bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
14 From Descriptive to Predictive Approaches
Authors: Taagepera Rein
Published: September 2008

Routine statistical approaches are essentially descriptive, giving answers within a narrow range of questions. Quantitatively formulated logical model force us to ask further questions and are predictive in an explanatory way. Descriptive approaches are not conducive to detection of social laws, especially if one simultaneously feeds in variables which actually connect sequentially. Rather than a single sequence of “hypothesis testing,” scientific procedure involves repeat cycles where predictive and descriptive approaches enter intermixed. Directional models and reams of numbers ground out by canned computer programs must make room for quantitative logical models and sparse conceptually grounded constants.
15 Recommendations for Better Regression
Authors: Taagepera Rein
Published: September 2008

Take seriously the introductory advice by most introductory texts of statistics: graph the data and look at the graph so as to make sure linear regression makes sense from a statistical viewpoint. Graph more than the data – graph the entire conceptually allowed area and anchor points so as to make sure linear regression makes sense from a substantive viewpoint. If using linear regression, report not only the regression coefficients and the intercept but also the ranges, mean values, and medians of all input variables. While symmetric regression has advantages over OLS, fully reported symmetric regression is still merely regression.
17 Are Electoral Studies a Rosetta Stone for Parts of Social Sciences?
Authors: Taagepera Rein
Published: September 2008

Some aspects of social sciences can be made more predictive and, in this sense, more like natural sciences. Electoral studies have many variables with a natural zero (ratio variables), which makes them amenable to certain types of logical model building and sets them apart from other social sciences. Still, plenty of ratio variables occur in other social sciences too, and here electoral studies may offer valuable methodological tips. From temperature to political involvement, looser scales sometimes have a way to turn into ratio scales, if we dare to play with them.
2 Delegation and Commission Leadership in Economic and Monetary Union
Authors: Howarth David
Published: September 2008

Monetary integration through the Maastricht Treaty in European Union was achieved by delegation to the Commission. This was fuelled by the need for centralised expertise to coordinate complex change and the member states' desire to commit themselves to future compliance with the stability and Growth Pact rules that were agreed upon to enforce budgetary discipline. The Commission built political support for the transition to a single currency. To ensure the credibility of member government commitments to the debt and budget deficit convergence criteria, the Excessive Deficit Procedure was devised and implemented by the Commission as was the Early Warning Procedure of the Ecofin finance ministers. The European Central Bank enforced the low inflation target.
3 Guiding the Digital Revolution: Is European Technology Policy Misguided?
Authors: Dai Xiudian
Published: September 2008

The Commission promotes a competitive technology and related industrial policy through its coordination Framework Programmes. Commission funding is concentrated on a variety of Information Society Technologies. This chapter examines its role through two case studies of advanced television broadcasting technologies projects: High Definition Television (HDTV) and Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB). Competing leadership candidates with the Commission for HDTV included the French and Dutch national governments and major firms based on government-industry collusion in the service of competitiveness. The HDTV flagship project to meet the Japanese and American challenge, supported by the Commission and Council of Ministers with subsidies, was a failure of European technology policy. The DVB firm-led consortium has by contrast been market-driven and successful without public subsidy.
4 Environmental Policy: EU Actors, Leader and Laggard States
Authors: Wurzel Rüdiger K. W.
Published: September 2008

Starting from internal market harmonization regulations and with the European Court of Justice's broad interpretation of the Rome Treaty, a common environmental policy have emerged with leader and laggard governments and businesses pulling in opposite directions. Even before the 1987 replacement of unanimity by qualified majority voting, progress was made on product if not process standards. Five phases are distinguished in this chapter: infant (1958-72), adolescent (1972-87), mature (1987-92), sedate (1992-2005), and selective activism (since 2005). Climate change emerged as a priority policy issue and the EC Commission was active in rescuing the Kyoto protocol. Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands were the initial environmental leader states, followed by Sweden, Finland, and Austria. The Commission, Environmental Council of Ministers, the European Council, and European Parliament have all been active on climate change as policy entrepreneurs.
5 Did France and Germany Lead Europe? A Retrospect
Authors: Paterson William E.
Published: September 2008

The exclusive reliance on the Franco-German relationship to provide EU leadership is misleading because it acted as the brake rather than the motor of integration. The Coal and Steel Community was a French initiative, with Monnet and Schuman the leaders and Adenauer's Germany as follower. De Gaulle successfully challenged Hallstein's supranational aspirations and then dominated the alliance with Adenauerm but failed to exercise intergovernmental leadership. Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt launched the European Council to take over more of the leadership from the Commission. With Delors, the Mitterrand-Kohl cooperative hegemony of the 1980s prevailed but the 1989 reunification of Germany shifted the balance of power within the tandem. Thereafter, weaker national leaderships in France and Germany, in a context of enlargement, precluded joint EU leadership.
7 Security Policy and the Logic of Leaderlessness
Authors: Menon Anand
Published: September 2008

