The Statistical Interpretation of Forensic Glass Evidence

When examining a sample of glass fragments recovered from a suspect in a forensic case, many questions arise: “Did this man break that window?”, “Are these fragments from the crime scene source?”, “Do the fragments recovered from the suspect come from more than one source?”, “How common is it to find glass on someone unrelated with crime?” etc. Such questions are usually answered with the help of statistical methods. This paper reviews some of the statistical solutions and problems encountered in the interpretation and evaluation of forensic glass evidence.     

翻译与文化身份的塑造--《老人与海》的海观译本赏析

《老人与海》的海观译本是著名译作家海观先生二十世纪五十年代的作品。基于当时特殊时期中国社会的主流政治和文化价值观,海观译本为《老人与海》的主人公塑造了一个英雄人物式的硬汉老人形象。文中以海观译本《老人与海》为例,通过分析译者对主人公人物形象进行的刻画,探讨翻译与文化身份塑造的关系。文中指出：译者所处的目的语的社会文化环境,与译者采取何种翻译策略有着密切的关系。同时,译者的“主体性”,通过译介对目的语的社会文化亦可产生很大的影响,有助于形成本土对待异域国度的态度,进而塑造异域文化的目的语环境中特殊的形象。     

Future‐Oriented Gang Members?

A bstract    Two prominent theories of crime ( Wilson and Herrnstein 1985 ; Gottfredson and Hirshi 1990 ) rely heavily on the notion that criminals are impatient or "present-oriented." In brief, the theories posit that present-oriented individuals will be predisposed to crime because the "costs" of crime (e.g., prison time) lag behind crime's benefits. While the theory has intuitive appeal, it remains controversial. This study considers a data set first presented by Levitt and Venkatesh (2000 ) that details a drug-selling gang's activities. In this gang, low-ranking criminals accept low initial wages in the hope of receiving high future remunerations. As demonstrated in the note, this wage structure is exceedingly difficult to reconcile (both theoretically and empirically) with the notion of present-oriented criminals. In sum, the study suggests that present orientation is at best an incomplete and idiosyncratic explanation of the causes of crime.     

Thieves,thugs, and neighborhood poverty

This paper develops a model of crime analyzing how such behavior is associated with individual and neighborhood poverty. The model shows that even under relatively minimal assumptions, a connection between individual poverty and both property and violent crimes will arise, and moreover, “neighborhood” effects can develop, but will differ substantially in nature across crime types. A key implication is that greater economic segregation in a city should have no effect or a negative effect on property crime, but a positive effect on violent crime. Using IV methods, I show this implication to be consistent with the empirical evidence.     

Private security and the public safety

The demand for private protection and the effect of such protective measures on the level of crime are examined. Private protection may reduce a household's expected victimization rate either by deterring some crime or by diverting crime to other households. The greater the relative importance of the latter effect, the more likely a community is to “tip” in the direction of deserting the streets at night and taking other precautions. Data on crime and protection are analyzed, but they are inadequate for a full estimation of the model. The paper concludes with a normative analysis of protection and implications for social policy.     

Interfirm Channel Relationships,Influence Strategies and Performance in China

Abstract

This paper empirically examines the relationship between inter-firm channel relationships, influence strategies and suppliers' performance. A survey of 103 foreign partners from Sino-foreign joint ventures in the food industry in China shows that channel relationships have a major positive effect on supplier's channel performance. While the influence strategy of “threats” is negatively related to supplier's channel performance and channel relationships, “suggestive litigation” has a positive influence on performance, on the contrary to findings in Western countries. Although a business relationship with an emphasis on “legal effect” is not desired on the part of distributors, it enhances channel relationships. The influence strategy of “request” as a Western phenomenon does not work well in China, and has an inverse effect on channel relationships. Implications for practitioners and researchers are discussed.     

