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Study Argues (study + argue)
Selected AbstractsIMAGES OF GOD AND PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR CAPITAL PUNISHMENT: DOES A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH A LOVING GOD MATTER?,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2006JAMES D. UNNEVER This study argues that the nature and intensity of a person's relationship with God creates a transposable cognitive schema that shapes people's views toward public policies such as executing convicted murderers. In this context, we investigate whether Americans who report having a close personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support the death penalty. We hypothesize that such a relationship tempers the tendency to see punitiveness as an appropriate response to human failings. Individuals who hold a loving God image are more likely to believe that God responds to those who have "failed" or "sinned" by demonstrating unconditional love, forgiveness, and mercy. Accordingly, support for capital punishment is problematic because it contradicts the image of a merciful, forgiving deity; God's purpose,and admonition to believers,is to demonstrate compassion toward those who have trespassed against others. We test these possibilities using the 2004 General Social Survey (GSS). Controlling for a range of religious factors and other known predictors of death penalty attitudes, the results show that Americans with a personal relationship with a loving God are less likely to support capital punishment for convicted murderers. [source] Stephen of Ripon and the Bible: allegorical and typological interpretations of the Life of St WilfridEARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE, Issue 2 2000Mark D. Laynesmith This article attempts a re-reading of Stephen of Ripon's Life of Saint Wilfrid in the light of a biblical exegetical methodology which is contemporary to its composition, being derived chiefly from the works of Bede. Through an analysis of typology in the Life, this study argues that Stephen compared his hero with various biblical reformers. By inaccurately linking Wilfrid's main enemies with quartodecimanism Stephen could claim that Wilfrid was in conflict with enemies who could be rhetorically characterized as types of perfidious Jews. Ultimately Stephen is shown to have used a theology of Jewish,Christian supersessionism to characterize and explain his subject's turbulent career. The work includes an appendix speculatively interpreting two resurrection miracles. [source] Actor alignments in the European Union before and after enlargementEUROPEAN JOURNAL OF POLITICAL RESEARCH, Issue 6 2009ROBERT THOMSON What impact has the 2004 enlargement had on legislative decision making in the European Union (EU)? This study answers this question by examining the controversies raised by a broad selection of legislative proposals from before and after the 2004 enlargement. The analyses focus on the alignments of decision-making actors found on those controversies. Member State representatives, the European Commission and the European Parliament vary considerably in the positions they take on controversial issues before and after enlargement. Consistent patterns in actor alignments are found for only a minority of controversial issues. To the extent that consistent patterns are found, the most common involve differences in the positions of Northern and Southern Member States and old and new Member States. The North-South alignment was more common in the EU-15 and reflected Northern Member States' preference for low levels of regulatory intervention. The new-old alignment that has been evident in the post-2004 EU reflects new Member States' preference for higher levels of financial subsidies. This study argues that the persistent diversity in actor alignments contributes to the EU's capacity to cope with enlargement. [source] In Search of Better Quality of EU Regulations for Prompt Transposition: The Brussels PerspectiveEUROPEAN LAW JOURNAL, Issue 5 2008Michael Kaeding The quality of EU regulation is crucial to ensuring that Community law is promptly transposed into national law within the prescribed deadlines. But good quality transposition (clear, simple, and effective) goes beyond pre-legislative consultation processes and more frequent use of impact assessments as agreed in the 2003 Interinstitutional Agreement on Better Lawmaking. Presenting new data that covers the full population of all EU transport directives from 1995 to 2004,including the national implementing instruments of France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Ireland, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK,this study shows that elements of the EU directives delay transposition. The binding time limit for transposition, the EU directive's level of discretion, its level of detail, its nature and further characteristics of the directive's policy-making process are all factors. These determining factors are crucial to explaining why Member States miss deadlines when transposing EU Internal Market directives. Brussels' efforts to simplify and improve the regulatory environment have to go beyond more preventive action to strengthen the enforcement of EU legislation at the member-state level if they want to address the Internal Market constraining effects of Member States' non-compliance. This study argues that far-reaching decisions made in the European Commission's drafting and EU policy-making phase have the greatest effect on the European regulatory framework in which businesses operate and the free movement of goods, persons, services, and capital