ACE research vignette 037 : Bill Gates’ mug shot : Is there a secret link between rule-breaking, crime, and entrepreneurship?

This series of research vignettes is aimed at sharing current and interesting research findings from international entrepreneurship researchers. In this vignette, Dr. Martin Obschonka, considers the relationship between entrepreneurship and rule-breaking.

Mistakes or deliberate violations? A study into the origins of rule breaking at pedestrian train crossings

Train pedestrian collisions are the most likely to result in severe injuries and fatalities when compared to other types of rail crossing accidents. However, there is currently scant research that has examined the origins of pedestrians’ rule breaking at level crossings. As a result, this study examined the origins of pedestrians’ rule breaking behaviour at crossings, with particular emphasis directed towards examining the factors associated with making errors versus deliberation violations. A total of 636 individuals volunteered to participate in the study and completed either an online or paper version of the questionnaire. Quantitative analysis of the data revealed that knowledge regarding crossing rules was high, although up to 18% of level crossing users were either unsure or did not know (in some circumstances) when it was legal to cross at a level crossing. Furthermore, 156 participants (24.52%) reported having intentionally violated the rules at level crossings and 3.46% (n = 22) of the sample had previously made a mistake at a crossing. In regards to rule violators, males (particularly minors) were more likely to report breaking rules, and the most frequent occurrence was after the train had passed rather than before it arrives. Regression analysis revealed that males who frequently use pedestrian crossings and report higher sensation seeking traits are most likely to break the rules. This research provides evidence that pedestrians are more likely to deliberately violate rules (rather than make errors) at crossings and it illuminates high risk groups. This paper will further outline the study findings in regards to the development of countermeasures as well as provide direction for future research efforts in this area.

Speaking too soon : the sabotage of bail reform in New South Wales

Within just over one month of coming into operation in May 2014, the new Bail Act 2013 (NSW), a product of long-term law reform consideration, was reviewed and then amended after talk-back radio ‘shock jock’ and tabloid newspaper outcry over three cases. This article examines the media triggers, the main arguments of the review conducted by former New South Wales (NSW) Attorney General John Hatzistergos, and the amendments, with our analysis of the judicial interpretation of the Act thus far providing relevant background. We argue that the amendments are premature, unnecessary, create complexity and confusion, and, quite possibly, will have unintended consequences: in short, they are a mess. The whole process of reversal is an example of law and order politics driven by the shock jocks and tabloid media, the views of which, are based on fundamental misconceptions of the purpose of bail and its place in the criminal process, resulting in a conflation of accusation, guilt and punishment. Other consequences of the review and amendments process recognised in this article include the denigration of judicial expertise and lack of concern with evidence and process; the disproportionate influence of the shock jocks, tabloids and Police Association of NSW on policy formation; the practice of using retired politicians to produce ‘quick fix’ reviews; and the political failure to understand and defend fundamental legal principles that benefit us all and are central to the maintenance of a democratic society and the rule of law. The article concludes with some discussion of ways in which media and political debate might be conducted to produce more balanced outcomes.

Democratic and participatory citizenship: Youth action for sustainability in Australia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of recent examples of action competence among young people engaged in democratic participatory action in sustainability programs in Australia. It explores examples of priorities identified for citizen action, the forms this action takes and the ways that democratic participation can achieve positive outcomes for future sustainability. It suggests multiple ways for developing action competence that provides further opportunities for authentic and engaging citizen action for youth connected to school- and community-based learning, in new and powerful ways. Design/methodology/approach – This conceptual paper examines international literature on the theory of “action competence,” its significance for education for sustainability (EfS) and the ways it can inform education for young people’s democratic participatory citizenship and civic engagement. It analyses examples of the development of action competency among young people in Australia, including the problems and priorities identified for citizen action, the forms this action takes and how it can achieve positive outcomes for sustainability. Following this analysis, the paper suggests multiple ways for developing action competence in EfS in schools and communities in new and powerful ways. Findings – Developing EfS to increase democratic and participatory action among young citizens is now widely regarded as an urgent education priority. There are growing exemplars of school and community organizations’ involvement in developing EfS learning and teaching to increase participatory citizenship. Young people are being empowered to develop a greater sense of agency through involvement in programs that develop action competence with a focus on sustainability in and out of school. New forms of participation include student action teams and peer collaboration among youth who are marshaling social media and direction action to achieve change. Originality/value – It contributes to the literature on multiple ways for developing action competence in EfS.

