Digital Commons Network^™

Revisitando El Debate Sobre Los Abogados Integrantes Y La Independencia Del Poder Judicial, Sergio Verdugo Sverdugor@Udd.Cl, Carla Ottone

Sergio Verdugo R.

Se revisa el debate sobre la conveniencia del sistema de reemplazo judicial basado en los abogados integrantes y se analiza especialmente la crítica que sostiene que ellos no son independientes de los intereses del Poder Ejecutivo. Para ello, se examina el comportamiento de votación de los abogados integrantes de la tercera sala de la Corte Suprema en causas de indemnización de perjuicios donde el Fisco es parte, y se compara con la manera en que votan los ministros titulares. Se concluye que casi todos los jueces de esta sala votan de una manera generalmente favorable al interés fiscal, aunque esta …

Democratic Objection Against Judicial Review Of Legislation. Institutional Design Alternatives And Constitutional Theories, Sergio Verdugo Sverdugor@Udd.Cl

Sergio Verdugo R.

This article reviews the argument through which judicial review of legislation approved by popularly elected bodies, based on the authority of judges who are in a position of preeminence on the other branches of government, is contrary to democracy. Taking Jeremy Waldron´s argument as a central reference, the author discusses some of the assumptions on which the democratic objection of judicial review is elaborated. He argues that separating the notion of constitutional supremacy from the idea of judicial supremacy would allow building a model that overcomes the democratic problem. The author reviews some alternatives provided by institutional designs, and analyses …

A Re-Analysis Of The Effects Of Teacher Replacement Using Value-Added Modeling, Stuart S. Yeh

Stuart S Yeh

In principle, value-added modeling (VAM) might be justified if it can be shown to be a more reliable indicator of teacher quality than existing indicators for existing low-stakes decisions that are already being made, such as the award of small merit bonuses. However, a growing number of researchers now advocate the use of VAM to identify and replace large numbers of low performing teachers. There is a need to evaluate these proposals because the active termination of large numbers of teachers based on VAM requires a much higher standard of reliability and validity. Furthermore, those proposals must be evaluated to …

Heritage Interpretation As Public Discourse: Towards A New Paradigm, Neil A. Silberman

Neil A. Silberman

No abstract provided.

E-Health Innovations, Collaboration, And Healthcare Disparities: Developing Criteria For Culturally Competent Evaluation, Gonzalo Bacigalupe, Sabrina Askari

Gonzalo Bacigalupe, EdD, MPH

E-Health alters how health care clinicians, institutions, patients, caregivers, families, advocates, and researchers collaborate. Few guidelines exist to evaluate the impact of social technologies on furthering family health and even less on their capacity to ameliorate health disparities. Health social media tools that help develop, sustain, and strengthen the collaborative health agenda may prove useful to ameliorate health care inequities; the linkage should not, however, be taken for granted. In this article we propose a classification of emerging social technologies in health care with the purpose of developing evaluative criteria that assess their ability to foster collaboration and positively impact …

Net Energy Metering For Residences: Impacts Of Tariff Design, John Gardner

John Gardner

No abstract provided.

Gpra Modernization Act Of 2010: Examining Constraints To, And Providing Tools For, Cross-Agency Collaboration, Jane E. Fountain

Jane E. Fountain

Cross-agency collaboration is widely viewed as a powerful means for government reform and performance improvement. Greater coordination across agencies offers the potential for the Federal government to address complex policy challenges that lie inherently across agency boundaries and jurisdictions. Further, cross-agency initiatives promise a means to increase efficiency, effectiveness and accountability by reducing overlap, redundancy and fragmentation. To further these ends, the Government Performance and Results Act Modernization Act of 2010 requires the Executive branch and federal agencies to develop cross-agency performance goals and specifies directives toward their advancement, use, review and measurement.

