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The purpose of this paper is to propose a model that allows analyzing exchange and use of fiscal information by the roles of actors involved in the budget process and to apply the proposed model to the 2018 Czech state budget debate. The aim is to identify approaches used by the members of the Chamber of Deputies (members of the parliament (MPs)) when gathering information to be used in their decision making on the state budget, and to evaluate usefulness of the information provided through the executive’s budget proposal.

This paper is the observatory study of the Czech 2018 state budget debate based on a set of unstructured interviews with newly elected MPs.

When it comes to the MPs deciding about the state budget the executive’s budget proposal seems to be an insufficient source of information as the MPs relied heavily on various information brokers during the budget debate. The use of information and communication technologies in the process of information provision lags behind its potential.

The authors suggest two possible ways to improve the effective transparency of the Czech state budget debate: standardization of the chapter books and making them available to every MP as well as to the general public, and adding the budget proposal to the Monitor budget explorer – a publicly available budget explorer provided by the Ministry of Finance.

The originality of this paper lies in the proposal of the Fiscal Information Ecosystem Model and its application to the 2018 Czech state budget debate which shows how the members of the Czech Chamber of Deputies gathered information they needed in their decision making.

Computer corpus linguistics (CCL) is a scientific innovation that has facilitated the creation and analysis of large corpora in a systematic way by means of computer technology since the 1950s. This article provides an account of the CCL pioneers in general but particularly of those in Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Switzerland. It is found that Germany and Sweden, due to more advantageous financing and weaker communities of generativists, had a faster adoption of CCL than the other two countries. A particular late adopter among the four was Switzerland, which did not take up CCL until foreign professors had been recruited.

While the effect of the minimum wage (MW) on employment has been widely studied, less is known about its impact on hirings and separations. Whereas the adverse effects of MW on hiring are quite familiar, results of studies indicating reductions in separations are less expected. This study aims to bridge the gap between theory and practice by performing a meta-analysis, which allows for understanding the real effect of MW on employment's two components: hirings and separations.

Since mixed results cloud understanding of the issue, a meta-regression analysis was conducted. This technique permits understanding the effect of MW on labor market transitions and offers additional explanations for controversial results.

Despite the evidence that MW increasing the turnover and reducing permanence could negatively affect employment, findings from meta-regression analysis pointed out that increases in MW reduce hirings but also separations offsetting the negative effect on employment. Overall, the results imply that the standard finding that MW changes have little or no impact on employment rates reflects offsetting reductions in hiring and separations. Evidence of negative publication bias is also found.

The results emphasize the importance of looking beyond employment rates to understand the impacts of MW. Overall, the evidence implies that the standard finding that MW changes have little or no impact on employment rates reflects offsetting reductions in hiring and layoffs. In addition, the results suggest that MW tends to have a much larger impact on employment flows than on employment levels. This finding has to be considered by policymakers when they make decisions about increasing the MW. These analyses assist in clarifying debates about the effects of MW on the labor market in the changing economic environment and conduct a labor policy in the right direction.

The meta-regression analysis (MRA) conducted in this study emphasizes the importance of looking beyond employment rates to understand the impacts of MW (Brochu and Green, 2013). Overall, the evidence implies that the standard finding that MW changes have little or no impact on employment rates reflects offsetting reductions in hiring and layoffs. Therefore, the evidence from the performed MRA is consistent with those previous meta-analysis studies that found little or no evidence about MW adversely affecting employment and, at the same time, provide additional explanation for these findings. In addition, the results suggest that MW tends to have a much larger impact on employment flows than on employment levels (Dube et al., 2016).

Even though hirings are reduced due to MW, this evidence could not necessarily imply a negative effect of MW on the labor market since job searching or matching is improved. Additionally, the increases in MW could improve the quality of the job and the job attachment, which are consistent with a recruitment-retention model (Dube et al., 2007). The evidence from this MRA, which is consistent with little or no impact of MW on employment, also could imply that although the MW is set relatively high to balance the supply and demand of labor, their level is close to optimal. Setting the right level is also associated with compliance with MW. This issue deserves attention since any adverse employment effects of MW could be strengthened by incomplete coverage. The effectiveness of the entire process of developing, putting into practice and enforcing MW rules hinges on compliance.