is at stake. Implementation should be part of the design. [source] Structural and functional evidence for a singular repertoire of BMP receptor signal transducing proteins in the lophotrochozoan Crassostrea gigas suggests a shared ancestral BMP/activin pathwayFEBS JOURNAL, Issue 13 2005Amaury Herpin The transforming growth factor , (TGF-,) superfamily includes bone morphogenetic proteins, activins and TGF-,sensu stricto (s.s). These ligands, which transduce their signal through a heteromeric complex of type I and type II receptors, have been shown to play a key role in numerous biological processes including early embryonic development in both deuterostomes and ecdyzozoans. Lophochotrozoans, the third major group of bilaterian animals, have remained in the background of the molecular survey of metazoan development. We report the cloning and functional study of the central part of the BMP pathway machinery in the bivalve mollusc Crassostrea gigas (Cg- BMPR1 type I receptor and Cg- TGF,sfR2 type II receptor), showing an unusual functional mode of signal transduction for this superfamily. The use of the zebrafish embryo as a reporter organism revealed that Cg- BMPR1, Cg- TGF,sfR2, Cg- ALR I, an activin Type I receptor or their dominant negative acting truncated forms, when overexpressed during gastrulation, resulted in a range of phenotypes displaying severe disturbance of anterioposterior patterning, due to strong modulations of ventrolateral mesoderm patterning. The results suggest that Cg- BMPR1, and to a certain degree Cg- TGF,sfR2 proteins, function in C. gigas in a similar way to their zebrafish orthologues. Finally, based on phylogenetic analyses, we propose an evolutionary model within the complete TGF-, superfamily. Thus, evidence provided by this study argues for a possible conserved endomesoderm/ectomesoderm inductive mechanism in spiralians through an ancestral BMP/activin pathway in which the singular, promiscuous and probably unique Cg- TGF,sfR2 would be the shared type II receptor interface for both BMP and activin ligands. [source] Political ecology: a synthesis and search for relevance to today's ecosystems conservation and developmentAFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2009C. G. Mung'ong'oArticle first published online: 3 FEB 200 Abstract Africa is facing problems of deforestation, desertification, loss of soil fertility, loss of wildlife habitats and biodiversity, and the deterioration of aquatic ecosystems and lack of accessible, good quality water. Governments have formulated policies, enacted legislation and established various institutions addressing these issues. African countries are yet to arrest the environmental problems they are facing, due to, among others, the ineffectual theoretical analysis of the problem of ecosystems degradation. This study argues for the adoption of the political ecological framework in the analysis of sociopolitical sources, conditions and ramifications of ecosystems change and also highlights the explanatory power of this conceptual framework as far as the explanation of the problem of ecosystems degradation is concerned, and shows how it can enable us deal with the multi-layered causality rather than the symptoms of the problem of ecosystems change. [source] Organizational Culture: A ten Year, Two-phase Study of Change in the UK Food Retailing SectorJOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES, Issue 5 2002Emmanuel Ogbonna This paper argues that much of the current motivation for the study of organizational culture is fuelled by research which finds an association between culture and performance as well as by studies which suggest that culture is comparatively easily changed. However, much of the research upon which these claims are based is largely firm-specific with little critical evaluation of industry macrocultures and the impact that such cultures may have on both the performance of individual firms and the management of organizational culture. Through assessing separate change programmes spaced ten years apart, this paper documents and analyses the similarities and differences in the rationale, form, substance and impacts of two separate culture change initiatives in the same macroculture spaced ten years apart. These analyses suggest a number of conclusions and implications for both theorists and practitioners. In particular, the study argues that researchers examining organizational culture should devote significantly greater attention towards studying the effects of sector or industry macrocultures. [source] Culture and knowledge co-creation in R&D collaboration between MNCs and Chinese universitiesKNOWLEDGE AND PROCESS MANAGEMENT: THE JOURNAL OF CORPORATE TRANSFORMATION, Issue 2 2010Jianzhong Hong This paper examines the role of culture in university,industry R&D collaboration and knowledge interaction in the context of multinational corporations in China. Earlier university,industry studies focus primarily on one-way technology and knowledge transfer; however, the present study argues that in the studied context more interactive types of knowledge interaction like knowledge co-creation should be of key concern. The main challenge of the R&D collaboration lies in the understanding of culture in general and Chinese guanxi (interpersonal relationship) in particular in collaborative knowledge creation, in which the dominant type of knowledge involved is most often tacit, future oriented, complex and context-specific. This is particularly important when dealing simultaneously with multi-disciplinary applied research where cultural challenges appear prominent. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Insurance for Good Losers and the Survival of Chile's ConcertaciónLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2005John M. Carey ABSTRACT In the transition from military rule to democracy, the government of Augusto Pinochet bequeathed to Chile a unique electoral law by which all legislative seats are contested in two-member districts. A key implication of this rule is that in order to secure legislative majorities, coalitions have to put their strongest candidates in the most precarious electoral list positions. This generates a divergence of interests between coalitions and politicians. Chile's largest coalition, the Concertación, has resolved the dilemma by providing appointed posts to unsuccessful congressional candidates who accept personal political risk on the coalition's behalf. This study argues that this insurance system has provided the critical glue to hold the coalition together since Chile's transition to democracy in 1990. Recent changes in the electoral environment could threaten the Concertación's control over the appointed posts that have sustained this informal institution. This could jeopardize the Concertación's cohesion during the process of negotiating coalition candidate lists for the 2005 legislative elections. [source] The Socioeconomic Implications of Dollarization in El SalvadorLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 3 2004Marcia Towers ABSTRACT This study argues that the costs associated with El Salvador's dollarization clearly outweigh the benefits and that the decision to dollarize was prompted not only by the need to promote economic growth, but also by the impluse to serve the interests of the financial sector and the large entrepreneurs who control the ruling ARENA party. Although the policy facilitates investment and international financial transactions, it has a negative effect on the poor by increasing inequality. To develop this argument, the authors discuss the socioeconomic and political situation in El Salvador at the time of dollarization, examine the Law of Monetary Integration, and analyze die effect of the dollarization policy on the poor. [source] Brazil's Agrarian Reform: Democratic Innovation or Oligarchic Exclusion Redux?LATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2003Anthony Pereira ABSTRACT The government of Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995,2002) redistributed a surprising amount of land to Brazil's landless. Assessing that reform, this study argues that an adequate appreciation of land redistribution must transcend the debate about the number of beneficiaries and place the reform in the larger context of state policies toward land and agriculture. It then asks to what extent such policies under Cardoso represented the dismantling of past state practices in the countryside. Although the Cardoso administration enacted some significant and democratizing changes, it missed other opportunities to benefit the rural poor, and its policies essentially maintained the agricultural model of the past two decades. [source] "We Have A Consensus": Explaining Political Support for Market Reforms in Latin AmericaLATIN AMERICAN POLITICS AND SOCIETY, Issue 2 2002Leslie Elliott Armijo ABSTRACT By the 1990s, to the astonishment of many ob0servers, most Latin American countries had reformed their systems of national economic governance along market lines. Many analysts of this shift have assumed that it circumvented normal political processes, presuming that such reforms could not be popular. Explanations emphasizing economic crisis, external assistance, and politically insulated executives illustrate this approach. Through a qualitative investigation of the reform process in the region's four most industrialized countries, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, this study argues, to the contrary, that reforming governments found or created both elite and mass political support for their policies. [source] Sex, Breastfeeding, and Marital Fertility in Pretransition ChinaPOPULATION AND DEVELOPMENT REVIEW, Issue 2 2007William Lavely Coital frequency is at the heart of the debate over low marital fertility in pretransition China. This study argues that coital frequency in contemporary China is indicative of sexual behavior in an earlier era. Frequency of intercourse is low in China relative to Europe, a natural outgrowth of a traditional family system and related sexual culture only partially transformed by a century of family revolution. Customary sexual behaviors and breastfeeding practices together shaped the Chinese historical fertility regime as they did the European. As explanations for China's low marital fertility, these proximate determinants leave little scope for the operation of fecundity-reducing malnutrition on the one hand, or deliberate fertility control on the other. The fertility regimes of other pretransition agrarian societies more closely resemble China's than Europe's, seeming to confirm a pattern of European demographic exceptionalism. [source] Institutional Change and the Dynamics of Vice Presidential SelectionPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 3 2008MARK HILLER The influence of the vice presidency has expanded dramatically in recent years, yet scholars know surprisingly little about how presidential nominees choose their running mates and how the selection process has changed over time. This study argues that the confluence of two events,the McGovern-Fraser reforms of the early 1970s and the exogenous shock of George McGovern's ill-fated selection of Thomas Eagleton as his running mate in 1972,changed the factors driving running mate selection. Specifically, in