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Why are some states more corrupt than others? Drawing on the literature on governance in parliamentary democracies, we suggest that the degree of corruption depends on the ability of key political actors to control ministers who have been delegated power. We argue that the Prime Minister has incentives to limit corruption within the cabinet and has the ability to do so when there are certain “cont

This paper has two purposes. The first purpose is methodological and aims to extend previous work on efficiency analysis by implementing a multiple-output stochastic ray frontier production function model. This model generalizes the single-output stochastic frontier model to multiple-input, multiple-output technologies and allows simultaneous estimation of technical efficiency and analysis of infl

Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolutio

Lubrication has been proven to be an effective approach to drastically improve the efficiency of ultrasonic motors without losing the output torque. This phenomenon is attributed to the effective modulation of the friction force by lubricant, according to the theory described in the Stribeck curve. Previous findings even show a potential to increase the motor output torque with lubrication. Here,

Temperature and coagulant types have an important impact on the quantity and quality of the residue (sludge) in water and wastewater treatment processes. Temperature influences water viscosity and the distribution of the coagulant in water. Coagulants can promote the agglomeration of fine particles into larger flocs so that they can be more easily separated from the water. Experiments have been co

Itch is a common symptom, but there is limited evidence on the prevalence of itch in children. The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of itch in schoolchildren. A questionnaire was developed by experts in the field and based on a literature search. The questionnaire was applied in a pilot study of 25 consecutively selected paediatric patients and their parents. It confirmed the high co

The current study aimed to estimate the effective doses and conversion coefficients (CCs) for typical barium swallow (BS), barium meal (BM) and barium enema (BE) protocols and to evaluate the impact of different examination parameters on the resulting CCs. Data were collected in surgical and therapy departments in St. Petersburg Urban Mariinsky Hospital. Computational models were developed using P

The isolation of mitochondria from potato tubers (Solanum tuberosum L.) is described, but the methodology can easily be adapted to other storage tissues. After homogenization of the tissue, filtration and differential centrifugation, the key step is a Percoll density gradient centrifugation. The Percoll gradient contains two parts: a bottom part containing Percoll in 0.3 M sucrose, and a slightly

Gal. 3.6-14 is one of many passages in the letters of Paul which is difficult because of the argumentation it contains. An argumentation analysis is therefore called for to disentangle the arguments and to recover any implicit premisses. Such an analysis gives a more complete picture of Paul’s argumentation and helps us understand and evaluate it. The analysis indicates that Paul is attempting to

Objectives: This study investigated comorbidity in chemical intolerance (CI) and building-related intolerance (BRI) with (i) chronic sinusitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, allergic and nonallergic asthma and allergic rhinitis, and (ii) airway inflammatory symptoms. Methods: Data from two population-based questionnaire surveys, the Västerbotten and Österbotten Environmental Health Studie

An interleaved pseudocinematographic FLASH (fast low-angle shot) sequence with additional pulsed gradients for flow encoding was used to quantify cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow velocities and CSF production. Flow-dependent phase information was obtained by subtracting two differently encoded phase images. The phase information in the resultant image was converted to flow velocity with a calibratio

We report multiconfiguration Dirac-Hartree-Fock and relativistic configuration interaction calculations on the thallium (Tl) electron affinity, as well as on the excited energy levels arising from the ground configuration of Tl-. The results are compared with the available experimental values and further validated by extending the study to its homologous, lighter element, indium (In), belonging to

Poly(oxindole biphenylene) was functionalized with tetrazole pendants and evaluated as base material for alkaline ion-solvating membranes for water electrolysis. The poly(oxindole biphenylene) parent polymer was obtained by superacid catalyzed polyhydroxyalkylation and subsequently functionalized by cyanoalkylation. The cyanoalkyl groups were thereafter converted to tetrazole pendants by a click t

The study of (anti-)deuteron production in pp collisions has proven to be a powerful tool to investigate the formation mechanism of loosely bound states in high-energy hadronic collisions. In this paper the production of (anti-)deuterons is studied as a function of the charged particle multiplicity in inelastic pp collisions at s=13 TeV using the ALICE experiment. Thanks to the large number of acc

Partially Premixed Combustion (PPC) has shown its potential by combining high combustion controllability with emission characteristics that are close to those of an HCCI engine. In order to get PPC the ignition delay needs to be long enough for the fuel and air to mix prior to combustion. This can be achieved by injecting the fuel sufficiently early while running with high EGR.In order to find out

As one of the successful approaches to GaAs surface passivation, wet-chemical nitridation is applied here to relate the effect of surface passivation to carrier recombination processes in bulk GaAs. By combining time-resolved photoluminescence and optical pump-THz probe measurements, we found that surface hole trapping dominates the decay of photoluminescence, while photoconductivity dynamics is l