Despite acute international tensions, the EU has failed to exert influence, especially in security matters most requiring heroic leadership. The EU has no defence responsibility or capability, and seeks indirect influence through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the Anglo-French European Security and Defence Policy, and through other policies. The main actors are the Council Secretariat and the Political and Security Committee, but lack of clear institutional lines of authority results in disputes, notably over relations with NATO and policy implementation despite the efforts of the High Representative for foreign policy. Because foreign and security policy are member state responsibilities, the EU is condemned to leaderlessness and concentration on non-military tasks and ambitious schemes are unrealistic. It should reduce institutional overlap to achieve greater coherence in action.
9 A Bid Too Far? New Labour and UK Leadership of the European Union under Blair
Authors: Kassim Hussein
Published: September 2008

After Thatcher and Major Euroscepticism, Tony Blair's UK did a better job at bringing Britain to Europe than Europe to Britain. He achieved the former objective by avoiding being isolated and seeking to give a lead when possible as part of New Labour's modernizing project. Failure to join the Euro — blocked by his Chancellor Gordon Brown — showed limitations to Blair's power. Although he succeeded in promoting an EU defence capability associated with NATO, the Iraq War weakened Britain's influence. While taking an active part in preparing the 2005 constitutional treaty, the UK government failed to sell the treaty to the British public and conceded a referendum Blair was likely to lose. While Britain was seen as somewhat less detached from the EU despite its opt outs, public hostility to integration was not overcome.
11 Legal Leadership in the European Union
Authors: Bell John
Published: September 2008

Leadership does not always come from leaders. Laws provide for its exercise or constraint and the European Court of Justice (ECJ) gives legal but not political leadership. The 2005 constitutional treaty did not create a favourable climate of opinion for the proposed changed EU leadership through a stable president of the European Council. Nor would it have transformed the ECJ into a genuine constitutional court through its discretion on remedies. Its main contribution is as the reactive leader of the legal community of national judges in implementation of Union — wide norms with an integrationist bent. The ECJ's interpretive approach is preoccupied with achieving uniformity and consistency of integration in the market for goods and the treatment of individuals.
12 Commission Leadership and the Internet: Dragging the Net through Choppy Waters
Authors: Shahin Jamal
Published: September 2008

To overcome its reputation as a remote bureaucracy, the Commission has used the Internet to promote public and media understanding, citizen participation and support for the EU, as well as for networking with national administrations, businesses, and civil society organizations. It has made both a top-down use of the Internet to increase openness, blaming the ‘democratic deficit’ on an information deficit, as well as advocating a bottom-up improvement of consultation processes to ensure better governance and interaction with decision-makers, e.g., through Your Voice in Europe. However, the Commission officials make little use of the feedback mechanisms. The use of an Intranet has helped increase Commission efficiency and interaction with other EU institutions. Citizen participation has taken second place to improving internal elite coordination.
14 Beyond the Rotating Presidency
Authors: Schout Adriaan
Published: September 2008

All of the presidents of the Council of Ministers have left their mark, in areas ranging from EU agenda-setting to securing agreement after technical negotiations. Partly because their duties are multifarious and poorly defined, their success has been variable. Leadership has been of three kinds. Task-oriented leadership involves chairing meetings efficiently according to rules of procedure and its importance is generally underrated. Group-oriented leadership requiring sounding out positions and identifying acceptable solutions irrespective of their quality. Transformational leadership is aimed at proposing ambitious innovations for the longer term, adding to the agenda, and finding new solutions. Discontinuities and excessive workload have been corrected by team presidencies, annually from 2002 and over eighteen months since 2007. A stable President of the European Council devoted to transformational leadership would cause tensions with the rotating presidents and raise excessive expectations.
Augustine's Text of John
Authors: Houghton Hugh
Published: September 2008

Part I of this book considers Augustine's use of and attitude towards the Gospels and biblical manuscripts. His comments on the history of the Latin Bible are assembled, along with references to the use of codices in liturgy, debates and the composition of theological works. Augustine's method of citation is also described, introducing the concepts of ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ citations, ‘flattening’, ‘conflation’ and ‘mental text’. Some of his explicit observations about New Testament readings are quoted, together with an assessment of the evidence his citations provide for different traditions of the Bible: Old Latin, Vulgate, Greek and Diatessaron. Part II compares all Augustine's citations of John in individual works, mostly in chronological order. It is shown that Augustine used a Vulgate text-type for his two commentaries, the Tractatus in Iohannis euangelium and De consensu euangelistarum, but in earlier works (e.g. De trinitate) and in sermons from all periods, especially those preached in Carthage, he bears witness to an Old Latin form of text. Part III is a verse-by-verse commentary on Augustine's text of John, focussing on non-Vulgate citations or distinctive Vulgate readings. It also has information about Augustine's exegesis of particular verses.
1 Augustine and the History of the Biblical Text
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