Women in politics in democratic transition: The case of Bhutan

This thesis is a study about women's participation in Bhutan's new democracy and exposes the patriarchy embedded in Bhutanese society which is reinforced through cultural practices and the legal framework. It reveals the public/private dichotomy, the low educational attainment of girls and the gendered division of labour which derails women's public life. It discloses a masculine driven party politics and the challenges of being a woman in the world of men. Nonetheless, the first trailblazing women parliamentarians demonstrated a principled, feminine, political leadership in a masculine environment. Semi-structured interviews, document review and participant observation methods were used to collect data.

RuleOMS: A rule-based online management system

We propose an architecture for a rule-based online management systems (RuleOMS). Typically, many domain areas face the problem that stakeholders maintain databases of their business core information and they have to take decisions or create reports according to guidelines, policies or regulations. To address this issue we propose the integration of databases, in particular relational databases, with a logic reasoner and rule engine. We argue that defeasible logic is an appropriate formalism to model rules, in particular when the rules are meant to model regulations. The resulting RuleOMS provides an efficient and flexible solution to the problem at hand using defeasible inference. A case study of an online child care management system is used to illustrate the proposed architecture.

Prospective external validation of an accelerated (2-h) acute coronary syndrome rule-out process using a contemporary troponin assay

Background: Recently there have been efforts to derive safe, efficient processes to rule out acute coronary syndrome (ACS) in emergency department (ED) chest pain patients. We aimed to prospectively validate an ACS assessment pathway (the 2-Hour Accelerated Diagnostic Protocol to Assess Patients with Chest Pain Symptoms Using Contemporary Troponins as the Only Biomarker (ADAPT) pathway) under pragmatic ED working conditions. Methods: This prospective cohort study included patients with atraumatic chest pain in whom ACS was suspected but who did not have clear evidence of ischaemia on ECG. Thrombolysis in myocardial infarction (TIMI) score and troponin (TnI Ultra) were measured at ED presentation, 2 h later and according to current national recommendations. The primary outcome of interest was the occurrence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE) including prevalent myocardial infarction (MI) at 30 days in the group who had a TIMI score of 0 and had presentation and 2-h TnI assays <99th percentile. Results: Eight hundred and forty patients were studied of whom 177 (21%) had a TIMI score of 0. There were no MI, MACE or revascularization in the per protocol and intention-to-treat 2-h troponin groups (0%, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0% to 4.5% and 0%, 95% CI 0% to 3.8%, respectively). The negative predictive value (NPV) was 100% (95% CI 95.5% to 100%) and 100% (95% CI 96.2% to 100%), respectively. Conclusions: A 2-h accelerated rule-out process for ED chest pain patients using electrocardiography, a TIMI score of 0 and a contemporary sensitive troponin assay accurately identifies a group at very low risk of 30-day MI or MACE.

The new Vancouver Chest Pain Rule using troponin as the only biomarker: An external validation study

Objectives To externally evaluate the accuracy of the new Vancouver Chest Pain Rule and to assess the diagnostic accuracy using either sensitive or highly sensitive troponin assays. Methods Prospectively collected data from 2 emergency departments (EDs) in Australia and New Zealand were analysed. Based on the new Vancouver Chest Pain Rule, low-risk patients were identified using electrocardiogram results, cardiac history, nitrate use, age, pain characteristics and troponin results at 2 hours after presentation. The primary outcome was 30-day diagnosis of acute coronary syndrome (ACS), including acute myocardial infarction, and unstable angina. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values and negative predictive values were calculated to assess the accuracy of the new Vancouver Chest Pain Rule using either sensitive or highly sensitive troponin assay results. Results Of the 1635 patients, 20.4% had an ACS diagnosis at 30 days. Using the highly sensitive troponin assay, 212 (13.0%) patients were eligible for early discharge with 3 patients (1.4%) diagnosed with ACS. Sensitivity was 99.1% (95% CI 97.4-99.7), specificity was 16.1 (95% CI 14.2-18.2), positive predictive values was 23.3 (95% CI 21.1-25.5) and negative predictive values was 98.6 (95% CI 95.9-99.5). The diagnostic accuracy of the rule was similar using the sensitive troponin assay. Conclusions The new Vancouver Chest Pain Rule should be used for the identification of low risk patients presenting to EDs with symptoms of possible ACS, and will reduce the proportion of patients requiring lengthy assessment; however we recommend further outpatient investigation for coronary artery disease in patients identified as low risk.

Generalized Query-By-Rule: a heterogeneous database query language

This paper describes the design and implementation of a high-level query language called Generalized Query-By-Rule (GQBR) which supports retrieval, insertion, deletion and update operations. This language, based on the formalism of database logic, enables the users to access each database in a distributed heterogeneous environment, without having to learn all the different data manipulation languages. The compiler has been implemented on a DEC 1090 system in Pascal.

