<p>Provincial governors constituted an important part of the decentralization package unveiled in Zimbabwe in 1984 and 1985. The President appoints provincial governors among other duties, to coordinate development planning and implementation at the provincial level. This paper seeks to examine the appointment and role of a provincial governor and in that way establish the extent to which such appointment and role hinder or enhance representative and participatory democracy, accountability, devolution and empowerment, as ideals of decentralization. This contribution examines provincial governance in Zimbabwe as part of the local government system.</p>

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This thesis explores the relationships between the demographic characteristics of a Representative's Congressional District and his voting behavior on defense expenditure bills. The study covers 433 congressional districts, and includes the interaction of eight demographic characteristics in each district with the voting behavior of the Representative based on five major defense bills. The primary purpose of the thesis is to determine if there is a relationship between the characteristics of the constituency and the manner in which the Representative votes on defense bills. Special attention is focused on the supposition that if a military installation or prime defense contractor is located in a congressional district, its presense will induce a Representative to vote for continued if not increased defense expenditures.

Lo scopo principale di questa ricerca è stato di monitorare la concentrazione di nitrati, dell'erbicida terbutilazina e di un suo metabolita, la desethylterbuthylazina, in acque sotterranee superficiali, secondo le normali pratiche agronomiche in differenti aree italiane rappresentative della coltura maidicola. Il primo passo è stato identificare i siti di monitoraggio, quindi è stata creata una procedura generale al fine di individuare aree rappresentative per il mais in Italia. Dentro tali aree sono stati selezionati dei siti di: 4 in Lombardia, 2 in Emilia Romagna, 2 in Veneto, 2 in Piemonte e uno in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In Aprile 2005 il monitoraggio ha avuto inizio e i campionamenti sono stati eseguiti ogni due mesi. L'indice “IDPR”, strumento per la mappatura della vulnerabilità a livello regionale e nazionale, è stato applicato alle aree oggetto di studio. L'indice riflette l'influenza che le formazioni geologiche del sottosuolo hanno sullo scorrimento superficiale e sull'infiltrazione. L'analisi della probabilità di distribuzione dei risultati ha mostrato che una bassa probabilità di superare i limiti fissati per legge, questa probabilità è risultata più alta per il metabolita. Le concentrazioni dei nitrati nelle acque sotterranee sono risultate molto basse. Inoltre, è stato applicato un modello matematico (MACRO vs 5.1) di previsione che calcola la percolazione dei pesticidi. / The main aim of the research was to monitor the concentrations of nitrates, the herbicide terbuthylazine and its products of the environmental degradation, desethyl-terbuthylazine, in shallow groundwater, according to the normal agricultural practices in different Italian areas representative of maize crop. The first step was to identify the monitoring sites, therefore it was necessary to create a general procedure to individuate maize representative areas in Italy. Inside these area 11 monitoring sites were selected: 4 in Lombardy, 2 in Emilia Romagna, 2 in Veneto, 2 in Piedmont and one in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In April 2005 the monitoring started. Groundwater samplings were carried out every two months. The IDPR index, a tool for national and regional vulnerability mapping, was applied. The index reflects the influence of the subsurface geological formations on the surface water runoff or infiltration. The distribution probability analysis of the results showed that there was a very low probability of exceeding the limit fixed by law, this probability was higher for the metabolite. The greater probability of exceed the 0.1 μg/L occurred in two sites, both irrigated with basin irrigation system. Nitrate concentrations resulted to be very low in shallow groundwater. Moreover, it was used a mathematical model which calculate the leaching of pesticides (MACRO 5.1).

We study the consistency, robustness and efficiency of parameter estimation in different but related models via semiparametric approach. First, we revisit the second- order least squares estimator proposed in Wang and Leblanc (2008) and show that the estimator reaches the semiparametric efficiency. We further extend the method to the heteroscedastic error models and propose a semiparametric efficient estimator in this more general setting. Second, we study a class of semiparametric skewed distributions arising when the sample selection process causes sampling bias for the observations. We begin by assuming the anti-symmetric property to the skewing function. Taking into account the symmetric nature of the population distribution, we propose consistent estimators for the center of the symmetric population. These estimators are robust to model misspecification and reach the minimum possible estimation variance. Next, we extend the model to permit a more flexible skewing structure. Without assuming a particular form of the skewing function, we propose both consistent and efficient estimators for the center of the symmetric population using a semiparametric method. We also analyze the asymptotic properties and derive the corresponding inference procedures. Numerical results are provided to support the results and illustrate the finite sample performance of the proposed estimators.

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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2007. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 149-162).

Univ., Diss.--Uppsala, 1999. / Zsfassung in engl. Sprache.