Augustine's observations on the history of the early Latin translations constitute the majority of contemporary evidence for these versions. He approved of Jerome's revision of the Gospels and, despite a preference for the Latin version of the Septuagint, used Jerome's translations from the Hebrew. Augustine himself corrected biblical manuscripts, but there is little evidence to suggest that he undertook a systematic revision of the Bible. he also comments on the nature of biblical manuscripts used by his sectarian opponents, especially the Manichees and Donatists.
2 The Use of the Bible and the Production of Books in the Time of Augustine
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

Despite the laborious process of copying by hand, a wide variety of books seems to have been available in the Church in North Africa. The collection at Hippo, supplemented by Augustine's personal library, included Bibles in Latin and Greek and the works of several Church Fathers. Stenographers were used to transcribe sermons and public debates, as well as take down Augustine's theological works as he dictated them. These records give indications of how biblical codices were used for teaching and liturgical purposes.
3 Augustine's Biblical Exposition and Citation Technique
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

Augustine's negative first impressions of the Bible were replaced by reverence for the authority of Scripture. He made a clear distinction, however, between divine inspiration and the writers of biblical books. The role of scriptural citations in his argument is described alongside an assessment of his citation technique. ‘Primary citations’, more likely to be made directly from a codex, are contrasted with ‘secondary citations’, the bulk of which were probably made from memory. Certain types of alteration such as ‘flattening’ and ‘conflation’ are shown to be characteristic of Augustine's ‘mental text’.
4 Augustine as a Witness for the Text of the New Testament
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

This chapter considers the types of evidence Augustine provides for the text of the New Testament. His explicit comments on variants in New Testament manuscripts and corrections to the biblical citations of his opponents are, along with primary citations, the most important for determining the readings of the codices known to him. Anticipating later parts of the book, his citations of John are compared with the Old Latin, Vulgate and Greek traditions of the Gospel. Forms identical to other Church Fathers may preserve a version now lost, but they could also be due to independent ‘flattening’ of the text. Some Old Latin readings are fossilized in Augustine's mental text, and a few verses also offer important evidence for the Greek text, but it seems unlikely that Augustine was ever acquainted with the Diatessaron.
5 Tractatus in Iohannis Euangelium
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

Four types of gospel citation are identified in Augustine's commentary on John. The continuous treatment of the text is made up of the initial citation, most likely to have been taken from a manuscript, and repetitions in the same sermon which sometimes comprise sequential variants. Illustrative material is adduced in non-sequential citations. The biblical text of the title is also of considerable interest, although this is unlikely to have originated with Augustine. The overall dependence of the work on a Vulgate-text type is demonstrated: variations from this are reversions to Augustine's mental text.
6 Other Sermons
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

The distinction between the initial citation and sequential variants put forward in Chapter Five also proves to be useful in the analysis of Augustine's Sermones ad populum and Enarrationes ad Psalmos. Eighty-three sermons can be identified as following the liturgical reading of the Gospel according to John, which makes them a potential source of primary citations. Many of these feature an Old Latin text-type, even some preached as late as 418; this appears to be a particular characteristic of sermons preached in Carthage. In later sermons, however, the influence of the Vulgate on Augustine's mental text displaces his customary Old Latin readings.
Commentary
Authors: Houghton H. A. G.
Published: September 2008

The textual commentary treats Augustine's text of John verse by verse, concentrating on variants from the Vulgate. There are a number of occasions on which Augustine has a reading not attested in surviving Latin manuscripts: on some occasions this is shared with other Church Fathers, while others remain unique to him. The distinction between primary and secondary citations is important in determining which readings should be cited in an edition of the Gospel. The form of his mental text is given for a number of verses, with comments on how it may have arisen. Brief details are sometimes given of Augustine's exegesis, with bibliographic references to further studies. Passages of particular interest include John 7:53-8:11 (the Woman taken in Adultery), in which Augustine provides the earliest attestation of several variants in John 8:9. He also has an intriguing treatment of the contested verses John 5:2-4 (the Angel stirring the Waters), and shows evidence for the interpolation at John 3:6. His text of John 21:18 suggests that a Greek variant only preserved in Codex Bezae may underlie the entire Latin tradition.
Innovating Democracy
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

