bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Determining the life cycle of bolts using a local approach and the Dang Van criterion
Authors: FARES Y. , CHAUSSUMIER M. , DAIDIE A. , GUILLOT J. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe fatigue behaviour of bolts under axial load has always been considered from the component point of view for which fatigue limit is usually taken equal to 50 MPa, and few results are available to designers for limited lifetimes. Here, we take up this problem from a material point of view using a local approach. For each case of fatigue testing, using finite‐element (FE) model of the bolt, we determine the stabilized local stress at the root of the first thread in contact with the nut. To characterize bolt behaviour with these numerical results, we use Dang Van multiaxial fatigue criterion for which we extend application to the medium fatigue life. These results can be correlated with the experimental numbers of cycles to failure to determine material parameters of the generalized criterion. Using statistical Gauss method, we can make lifetime predictions for any level of risk of failure. In addition, we propose an analytical model to rapidly determine the local stress condition from nominal loading data (mean stress and alternating stress). This model dispenses us from a new modelling if the bolt is stressed in the same manner as the bolts used for behaviour characterization. Using this model and the generalized criterion, it is extremely easy to make lifetime predictions whatever the risk considered.
Distributions of exotic plants in eastern Asia and North America
Authors: Guo Qinfeng , Qian Hong , Ricklefs Robert E. , Xi Weimin 
Published: May 2006

AbstractAlthough some plant traits have been linked to invasion success, the possible effects of regional factors, such as diversity, habitat suitability, and human activity are not well understood. Each of these mechanisms predicts a different pattern of distribution at the regional scale. Thus, where climate and soils are similar, predictions based on regional hypotheses for invasion success can be tested by comparisons of distributions in the source and receiving regions. Here, we analyse the native and alien geographic ranges of all 1567 plant species that have been introduced between eastern Asia and North America or have been introduced to both regions from elsewhere. The results reveal correlations between the spread of exotics and both the native species richness and transportation networks of recipient regions. This suggests that both species interactions and human‐aided dispersal influence exotic distributions, although further work on the relative importance of these processes is needed.
Fostering collaborative knowledge construction in a video‐based learning setting: effects of a shared workspace and a content‐specific graphical representation
Authors: Hron Aemilian , Cress Ulrike , Hammer Karsten , Friedrich Helmut‐Felix 
Published: May 2006

AbstractThis study examined means of fostering videoconference‐based collaborative learning. An experiment was conducted with 15 learning dyads divided into three conditions of videoconference‐based learning: without shared workspace, with shared workspace and with shared workspace plus a content‐specific graphical representation. Compared with those with a shared workspace, learning dyads without a shared workspace in the videoconference‐based setting tended to make more effort at verbal coordination. This coordination effort did not affect the quality of collaboratively written texts or individual knowledge acquisition. Without shared workspace, participants’ coordinative utterances involved more frequent referrals to the learning content, which might have facilitated the cognitive processing of the learning content and might have compensated for the potential disadvantage of verbal coordination load. The content‐specific graphical representation led to more coherent content‐related dialogues and had positive effects on the quality of the collaboratively written texts and on individual knowledge acquisition. The study shows that content‐specific graphical representation can be a meaningful support measure in videoconference‐based learning settings, whereas the effects of a shared workspace should be further investigated.
Comparing asynchronous online discussions and face‐to‐face discussions in a classroom setting
Authors: Wang Qiyun , Woo Huay Lit 
Published: May 2006

AbstractThe purpose of this study is to investigate the perceived differences between asynchronous online discussions and face‐to‐face discussions in a classroom setting. The students’ reflections were analysed by following a qualitative research approach. The results showed that atmosphere, response, efficiency, interactivity and communication were the top five themes that differ between asynchronous online and face‐to‐face discussions. Implications for designing asynchronous online and face‐to‐face discussions are discussed.
Age and novelty: Event‐related brain potentials and autonomic activity
Authors: Weisz Júlia , Czigler István 
Published: May 2006

AbstractOur aim was to study age‐related differences in the habituation of orienting reaction by using novel visual stimuli. We intended to fill a gap in habituation research by recording both autonomic and ERP components of orienting to visual stimuli in the same sample and in highly related paradigms. We report data showing that in young subjects repetition of visual novels yielded fast habituation of both skin conductance responses and ERP components (P3novel, N2b) whereas elderly people displayed no sign of habituation. However, cardiac deceleration—thought conventionally to be part of the orienting reaction—did not habituate in either group. Overall, most of our results harmonize with those obtained by using auditory stimuli; therefore we conclude that there is no significant modality specificity in age‐related deterioration of habituation processes.