the post-1972 era, presidential nominees have looked less to traditional incentives such as ticket balancing and more toward governing experience to help them in the general election and, if they succeed, in the White House. We test a model with empirical data from 1940 to 2004. [source] Race, Region, and Representative BureaucracyPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REVIEW, Issue 5 2009Jason A. Grissom Scholars of representative bureaucracy have long been interested in the linkage between passive representation in public agencies and the pursuit of specific policies designed to benefit minority groups. Research in this area suggests that the structural characteristics of those organizations, the external political environment, and the perceptions of individual bureaucrats each help to facilitate that relationship. Work to date has not, however, sufficiently investigated the impact of region on representation behavior, which is surprising given the emphasis that it receives in the broader literature on race and politics. Drawing on that literature, this study argues that, for black bureaucrats, region of residence is an important moderator of active representation because it helps to determine the salience of race as an issue and the degree of identification with racial group interests. It tests hypotheses related to that general argument in a nationally representative sample of more than 3,000 public schools. The results suggest that black teachers produce greater benefits for black students in the South, relative to other regions. A supplementary analysis also confirms the theoretical supposition that race is a more salient issue for Southern black bureaucrats, when compared with their non-Southern counterparts. [source] The scope, motivation and dynamic of Guest EngineeringR & D MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2001Michael Lewis The exchange of technical personnel between organizational actors in a supply network has become known as Guest Engineering (GE). Despite increasing popularity as an inter-organisational arrangement (especially in the automotive sector) it has generated relatively little academic research and therefore this paper seeks to extend our understanding of GE by exploring how its scope is determined, what motivates the participants and how the relationships evolve. The paper draws on extant GE, supply networks and Resource-Based View (RBV) literature to derive research propositions that are used to analyse empirical work carried out with four automotive suppliers and four automotive OEMs. A number of preliminary conclusions are drawn. At a micro-project level, the criticality of the individual ,playing the GE role' is highlighted, as are related concerns that collaborative team structures often fail to address broader social/cultural characteristics. At a macro-project level, the study argues that difficulties and mistrust will often characterise integrated and competitively successful GE relationships. Finally, at a strategic level, GE needs to be understood as a process of resource transfer and transformation, and therefore the management of interdependency and power asymmetry are core considerations in effective adoption. The paper concludes with recommendations for further critical and practical work. [source] Louis XII and the porcupine: transformations of a royal emblemRENAISSANCE STUDIES, Issue 1 2001N Hochner Louis XII, king of France (r. 1498,1515), inherited the emblem of the porcupine from his grandfather and maintained its symbolism of invincibility to particular effect in the circumstances of the Italian wars and the reconquest of the Milanese. However, the bellicose role of the porcupine within royal propaganda became increasingly less adequate to the image of a ,pčre du peuple' that Louis XII adopted in 1506. This study argues through detailed analysis of medals, royal entries, illuminated manuscripts, and other resource material that a certain disenchantment was felt towards the aggressive porcupine leading to its relative neglect in royal pageantry and iconography by the second half of Louis's reign. This shift is indicative of a deeper hesitancy between the image of paternal care , faithful to the duty of the Most Christian King , and the image of paternal care , faithful to the duty of the Most Christian King , and the image of glorious triumph , more suited to a bellicose warrior. The transformations undergone by the porcupine reveal the desire to redefine the very notion of the duty of kingship. [source] Illocutionary Acts and the Uncanny: on Nicholas Wolterstorff's Idea of Divine DiscourseTHE HEYTHROP JOURNAL, Issue 3 2001F. B. A. Asiedu Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse attempts to give philosophical warrant to the claim that ,God speaks'. While Wolterstorff's argument depends largely on his appropriation of J.L. Austin's speech act theory, he also uses two narratives that for him demonstrate how ,God speaks'. The first is the story of Augustine's conversion in the Confessions and the second is a story that Wolterstorff recounts about a certain ,Virginia'. This study argues that what Wolterstorff claims to derive from Augustine's narrative for his view of divine discourse is not fully supported by the Confessions, and that Augustine's interpretation of the words ,tolle lege, tolle lege', can be construed as a useful interpretation of an ambiguous sign. This is consistent with Augustine's understanding of the interpretation of texts in both the De doctrina christiana and the Confessions. In short, Augustine is far more open to the ambiguity of signs than Wolterstorffs's account