In recent years, democratic theory has taken a deliberative turn. Instead of merely casting the occasional ballot, deliberative democrats want citizens to reason together. They embrace ‘talk as a decision procedure’. But of course thousands or millions of people cannot realistically talk to one another all at once. When putting their theories into practice, deliberative democrats therefore tend to focus on ‘mini-publics’, usually of a couple dozen to a couple hundred people. The central question then is how to connect micro-deliberations in mini-publics to the political decision-making processes of the larger society. This book surveys these new deliberative mechanisms, asking how they work and what we can properly expect of them. Much though they have to offer, they cannot deliver all that deliberative democrats hope. Talk, this book concludes, is good as discovery procedure but not as a decision procedure. The recommended slogan is, ‘first talk, then vote’. Micro-deliberative mechanisms should supplement, not supplant, representative democracy. This book shows how to adapt our thinking about those familiar institutions to take full advantage of deliberative inputs. That involves rethinking who should get a say, how we hold people accountable, how we sequence deliberative moments and what the roles of parties and legislatures can be in that.
1 Introduction
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

In recent years, democratic theory has taken a ‘deliberative’ turn. Deliberative democrats tell us, most fundamentally, that we should shun merely adding up votes in favour of talking together. What especially distinguishes the deliberative democracy movement is its concern with finding ways of putting the theory into practice. A host of micro-deliberative innovations — Citizen's Juries, Consensus Conferences, Deliberative Polls — show us what deliberative democracy might look like in miniature.
2 Making use of mini‐publics
Authors: Goodin Robert E. , Dryzek John S.
Published: September 2008

Democratic theorists often place deliberative innovations such as Citizen's Juries, Consensus Conferences, Planning Cells, and Deliberative Polls at the centre of their hopes for deliberative democratization. This chapter charts the ways in which such mini-publics can impact on the ‘macro’ world of politics. Impact may come in the form of actually making policy, being taken up in the policy process, informing public debates, market-testing of proposals, legitimation of public policies, building confidence and constituencies for policies, popular oversight, and resisting co-option. Exposing problems and failures is all too easy; the chapter highlights instead cases of success along each of these dimensions.
5 How talk informs
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

Insofar as the reason ‘why’ we want deliberative democracy is just to pool information, what justifies so much emphasis among deliberative democrats on talking face-to-face to the exclusion of other equally good ways of pooling information? This chapter develops a contrast between two ways of pooling information: mechanically (through vote counting) and discursively (through talking together). It goes on to canvass five ways in which pooling information discursively might capture information that would have been lost had the information-pooling been done by more purely mechanical means.
8 Modes of democratic accountability
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

This chapter identifies three different accountability regimes associated with each of the main sectors of society: the state, the market, and the voluntary non-profit sector. Each focuses on a different subject of accountability (actions, results, and intentions, respectively) and on a different mechanism of accountability (hierarchy, competition, and cooperative networking, respectively). Those different regimes can complement one another, enhancing the democratic accountability of the system overall. The sort of ‘network accountability’ that is found among non-profit organizations in the more formally organized Third Sector is indicative of how accountability might be achieved within civil society and the public sphere more generally.
9 Sequencing deliberative moments
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

This chapter offers a model of a ‘deliberative system’ in which different deliberative responsibilities are distributed among different agents playing different deliberative roles. There, component deliberative virtues would be on display sequentially, over the course of various stages of deliberation involving different agents in different roles. That constitutes a more realistic alternative to the ‘unitary’ model of deliberation, in which all the deliberative virtues have to be continuously and simultaneously present in all parties to the deliberation.
10 The place of parties
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

This chapter develops a principled role for political parties. What would be lacking in a polity that is perfectly democratic but that has no parties? The answer is: the politics of ideas, systematically pursued. Democracy requires that a community is collectively self-legislating; a ‘ratio’ is required to have truly ‘given a law to yourself’, and to be ‘self-legislating’ in that sense; and collective ‘ratio’ is necessarily absent from the uncoordinated votes of independent actors in a No-Party Democracy. The ‘giving law to ourselves’ requirement, further unpacked, suggests a need for at least (and perhaps at most) two parties, and further imposes a requirement that they be ‘ideationally unified’ rather than catch-all parties.
11 Democratic mandates
Authors: Goodin Robert E. , Saward Michael
Published: September 2008