Several lines of research examine governance across …

Exploring The Role Of Knowledge Networks In Perceived E-Government: A Comparative Case Study Of Two Local Governments In Korea, Jooho Lee

Jooho Lee

What are the knowledge network configurations associated with effective e-government? To answer this question, a social network perspective is applied to explore the connection between e-government actors’ social networks and their perception of e-government effectiveness. Specifically, this study closely looks at both intraorganizational networks between program and IT units and interorganizational relationships with IT vendors in the context of local egovernment. Two Korean local governments who provide online parking services through the same IT vendor were selected as comparative cases. Through the network analysis of two local governments, the study suggests preliminary findings for the knowledge network conditions for effective …

Informing Lone-Offender Investigations, Randy Borum

Randy Borum

This article examines the current research on targeted violence by lone offenders to inform intelligence and criminal investigations. It begins by analyzing the definitions and nature of lone offender attacks, discusses the role of "radicalization," and the ways in which mental illnesses may or may not be relevant.

The Limits Of Debate Or What We Talk About When We Talk About Gender Imbalance On The Bench, Keith Bybee

Keith J. Bybee

What do we talk about when we talk about gender imbalance on the bench? The first thing we do is keep track of the number of female judges. Once the data has been gathered, we then argue about what the disparity between men and women in the judiciary means. These arguments about meaning are not freestanding. On the contrary, I claim that debates over gender imbalance occur within the context of a broader public debate over the nature of judicial decisionmaking. I argue that this public debate revolves around dueling conceptions of the judge as impartial arbiter and as politically …

Enhancing Information Services Through Public-Private Partnerships: Information Technology Knowledge Transfer Underlying Structures To Develop Shared Services In The U.S. And Korea, Jane E. Fountain, Seok-Jin Eom

Jane E. Fountain

What are e-government success factors for using public-private partnerships to enhance learning and capacity development? To examine this question, the authors developed a comparative case analysis of the development of the Business Reference Model (BRM), a national-level e-government initiative to promote shared information services, in the U.S. federal government and the Korean central government. The results indicate institutional arrangements deeply affect the outcomes of knowledge transfer. The study shows that private sector partners in both countries played various roles as “brokers” of information technology (IT) knowledge between government and the private sector by: raising awareness of the necessity of the …

Robert D. Kaplan: The Revenge Of Geography Study Guide, 2013, Steven A. Samson

Steven Alan Samson

No abstract provided.

Building National Infrastructures For Peace In Africa: Understanding The Role Of The National Peace Council In Ghana, Emmanuel Kotia, Festus Aubyn

Emmanuel Wekem Kotia

In this article, we provide an analysis of Ghana’s infrastructures for peace using the National Peace Council (NPC) as a case study. The article focuses on the composition, structures, tasks, achievements and challenges of the NPC. It argues that the NPC has made significant contributions in preventing and managing acts of violence that could have plunge Ghana into conflict. Its unique roles during the 2012 elections in Ghana are a testament to this assertion. Although some forms of violence did occur during the elections, our argument is that the violence would have become far worse if the NPC had not …

Book Review: Indigenous African Warfare, By Col. Festus Boahen Aboagye, Emmanuel Kotia

Emmanuel Wekem Kotia

A review of the book Indigenous African Warfare (Its Concept and Art in the Gold Coast, Asante and the Northern Territories, Up to the Early 1900s), by Colonel Festus Boahen Aboagye. Pretoria, South Africa: Ulinzi Africa Publishing Solutions.

Understanding The Geopolitics Of The War In Southern Lebanon, Emmanuel Kotia

Emmanuel Wekem Kotia

The Lebanon–Israeli border is the only Arab-Israeli front that has witnessed continuous violence since the late 1960s. The past four decades have seen proliferation of small disputes over territory along the demarcation line between the two countries. In other circumstances, disputes of this nature could be managed or even resolved with ease. Yet, in the absence of a comprehensive peace pact between Syria and Israel, Lebanon remains both an instrument of and a potential trigger for broader regional conflict. Lebanon is not a major actor in Arab politics. Even its most political and militant actor, the Hezbollah, has only a …

The Difficult Problem Of Nonpoint Nutrient Pollution: Could The Endangered Species Act Offer Some Relief?, Zdravka Tzankova

Zdravka Tzankova

Nutrient pollution of rivers, streams, lakes, and estuaries is one of the preeminent water quality issues in the United States today, and poses a significant threat to the health of aquatic ecosystems. Agricultural nonpoint discharges, the runoff of nitrogen and phosphorous from animal manure and chemical fertilizers, are the primary sources of such nutrient pollution.

