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Gender is traditionally conceptualized as a binary construct, which is reflected in the use of binary‐gendered third‐person pronouns. Gender‐inclusive pronouns such as singular they challenge this conceptualization, which can evoke resistance against their use. Singular they can be used generically when gender is unknown (de‐gendering), or to specifically highlight an individual's non‐binary gender identity (multi‐gendering). The different uses of singular they can threaten different ideological convictions and impact the use and perception of the pronoun. Experiment 1 (N = 599) showed that in de‐gendering contexts, participants preferred to use singular they but in multi‐gendering contexts they preferred binary pronouns. Social identification with one's gender group, RWA and binary gender views predicted less use of singular they in both contexts. In Experiment 2 (N = 199), participants evaluated sentences with singular they in de‐gendering and multi‐gendering contexts. Overall, sentences with singular they in de‐gendering contexts were more positively evaluated. SDO predicted less positive evaluations of they in de‐gendering contexts, while RWA and binary gender views predicted less positive evaluations of they in multi‐gendered contexts. The findings provide important knowledge in understanding ideological motivations for resistance against gender‐inclusive language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complexity of the idea of a university has been intensified globally as more universities pursue entrepreneurship. For modern universities in China as latecomers, contemporary entrepreneurial reforms are implemented against a backdrop of ongoing interactions between Chinese and Western ideas of a university, with the Western established as the formal system and the Chinese functioning informally yet powerfully. Through 71 semi-structured interviews at four universities in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, this study explores how academic freedom and institutional autonomy are perceived by Chinese academics under entrepreneurial reforms. The study has two major findings through Clark’s analytical framework of academic, government, and market forces: (1) A novel form of statist academic freedom is emerging, merging traditional Chinese scholarly values with state-driven entrepreneurial demands; (2) The adapted triple helix model in China emphasises competition and excellence, shaped by a unique blend of state influence and market dynamics. It offers a nuanced perspective on academic freedom and institutional autonomy amidst entrepreneurial reforms in China, highlighting a compatibility with Chinese idea of a university and a response to global entrepreneurial pressures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a tentative reading of proposed English planning reform under the Labour government elected in July 2024. Key aspects of the agenda are reviewed, together with the proposed extension of an ongoing devolution and decentralisation programme. Labour’s reforms are characterised as the leading-edge of a generally cautious ‘new state capitalism’. Though there are similarities with previous ‘roll-out neoliberal’ arrangements under the New Labour governments from 1997 to 2010, the altered political-economic context will likely reinforce some distinctiveness in terms of the meaning and implementation of reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce a typology of election administration harms and apply it to empirically study the consequences of ballot design. Our typology distinguishes between individual, electoral, and systemic harms. Together, it clarifies why ballot design can be a particular vulnerability in election administration. Using both ballot‐level and precinct‐level data, we revisit Florida's 2018 United States Senate race, in which Broward County's ballot design flouted federal guidelines and, according to critics, was pivotal to the outcome. We estimate that Broward's ballot design induced roughly 25,000 voters to undervote in a race determined by about 10,000 votes and that these excess undervotes were concentrated among low‐information voters. Broward's ballot did not, however, affect the outcome of the election. Nonetheless, flawed ballot designs are still concerning in an age of voter distrust. Given the risk that flawed ballots can cause systemic harm, we offer a roadmap for procedural reforms to improve ballot design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A company's 3.1 MM TPY continuous reforming unit adopts domestic ultra-low pressure continuous reforming (SLCR) technology with indigenous intellectual property, and uses continuous reforming catalyst PS-VI. It is currently the largest domestic continuous reforming unit. During the shrink-fit assessment stage after the large-scale installation, the displacement of various equipment and pipeline supports and hangers in the reaction and regeneration system is normal and consistent with the design data. After the unit is put into operation, the trend of thermal displacement in the reaction and regeneration system is consistent with the results of the shrink-fit assessment. The performance assessment results of the unit show that, in the case where the aromatic potential content of the raw material is 7.49 percentage points lower than the design value, the liquid yield of C5+ of the unit is 88.15%, the pure hydrogen yield is 3.80%, the mass fraction of aromatic hydrocarbon in the depentane oil is 82.84%, and the aromatic hydrocarbon conversion rate is 172% . After half a year of operation, the catalyst dust content remains stable from 8 kg/d to 12 kg/d, and all economic indicators are good. The PS-VI catalyst exhibits good reaction activity, selectivity and low wear rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of FinanzRundschau is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Teacher education in Russia has become the subject of considerable reform over the past 50 years. It is today a complex system of continuous training which gives students a chance to enter the profession