The democratic aspiration of rule by the people requires that the people know — are told — what they are really voting on. The clarity and consistency of messages from candidates to voters matters deeply to the quality of democracy. What sort of a mandate a government can claim, and what a government is entitled to do in office, depends heavily upon how the campaign messages are conveyed. If campaign messages are mixed, sending different signals to different parts of the constituency, then whomever is elected might have a ‘mandate to rule’ but has no strong policy mandate.
12 Representing diversity
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

‘Mirror representation’ or a ‘politics of presence’ presupposes relatively modest levels of diversity among those being represented. If the groups to be represented are too numerous, internally too heterogeneous or too cross-cutting, too many representatives will be required for the assembly to remain a deliberative one where ‘presence’ can have the effects its advocates desire. In those circumstances, what is being represented ought be conceptualized as the ‘sheer fact of diversity’ rather than ‘all the particularities of the diversity among us’. The appropriate response to that is legislative reticence.
13 Conclusion
Authors: Goodin Robert E.
Published: September 2008

In any large and complex community, deliberation cannot realistically take place in the agora (or its electronic equivalent), with everyone potentially affected by the decision taking an active part in all the deliberations. Deliberative democracy, in such a world, simply has to work on and through our inherited institutions of representative democracy. Revisioning those institutions through a deliberative lens, we can think of them as constituting a ‘deliberative system’, with different parts of the deliberative task being allocated to each. Political parties play a key (but non-exclusive role) in all that. The public sphere can best be connected to that process through networked accountability mechanisms.
Jobs with Equality
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

Economic and social shifts have led to rising income inequality in the world's affluent countries. This is worrisome for reasons of fairness and because inequality has adverse effects on other socioeconomic goods. Redistribution can help, but government revenues are threatened by globalization and population aging. A way out of this impasse is for countries to increase their employment rate. Increasing employment enlarges the tax base, allowing tax revenues to rise without an increase in tax rates; it also reduces welfare state costs by decreasing the amount of government benefits going to individuals and households. The question is: can egalitarian institutions and policies be coupled with employment growth? For two decades conventional wisdom has held that the answer is no. This book provides an assessment of the experiences of rich nations since the late 1970s. It examines the impact on employment of six key policies and institutions: wage levels at the low end of the labor market, employment protection regulations, government benefit generosity, taxes, skills, and women-friendly policies. The analysis includes twenty countries, with a focus on Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The book concludes that there is some indication of tradeoffs, but that they tend to be small in magnitude. There is no parsimonious set of policies and institutions that have been the key to good or bad employment performance. Instead, there are multiple paths to employment success. The comparative experience suggests reason for optimism about possibilities for a high-employment, high-equality society.
Introduction
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This introductory chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of inequality. It then considers the solution to the growth of inequality — increasing employment rate. An overview of the subsequent chapters is presented.
Toward a High‐Employment, High‐Equality Society
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This chapter summarizes the book's findings, recommends some strategies for combining low inequality with high employment, and considers some potential objections and alternatives. It argues that there is no silver bullet for a country wishing to be a high-equality, high-employment society. Each country is different in its existing configuration of institutions and policies, and in its citizens' preferences about equality and employment. Thus, there is no one-size-fits-all reform package that will yield optimal results for every nation. Given the considerable uncertainty regarding the best course of action for any particular country, governments and other economic actors have little option but to experiment. Success requires learning from the experiences of other countries, learning from one's own past, and continuous experimentation and adjustment.
Why Should We Care About Inequality?
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This chapter addresses the following questions: why should citizens and policy makers should want low inequality? Why should we object to inequality? Should we focus on equality of opportunity or equality of outcomes? Why not focus on poverty instead? Why emphasize incomes rather than wealth or material wellbeing? It argues that there is good reason to desire low inequality in and of itself — not instead of, but in addition to, high absolute incomes for those at the low end of income distribution.
Sources of Equality and Inequality: Wages, Jobs, Households, and Redistribution
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This chapter argues that in thinking about income inequality, our focus should be on the distribution of post-tax-post-transfer income among households, rather than the distribution of earnings among individuals or the distribution of market income among households. It explores the chief determinants of cross-country and over-time differences in post-tax-postt-ransfer household income inequality. It examines the impact of individual earnings, employment patterns within and across households, household composition and structure, and government redistribution. It is shown that for the countries that have been most successful at limiting inequality, redistribution has been especially significant. Keeping individual earnings inequality in check is likely to be increasingly difficult and that household structure and composition are very difficult for policy makers to influence.
Measuring and Analyzing Employment Performance
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This chapter describes a way to conceptualize and measure employment performance. It argues that to assess employment performance since the late 1970s, the most useful measure is employment change. This means change in the employment rate, not change in the number of people employed. It would be helpful to adjust this for work hours, but data limitations prevent that and the best available data suggest that doing so would not change the story much in any event. The chapter also outlines a strategy for analyzing the impact of equality-enhancing institutions and policies on employment performance.
Low‐End Wages
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

