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Genomic analysis of the kelp fly Fucellia costalis (Family Anthomyiidae) from Asilomar beach, Pacific Grove, California, resulted in the assembly of its complete mitogenome. The mitogenome is 16,17...

Two new species of tarantulas from Mexico are described and illustrated: Bonnetina tenuiverpis and Bonnetina juxtantricola, from the states of Mexico and Guerrero, respectively. Male palpal bulbs, tibial apophyses and spermatheca are among the most taxonomically informative characters. Male bulb microstructure is revealed from scanning electron microscopy; both new and homologous structures to other Theraphosinae genera are identified and described. Nomenclatural changes for male tibial apophyses are also proposed. The holotype male and allotype female of one of the species are molecularly characterized and matched from CO1 partial sequence.http://zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:BBDBBEDE-6983-4F5C-B34C-4622DF494C84

Gulf Cooperation Council countries are seeking to develop their governmental financial information systems to make them more informative and transparent. The aim of this article is to determine the extent to which Qatar has developed its governmental financial information systems in response to the enormous degree of economic and administrative development in recent decades, and to identify the most important factors that have influenced the reforms made in this area. For this purpose, Luder's Financial Management Reform Process Model (2001) was referred to and semi-structured interviews were carried out with governmental accounting officials in Qatar in June 2011.

Local governments in many countries are implementing administrative reforms within the framework of New Public Management (NPM) in order to improve the quality and productivity of public services. The use of performance indicators and benchmarking facilitates evaluation of efficiency regarding the provision of such services and favours the acquisition of better practices. The problems that may arise in the introduction of performance indicators in local government mainly concern the consensual design and standardization of indicators for various entities, the method to be used for calculations and the selection of analytical criteria to be applied to the values obtained. In this article, we identify obstacles that may be encountered in achieving a standardized definition of performance indicators within local government and, on the basis of learning from the practical experience of several large city councils in Spain, formulate strategies to resolve these problems, taking note of the viability a...

The usefulness of performance indicators increases when organizations compare their data. However, most discussions have failed to emphasize two lines of action that could improve the relevance of such comparisons: a) agreement among service managers on the indicators to be used in the evaluation; b) homogenization of the indicators to be used by organizations, and of the process used to calculate them. In this context, this paper proposes a methodology based on the participation of and consensus among managers, which helps to standardize the construction and presentation of performance indicators. The aim of this proposal is to improve the comparative evaluation of organizations. Finally, in order to test the proposal, a practical application is carried out on the local culture departments of nine large municipalities in southern Spain.

One of the outcomes of the First World War in Europe was that it underscored the systemic problems associated with liberalism and representative governments based on a liberal sociopolitical founda...

(1996). Catalan Nationalism: Past and Present. History: Reviews of New Books: Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 31-31.