in a number of different ways, as well as maintain their professional skill set throughout the course of their careers. This paper offers a comprehensive overview of the history and the state of art initial teacher education in Russia during the last 50 years. It aims to draw on scholarly expertise in Russia and will locate the policies and practices that are discussed within the context of teacher education reform. The main themes of the paper are the history and current practice of Russian initial teacher education. The paper will consider the relationship between policy and practice and examine the respective influences of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and processes of wider reform in the Russian Federation since the 1990s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ‘Greek language problem’ in the USSR represented a special ‘case of complex ethno-linguistic identification,’ because in the Soviet Union, in addition to Katharevousa and Dimotiki, several dialects (languages) were used as a spoken language. In May 1926, at the first All-Union Meeting on Cultural Building among the Greeks of the USSR it was decided to abandon the use of Katharevousa. However, the reform of 1926 created the ground for a very broad interpretation. In 1932–1934, several more meetings on the ‘Greek issue’ were organized in the USSR, as well as a linguistic expedition to the places of residence of the Greeks. But the final decision on the ‘language problem’ has never been made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using China’s seemingly contradictory positions on the Arctic as a starting point, this article examines China’s official and academic Arctic discourses. This paper proposes that China’s apparently contradictory positions in the Arctic region are the result of the dialectical resolution of discursive tensions. Using an original dataset of over one thousand Chinese academic articles and books, together with China’s official statements, this article presents China’s Arctic policy discourse as a polyphonic landscape where diverse opinions and ideas compete within a discursive field. The research proposes that by utilising dialectical thinking, China is able to seek a middle ground between conflict and cooperation, between the near-Arctic state and stakeholder identities and between resource development and environmental protection. China also aims to preserve the status quo while striving to reform Arctic governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Size-controlled monodisperse droplets are indispensable in food, cosmetics, and healthcare industries. Although emulsion formation from bulk phases is well-explored, a robust in situ method to continuously reform existing emulsions is unavailable. Remarkably, we introduce a continuous flow acousto-microfluidics technique which enables simultaneous trapping–coalescence–splitting of droplets to reform an existing polydisperse emulsion into size-controlled droplets with improved monodispersity. In contrast to conventional approaches, our platform enables controlling droplet characteristics in situ by regulating acoustic power without altering hydrodynamical parameters thereby improving response time and facilitates continuous nozzle-less clogging-free droplet generation from a liquid plug in a chamber instead of from a liquid stream at a narrow junction. The technique can process polydisperse droplets produced not only due to fluid-source fluctuations or unstable jetting regime but also externally by non-microfluidic or inexpensive setups. Our theoretical scaling suggests that the sum of capillary (Ca) and acousto-capillary (Caa) numbers ∼ (1), and predicts the generated droplet size, both agreeing well with the experimental findings. We identify acousto-visco-capillary number, Caav = (Ca Caa)1/2, which governs the generated droplet size. We also explore and characterize acoustic streaming- and coalescence-based mixing of samples inside the trapped plug. Distinctively, our platform is amenable to continuous mixing of inhomogeneous droplets, offering monodisperse mixed-sample droplets, and holds the potential to match current throughput standards through suitable design modifications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The mobility of R&D elements is an essential means to achieve the optimal allocation of regional resources and to promote regional high-quality development. However, there is still a wide divergence in academic research on the relationship between R&D element mobility and regional innovation, as well as a lack of evidence on the magnitude of the correlation. It constrains the effective operation of the innovation system to a certain extent. Based on this, this paper employs a meta-analysis to summarise and interpret the 411 effect values of 33 representative literature to explore the mechanism of R&D element mobility on regional innovation. The results reveal a moderate positive correlation between R&D element mobility and regional innovation. Sampling scope, sampling region, data period, mobility direction and innovation output all significantly moderate the relationship between the two. This finding is of great significance for the future reform of factor marketisation. It provides theoretical support and practical guidance for the further realisation of the goal of high-quality development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the approval of the Political Constitution of the United Mexican States in 1917, The 3rd constitutional article has undergone 11 reforms, the last one on May 15, 2019 (Gonzalez, 2021). This reform was founded on an alternative policy model underpinned by a model of improvement that promotes the defense of public schools and the fulfillment of the right to education. On this premise, Mexican regulations put educational improvement at the center of its debate and introduced changes focused on improvement within the framework of the National System for the Continuous Improvement of Education under the coordination of a new agency: the National Commission for the Continuous Improvement of Education (in Spanish Comisión Nacional