This chapter examines the effect of wage levels at the low end of the labor market on employment. The focus is on low-end service jobs. These have been a major source of employment growth in many of the countries that have achieved rising employment rates during the past several decades. Because productivity in these jobs tends to be low and difficult to increase, the question is whether relatively high wages will substantially reduce employer demand for labor. Within the United States, this has been the key question at issue in the recurring debate over whether, and to what degree, the statutory minimum wage should be increased.
Employment Protection Regulations
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

Strict employment protection rules are typically motivated by concern for fairness rather than equality, but they may nevertheless help to reduce inequality in earnings among the employed. The concern is that they may also reduce hiring, thereby inhibiting employment growth. What does the experience of affluent countries in recent decades suggest? This chapter examines this issue.
Taxes
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

Tax rates and tax structures differ markedly across the rich countries, and play a key role in reducing inequality but may also reduce employment. This chapter addresses the following questions: do taxes reduce inequality directly, or do they contribute to redistribution chiefly by providing the revenue for transfers? To what extent does globalization constrain governments' ability to maintain large and progressive tax systems? Have countries been moving toward more or less redistributive types of taxation? Do taxes in fact impede employment? The chapter argues that a tax policy conducive to low income inequality and high employment should have four principal features: taxes should generate a high level of revenues, in order to finance generous transfers and services; the tax system should be progressive, or at worst minimally regressive; payroll and consumption taxes should be moderate, so as not to impede employment growth in low-end services; and to encourage investment and entreneurship and prevent capital flight, there should be a relatively low statutory rate and a not-too-high effective tax rate on capital.
Skills
Authors: Kenworthy Lane
Published: September 2008

Educational attainment is a good predictor of individuals' employment and earnings. In the standard view, this is because education is a useful measure of skills, which in turn are a key determinant of a person's productivity. In theory, equalizing skills could therefore lead to both high employment and a relatively equal distribution of earnings. This chapter assesses this supposition, drawing on both individual- and country-level data.
Biomolecular pleiomorphism probed by spatial interpolation of coarse models
Authors: Rusu Mirabela , Birmanns Stefan , Wriggers Willy
Published: August 2008

In low resolution structures of biological assemblies one can often observe conformational deviations that require a flexible rearrangement of structural domains fitted at the atomic level. We are evaluating interpolation methods for the flexible alignment of atomic models based on coarse models. Spatial interpolation is well established in image-processing and visualization to describe the overall deformation or warping of an object or an image. Combined with a coarse representation of the biological system by feature vectors, such methods can provide a flexible approximation of the molecular structure. We have compared three well-known interpolation techniques and evaluated the results by comparing them with constrained molecular dynamics. One method, inverse distance weighting interpolation, consistently produced models that were nearly indistinguishable on the alpha carbon level from the molecular dynamics results. The method is simple to apply and enables flexing of structures by non-expert modelers. This is useful for the basic interpretation of volumetric data in biological applications such as electron microscopy. The method can be used as a general interpretation tool for sparsely sampled motions derived from coarse models.

Contact:  wriggers@biomachina.org

Supplementary information:  Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Comparative Analysis of Viperidae Venoms Antibacterial Profile: a Short Communication for Proteomics
Authors: Ferreira Bruno L. , Santos Dilvani O. , Santos André Luis dos , Rodrigues Carlos R. , de Freitas Cícero C. , Cabral Lúcio M. , Castro Helena C.
Published: September 2008

Bacterial infections involving multidrug‐resistant strains are one of the ten leading causes of death and an important health problem in need for new antibacterial sources and agents. Herein, we tested and compared four snake venoms (Agkistrodon rhodostoma, Bothrops jararaca, B. atrox and Lachesis muta) against 10 Gram‐positive and Gram‐negative drug‐resistant clinical bacteria strains to identify them as new sources of potential antibacterial molecules. Our data revealed that, as efficient as some antibiotics currently on the market (minimal inhibitory concentration (MIC) = 1–32 μg mL−1), A. rhodostoma and B. atrox venoms were active against Staphylococcus epidermidis and Enterococcus faecalis (MIC = 4.5 μg mL−1), while B. jararaca inhibited S. aureus growth (MIC = 13 μg ml−1). As genomic and proteomic technologies are improving and developing rapidly, our results suggested that A. rhodostoma, B. atrox and B. jararaca venoms and glands are feasible sources for searching antimicrobial prototypes for future design new antibiotics against drug‐resistant clinical bacteria. They also point to an additional perspective to fully identify the pharmacological potential of these venoms by using different techniques.
All across Africa: highly individual migration routes of Eleonora's falcon
Authors: Gschweng Marion , Kalko Elisabeth K.V , Querner Ulrich , Fiedler Wolfgang , Berthold Peter
Published: September 2008