A pervasive and long-standing problem, nonpoint pollution, nutri- ent and otherwise, has proven to be one of the toughest challenges in contemporary environmental regulation. This situation is significantly attributable to the political and administrative dynamics of fragmented regulatory authority. The power to control such nonpoint …

Location And Tracking Of Mobile Devices: Überveillance Stalks The Streets, Katina Michael, Roger Clarke

Professor Katina Michael

During the last decade, location-tracking and monitoring applications have proliferated, in mobile cellular and wireless data networks, and through self-reporting by applications running in smartphones that are equipped with onboard global positioning system (GPS) chipsets. It is now possible to locate a smartphone-user's location not merely to a cell, but to a small area within it. Innovators have been quick to capitalise on these location-based technologies for commercial purposes, and have gained access to a great deal of sensitive personal data in the process. In addition, law enforcement utilise these technologies, can do so inexpensively and hence can track many …

Building Coalitions, Making Policy: The Politics Of The Clinton, Bush, And Obama Presidencies, By Martin A. Levin, Daniel Disalvo, And Martin M. Shapiro, Eds., José D. Villalobos

José D. Villalobos

No abstract provided.

Towards A Conceptual Model Of User Acceptance Of Location-Based Emergency Services, Anas Aloudat, Katina Michael

Professor Katina Michael

This paper investigates the introduction of location-based services by government as part of an all-hazards approach to modern emergency management solutions. Its main contribution is in exploring the determinants of an individual’s acceptance or rejection of location services. The authors put forward a conceptual model to better predict why an individual would accept or reject such services, especially with respect to emergencies. While it may be posited by government agencies that individuals would unanimously wish to accept life-saving and life-sustaining location services for their well-being, this view remains untested. The theorised determinants include: visibility of the service solution, perceived service …

Publisher Support For Self-Archiving: Laudatory Or Predatory?, Denise Troll Covey

Denise Troll Covey

Most publishers with self-archiving policies in the SHERPA RoMEO database allow authors to deposit their articles in a repository or post them to a website – supporting the green route to open access. Nevertheless, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) enthusiastically endorsed legislation proposed and defeated twice in the United States to prohibit federal agencies from mandating repository deposits of articles reporting on research they funded. The AAP also endorsed the Finch Report issued in the United Kingdom. The Report denigrated repository deposits and elevated open access publishing – the gold route to open access – as the preferred path …

Powerup!: A Tool For Calculating Minimum Detectable Effect Sizes And Minimum Required Sample Sizes For Experimental And Quasi-Experimental Designs, Nianbo Dong, Rebecca A. Maynard

REBECCA A MAYNARD

This paper complements existing power analysis tools by offering tools to compute minimum detectable effect sizes (MDES) for existing studies and to estimate minimum required sample sizes (MRSS) for studies under design. The tools that accompany this paper support estimates of MDES or MSSR for 21 different study designs that include 14 random assignment designs (6 designs in which individuals are randomly assigned to treatment or control condition and 8 in which clusters of individuals are randomly assigned to condition, with models differing depending on whether the sample was blocked prior to random assignment and by whether the analytic models …

Model Regulation For Training, Certification And Ongoing Professional Education In Public Procurement In The Republic Of Serbia, Bryane Michael

Bryane Michael (bryane.michael@stcatz.ox.ac.uk)

This is a model regulation governing training and certification in public procurement. We agreed that salami-tactics covering years or decades would need to be used to implement this (if it was ever implemented in full). So policymakers can find it easily on Google and consult with this at their leisure. In the meantime, the roughly 100 other countries without such rules could learn from this regulation.