Democracy, Participation, and Deliberation in China : The discussion about democratic centralism in the official Chinese press, 1978-1981

This study examines the Chinese press discussion about democratic centralism in 1978-1981 in newspapers, political journals and academic journals distributed nationwide. It is thus a study of intellectual trends during the Hua Guofeng period and of methods, strategies, and techniques of public political discussion of the time. In addition, this study presents democratic centralism as a comprehensive theory of democracy and evaluates this theory. It compares the Chinese theory of democratic centralism with Western traditions of democracy, not only with the standard liberal theory but also with traditions of participatory and deliberative democracy, in order to evaluate whether the Chinese theory of democratic centralism forms a legitimate theory of democracy. It shows that the Chinese theory comes close to participatory types of democracy and shares a conception of democracy as communication with the theory of deliberative democracy. Therefore, the Chinese experience provides some empirical evidence of the practicability of these traditions of democracy. Simultaneously, this study uses experiences of participatory democracies outside of China to explain some earlier findings about the Chinese practices. This dissertation also compares Chinese theory with some common Western theories and models of Chinese society as well as with Western understandings of Chinese political processes. It thus aims at opening more dialogue between Chinese and Western political theories and understandings about Chinese polity. This study belongs to scholarly traditions of the history of ideas, political philosophy, comparative politics, and China studies. The main finding of this study is that the Chinese theory of democratic centralism is essentially a theory about democracy, but whether its scrupulous practicing alone would be sufficient for making a country a democracy depends on which established definition of democracy one applies and on what kind of democratic deficits are seen as being acceptable within a truly democratic system. Nevertheless, since the Chinese theory of democratic centralism fits well with some established definitions of democracy and since democratic deficits are a reality in all actual democracies, the Chinese themselves are talking about democracy in terms acceptable to Western political philosophy as well.

Linear time geometrical design rule checker based on quadtree representation of VLSI mask layouts

An efficient geometrical design rule checker is proposed, based on operations on quadtrees, which represent VLSI mask layouts. The time complexity of the design rule checker is O(N), where N is the number of polygons in the mask. A pseudoPascal description is provided of all the important algorithms for geometrical design rule verification.

Kasvatus- ja valmennustyylien yhteys juniorijääkiekkoilijoiden suoriutumisstrategioihin, tyytyväisyyteen ja joukkueen koheesioon

This thesis focused on the roles of parenting styles (including parental norm-breaking attitudes and parents perceptions of players coach-athlete relationship), players achievement strategies, perceptions of coaching behaviours, coaches own perceptions, and perceptions of team leaders, in explaining player satisfaction and team cohesion. Five studies based on the same data provided by the Finnish Ice Hockey Association (FIHA) were carried out. The sample sizes were as follows: players, 1,018; parents, 979; coaches, 35; and team leaders, 57. Questionnaires and self-report questionnaires were used to collect data. The results revealed that: (1) family-parenting styles provided a basis for adolescents achievement strategies and influenced whether the sons played fairly or engaged in rule breaking. Democratic parenting was associated with the adolescents high level of mastery-oriented behaviour, low level of task-irrelevant behaviour, and low level of norm-breaking behaviour. The adaptive achievement strategies enhanced player satisfaction. (2) Democratic parenting styles influenced parents perception of the coach-athlete relationship, which was further associated with a coaching style that also influenced how the child experienced his own cohesion within the team. (3) The adolescents tended to reflect the similarity in leadership behaviours between home and sport from both democratic and autocratic backgrounds. In particular, the compensating combination of non-demanding styles at home and a high level of support by a positive coach was associated with high team cohesion. (4) The stress factor changed the dynamics of the parenting behaviour. (5) Players ratings, coaches ratings, and the ratings of team leaders all differed upon coaching behaviours and team cohesion. Only the players ratings were associated with cohesion high with positive coaching and low with autocratic coaching. The developmental age and the long-lasting membership on an ice hockey team made positive coaching acceptable for all players. Sixteen year-olds from all families rated high team cohesion with positive coaching. Parenting styles were associated with adolescent ice hockey players achievement strategies, norm breaking, and satisfaction. The combination of parenting and coaching was associated with cohesion rated by players. The staff s experiences of coaching and its effects on cohesion differed from the players experiences. These results contribute to understanding links between parenting styles, achievement strategies, norm breaking, and satisfaction, as well as parenting styles, coaching behaviour and cohesion. This work has importance for parents, coaches, sport organizations, and teachers.