Eleonora's falcon (Falco eleonorae) is a rare raptor species that delays its breeding period until late summer to feed its young with passerines at the peak of autumn migration. Since the 1950s, this slender winged falcon has been believed to migrate along a historical route via the Red Sea to its main wintering area in Madagascar. In our study, we used satellite telemetry to investigate the real migration route of Eleonora's falcons and found that the species displayed a highly individual migration pattern. Furthermore, juvenile falcons migrated via West Africa to Madagascar and two juveniles could be tracked during spring migration and to their summering areas in East and West Africa. As juveniles migrated independently of adults, we discuss inherited navigation strategies forming part of a complex navigation system. We propose the idea of an orientation mechanism that naive falcons could apply during their long-distance migration towards their faraway wintering area located in the open ocean.
Survival and recovery of
Phaeocystis antarctica
(Prymnesiophyceae) from prolonged darkness and freezing
Authors: Tang Kam W , Smith Walker O , Shields Amy R , Elliott David T
Published: September 2008

The colony-forming haptophyte
Phaeocystis antarctica
is an important primary producer in the Ross Sea, and must survive long periods of darkness and freezing temperature in this extreme environment. We conducted experiments on the responses of
P. antarctica
-dominated phytoplankton assemblages to prolonged periods of darkness and freezing. Chlorophyll and photosynthetic capacity of the alga declined nonlinearly and independently of each other in the dark, and darkness alone would potentially reduce photosynthetic capacity by only 60 per cent over 150 days (approximately the length of the Antarctic winter in the southern Ross Sea). The estimated reduction of colonial mucous carbon is higher than that of colonial cell carbon, suggesting metabolism of the colonial matrix in the dark. The alga quickly resumed growth upon return to light.
Phaeocystis antarctica
also survived freezing, although longer freezing durations lengthened the lag before growth resumption. Particulate dimethylsulfoniopropionate relative to chlorophyll increased upon freezing and decreased upon darkness. Taken together, the abilities of
P. antarctica
to survive freezing and initiate growth quickly after darkness may provide it with the capability to survive in both the ice and the water column, and help explain its repeated dominance in austral spring blooms in the Ross Sea and elsewhere in the Southern Ocean.
Prehistoric versus modern Baltic Sea cod fisheries: selectivity across the millennia
Authors: Limburg Karin E , Walther Yvonne , Hong Bongghi , Olson Carina , Storå Jan
Published: September 2008

Combining Stone Age and modern data provides unique insights for management, extending beyond contemporary problems and shifting baselines. Using fish chronometric parts, we compared demographic characteristics of exploited cod populations from the Neolithic Period (4500 BP) to the modern highly exploited fishery in the central Baltic Sea. We found that Neolithic cod were larger (mean 56.4 cm, 95% confidence interval (CI)±0.9) than modern fish (weighted mean length in catch =49.5±0.2 cm in 1995, 48.2±0.2 cm in 2003), and older (mean ages =4.7±0.11, 3.1±0.02 and 3.6±0.02 years for Neolithic, 1995, and 2003 fisheries, respectively). Fishery-independent surveys in 1995 and 2003 show that mean sizes in the stock are 16–17 cm smaller than reflected in the fishery, and mean ages approximately 1–1.5 years younger. Modelled von Bertalanffy growth and back-calculated lengths indicated that Neolithic cod grew to smaller asymptotic lengths, but were larger at younger ages, implying rapid early growth. Very small Neolithic cod were absent and large individuals were rare as in modern times. This could be owing to selective harvests, the absence of small and large fish in the area or a combination. Comparing modern and prehistoric times, fishery selection is evident, but apparently not as great as in the North Atlantic proper.
Directional sensitivity of the retina: 75 years of Stiles–Crawford effect
Authors: Westheimer Gerald
Published: September 2008