As prior meta-regression analysis did not have the same objective, the results of this article move current research forward. Based on the analysis, future research lines are delineated, and some public policy implications are assessed.

From the practical point of view, most relevant damage to high density polyethylene (HDPE) structures is caused by slow crack growth. Therefore, detailed information about this type of damage is necessary. Experimental results transfer from specimens to real structure can be influenced by structure geometry (constraint). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate and discuss the effect of the constraint and relation between crack mouth opening displacement (CMOD) and crack length.

The constraint effect is mainly effect of the structure geometry and can be quantified by T‐stress. Two different test specimens with different constraint level (T‐stress) were prepared: single edge notched specimen and modified single edge notch (SEN) specimen. The crack mouth opening displacement, crack tip opening displacement and crack length was measured.

The main conclusions of this work can be summarized as: the slow crack growth rate in HDPE materials corresponds to velocity of CMOD; the influence of the presented specimen geometry on slow crack growth rate can be considered as negligible; and for transfer of the experimental results from specimens to real structure the influence of the structure geometry (constraint) is not critical.

Experimental results obtained from different specimens with different constraint level are rare and can lead to better data transfer from experimental specimens to the real structures.

The purpose of this paper is to test the attenuated-anger and heightened-anger hypotheses of psychopathy by assessing the physiological, behavioral, and subjective measures of anger in individuals with and without psychopathic traits.

In all, 62 male college students were assigned to one of three groups based on evidence of elevated affective-interpersonal (Factor 1) and antisocial lifestyle (Factor 2) traits associated with psychopathy (the IF1+F2 group), evidence of only Factor 2 traits (the F2 only group), or based on the absence of psychopathic traits (the control group), using Gough’s (1957) Socialization scale and a modified, interview only form of Hare’s (1991) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised. To induce anger, participants received unjust criticism about their performance on a computer-based affective lexical decision task and were denied a performance bonus they had reason to expect.

Following provocation, the three groups displayed similar increases in blood pressure, pulse, and self-reported anger. The control and IF1+F2 groups also displayed similar retaliation toward the confederate. However, the IF1+F2 group displayed smaller increases on two of three measures of facial muscle activity associated with anger.

This study is one of the first to assess anger responsiveness in individuals with psychopathic traits using a powerful anger induction and using physiological, behavioral, and subjective indices of anger. It is also the first to assess both the attenuated-anger and the heightened-anger hypotheses of psychopathy. The findings appear largely inconsistent with both perspectives.

The University of Michigan (U-M) is planning its course toward carbon neutrality. A key component in U-M carbon accounting is the calculation of carbon sinks via estimation of carbon storage and biosequestration on U-M landholdings. Here, this paper aims to compare multiple remote sensing methods across U-M natural lands and urban campuses to determine the accurate and efficient protocol for land assessment and ecosystem service valuation that other institutions may scale as relevant.

This paper tested three remote sensing methods to determine land use and land cover (LULC), namely, unsupervised classification, supervised classification and supervised classification incorporating delineated wetlands. Using confusion matrices, this paper tested remote sensing approaches to ground-truthed data, the paper obtained via field-based vegetation surveys across a subset of U-M landholdings.

In natural areas, supervised classification incorporating delineated wetlands was the most accurate and efficient approach. In urban settings, maps incorporating institutional knowledge and campus tree surveys better estimated LULC. Using LULC and literature-based carbon data, this paper estimated that U-M lands store 1.37–3.68 million metric tons of carbon and sequester 45,000–86,000 Mt CO₂e/yr, valued at $2.2m–$4.3m annually ($50/metric ton, social cost of carbon).

This paper compared methods to identify an efficient and accurate remote sensing methodology to identify LULC and estimate carbon storage, biosequestration rates and economic values of ecosystem services provided.