Effects of monetary reward and punishment on stimulus‐preceding negativity
Authors: Ohgami Yoshimi , Kotani Yasunori , Tsukamoto Tetsuji , Omura Kazufumi , Inoue Yusuke , Aihara Yasutsugu , Nakayama Minoru 
Published: May 2006

AbstractThis study examined the effects of emotional valence on stimulus‐preceding negativity (SPN) using reward and fine. A time estimation task under reward, punishment, combined, and control conditions was performed. Participants were rewarded for accurate responses in the reward condition, and were fined for incorrect estimations in the punishment condition. in the combined condition, correct responses were rewarded and incorrect responses were fined. In the control condition, neither a reward nor fine was used. Results showed a significant interaction of condition × hemisphere. The SPN at the left hemisphere was increased in the reward condition. For the punishment effect, although it evoked right hemisphere dominance, no conditional difference was apparent at the right hemisphere. These results suggest that the SPN is affected by positive emotion: The left hemisphere activation might represent a pleasant emotion accompanying monetary gain.
INTERGOVERNMENTAL POLICY ON MULTINATIONAL CORPORATIONS
Authors: LAVER MICHAEL 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTMultinational corporations can play off host governments to minimise their tax payments in the absence of internationally coordinated fiscal policies. Without a supranational enforcement agency, most tax harmonization policies are unstable because one or another signatory always has an incentive to break ranks. This produces a sub‐optimal tax harvest for a group of host governments taken as a whole. This is a collective action problem for host governments which can be stated in the form of a Prisoner's Dilemma supergame. Equilibrium cooperative solutions have been suggested for this game which do not need higher authorities to enforce them. The application of these solutions to the host governments’ tax problem is discussed, with the conclusion that under certain conditions self‐policing tax harmonization agreements are possible.
THE EFFECT OF THE OPPOSITION PARTIES ON THE LEGISLATIVE OUTPUT IN A MULTI‐PARTY SYSTEM. THE BELGIAN CASE FROM 1965 TO 1971
Authors: DEWACHTER WILFRIED , LISMONT EDITH , TEGENBOS GUY 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTA content analysis of the 1965 platforms of all Belgian political parties provides a determination of the policy objectives for the next legislature so that a survey can be made of the completely, partially, and nonrealized objectives at the end of a two‐legislature (1965–1968 and 1968–1971) period according to government and opposition parties, according to party strength – which was in this period congruent with the duration of participation in the government – and according to the distinction made between the parties qualifying for government and the non‐elitist opposition parties. The degree of realization is established for the total number of platform planks, for the number of specific items per party, and according to the degree of importance and social repercussion of the distinct planks that could be realized. Although respectively in office for six, four, and two years, the CVP/PSC, the BSP–PSB and the PVV/PLP realized approximately the same number of planks. The nonelitist opposition party Volksunie realized a smaller but still considerable number of objectives. So did, but to a lesser extent, the other structural or antisystem opposition parties, RW, FDF and KPB–PCB. The interpretation of these results may lie in the loss of distinctiveness in the government–opposition model in a multi‐party system, the elitist consensus in Belgium which is shared by the three main parties, the function of the pressure party strategy and the conducting of opposition in dynamic terms of action.
SCANDINAVIAN CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY: THROWBACK OR PORTENT?*
Authors: MADELEY JOHN T.S. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTAdvanced secularization in the Scandinavian countries has not resulted in the elimination of “the religious factor” from political life, rather has it led to a resurgence with the recent establishment in Sweden, Denmark and Finland of native counterparts to Norway's Christian People's Party. The article first examines the development of the characteristic religious cleavage structures of Scandinavia, from the imposed uniformity of the state churches in the early nineteenth century to the relatively open and competitive religious cultures of the twentieth century. The interrelationship between religious cleavages and political alignments is then examined and an attempt made to explain the failure of stable religious parties to emerge in the formative period of the party systems. Finally, the circumstances surrounding the later emergence of the religious parties are described and it is argued that these parties collectively constitute a new species of the genus Christian Democracy, different in kind from Fogarty's Continental and Anglo‐Saxon species.
RECRUITMENT AND TRAINING OF HIGHER CIVIL SERVANTS IN FRANCE: THE ECOLE NATIONALE D'ADMINISTRATION
Authors: KESSLER MARIE‐CHRISTINE 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTL'École Nationale d'Administration was established by ordonnance on October 9, 1945. Michel Debré, the architect of the ordonnance, wanted to change the previous system of recruitment and training of higher civil servants in France in two major ways. The first was a political change implying an increase in democracy and equality both for society at large and for the French civil service in particular. The second change was of a more technical nature and provided for a standardization of qualifications for all higher civil servants, a standardization however, at a qualitatively high level. The political aims of the 1945 reform proved difficult to achieve; despite subsequent tinkering, the degree of democratization and standardization of the higher civil service remains doubtful.As far as the technical aspects of the reform are concerned, however, ENA reached, indeed surpassed, the target initially set. Few people doubt the quality of the civil servants ENA turns out. And yet the upshot of ENA's insistence on a high level of factual knowledge coupled with intensive training has been the creation of an elite more likely to collaborate directly with ministers than to provide an efficiently functioning administration. Whether the ENA can therefore be termed a civil service college rather than a training ground for the exercise of power remains a debatable question.