The reduction of the brightness when a light beam's entry into the eye is shifted from the centre to the edge of the pupil has from the outset been shown to be due to a change in luminous efficiency of radiation when it is incident obliquely on the retina. The phenomenon is most prominent in photopic vision and this has concentrated attention on the properties of retinal cones, where responsibility has yet to be assigned to factors such as differences in shape, fine structure and configuration, and membrane anchoring of photopigment molecules. Geometrical optics and waveguide formulations have been applied to the question of how light is guided in receptors, but details of their geometry and optical parameters even if they become available will make calculations complex and of only moderate generality. In practice, the diminution of oblique light helps visual performance by reducing deleterious influence of ocular aberrations and of glare caused by light scattering when the pupil is wide. Receptor orientation can come into play in ocular conditions due to mechanical disturbance and has been shown to have potentiality as a tool for clinical diagnosis. Currently, open questions include microanatomical and molecular differences between rods and cones, the coupling of the optical image of the eye with the transducing apparatus in the photoreceptors, possible phototropism and more convincing methods of estimating the actual spatial distribution of photon events as it affects visual resolution.
Moving with the beat: heart rate and visceral temperature of free-swimming and feeding bluefin tuna
Authors: Clark T.D , Taylor B.D , Seymour R.S , Ellis D , Buchanan J , Fitzgibbon Q.P , Frappell P.B
Published: September 2008

Owing to the inherent difficulties of studying bluefin tuna, nothing is known of the cardiovascular function of free-swimming fish. Here, we surgically implanted newly designed data loggers into the visceral cavity of juvenile southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) to measure changes in the heart rate (fH) and visceral temperature (TV) during a two-week feeding regime in sea pens at Port Lincoln, Australia. Fish ranged in body mass from 10 to 21 kg, and water temperature remained at 18–19°C. Pre-feedingfHtypically ranged from 20 to 50 beats min−1. Each feeding bout (meal sizes 2–7% of tuna body mass) was characterized by increased levels of activity andfH(up to 130 beats min−1), and a decrease inTVfrom approximately 20 to 18°C as cold sardines were consumed. The feeding bout was promptly followed by a rapid increase inTV, which signified the beginning of the heat increment of feeding (HIF). The time interval between meal consumption and the completion of HIF ranged from 10 to 24 hours and was strongly correlated with ration size. AlthoughfHgenerally decreased after its peak during the feeding bout, it remained elevated during the digestive period and returned to routine levels on a similar, but slightly earlier, temporal scale toTV. These data imply a large contribution offHto the increase in circulatory oxygen transport that is required for digestion. Furthermore, these data oppose the contention that maximumfHis exceptional in bluefin tuna compared with other fishes, and so it is likely that enhanced cardiac stroke volume and blood oxygen carrying capacity are the principal factors allowing superior rates of circulatory oxygen transport in tuna.
High variability in patterns of population decline: the importance of local processes in species extinctions
Authors: Cowlishaw Guy , Pettifor Richard A , Isaac Nick J.B
Published: September 2008

A fundamental goal of conservation science is to improve conservation practice. Understanding species extinction patterns has been a central approach towards this objective. However, uncertainty remains about the extent to which species-level patterns reliably indicate population phenomena at the scale of local sites, where conservation ultimately takes place. Here, we explore the importance of both species- and site-specific components of variation in local population declines following habitat disturbance, and test a suite of hypotheses about their intrinsic and extrinsic drivers. To achieve these goals, we analyse an unusually detailed global dataset for species responses to habitat disturbance, namely primates in timber extraction systems, using cross-classified generalized linear mixed models. We show that while there are consistent differences in the severity of local population decline between species, an equal amount of variation also occurs between sites. The tests of our hypotheses further indicate that a combination of biological traits at the species level, and environmental factors at the site level, can help to explain these patterns. Specifically, primate populations show a more marked decline when the species is characterized by slow reproduction, high ecological requirements, low ecological flexibility and small body size; and when the local environment has had less time for recovery following disturbance. Our results demonstrate that individual species show a highly heterogeneous, yet explicable, pattern of decline. The increased recognition and elucidation of local-scale processes in species declines will improve our ability to conserve biodiversity in the future.
Social personality trait and fitness
Authors: Cote J , Dreiss A , Clobert J
Published: September 2008

Several recent studies have explored various aspects of animal personality and their ecological consequences. However, the processes responsible for the maintenance of personality variability within a population are still largely unknown. We have recently demonstrated that social personality traits exist in the common lizard (Lacerta vivipara) and that the variation in sociability provides an explanation for variable dispersal responses within a given species. However, we need to know the fitness consequences of variation in sociability across environmental contexts in order to better understand the maintenance of such variation. In order to achieve this, we investigated the relationship between sociability and survival, body growth and fecundity, in one-year-old individuals in semi-natural populations with varying density. ‘Asocial’ and ‘social’ lizards displayed different fitness outcomes in populations of different densities. Asocial lizards survived better in low-density populations, while social females reproduced better. Spatiotemporal variation in environmental conditions might thus be the process underlying the maintenance of these personality traits within a population. Finally, we also discuss the position of sociability in a more general individual behavioural pattern including boldness, exploration and aggressiveness.