the best possible system. While changing attitudes and interest in judicial retention elections is certainly not an easy task, it is only through seeking such change that reformers of an elective retention system can hope to near its potential effectiveness
EVALUATION OF RURAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMMES FAILURES WITHIN THE 2007-13 REGIONAL POLICY FRAME
New 2007-13 planning framework of the EU keeps using economic criteria (GDP) to identify those regions requiring priority attention (convergence objective). Although these criteria are useful for the overall Regional Policy, nevertheless it might result some planning failures of the strategies of rural development. This work focuses in evaluating possible failures of the Rural Development Programmes. For this purpose, a wide range of member Estates and Regions has been selected and two analysis have been applied: first, the coherence analysis (in relation to the economic, social and environmental situation of territories); and second, the conflict (among the rural territories development objectives) analysis. As result of this evaluation, a typology of the analysed Rural Development Programmes will be shown, which identifies different cases of failures. This work concludes that the use of methodological criteria in Regional Policy complementing to the Efficiency criteria might improve the territorial cohesion process and reduce some of the analysed failures in rural areas.Rural Development Programmes, Regional Policy, European Union, Community/Rural/Urban Development,
Combined Effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation on Sea Surface Temperature in the Alborán Sea
We explored the possible effects of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and Arctic Oscillation (AO) on interannual sea
surface temperature (SST) variations in the Albora´n Sea, both separately and combined. The probability of observing mean
annual SST values higher than average was related to NAO and AO values of the previous year. The effect of NAO on SST
was negative, while that of AO was positive. The pure effects of NAO and AO on SST are obscuring each other, due to the
positive correlation between them. When decomposing SST, NAO and AO in seasonal values, we found that variation in
mean annual SST and mean winter SST was significantly related to the mean autumn NAO of the previous year, while mean
summer SST was related to mean autumn AO of the previous year. The one year delay in the effect of the NAO and AO on
the SST could be partially related to the amount of accumulated snow, as we found a significant correlation between the
total snow in the North Albora´n watershed for a year with the annual average SST of the subsequent year. A positive AO
implies a colder atmosphere in the Polar Regions, which could favour occasional cold waves over the Iberian Peninsula
which, when coupled with precipitations favoured by a negative NAO, may result in snow precipitation. This snow may be
accumulated in the high peaks and melt down in spring-summer of the following year, which consequently increases the
runoff of freshwater to the sea, which in turn causes a diminution of sea surface salinity and density, and blocks the local
upwelling of colder water, resulting in a higher SST.CGL2009-11316 (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, Spain, and FEDER
Corruption and entrepreneurship: A bibliometric analysis
The impact of corruption on entrepreneurial dynamics became an attractive topic for scholars after the appearance of public scandals that led to the delegitimization of many governments in the last 40 years. The research that explored the relationship between corruption and entrepreneurship has produced controversial results. It appears that the interaction of these two constructs is influenced by contextual factors both at an individual and national level of analysis. By using a bibliometric methodology and a fractional counting method to analyse the scientific literature on corruption and entrepreneurship, this paper identifies and analyses 180 articles recorded in the Scopus database. It represents a contribution by showing the state of the art of research on corruption and entrepreneurship and proposes future lines of research. Important results have been found about the evolution of the volume of articles and citations on this topic over time. Significant academic interest in this field commenced in the 21st century, and more specifically in the last ten years. This work also provides findings about the most prolific journals, institutions and authors, as well as the most relevant countries, with the United States and United Kingdom leading in terms of the number of publications. In addition, an in-depth analysis of authors' keywords has identified different trends, such as institutions, economic growth, shadow economy, regulation, Africa, culture, economic development, business environment, and informal economy. Finally, some future research lines are proposed, such as institutional theory, tax morale, corruption perceptions, European regions, risk aversion and institutional entrepreneurship
Solar Thermal Plants Integration in Smart Grids
Solar energy penetration has been increasingly growing in recent years. Since solar
energy is intermittent its integration in existing grids is difficult. This paper deals with the
optimal integration of solar power plants in grids. The paper proposes a modification of
energy hubs which allows to solve the optimization problem with a mixed integer programming
algorithm in a distributed way. An introductory simulation study case is givenMinisterio de Educación DPI2008-05818Junta de AndalucÃa P07-TEP-02720Comisión Europea HD-MP
Doppler-echocardiographic findings in a patient with persisting right ventricular sinusoids
The Doppler-echocardiographic features of persisting right ventricular myocardial sinusoids are presented. An 18-year-old patient with persisting right ventricular sinusoids had undergone comissurotomy for critical pulmonary artery stenosis at the age of 12 months. Follow-up catheterization at the age of 17 years revealed no signs of residual pulmonary artery stenosis, outflow tract obstruction or pulmonary hypertension. No shunt could be documented. High systolic velocity jets within the myocardial sinusoids were recorded by means of continuous-wave Doppler. Pulmonary artery blood flow velocity was recorded mainly consequent to atrial contraction and was reduced during right ventricular ejection period, thus reflecting impaired systolic and diastolic right ventricular functio
Wireless sensor networks for strain monitoring during steel bridges launching
n this paper, an experimental test performed on a hybrid steel plate girder was subjected to concentrated loads at the end of an unstiffened panel is presented. This load was intended to produce a typical reaction of the piers while launching steel girders in bridges. In this test, strain measurements were taken with conventional pre-wired gauges as well as with newly developed wirelessly connected strain-measuring system. Both measurements were carefully compared and the accuracy of the developed system was demonstrated. Results were also compared with numerical simulations deployed with FE models and on such a basis; the reliability of the developed wireless system was proven. Finally, suggestions of potential research trends in this area are provide
A Blood–bone–tooth model for age prediction in forensic contexts
The development of age prediction models (APMs) focusing on DNA methylation (DNAm) levels has revolutionized the forensic age estimation field. Meanwhile, the predictive ability of multi-tissue models with similar high accuracy needs to be explored. This study aimed to build multi-tissue APMs combining blood, bones and tooth samples, herein named blood–bone–tooth-APM (BBT-APM), using two different methodologies. A total of 185 and 168 bisulfite-converted DNA samples previously addressed by Sanger sequencing and SNaPshot methodologies, respectively, were considered for this study. The relationship between DNAm and age was assessed using simple and multiple linear regression models. Through the Sanger sequencing methodology, we built a BBT-APM with seven CpGs in genes ELOVL2, EDARADD, PDE4C, FHL2 and C1orf132, allowing us to obtain a Mean Absolute Deviation (MAD) between chronological and predicted ages of 6.06 years, explaining 87.8% of the variation in age. Using the SNaPshot assay, we developed a BBT-APM with three CpGs at ELOVL2, KLF14 and C1orf132 genes with a MAD of 6.49 years, explaining 84.7% of the variation in age. Our results showed the usefulness of DNAm age in forensic contexts and brought new insights into the development of multi-tissue APMs applied to blood, bone and teethinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
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