ARE SCOTTISH NATIONALISTS AUTHORITARIAN AND CONSERVATIVE?
Authors: RAY J.J. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe psychology of Scottish Nationalism has been little explored. Using a mainly student sample, Britton (1971) showed S.N.P. voters to be low on authoritarianism where theory would predict them to be high. The Ray (1976) Directiveness scale and 10 items from the Wilson (1973a) conservatism scale were applied to 100 randomly sampled Glaswegians. The S.N.P. voters were neither authoritarian nor conservative. The S.N.P. was identified as being supported by voters of the political centre.
THE CHANGING NATURE OF PARTISAN DIVISIONS IN THE WEST: TRENDS IN DOMESTIC POLICY ORIENTATIONS IN TEN PARTY SYSTEMS
Authors: THOMAS JOHN CLAYTON 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe nature of partisan divisions in the West has been a continuing source of controversy for several decades. This article seeks to improve our understanding of those divisions by examining how Western parties have changed their positions on major domestic policy issues in recent decades. The research employs longitudinal data developed through content analysis on the parties of ten Western nations: Australia, Austria, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, the United States, and West Germany. Analysis of the data shows that, as expected, partisan divisions have declined in almost all of the party systems, although the decline has unexpectedly been accompanied by a slight tendency toward leftward movement, belying suggestions of a “conservative turn” in Western politics. The paper also considers the possibility that new issues may develop to supplant the declining traditional issues. The paper concludes that a revival of pronounced partisan divisions is unlikely, but that a revival probably is not necessary for the continued viability of Western parties.
THE DYNAMICS OF EUROPEAN PARTY SYSTEMS: CHANGING PATTERNS OF ELECTORAL VOLATILITY
Authors: PEDERSEN MOGENS N. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTIn recent years it has become increasingly difficult to maintain that the European party systems are stable and that they reflect the societal cleavage structures of the past. One developmental aspect of the party systems is singled out for description and analysis in this paper. It is argued that European party systems in terms of electoral volatility, i.e. rates of net change in the electorates, are drifting away from each other. Some of the party systems which have traditionally been considered volatile, apparently are becoming less so, while some other systems are taking on the character of highly volatile party systems. A simple set of hypotheses, based upon the notion of party space, is proposed in order to account for the variation observed. The data lend support to the hypothesis that electoral volatility is a function of the format of the party system and of short‐term changes in that format.
ANALYSING INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS *
Authors: RHODES R.A.W. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe study of central–local relations in Britain is in a state of flux. Traditionally the subject has been the preserve of Public Administration but work in this tradition has been incisively criticised. However, no cogent alternative framework of analysis has been offered. This paper briefly reviews the existing British literature before assessing the contribution of recent theoretical developments in the sociology of organisations to the understanding of intergovernmental relations. It concludes that the literature on interorganisational analysis has become pre‐occupied with methodological questions and in its most common manifestations will not facilitate the analysis of intergovernmental relations. However, if interorganisational analysis is located within a theory of intra‐ and interorganisational power, it can provide a series of concepts of considerable utility. Although the paper focuses on understanding British practice, recent work on interorganisational relations in France, West Germany and the United States of America is discussed.
The Role of Interest Groups in Collective Interest Policy‐Making: Consumer Protection in Norway and the United States*
Authors: ROSE LAWRENCE E. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTIssues of collective interest, to the extent they are brought into the public policy‐making arena, pose serious theoretical challenges for democratic societies ‐ challenges primarily associated with interest representation and agenda setting practices. The present article takes these challenges as its point of departure, focusing in particular on the role interest groups may play in meeting these. Using consumer protection policy‐making in Norway and the United States for illustrative purposes, the article explores the characteristics of consumer protection as a collective interest and then sets forth six alternative means of such interest articulation. The actual infrastructure of consumer interest representation in the Norwegian and U.S. cases is then examined, revealing major differences, and the implications of these differences are considered. The principal conclusion is that independent consumer associations are in all likelihood a sufficient, but certainly not necessary, condition for the realization of public consumer protection policies. The same also applies to a corporatist interest group arrangement as practised in Norway. Additional observations are offered regarding patterns of agenda setting and possible policy convergence in advanced industrial societies.