para la Mejora Continua de la Educación). The purpose of this article is to examine the progress and challenges identified by this agency to rethink the process of educational improvement in the context of the transition of government. We are interested in providing elements of analysis to evaluate the continuity of the improvements in the framework of the educational project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The liberalization of the media stands very much at the forefront in public, policy and academic concerns on how our current model of media governance affects democracy. But the discussion on the effects of media liberalization has obscured the vital question why liberalization was able to become the dominant media governance paradigm in the first place. This research note makes the case for a historical turn to answer this question. It argues that it is essential to contextualize media liberalization in the history of contemporary democracy in Europe rather than see it primarily through the perspective of technological innovation or top-down promotion of neo-liberal policies. It explores how three insights in historiography might form the core of a research agenda for media governance that takes history seriously. These include (a) the study of actors from below that pushed for reform outside the realm of government; (b) the influence of ideas on shaping institutional reform and (c) reading history forward rather than project today's assumptions and outcomes into the past. Jointly, this historical turn will not only provide an enhanced understanding of how past reforms shaped the present, but also enlighten prospects for future changes of media governance paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

If money is used in a market setting, and if it fulfils its three traditional functions well, this creates normative problems. Arguably, the two most pressing problems linked to markets – inequality and corruption – are partly caused by the prevailing monetary design. Given the history of suggested monetary reforms, one might reasonably hope that, by consciously re-designing the functions of a currency, one might overcome these issues. This essay argues that there are clear moral limits to this. Because of the way inequality and corruption are intertwined via money's functions, we cannot simultaneously overcome both problems. This also means that even though these problems have monetary causes, they do not have purely monetary solutions, but need to be addressed relying on fiscal or market reform as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resilience of local communities (territorial hromadas) is an increasingly salient matter in the academic and policy debate on the factors which have determined Ukraine's resilience to Russia's 2022 invasion. Building on existing literature on institutional resilience and its predictors, this article explains the ability of Ukrainian self‐governed municipalities to withstand the threats to institutional stability stemming from the invasion. First, it uses an exploratory qualitative design to operationalize the concept of resilience and its predictors with an account of varying experiences of Ukrainian hromadas during the full‐scale invasion (e.g., hromadas near the frontline and in the rear). Next, it presents data from open sources and the results of a regression analysis to test the impact of various groups of predictors on hromadas' resilience to the full‐scale invasion. Our models show a significant relationship between hromadas' resilience and geographical, politico‐administrative and economic predictors influenced by the outcomes of the decentralization reform conducted in Ukraine since 2014. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After allegations of the US intelligence community conducting illegal operations that targeted American citizens, 1975 became known as the Year of Intelligence. The subject dominated national discourse and led to competing programmes of intelligence oversight proposed by Congress and the executive branch. This article examines the Ford administration's programme that started with the Rockefeller Commission in January 1975 and ended with the issue of Executive order 11,905 in 1976. It argues that neither were enough to stave off Congress intruding on executive control of the intelligence community, because the Ford administration inaccurately measured the public's demands for genuine reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ancient accounts of Kleisthenes's democratizing reforms to the Athenian constitution in 508/507 B.C.E. do not elaborate on the reasons why these reforms found widespread support and thus proved stable. While scholars are confident that Kleisthenes divided Athenian citizens into ten geographically representative tribes and assigned them to local units of government, they do not agree about why these reforms produced a thoroughgoing democracy. This paper argues that Kleisthenes instituted reforms to religious practices and structures that supplied ideational content to the political reforms. This paper also attempts to demonstrate that some of the religious elements that Kleisthenes repurposed to serve the democratic constitution had been politicized in the previous century. Religious observance was thus one of the sites where contestation about Athens' political direction furnished democratic conceptual vocabulary. Athenians who wished to see civic institutions become more inclusive could be and were appealed to through reforms to everyday religious practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the impact of activity‐based funding (ABF) on the performance of hospitals by exploiting a natural experiment that happened in the state of Queensland, Australia. To examine the outcome of the reform, the performance of hospitals is measured by the technical efficiency estimated from data envelopment analysis (DEA) models. We try to identify the causal effect of ABF on the technical efficiency of hospitals by incorporating difference‐in‐differences approach in the popular two‐stage DEA framework. We find empirical evidence