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This study aims to analyse the amendment process of the resident participatory budgeting ordinance of the Suwon City Government by applying Kingdon's Policy Stream Framework, and to explore ways to activate the participatory budgeting system. This study examines the three streams in the Kingdon’s Policy Stream Framework influenced by the revision of the participatory budgeting ordinance and identifies who played a leading role. In particular, this study analyses to resolve the structural limitation of the system and suggests ways to revitalize the system. As a result, it is necessary to audit the political stream of Kingdon’s 3 policy stream in order to legislate a new system such as the participatory budgeting system. The political stream is the most influential in deciding whether to introduce participatory budgeting. It is also important to make a cooperative network among local government, local council and NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) in order to solve the structural limitations of the participatory budgeting system, such as the lack of professionalism and representatives of the residents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Local council members have become an important research issue in many countries. However, the research on the social backgrounds of local council members has not enough progressed. This study analyzed the social backgrounds of local council members in Korea elected from 1991 to 2014. For the analysis, this study used gender, age, education, occupation, and political party affiliation and also used the index of qualitative variation to understand the social backgrounds of Korean local councilors. The results showed that social backgrounds of Korean local council members are centered on male, 50s, highly educated, people with political experience, and affiliated to two major parties. The gender diversity of local council members is lowest in comparison with other social background factors. To increase the gender diversity of local council members, the election system should be reformed, and social perception towards female politicians should be improved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the current rice production condition in Myanmar through efficiency analysis, especially, to examine the impact of farm mechanization on Myanmar rice production efficiency. For representation of efficiency and the determinants, this paper uses both the data envelopment analysis (DEA) and the stochastic frontier approach (SFA) with variable returns to scale on Myanmar rice production. The efficiency of the rice production was estimated and subsequently the determinants factors were investigated based on the estimated efficiency level of these sample farmers. The empirical evidence finds that farm mechanical tools significantly improve the Myanmar rice production efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

High-transition-temperature superconductivity arises in copper oxides when holes or electrons are doped into the CuO2 planes of their insulating parent compounds. Whereas hole doping quickly induces metallic behaviour and superconductivity in many cuprates, electron doping alone is insufficient in materials such as R2CuO4 (R is Nd, Pr, La, Ce and so on), where it is necessary to anneal an as-grown sample in a low-oxygen environment to remove a tiny amount of oxygen in order to induce superconductivity. Here we show that the microscopic process of oxygen reduction repairs Cu deficiencies in the as-grown materials and creates oxygen vacancies in the stoichiometric CuO2 planes, effectively reducing disorder and providing itinerant carriers for superconductivity. The resolution of this long-standing materials issue suggests that the fundamental mechanism for superconductivity is the same for electron- and hole-doped copper oxides. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]