A Preliminary Survey of the Theories and Findings on Vote and Popularity Functions
Authors: PALDAM MARTIN 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe survey covers the rapidly growing body of literature on party‐support models estimated on time series data for elections and popularity polls. The movements in the popularity of the parties are explained by their government participation and, mainly, the economic conditions as measured by the standard macroeconomic indicators. Sections 1 and 4 present the central qualitative findings and ideas of about 50 of the most important articles and conclude that the economic indicators explain around 1/3 of the variations in the party popularities; the main drawback of the models is their lack of stability. The remaining Sections—2 and 3 ‐ discuss the theory behind the models and some of the theoretical implications of the findings. That is, the problems involved in an adequate representation of the political factors; the time horizons at play; the relations to the micro theory of voting and the social welfare function; the formations of the expectations relevant and how people perceive the economy.
Party Organization and Minority Nationalism: A Comparative Study in the United Kingdom*
Authors: McALLISTER IAN 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTPolitical organization is a contingent, not a fixed, factor for most social groups. For such groups to gain electoral success, they must at some stage take a formal decision to construct a political organization and fight elections. Traditionally, political science has concentrated on the exogenous factors conducive to electoral success: it has rarely examined the endogenous factors which have brought political groups to adopt an electoral strategy and a differentiated organization. This paper argues that exogenous theories are by their nature only partial explanations, in so far as they ignore the endogenous factors of change within political groups. The argument is illustrated by a comparison of three minority nationalist groups in the United Kingdom: the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the Northern Ireland Social Democratic and Labour Party. The paper examines the endogenous organizational changes which have ultimately resulted in each winning a measure of electoral success in the past decade.
Electoral Voting Preferences and Political Orientations of Athenians in Greece: A Three‐Perspective Model*
Authors: DOBRATZ BETTY A. , KOURVETARIS GEORGE A. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTUsing a three‐perspective model of stratification, group and issue‐oriented variables, an effort was made to examine the relevance of three perspectives in predicting voting behaviour among Athenians in Greece. The model was based on an analysis of 478 cases from data collected in Athens in the spring and summer of 1977. Pro‐Western attitudes and politics of friends were found to be the most important variables in predicting vote among the Athenians. Unlike other European countries, education and occupation were not important while income and age were. The primary group variable of father's politics had important indirect effects while the secondary group variable of workers’ membership in political or occupational organisations had a significant direct effect. The interdependence of the variables in the three‐perspective model were also delineated in the analysis.
The Conditions for Consociational Democracy: a Logical and Empirical Critique*
Authors: PAPPALARDO ADRIANO 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThe predictive power of the consociational model cannot be assessed without a rigorous analysis of the conditions that are conducive to overarching élite cooperation. However, neither Lijphart nor other scholars deal satisfactorily with the problem because many of the conditions that they identify often fail to satisfy one or more criteria that test their reliability. Only two conditions are unambiguously favourable to consociational cooperation: inter‐subcultural stability and élite predominance over a politically deferential and organizationally encapsulated following:
Three Dependency Explanations of Economic Growth: A Critical Evaluation
Authors: WEEDE ERICH , TIEFENBACH HORST 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTThree different dependency explanations of economic growth are evaluated through cross‐sectional regression analyses for 98 countries between 1960 and 1977, using logged GNPC, its square, gross domestic investment and the military participation ratio as control variables. Galtung's A Structural Theory of Imperialism seems to contain one useful predictor of economic growth, commodity concentration, which hurts the growth prospects of nations, but neither his vertical trade nor his partner concentration has any significant impact. Rubinson's state strength approach receives no support at all, since strong states, operationalized by government revenue/GDP, come closer to hurting than to promoting economic growth. Bornschier's investment dependency approach also fails to explain why some LDCs do so much better or worse than others. It is suggested that future research on linkages between the world system and the economic performance of LDCs might profit from broadening the research agenda to include power politics and its military participation effects in addition to political economy variables.
An Explanatory Model for Differing Types of Participation*
Authors: MULLER EDWARD N. 
Published: May 2006

ABSTRACTDemocratic participation (conventional and unconventional methods of legal political activity in democracies) and aggressive participation (civil disobedience and political violence) are analytically distinct types of political behaviour. Previous explanatory models have assumed (usually implicitly) that these types of behaviour are uncorrelated. But an accumulation of recent research evidence shows them to be correlated expirically; therefore an important current priority of political participation research is development of integrated model to explain both types. Using 1974 survey data from the Federal Republic of Germany. a preliminary simultaneous‐equation model is specified and tested.