that ABF improves the technical efficiency of hospitals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's labor market has changed dramatically since the beginning of reform and opening up. Previous studies have pointed out that marketization changed the segmentation structure of China's labor market. However, there was a lack of theoretical derivation of the mechanism, and empirical analysis was relatively rough due to methodological limitations. In this study, a pseudo-employer mobility temporal network was constructed for China's labor market from 1994 to 2018. Based on the temporal network analysis, this study finds the following: first, China's labor market is now structurally more open and flexible than it was before market-oriented reforms; second, the labor market in China has seen a shift from work unit segmentation to occupational segmentation; third, non-smoothness manifests itself in the structural changes in China's labor market. China's labor market quickly disintegrated after the launch of market-oriented reforms in the 1990s and then ushered in a turbulent period of drastic changes. It was after this turbulent period had ended that the present labor market structure took shape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under pressure to establish world-class universities, higher education institutions are competing for high-level talent and developing increasingly strict performance assessment mechanisms, which may cause academic staff turnover and potential talent loss. This study focuses on academic staff turnover in the context of reforms to the Chinese academic personnel system, featured by the adoption of a tenure track system. By adopting an ecological perspective, this study discerned a systematic influence of personnel system reforms on academic staff turnover across multiple levels of the academic ecosystem, including the social/institutional, organisational, interpersonal, and individual dimensions. The findings unravel possible discourse misalignment at different levels of the academic ecosystem, deepening understanding of the controversies around university personnel reforms. The study contributes to the global literature on academic staff turnover in the context of competition among world-class universities and offer lessons for other countries undergoing similar transformations in their higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Latin American countries have been at the forefront of pension privatization and since 2008 they have also pioneered reform reversals. Previous studies have focused on single cases or a small number of them, given that pension reform is a complex phenomenon arising from the combination of different causes. Using fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA), the article analyzes a set of 32 pension reform cases in eight countries from the early 1990s until 2021. It finds four different pathways that combine institutional, structural and policy legacy conditions. It demonstrates that fsQCA is a useful tool for broader comparative policy work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: If medicine fundamentally exists to care for the wellbeing of individuals and societies, there should be a direct and comprehensive link between a medical school's social mission and its educational programme. We have not found a description of development or reform that utilises social mission to guide the comprehensive development of the educational programme. As a new school, we utilised a systematic mission‐driven approach to develop the curriculum, pedagogical methods and structure of the programme. Using layered analysis, this paper demonstrates how a school's mission can drive all aspects of the educational programme. This supports the transferability of this work to other schools so that they can achieve their unique missions. Approach: Layered analysis is used for reporting an intervention through three tiered lenses: philosophies, principles and techniques. This provides a structure to guide implementation and evaluation. It can also be used to transfer the innovation to other contexts. Evaluation: Each principle guiding the school's development is linked to context specific techniques and drives the focus of programme evaluation. Evaluation approaches using these principles are described, including an example of composite student performance data in a core area of focus. Implications: Through layered analysis of a medical school that developed and implemented a mission‐driven curriculum, this can enable other schools to transfer this approach to achieve their missions through the design and implementation of their programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional reforms have resulted in deep transformations of the global economy. Yet, the theoretical development and accumulating insights about the effects of institutional reforms on entrepreneurial outcomes have been inconclusive. Our study applies categorisation theory to argue that flexibility- and stability-enhancing reforms may affect entrepreneurial growth ambitions in distinct ways, depending on whether more innovative versus less innovative entrepreneurs perceive specific reforms as an opportunity or a threat. Our study employs a multi-source, repeated cross-sectional dataset of approximately 150,000 entrepreneurs from 65 countries, covering the period from 2002 to 2016. Our findings indicate that flexibility-enhancing reforms lead to higher growth ambitions. They are particularly favoured by less innovative entrepreneurs. On the contrary, stability-enhancing reforms do not affect growth ambitions of entrepreneurs in general but rather increase growth ambitions of more innovative entrepreneurs. Our study provides important theoretical and practical implications about the consequences of institutional reforms on growth ambitions of entrepreneurs with different levels of innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that incentives to convert temporary contracts into permanent ones might be less effective when the employment protection legislation associated with temporary contracts is lax. Drawing