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Quantitative cross-national research on human rights violations and repression has made considerable progress in identifying and eliminating economic and political factors that influence the use of torture and killing by governments. Warfare tends to increase violations, democracy--notably full democracy--and trade tends to inhibit violations. Where motives have been considered, this research has generally assumed a strategic motivation for government use of repression. Repression is employed to counter threats from the opposition as represented by the presence of warfare. Less attention has been given to the effect of implementation on levels of repression. Theory suggests that agents are likely to make a substantial independent contribution to the level of repression, if given the opportunity. In this article we develop this argument and present cross-country comparative evidence that suggests that agents' opportunities for hidden action measured by perceived levels of financial corruption substantially influences the incidence of torture in a political system, after controlling for the strategic motive of governments and the other factors found influential in earlier research. We show that the results are robust and not sensitive to alternative modeling, measurement, and research-design decisions., In this article we examine government use of human rights violations as a policy, shaped by the goals of both principals and agents. While treating these violations as a policy [...]

To purchase or authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2007.00681.x Byline: Lynn Bennie (1), Patrick Bernhagen (1), Neil J. Mitchell (1) Abstract: This article examines corporate participation in the UN Global Compact programme. Using data on the world's 2,000 largest companies, we address the question of why companies voluntarily assume the programme's responsibilities and promote the rights of 'global citizenship'. Our analytic approach is to view transnational corporate political behaviour as a result of firm-level decisions shaped by country-level variation in political audience effects. Drawing on earlier research on more conventional forms of corporate political activity, we expect factors influential in the standard model of firm political activity to determine participation in the Global Compact. In addition, we argue that this highly visible, less instrumental dimension of a firm's political behaviour is driven by efforts to build a good environmental and human rights reputation with its audience of external actors. The importance of environmental and human rights concerns depends on the substance of the firm's business activities, the availability of investment and 'exit' options, and the home audience's bias towards the UN and human and environmental rights. We find support for political factors as well as firm and industry-level characteristics influencing the decision to participate in the Global Compact. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Aberdeen Article History: (Accepted: 16 November 2006)

Democracy and the protection of human fights generally go together, but not in India. India is an outlier in the cross-national research that aims to explain human rights performance. Using state-level subnational data and drawing on the approaches pioneered at the cross-national level, the authors examine the reasons for the outlier status. Their findings suggest that the aggregate wholenation human rights and democracy scores misrepresent the political experience of much of India. The authors find that participation, political parties, and the level and nature of opposition threat help us understand the incidence of human rights violations within India. Keywords: India; human rights; subnational politics; elections

The question of how turbidity currents erode their beds is important for understanding how submarine canyons develop, how they maintain continuity in tectonically active margins to ensure sediment bypass, and for knowing how knickpoints (reaches of anomalously steep gradient) record tectonic information. The problem is potentially more complex than fluvial erosion, because flow vigor is also affected by the flow entraining ambient water and incorporating or depositing suspended load, which can significantly affect its excess density. However, in canyon sections where the total sedimentary mass passing through the canyon is much larger than the locally excavated mass, the solid loads of eroding currents change little during passage down-canyon. Canyon morphology can then potentially reveal how gradient and other factors affect erosion rate. Simple bed erosion models are presented herein, which are analogous to the detachment- and transport-limited erosion models of fluvial geomorphology, which predict that the channel topography should advect or diffuse (smooth out), respectively. Data sets from continental slopes off Alaska, New Jersey, Oregon, Chile, the Barbados accretionary prism, and published maps from other areas show these tendencies. Although knickpoints may arise from spatially varied resistance to erosion, some of those described here lie upstream of faults or anticlines and within uniform turbidites, implying that they can advect upstream. A forward numerical model is developed for knickpoints in the southern Barbados accretionary prism, which appear to have been created in a simple manner by the frontmost thrusts. If the erosion rules are applied continuously, the channel profiles are well represented with both advective and diffusive components. If a boundary condition of nondeposition/erosion is imposed on the base of the knickpoint slope (representing scour associated with a hydraulic jump, for example), the upstream profiles can be reproduced solely by diffusion. In these channels, the threshold stress for transport or erosion is probably small relative to stress imposed by the currents, because modeling shows that a threshold sharpens the knickpoint lip rather than rounds it. For the other, mostly smaller, knickpoints studied, however, the lip varies from sharp to rounded. This varied morphology could arise from a number of influences: effects of flow acceleration, differing threshold stress, differing sediment flux affecting flow power, or depth-varying substrate resistance to erosion. Despite the diversity of forms, upstream migrations imply that erosion can be enhanced where flow is more vigorous on steep gradients, implying that the body rather than the head of turbidity currents is responsible for erosion in those cases. Also discussed is how bed failure, quarrying, and abrasive scour lead to knickpoint evolution in submarine channels that is analogous to that in fluvial channels, but also likely differences are noted. Keywords: accretionary prisms, tectonically active continental slopes, submarine canyon morphology, stream bed erosion.