Fear of crime and housing prices: Household reactions to sex offender registries

Megan's Law requires public dissemination of information from sex offender registries. Opponents to this controversial law have questioned whether households misinterpret or even use this information. One concern was that the information might simply induce a “fear of crime.” This study finds evidence for both use and misinterpretation of the publicly available information on sex offenders. Using a unique dataset that tracks sex offenders in Hillsborough County, Florida, the results indicate that after a sex offender moves into a neighborhood, nearby housing prices fall by 2.3% ($3500 on average). However, once a sex offender moves out of a neighborhood, housing prices appear to immediately rebound. Surprisingly, these price impacts do not appear to differ in areas near high risk offenders labeled as “predators.”     

The new regionalism in the Americas: a theoretical framework

This paper concerns the “new regionalism” of the last decade, as opposed to the “old regionalism” of the 1950s and 1960s. I first argue that the new regionalism is taking place in a world fundamentally different from that of the old regionalism, so that old-regionalism-theory is not necessarily relevant. I then present an explanation for why neighbors might integrate, relevant to why integration might occur in the Americas. This gives prominent roles to political economy, direct investment, and fundamental economic reform, and de-emphasizes the old trade creation versus trade diversion trade-off. It also implies a diversity of approaches to regional integration.     

Is there a third way to EMU for the EU accession countries?

The actual mainstream view of academics emphasizes the so-called “two-corner solution” with either completely fixed or independently floating exchange rates. We will argue in this paper that the requirements for fixed rates are rather too restrictive to be successful. On the other hand, the advantage of an independent float is only valid for small open economies under the assumption of exchange rate movements closely related to movements in the fundamentals. We suggest as a “third way”, a strategy of flexible exchange rate targeting where central banks simultaneously manage interest rates and exchange rates in a way that guarantees both the achievement of domestic macroeconomic objectives and an equilibrium on the international financial markets.     

Crime in urban areas: New evidence and results

Crime supply functions are reestimated in this paper using data corrected for victim underreporting. It is found in both a mean-variance specification and a conventional crime supply function, which includes measures of the offender's gains and losses involved in property crimes, that certainty and severity of punishment still deter. When correction for underreporting is made, the effects on the rates of robbery, burglary, larceny, and auto theft of increases in prison admission rates and prison sentence lengths remain negative. This seeming support for the “deterrence hypothesis” must be balanced against the strong evidence that improved legitimate opportunities have a negative effect on crime. Use of improved crime data and a more intuitive economic specification of the offense supply function leads to the conclusion that higher income is a better deterrent to some crimes than increased punishment.     

eHR software,multinational corporations and emerging China: Exploring the role of information through a postcolonial lens

This paper seeks to offer an alternative account of Human Resources Information software (eHR) informed by a critical/postcolonial view on information systems. In so doing, it aims to explore the possibilities for managing people that information brings when Human Resources Management practices are transferred from “developed” to “developing” countries. The paper relies on several qualitative in-depth interviews with renowned Chinese Human Resources experts in Shanghai, and the examination of diverse eHR software-related documentation and functionalities. Critical discourse analysis was used to examine these sources. The findings show that eHR information systems bring new governance possibilities that support and expand the discipline of Human Resources Management. The use of eHR software in people management gives a new momentum and increased dominance to key Western-originated practices, such as HR-based performance management. Information brings new ordering options that facilitate the transferability, mobility and standardization of HR values, discourse and practices and, ultimately, the construction of a global “generified employee”. The paper offers a first critical analysis of eHR software, showing the need to understand the relevancy of the informating power of these systems for a postcolonial critique of ICT. It offers a view of the “micro-processes” that facilitate organizational transfer from the multinational corporation headquarters to the subsidiaries and across countries. In so doing, it challenges mainstream deterministic assumptions and apolitical approaches to this technology.     

Can “good” architecture meet the market test?

Architectural quality is a public good characteristic of a building for which a market failure may occur. A hedonic price equation for office space in downtown Chicago is estimated to determine if the value of “good” architecture has been internalized by tenants or owners of commercial buildings. The regression results indicate that a considerable rent premium is paid for “good” new architecture but not for “good” old architecture. The results also yield information about the impact on office rent of other building characteristics such as age, height, location, and amenities.     