upon rich administrative data and using a difference-in-differences methodology, we estimate that workers at their first work experience hired on more flexible contracts undergo a reduction in the conversion rate to permanent employment of 6.3 percentage points after the implementation of the incentives (and of 3.2 percentage points over a year), compared to peers hired on more rigid contracts. This reduced conversion rate, which results in a 17% wage penalty even 2 years into their professional journey, points to a significant negative impact of flexible temporary jobs on the future prospects of young workers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the impact of labour market and product market reforms on income inequality for 25 OECD countries between 1970 and 2020, using the local projections approach and an updated narrative-based dataset of the reform indicators. Our results suggest that both types of (endogenized) market-oriented reforms increase income inequality, but the effects are small. Consistent with this finding is that counter-reforms lead to less income inequality. Our results also indicate that the inequality-increasing effect of market-oriented reforms is mostly a result of more income going to the top of the income distribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper asks whether reducing the informativeness of college admission exams reduces inequality in postcollege earnings. I examine a 2000 reform of the Colombian college admission exam that sought to reduce bias in scores. The reform reduced test score gaps between high- and low-income students by nearly 50% in some subjects, but it also decreased the exam's predictive power for abilities that matter in college. I find that the reform caused students to attend colleges where they were more likely to drop out, which reduced earnings for both high- and low-income students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study proposes explanations for GPRA's incomplete institutionalization, and how it has influenced and continues to affect the use of performance management in the US Government. It evaluates the evolving institutionalization of GPRA, PART, and GPRAMA resulting from tensions in three sets of competing PM reform values: 1) performance-performative communications, 2) discretion-accountability, and 3) politics-administration. The study concludes that experiential learning from GPRA's incomplete institutionalization set the stage for today's evidence and data movements and increased instrumental use of performance information in federal agencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In line with Pollitt's call to clarify convergence in public management reforms, this research explores the decisional convergence in the context of performance budgeting reforms. Applying longer, deeper and comparative approaches, this research analyzes decades of experiences and comprehensive performance budgeting written foundations between two countries under the same framework. We found convergence of reform direction and transferability of key dimensions of reform. However, the important decisional divergences lie in evolution paths, reform speeds and the uneven, and sometimes surprisingly differential specifications of measurement, integration, accountability, and culture in performance budgeting foundations between the two countries. Adaptations and aspirations as sources of divergence, theoretical implications of T-form reform, and implications for generally accepted performance principles are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although studies have linked judicial intervention to inmate outcomes, it is unclear how the various reasons for which an institution is under court order predict the likelihood of inmate misbehavior, such as violence and other nonviolent forms of rule breaking. Data from the 2004 Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities (SISCF) and the 2000 Census of State Correctional Facilities (CSCF) are used to examine how various prison violations affect inmate misconduct. Hierarchical linear models reveal that sweeping litigation and reforms that pose a greater challenge to correctional authority are associated with greater misconduct, while more targeted approaches appear to have a less pronounced or inverse association with misconduct. These findings have important implications for the operation of the correctional institution and its society of captives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on the unique setting of small and medium-sized banks (SMBs) branching deregulation in China, this paper examines the impact of SMBs branches expansion on the credit availability of enterprises by using spatial distribution of SMBs branches at firm-level. We find that SMBs branches expansion has a stronger effect on improving the credit availability of large-scale enterprises compared with SMEs, indicating that SMBs don't give play to their advantages in serving SMEs. Our study provides empirical evidence for the hypothesis of 'Comparative Advantages of SMBs' and policy implication for the reform of banking structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of China Medical Education Technology is the property of China Medical Education Technology Editorial Office and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The concept of New Public Governance (NPG) has proven valuable as an umbrella term for cross-sector collaboration in public governance. Thus far, however, its conceptual development has mainly focused on the external relations of government. To develop NPG as a public management reform model, this article examines its internal dimension by specifying eight NPG reform tools for advancing collaboration within the public sector. We argue that the NPG reform model enables scholars to capture significant collaborative transformations in public administration and suggest new avenues for public management reform research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyzes the question of mosque construction and its interrelationship vis-à-vis nation-building in contemporary Turkey. The dynamics of a