Islam provides counteracting rules on women's economic rights. In order to understand the effect of the opposing rules in Islamic doctrine on women's economic rights at the state level, I test the relationship, along with a set of competing hypotheses. Using data from 1990 to 2014 on the population of Muslim-majority states, I employ a multilevel mixed-effects linear regression model. I find that at the state level, Islam is not a major influence on women's economic rights. However, other cultural and economic factors are strong predictors. To better understand the causal mechanisms linking the predictors to women's economic rights, I employ a most similar systems case study, comparing Jordan and Morocco. These cases are selected because they share many similarities, yet have contrasting records on women's economic rights. The case study reveals that Arab states that can overcome the dominance of patriarchal interests in the policymaking process are better positioned to advance women's economic rights.

This article advances the ‘historical turn’ in Europeanization research by tracing the intellectual trajectory of Europeanization within the broader intellectual movements and debates. Using collocation and temporal analyses, the study identifies key patterns and significant shifts in the usage of Europeanization in social-humanities discourse over the past century. Initially, Europeanization referred to outward cultural changes, later evolving into a more inward-looking focus on policy and politics. Europeanization emerges as a multifaceted, multidirectional, and often contested process, marked by reversibility and adaptability. It is best understood as a complex, long-term, and non-linear process of interaction and diffusion, spanning racial, cultural, social, economic, political, as well as spatial and historical dimensions.

DNA databases are useful tools for improving public safety. While past research examines the effects of national- or state-level databases, little is known about the distinct benefits of a local, District Attorney-run DNA database. Two key advantages of a local database are that (i) more local criminals submit a sample as part of a plea agreement (submission is not restricted to certain crimes and mandatory) and (ii) response times for identifying reoffenders from DNA evidence are shorter. This report performs a retrospective benefit–cost analysis on the Orange County District Attorney’s DNA database. The analysis is run on administrative records that provide costs, entries into the DNA database, and matches that occur between samples taken from a crime scene and individual profiles in the database. We also estimate the deterrence effect of entry into the database with defendant-case-level data. We find that, for every dollar spent on operating the database over the last 10 years, $1.71 is saved due to the estimated reduction in future offenses.

This article explores the relationships between utopianism, activism and networks in the early career of the Hungarian musicologist János Maróthy (1925–2001). A prolific author of pioneering work on the social history of European peasant and urban folk songs from the antiquity to the modern era, Maróthy is noteworthy for establishing academic research of popular music in Hungary, both preceding and contributing to the emergence of new musicology and popular music studies in European and Anglo-American academia at the turn of the 1980s. Maróthy mediated between various grassroots movements and the party state's institutions and was a participant observer of various off-the-mainstream music-related scenes formed in Romani workers’ hostels and jazz clubs. His Department of Music Sociology (at the Institute for Musicology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) conducted and commissioned research on the local history of workers’ songs, urban folklore, empirical studies of musical taste, and the social life and institutions of youth music. This article offers a critical overview of Maróthy's career from its onset in 1948 up to the mid-1960s. This turbulent period witnessed the most repressive years of Stalinism, the anti-Soviet revolution of 1956, its defeat, and the gradual consolidation of a more liberal Kádár-led regime. It examines how changing political and intellectual trends, ideologies and national and supranational realignments within the Soviet Bloc (and beyond) shaped the forms and meanings of Maróthy's multi-faceted activism, along with his shifting ideas about the relationships between music, political movements and entertainment.

Loess–paleosol outcrops were logged and dated to trace loess cover during the Pleistocene in a low-elevation mountainous area. The exposed successions were a maximum of 15 m thick and stratigraphically fragmentary. Still, results suggest that loess was deposited in all climatically suitable periods within the limits of the dating methods (ca. 400 ka), and probably also beyond this. Luminescence measurements provided numerical ages from ca. 18 ka to ca. 200 ka and minimum ages of up to >267 ka. Loess accumulation was also active during the relatively mild MIS 3. A new occurrence of a well-preserved Quaternary tephra was documented, correlative with the middle Pleistocene Bag Tephra (ca. 340 or 368 ka). The dating of loess successions provided valuable data on geomorphic evolution as well, identifying hydrological changes and constraining a maximum incision and uplift rate of 0.008–0.035 mm/yr for the western part of the area. The low thickness of loess–paleosol successions and the stratigraphic gaps seem to be a consequence of repeated erosion during the Pleistocene rather than a result of non-deposition. The mountains probably have been covered with loess for most of the time during the past 1 Ma. This should be taken into consideration in studies influenced by the loess cover of an area.

Superadas las crisis sociales y políticas que tuvieron lugar en las décadas finales del período Preclásico, nuevas entidades comienzan a emerger en el panorama geopolítico de las tierras bajas mayas. En el caso del Petén campechano, el descubrimiento de sitios arqueológicos con vestigios de estructuras defensivas y monumentos pétreos permite inferir la configuración de una nueva realidad en la que entidades como Oxpemul parecen comenzar a despuntar. En este sitio destacan dos monumentos que preservan registro iconográfico de cautivos, las Estelas 22 y 23; estas exhiben patrones iconográficos típicos del Clásico temprano, entre los que destacan tres figuras desnudas e hincadas. Con la toma de nuevas fotografías diurnas y nocturnas de las estelas y la utilización de la herramienta computacional Reflectance Transformation Imaging, se presentan nuevas interpretaciones de los monumentos de Oxpemul; además, a través de los nuevos análisis iconográficos se proponen nuevas consideraciones sobre las dinámicas sociopolíticas regionales durante los contextos tempranos en los que Oxpemul parece jugar un papel destacable.