suggests. [source] On the adequacy of single-stock futures margining requirementsTHE JOURNAL OF FUTURES MARKETS, Issue 10 2003Hans R. Dutt Unlike the traditional futures contract risk-based approach to margining, new security futures contracts are margined under a strategy-based margining system similar to that which applies in the equity options markets. As a result, these new margin requirements are potentially much less sensitive to changes in market conditions. This article performs a simulation to evaluate whether these alternative margining methodologies can be expected to produce comparable outcomes. The analysis suggests that a 1-day settlement period will likely lead to collection of customer margins that are virtually always greater than that which its traditional risk-based counterpart would require. A 4-day settlement period would lead to margin requirements that both significantly under- and overmargin relative to a comparable risk-based system. This study argues that exchanges may approach the preferred probability of customer exhaustion by managing margin settlement intervals. Thus, the new strategy-based rules, in and of themselves, will not necessarily inhibit new security futures trading activity. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:989,1002, 2003 [source] The Impact of Government Corruption and Monopolized Industries on Poverty and Income Disparity in Urban ChinaASIAN POLITICS AND POLICY, Issue 3 2009Xia Li Lollar This article examines the impact of government corruption and state monopolized industries on poverty and income disparity in urban China. Urban poverty and income disparity in China have increased sharply in recent years. The gap between the rich and poor has become so alarmingly wide that it has caused riots and violent protests in cities and towns across the country. While most studies on the roots of urban poverty and income disparity in China have focused on factors, such as unemployment, rural-to-urban migration, and lack of a social safety net, this study investigates the impact of government corruption and state-monopolized industries on urban poor and income inequality. This study argues that the root causes of the fast-growing gap between the rich and poor are the irrationally high income gained through the monopoly of state-owned industries, the legal gains derived from graft, corruption, and power-for-money transactions. [source] Revisiting Fayol: Anticipating Contemporary ManagementBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 3 2005Lee D. Parker This study argues that in classifying Fayol as a founding father of the Classical Management School, we have to some extent misrepresented this still important management theorist. The received Fayol portrayed in contemporary texts invariably emerges as a caricature of a much more insightful, complex, visionary and rounded management thinker. This study re-examines Fayol's personal and career history, as well as the arguments presented in his original work, General and Industrial Management. It finds that he was a much more complex and multidimensional figure than his conventional stereotype today, and that his management theories embraced a wider spectrum of approaches and concepts than traditionally identified with the classical management school of thought. In marked contrast to his traditional portrayal, this study uncovers traces of ideas and concepts that anticipated aspects of the human relations movement, systems-based contingency theory, the movement towards greater employee involvement in decision-making and elements of knowledge management. [source] Bifocal soft contact lenses as a possible myopia control treatment: a case report involving identical twinsCLINICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL OPTOMETRY, Issue 4 2008Thomas A Aller OD Background:, Several studies have suggested that bifocal and progressive spectacles can reduce progression of myopia in esophoric children. This study compared myopic progression with bifocal (BSCL) and single vision soft contact lenses (SVSCL) in identical twins with near point esophoria. Methods:, Two 12-year-old myopic girls were randomly assigned to wear either BSCL or SVSCL for one year using a double-masked design. Both twins then wore BSCLs for another year. Ocular measurements included cycloplegic and manifest refractions, corneal curvature and axial length. Distance and near phorias were measured through distance corrections and near associated phorias, with both types of contact lenses. Results:, Through their SVSCLs, both children exhibited near associated esophorias, which were neutralised by the BSCLs. The child wearing SVSCLs over the first year showed significant myopic progression, increasing -1.19 D (binocular average), while the child wearing BSCLs showed no progression (+0.13 D). The latter child showed limited progression (-0.28 D) over the second year, while switching from SVSCLs to BSCLs arrested progression in the other child (+0.44 D after one year). Axial length data were consistent with the refractive findings; the child exhibiting more myopia at the end of the first 12 months of the study had longer eyes (by 0.64 mm) than her sister, although their corneas also had steepened more (by 0.44 D compared to 0.18 D). The children showed similar, small increases in eye size over the second year when both wore BSCLs (binocular averages: 0.05, 0.09 mm, respectively). Conclusion:, The apparent inhibitory effect of BSCLs on myopic progression reported in this twin study argues for further study of their efficacy as a control treatment for myopes with near esophoria. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||