secular state ruling over a conservative society have always been conflictual in republican Turkey, and this ever since the modern state began initiating a number of radical secular reforms in the 1920s and the 1930s. Among those reforms, disruptive in a previously conservative society, were the dissolution of the caliphate and dismemberment of religious institutions, coupled with widespread Westernizing policies including the adoption of Western sartorial habits, emphasis on science and technology, and changing the alphabet from the traditional Arabic to the current modern (romanized) Turkish script. On the other hand, the advent of democracy and changeover of government in 1950 brought with it the emergence of a renewed religious discourse and a desire for more mosque construction in order to accentuate the Islamic facet of Turkish culture. Therefore, the religious dimension of Turkish identity has increasingly been buttressed by mosque construction by right-wing governments, reaching its zenith with the current Justice and Development Party (JDP) government (beginning in 2002). Coupled with the emergence of an illiberal democracy bolstered by Turkish populism, this article proposes to analyze the linkage between mosque construction and the building of an Islamic conservative Turkish nation contrasting the secular Turkish identity of the ancien régime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reform of China's one-child policy allows families to have more children and thus may affect anticipation of intergenerational succession of family businesses and drive family firms to improve their corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the reform positively affects the CSR of family firms. We also find that the positive impact is more pronounced for family firms whose owners have fewer children, have no son, and have not yet surpassed reproductive age (older than 50), which confirms the theory that anticipation of intergenerational succession drives CSR in such firms. Moreover, we find that the positive impact is more pronounced for firms that operate in environments where CSR is more strategically important. We validate our findings by showing that the reform prompts investment in value-enhancing CSR and curtails short-termism. This study offers novel evidence that government policies conducive to intergenerational succession in family firms can lead to not only strategic CSR but also to truly ethical corporate behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centralized agenda control is a feature of many parliaments, with important consequences for the conduct and outcomes of legislative politics. Much previous work has thus sought to understand the emergence of centralized agenda‐setting rules. We extend this literature by studying the “Balfour reforms”, which centralized agenda control in the early twentieth century UK House of Commons. Our aim is to probe a conventional claim in the existing literature: that the opposition supported these reforms. This is a counter‐intuitive claim, which rests on relatively little direct evidence. We analyze historical roll‐call data from 1902 to assess how far the opposition supported agenda centralization. We complement this analysis by examining attempted amendments and speech contributions to parliamentary debates. Contrary to the standard view, we find that the primary opposition party consistently resisted these reforms. This evidence of controversy rather than consensus revises our understanding of a key milestone in the development of the Westminster parliament, and contributes to the wider literature on the choice of agenda‐setting procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The study aims to explore the perceived outcomes of Medical Teaching Institution (MTI) reforms on autonomy and overall performance within tertiary healthcare institutions in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, Pakistan. Methodology: A cross-sectional study was carried out from September 2023 to March 2024, involving interviews with frontline staff, administrative personnel, and senior management within MTI-affiliated institutions. The methodology employed, using both qualitative and quantitative data analysis techniques. Results: The study showed that institutional staff members' knowledge and understanding of the MTI changes differed. Some observed very minor adjustments, while others saw advances in hospital operations and service delivery. Administrative complexity, political meddling, and resource allocation problems were noted as challenges. Positive results were also observed, though, and they included improved infrastructure, possibilities for staff training, and decision-making procedures. Conclusion: Despite significant improved, there are still challenges, such as inconsistent staff comprehension, mixed impacts on service delivery, resource allocation issues, and political meddling. Addressing these issues necessitates improved communication, continuous evaluation, and coordinated efforts to improve administrative systems and obtain consistent funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AbstractThis article examines the encounters between the Arabian Mission and the people of Bahrain from 1892 to 1917. The Arabian Mission which began as an American missionary project, established a station in Bahrain and used education as a tool to evangelize the population. The mission’s activities triggered an opposition movement that worked hard to resist these. This article explores the educational efforts of the Arabian Mission and the role of the opposition which used a novel means to hinder the mission’s activities. In the opposition movement’s effort to stop the mission’s activities, they explored alternative means of providing educational services and sought religious reform. The new educational services and reforms led the local Bahraini community to engage in an internal dialogue about what was considered acceptable, which generated various educational pathways among the different communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article in the journal for the entire criminal law science discusses the reform of arson offenses in 1998 and their development in the last 25 years. It is debated whether the reform was successful and how practice deals with norm deficits. Special attention is paid to the public danger of arson offenses, as well as the interpretation and significance of the objects of the offense. The Federal Court of Justice has not yet recognized a general possibility of reduction in cases of lack of danger, but only in specific individual cases. It is emphasized that a new legislative reform may be necessary to create a coherent and fair arson law. [Extracted from the article]