The Impact Of Automation On Elections: Case Study Of The May 2010 Philippine Presidential Contests, Vicente C. Reyes Phd

Dr. Vicente C Reyes Jr

The unprecedented synchronized automated elections of May 201 in the Philippines saw how results of presidential elections could be obtained nearly overnight. Such nation-wide occurrences dramatically altered the mode in which Philippine elections had always been propagated: Typified by arduous and oftentimes onerous delays in the publication of results stretching all the way to several months after the day of the elections. This inquiry explores the implications of this change to prevailing theories and practices of election reforms. More importantly, it critiques the premise that the automation of elections curbs corruption and that it generates authentic political competition. Using data …

Spillovers Of Veterans Hospice Care: The Economic And Social Impact Of Palliative Care, Maximiliano Mendieta, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii

Bruce D. McDonald, III

In exchange for military service in the United States, soldiers are promised a benefits package inclusive of health and education after the completion of their service. While the economic effects of the defense-growth relationship are well known, this study takes a unique approach to understanding the relationship between veterans and society by investigating the social and economic spillovers of veterans hospice care. This study shows that as an early adopter of hospice care, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs maximized its efficiency through sponsoring innovative research on geriatric care, introducing competition into the health sector, and legitimizing death and dying …

Career-Based Influences On Scientific Recognition In The United States And Europe: Longitudinal Evidence From Curriculum Vitae Data, Jan Youtie, Juan Rogers, Thomas Hinze, Philip Shapira, Li Tang

Li Tang

No abstract provided.

What We Do And Do Not Know: The Social Implications Of Defense, Bruce D. Mcdonald Iii

Bruce D. McDonald, III

The relationship between defense spending and economic growth has been a major topic of research and political debate for more than one hundred years. Although the relationship of interest is economically oriented, its theoretical underpinning has relied upon the social spillovers of the defense sector. This includes programs on community health, education, and access to technology. Despite this reliance, little is known about what social spillovers. This paper furthers our understanding of the defense-growth relationship by introducing the social spillovers that exist and clarifying how those spillovers occur. The author concludes with a discussion about the direction of future research …

Climate Change And Energy Policy In Chile: Up In Smoke?, L. Mundaca T.

Luis Mundaca

This paper provides an ex-post assessment of the climate and energy policy developments in Chile emerging from a neoliberal economic model, during the period 1971-2007. First, correlation and regression analyses were performed to analyse historical CO2 emissions as a product of demographic, economic and energy-wide drivers. Then I estimate indicators related to CO2 emissions, energy use and economic activity. In the light of empirical results, I identify policy instruments and structural issues. Finally, I present a comparative analysis of Chile and other Latin American countries. Statistical tests show that variability of CO2 emissions is explained mostly by GDP per capita …

The Future Prospects Of Embedded Microchips In Humans As Unique Identifiers: The Risks Versus The Rewards, Katina Michael, M.G. Michael

Professor Katina Michael

Microchip implants for humans are not new. Placing heart pacemakers in humans for prosthesis is now considered a straightforward procedure. In more recent times we have begun to use brain pacemakers for therapeutic purposes to combat illnesses such as epilepsy, Parkinson’s Disease, and severe depression. Microchips are even being placed inside prosthetic knees and hips during restorative procedures to help in the gathering of post-operative analytics that can aid rehabilitation further. While medical innovations that utilise microchips abound, over the last decade we have begun to see the potential use of microchip implants for non-medical devices in humans, namely for …

Barking Up The Wrong Tree: Why Bo Won’T Fetch Many Votes For Barack Obama In 2012, Matthew L. Jacobsmeier, Daniel C. Lewis

Daniel Lewis

In “The Dog that Didn't Bark: The Role of Canines in the 2008 Campaign,” Diana Mutz (2010) argues that dog ownership made voters significantly less likely to vote for Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We examine this claim further. While President Obama has owned a dog since shortly after his 2008 election, we argue that Bo’s presence will not do much to improve his owner’s chances of being reelected in 2012. Rather, the apparent significance of dog ownership is due largely to key variables being omitted from the analysis. Using the same data, we show that Obama didn’t …

The Emergence Of Science-Driven Entrepreneurship In China: A Case Study Of Technological Innovation In Nano-Pigment Inks, Yu Meng, Philip Shapira, Li Tang

Li Tang

No abstract provided.