Income comparison,collectivism and life satisfaction in Turkey

The current research examines the impact of income comparisons on life satisfaction in Turkey which has a feature of “collectivism” or “low individualism”. This is done by analyzing the results of the “Life Satisfaction Survey” applied by the Turkish Statistical Institute (TUIK) for 2011. Using ordered logit estimations, this paper reveals that most of the income comparison, interaction variables and socio-economic variables have a significant explanatory power on life satisfaction levels in Turkey. The main emphasis of the paper is that reference group’s self-reported life satisfaction is related to income comparisons, along with other socioeconomic factors. The impact of comparisons is asymmetric, in that in most cases, under-performing one’s benchmark had a greater effect than out-performing it.     

Coming unstuck? In search of the “corporate glue” in an international professional service firm

Much has been made of “networks” and corporate “culture” as sources of cohesion in increasingly loosely structured international firms. But how strong is the “corporate glue”? Using a case study of human resource management (HRM) in an international accounting firm, this article shows that growth and internationalization may themselves weaken the corporate glue, just as the need for global integration of activities increases. The resulting stresses lead to a greater emphasis on formal bureaucratic structures and processes, further calling into question the role of traditional culture. Alternative strategies for managing these tensions are proposed. © 1995 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Leading for Long‐Term Performance: Matching the Behavior to the Situation

Is there one right way to lead, or does it all “depend?” The right answer will inform the right leadership development strategy. A recent study by McKinsey & Co. using survey data collected from 165 organizations and over 365,000 respondents globally suggests that the answer is both. Two types of behavior sets emerged from organizations that enjoyed higher member perceptions of leadership effectiveness and attained higher levels of organizational health (the latter predicts long‐term financial and operational performance). We combined these into a model that prescribes a set of “baseline” behaviors that should always be evident, complemented by another set of behaviors (“situational behaviors”) that should be differentially emphasized depending on the level of organizational health. Both the content of the behavior and its relative emphasis are critical to either set. The current paper combines these into a model of organization‐wide leadership and concludes with action implications for organizations’ leadership development strategy.     

Measuring the value of urban amenities

This paper develops a model for estimating price gradients for several urban amenities that departs from traditional techniques. The approach used is both intuitively appealing and fully consistent with basic urban location theory developed over the past decade. Multidimensional price gradients are estimated for such amenities as low crime, clean air, accessibility to work, the local quality of education and local taxes. In addition subgroup analysis allows the comparison of the estimated “shadow prices” for two different income groups.     

Are there pecuniary compensations for working conditions?

In this paper we assess the relative contribution of working conditions to wage determination with an emphasis on differences along the earnings distribution. A survey of British employees in 2001 rich in questions regarding the job post enables us to separate the contribution of working conditions, job attributes and individual characteristics to the process of wage determination. Standard wage equations reveal that covariates such as having “repetitive job” and using generic skills such as “literacy” or “customer handling skills” are associated with significant premiums and penalties. Quantile regressions confirm the presence of penalties to poor working conditions, such as “working to tight deadlines”, that are significant in the middle section of the earnings distribution and robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls for person, firm and other job characteristics. Counterfactual decompositions at quantiles show that, despite the apparent penalty, there are pecuniary compensations to poor working conditions around the first quartile and the median of the earnings distribution.     

Offshoring and reshoring: U.S. insights and research challenges

The phenomenon of reshoring to the U.S. has received wide attention ever since it became a political platform for U.S. politicians during the last presidential election. The economic downturn, a heightened emphasis on sustainability, and increasing customer expectations for flexibility and improved cost performance drove firms to re-consider the appropriate “shoring” decision. The intent of this research note is to add a U.S.-centric perspective to the “shoring” debate.     

Residential search and choice of displaced households

Centrographic analysis is used to compare the residential search and choice behavior of 41 households who experienced either short-term or long-term displacement costs after moving out of the inner city of Saskatoon, with the behavior of 90 households who moved as if voluntarily. While the displaced households tended to search for housing in the same neighbourhoods as the voluntary movers, they chose a “new” home much farther away from their “old” home. By means of a logistic regression, the reasons for this more distant move are inferred to reflect both the tightness of the housing market and the housing search barriers that displaced households, who were more likely to be young or old renters, would have encountered.