The US Food and Drug Administration launched Project Optimus to reform the dose optimization and dose selection paradigm in oncology drug development, calling for the paradigm shift from finding the maximum tolerated dose to the identification of optimal biological dose (OBD). Motivated by a real-world drug development program, we propose a master-protocol-based platform trial design to simultaneously identify OBDs of a new drug, combined with standards of care or other novel agents, in multiple indications. We propose a Bayesian latent subgroup model to accommodate the treatment heterogeneity across indications, and employ Bayesian hierarchical models to borrow information within subgroups. At each interim analysis, we update the subgroup membership and dose–toxicity and –efficacy estimates, as well as the estimate of the utility for risk-benefit tradeoff, based on the observed data across treatment arms to inform the arm-specific decision of dose escalation and de-escalation and identify the OBD for each arm of a combination partner and an indication. The simulation study shows that the proposed design has desirable operating characteristics, providing a highly flexible and efficient way for dose optimization. The design has great potential to shorten the drug development timeline, save costs by reducing overlapping infrastructure, and speed up regulatory approval. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To review the importance of the essential public health functions (EPHF), rescuing their role for the exercise of stewardship in health and the response of the state to preserve the health and well-being of the entire population. Materials and methods. The different versions of the EPHF initially published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) version of 2000 were reviewed, to finally present the new version of the EPHF launched by PAHO in December 2020. Results. The different versions of the EPHF have been aimed at positioning the importance of public health considering contexts of sectoral reforms. For two decades, EPHFs in the Region of the Americas have been part of national debates, and their measurement has led to significant improvements in health systems. The revamped version of the EPHF seeks to give countries greater strength to face new public health challenges. Conclusions. EPHFs have a transcendental role in positioning public health as a duty of the state at the central, state, and local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study highlighted the attempts of the Muslim brotherhood movement in Iraq to renew its quranic platforms, through the building a balanced personality possesses a faith- based cognitive vision based on a culture of positive change, understanding societal reality and changing negative behaviors into positive behaviors in different fields so that society can be promoted and happy, this requires the movement to promote planned and organized Islamic awareness, reform its methods of thought and teaching and organizational methods enhance knowledge and provide information the living Islamic model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article introduces the concept of bundle as a new powerful tool in the study of party reforms. The intensive and intricate nature of the engineering political parties undertake to preserve the status quo amidst a challenging environment tends to be obscured by the focus on their so-called 'conservative nature'. Applied to the process tracing of a large sequence of reforms implemented by the Belgian French-speaking liberal party (MR) between 2019 and 2022, the bundle concept provides the opportunity to go beyond the narrow vision of party reforms only defined and empirically studied so far through their type, size and success. I triangulate a variety of sources to uncover mechanisms through which a handful of key party actors - as powerful steering agents - perceive and translate environmental factors into specific reforms. The bundle analysis brings notably to light a key sequencing mechanism – a snowball effect – explaining how the sequence actually unfolded and fed on itself, challenging our hitherto accepted understanding of party engineering. This study also offers a transferable conceptual framework with valuable insights for wider use in the field, providing an avenue for theory building through causal analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective is to analyze the political actions that the leaders of the Colombian liberal party and the leaders of the artisan-military rebellion that arose in New Granada (Colombia) in 1854 had and promoted to regenerate the republic, to establish the institutional, political and moral foundations by virtue of which the State and society should be run. This analysis of allowed us to identify, and affirm, that if the reforms promoted by the liberals were the foundation of the hegemonic project that they undertook in order to "regenerate the republic" through the intended modernization of the State, the economy and society, the rebellion perpetrated by the artisans and the military formed a counterhegemonic project that also sought to "regenerate the republic" by confronting the order imposed by the liberals (and also by the conservatives) and trying to constitute an institutional order that was consistent with the conditions, needs, desires and political and moral values of the people of New Granada. By examining these aspects, it is not only possible to compare the ideas that these men had