High rates of Holocene sedimentation in a lake spanning the Thingvellir rift zone of western Iceland provide an unusual opportunity to study the interaction of tectonic and magmatic processes on time scales of thousands of years. Lake Thingvallavatn is oriented SW-NE, parallel to the trend of normal faults and fissures, which extend northeast from Hengill, a central volcano system. Thingvallavatn's lake sediments provide a continuous high-fidelity record of tectono-magmatic processes. Chirp subbottom profiler and sidescan records, together with sediment core information, enabled us to improve constraints on lake stratigraphy since the emplacement of a postglacial lava at 9.1 [+ or -] 0.3 ka. This lava, together with three younger horizons, enabled detailed study of the main tectonic and magmatic events. A major Hengill volcanic event, which controlled the development of the present-day lake morphology, occurred at 1.9 ka, with the eruption of a scoria cone within the lake (Sandey). During this event, the Nesjahraun lava was erupted into the southern part of the lake, the Sandey scoria cone was formed, and major faulting and subsidence occurred in the northern part of the lake, resulting in the formation of an asymmetrical rift. Within the southern part of the lake, a deformed sequence of sediments aged 2.9-1.5 ka, between undeformed younger and older sediments, indicates that liquefaction phenomena are associated with the emplacement of the Nesjahraun lava. Analysis of fault displacement reveals that the total throw summed over all faults across the width of the rift zone is approximately constant (110-130 m) along the long axis of the rift. We estimate an extension rate on the faults of 3.3-8.2 mm [yr.sup.-1] since 9.1 ka, assuming fault dips of 60-75[degrees], which represents 17%-43% of the total plate boundary extension estimated from global plate motion inversion. We speculate that the remaining extension must either be taken up elsewhere in Iceland, for example in the eastern rift zone or along the South Iceland seismic zone, or that extension estimated over the last 9 k.y. underestimates the long-term extension rate due to incomplete sampling of the episodic magmatic component. Keywords: neotectonics, dikes, subsidence, normal faults, Iceland, liquefaction.

Export of pelagic carbonate tests from surface waters and their deposition at the seafloor plays a significant role in the C[O.sub.2] cycle and ability of the oceans to absorb atmospheric C[O.sub.2]. Sediment [sup.230]Th and [sup.3]He measurements have been interpreted as evidence that significant lateral advection of pelagic material occurs in the water column, leading to marked spatial variations in deposition rates and, in particular, to significant focusing of deposits on the Pacific equator. We report spatially continuous stratigraphy from two 1000 km seismic lines that show evidence of depositional anomalies near the equator. Accumulation rates were apparently enhanced locally by a factor of two, similar to the proposed modern sediment-focusing factors, but the anomalies are surprisingly patchy over the 20 m.y. period analyzed--they are not confined to an equatorial region, and they are not necessarily found on adjacent seismic profiles. These intermediate-scale anomalies are >~100 km across and represent areas of seafloor that received more deposits for one period, less in following periods, and vice versa. Variogram analysis was used to determine how the spatial scales of deposition changed over the Neogene. The period when the spatial scale of depositional variability was largest correlates with hiatuses in drill cores, a correlation that we interpret as caused by enhanced and spatially heterogeneous carbonate dissolution at that time. The study suggests that seismic stratigraphy has the potential to reveal spatial patterns related to unsteady bottom-water flow and chemistry. Keywords: pelagic carbonate seismic stratigraphy, sediment focusing, pelagic carbonate dissolution, Pacific Ocean circulation, variogram analysis.

In this article we evaluate the influence of democracy on perceived levels of corruption. We argue that the control of corruption depends on the compensation and accountability of public officials, and on an open and competitive economy. We analyze the influence of democracy, controlling for the influence of other political and economic factors including federalism, economic development, and economic competition. The findings for the importance of economic factors are consistent. The finding in earlier research that federalism increases corruption is not robust. The findings for democracy are influenced importantly by the way that democracy is measured, but we do find that citizens' repetitive participation in competitive elections increases the control of corruption. In doing so, we move beyond the composite indices of democracy in constructing an alternative compound measure of democracy, which we argue is likely to be useful in other research contexts, Does democracy reduce corruption as well as contribute to international peace, to the observance of human rights, and to commitments to the environment (Davenport, 1999; Neumayer, 2002; Poe & Tate, [...]

An ITER TF model coil conductor (DP4) was examined to determine electromagnetic and mechanical AC loss under transverse cyclic loading.

An evaluation of a special cryogenic press constructed to study the electrical and mechanical characteristics of full-size ITER conductor samples under transverse, mechanical loading conditions is presented. A superconducting dipole coil is used to provide the required magnetic field for magnetization measurements. The results, obtained after several tens of full loading cycles, indicate a significant reduction of the cable coupling loss time constants after a number of cycles.

Research was conducted to examine the mechanical and electrical characteristics of full-size ITER multistrand Nb3Sn cable-in-conduit conductor samples under transverse, mechanical loading. The transverse magnetic force that takes place when the conductors are used in a coil was simulated. A summary of findings derived with up to several tens of full loading cycles are presented.

Research was conducted to examine the mechanical and electrical properties of full-size ITER-CS cable samples under transverse, mechanical loading. Fatique tests were conducted including loading the conductor from zero up to 260 kN for a large number of cycles to investigate the evolution of n-tau adn R(sub c) under realistic ITER lifetime conditions. Results of the mechanical calculations and the electromagnetic losses and interstrand contact resistances are presented and discussed.