Critique of the Vatican’s Role in Recent Child Protection Practice: A Brief Report

The current report aims to clarify the practices and implicit intentions of the Holy See in addressing child sexual abuse (CSA) by clerics in the twenty-first century. Church investigation reports, United Nations reports, press coverage, and academic literature were explored to understand the relationship between Church intention and practice. Various types of literature highlight the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) as an organization that is self-referential and self-defensive, with the implicit aim of protecting the reputation of RCC at the expense of children. Organizational responses are seen as promoting the protection of perpetrating clerics, resulting in the spread of CSA by clergy nationally and globally. Recommendations are made for the introduction of modern-day management practices in RCC, filtered through a faithful understanding of gospel principles. The authors suggest that the United Nations may be an important vehicle for fostering leverage for change in RCC child protection practice.     

Some Classes of Binary Block Neighbor Designs

Neighbor designs are useful to neutralize the neighbor effects. In this paper two classes of these designs are constructed in circular binary blocks of size 4, 8, …, 24. First class consists of six infinite series of nearest neighbor designs in which each pair of distinct treatments appears once as neighbors. Second class also deals with six infinite series of these designs in which each pair of distinct treatments appears twice as neighbors. A catalog of nearest neighbor designs is also compiled in circular binary blocks for odd number of treatments from 23 to 99.     

Universally Optimal Designs Balanced for Neighbor Effects

The performance of a treatment is affected by the treatments applied to its adjacent plots, especially in the experiments of agriculture, horticulture, forestry, serology and industry. Neighbor designs ensure that treatment comparisons are least affected by neighbor effects, therefore, this is a rich field of investigation. In this paper, criterion for construction of universally optimal neighbor balanced designs is discussed.     

CEO duality and agency cost: evidence from Bangladesh

This study examines if Chief Executive Officer (CEO) duality reduces the firms’ agency cost in Bangladesh. The agency costs are measured as two efficiency ratios: ‘expense ratio’ and ‘asset utilization ratio’. The finding is that, there is no significant relationship between CEO duality and agency costs. These findings imply that, duality may have given the CEOs enormous powers; it may have reduced the check and balance or board’s ability to exercise the governance (monitoring) function, which is not helpful to enhance firm efficiency. This study contributes to the global debate on CEO duality and provides a new avenue of knowledge on CEO duality and firm efficiency in the context of an emerging economy.     

GIS and development control system for a local authority in Malaysia

The process of development control involves a technique for the systematic compilation of expert quantitative analysis and qualitative assessment of project land use and property development viability, including its effect on the surrounding area, and the presentation of results in a way that enables the importance of the predicted results, and the scope of modifying or mitigating them to be properly evaluated by the relevant decision making body before a planning permission is rendered. Taking the local authorities in Malaysia as an example, this paper will discuss and demonstrate the development of a GIS database and its integration and application for development and building control. The first part of the paper examines the functions of local authorities particularly in the context of development control. In this study, the procedure involved in granting a planning permission as well as enforcement becomes the main focus because it determines the bulk of the system design. The study identifies seven sub-systems namely planning permission, building control, planning enforcement, geospatial database, information kiosk, document processing and presentation sub-systems. The system is developed using a combination of office automation, CAD, GIS, multimedia and other software packages. This paper will focus on the development of the GIS for the purpose of development control. The components of the GIS database include land information, buildings, existing developments, planning information, development plans, utilities, community facilities, transportation, environment and the socio-economy database. The GIS database will be used at every stage of development control, for example, in initial discussions, registration, invitation of objections, the development control process, the consideration by Technical Committee and the consideration by Planning Committee. It is anticipated that the GIS database could be used by many parties involved in the process as a reference point in evaluating a planning submission. Having access to the database will provide flexibility in assessing a proposed development and deciding on the overall urban growth management programme in the most cost-effective manner. The system will also provide transparency and consistency in the development control procedure.     

Muslim Women in America: Challenges and Politics of Diversity Within American Muslim Community

This paper will examine the complexities of the struggles faced by young Muslim women within the American Muslim community. Data are part of a study aimed at understanding the ways in which the gendered religious identities of Muslim women are constructed in the United States. This work seeks to address the dearth of research on the lives of Muslim women, and to identify and enhance an understanding of the issues and challenges they face during the process. Participants include 15 women, 18–22 years old, who graduated from an Islamic school in the mid-Atlantic region of America (ISA). Two phenomenological interviews were conducted with each participant. Data were analyzed using critical discourse and content analysis techniques. Findings point towards conflicts within, including those related to the rich racial and ethnic diversity in the community, and to the patriarchal norms that still prevail. Some of these norms along with the perceptions and experiences of American Muslim women guiding their lives will be shared, and will be located within a larger discussion on how the obstacles towards their contribution to this diverse social setting can be dealt with.