about what, in their opinion, the institutional and moral order of the country should be, but also to understand the difficulty they had in carrying them out and the effects that this generated for the country. To examine these issues, we have scrutinized the main sources through which the protagonists of that story captured and disseminated the essence of their respective conceptions and political projects (speeches, laws, minutes, official reports, memoirs and newspapers). In order of presentation, the article describes the political context of the time, highlights the purpose of the liberal reforms, analyzes the link that was woven between them and the uprising of the rebels, and highlights the manner and criteria with which the insurgents acted to achieve your purposes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do citizens perceive different avenues for resolving investor–state disputes in case of an unfavorable decision? In this article, I argue that the interplay between procedure- and outcome-related considerations influences citizens' legitimacy beliefs toward investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) systems. First, an unfavorable ISDS ruling should decrease public legitimacy beliefs in the country that got sued. Second, the type of dispute settlement mechanism should influence legitimacy beliefs, leading to different assessments of the legal proceedings. I fielded a survey experiment in France, Germany, and the United States to test these theoretical expectations. The findings confirm that an unfavorable ISDS ruling has a strong negative effect on public perceptions of the legal proceeding, but further show that appropriate design choices can boost public legitimacy beliefs. These results have important implications for the debate about ISDS reform and the scholarship on legitimacy in global governance. The impact of unfavorable decisions on public legitimacy beliefs has been widely overlooked. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the book "Women and Monastic Reform in the Medieval West, c. 1000-1500: Debating Identities, Creating Communities" edited by Julie Hotchin and Jirki Thibaut. The book explores the involvement of monastic religious women in institutional change and reform between the years 1000 and 1500. It draws on various sources, including liturgical and devotional manuscripts, economic and legal records, building remains, textiles, art historical evidence, hagiography, and historical narratives, to uncover the ways in which women negotiated changes to their religious life. The book provides valuable insights into the political agency of monastic women and their reflections on their ideals and choices about their form of life. [Extracted from the article]

South Africa runs a primary fiscal deficit and the long-term interest rate on government borrowing, r , is greater than the long-term economic growth rate, g. Without intervention, debt will continue to rise until there is a disorderly fiscal stop. Reforms to raise growth have not materialised, leaving fiscal consolidation as the second-best solution. Using a medium-sized, open-economy, fiscal DSGE model of South Africa, we show that the least cost policy is to impose a time-consistent fiscal policy rule with debt-to-GDP as the fiscal anchor and a pre-announced path for government consumption spending as the intermediate operational objective. This result obtains with and without explicit policy coordination between the fiscal and monetary authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Illinois Comprehensive Literacy Plan (ICLP) and its implications for advanced, accelerated, high potential, and gifted literacy learners. The ICLP was approved by the Illinois State Board of Education as a roadmap to enhance and unify literacy instruction efforts statewide. The plan emphasizes evidence-based instruction and provides flexibility for districts to develop their own literacy plans. It also recognizes the specific needs of multilingual learners, advanced learners, and learners with specialized needs. The article highlights the goals, components, and instructional focus of the ICLP, as well as its alignment with Illinois Learning Standards. It also explains the exclusion of the terms "science of reading" and "balanced literacy" in the plan. [Extracted from the article]

This article offers a view of the as yet unexplored aspect of British-Czechoslovak relations in the interwar period. It focuses on the way in which the land reform was carried out on the estates of British subjects located in Czechoslovakia. Attention is paid both to the diplomatic aspect of the problem as well as the analysis of the way the reform was applied. The author poses the question to what degree did the reform impact the bilateral relations of both countries. Meanwhile, he builds on the fact that the United Kingdom, a key ally of Czechoslovakia in the Great War, had an adequately strong position in Prague in order to request an accommodating course of the reform for its citizens. The author answers the question whether this was actually the case. He finally comes to the conclusion that Czechoslovak authorities had an interest in carrying out the reform as amicably as possible; however, they were not willing to completely leave British subjects out of it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments engage in corporatization by creating corporate entities or reorganizing existing ones. These corporatization activities reflect an interplay between political agency and environmental pressures, including (changing) notions of state-market relations. This paper discusses two ideal-typed organizational models of corporatization: the state as a marketizer and the marketization of the state. Whereas the first emphasizes the role of political design and agency in corporatization, the second emphasizes the role of (actors in) the environment for corporatization. Both models are assessed across five corporatization episodes in Norway and Sweden, where we also demonstrate the interplay between political agency and environmental pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]