Academic literature on the topic 'Punisher'

Feminist scholarship concerning fairy tales is too limited. While relationships between male and female characters have been explored extensively, this thesis focuses on masculinity as it is performed in interactions between male characters. It aims to bring more justices to traditional fairy tale gender binaries. Using Tony Coles’ Theory of Multiple Dominant Masculinities, this project examines four 17th-19th century animal/monster groom tales, studying male characters in order to understand how masculinity is constructed in selected tales and operates as a dynamic relationship between male characters. While the quest for dominance is often linked to violence, by employing the marvelous as an agent of change, these tales offer utopian perspectives in which shifts in male power occur without violence. The system of masculinity can be unfavorable and restrictive, presenting male characters with limited role options, but in fairy tales this system is also flexible, offering the possibility of change.

The purpose of this research was to explore the effects of small monetary or economic gains and/or losses on choice behavior through the use of a computerized game and to determine gain/loss ratio differences using both behavioral and electrophysiological measures. Participants (N=53) played the game in several 36 minute sessions. These sessions operated with concurrent variable-interval schedules for both rewards and penalties. Previously, asymmetrical effects of gains and losses have been identified through cognitive studies, primarily due to the work of nobel laureates Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (1979). They found that the effect of a loss is twice (i.e., 2:1) that of a gain. Similar results have been observed in the behavioral laboratory as exemplified by the research of Rasmussen and Newland (2008), who found a 3:1 ratio for the effect of losses versus gains. The asymmetry of gains and losses was estimated behaviorally and through event-related brain potentials (ERPs) and the cognitive (Kahneman and Tversky) and behavioral (Rasmussen and Newland) discrepancy elucidated. In the game, the player moves an animated submarine around sea rocks to collect yellow coins and other treasures on the sea floor. Upon collecting a coin, one of three things can happen: The player triggers a penalty (loss), the player triggers a payoff (gain), or there is no change. The behavioral measures consisted in counting the number of clicks, reinforces, and punishers and then determining ratio differences between punished (loss) and no punished condition (gain) conditions. The obtained gain/loss ratio corresponded to an asymmetry of 2:1. Similarly ratio differences were found between male and female, virtual money and cash, risk averse versus risk seeking, and generosity versus profit behavior. Also, no ratio difference was found when players receive information about other player's performances in the game (players with information versus players without information). In electroencephalographic (EEG) studies, visual evoked potentials (VEPs) and ERPs components (e.g., P300) were examined. I found increased ERP amplitudes for the losses in relation to the gains that corresponded to the calculated behavioral asymmetry of 2:1. A correlational strategy was adopted that sought to identify neural correlates of choice consistent with cognitive and behavioral approaches. In addition, electro cortical ratio differences were observed between different sets of electrodes that corresponded to the front, middle, and back sections of the brain; differences between sessions, risk averse and risk seeking behavior and sessions with concurrent visual and auditory stimuli and only visual were also estimated.

In August 2019, the Federal Ministry of Justice submitted a draft for a corporate crime act. This draft will end a decade-long debate on the criminal liability of legal persons and profoundly change the criminal prosecution in the area of economic criminal law. The article classifies the legislative project in the current discourse on criminal policy, reports on the content of the draft and gives a critical commentary on individual points.

We examine the phenomenon of firms that distribute dividends in excess of reported earnings, that is, 'unsustainable dividend-payers' in the Swedish market. Our hypothesis is that these firms will experience lower abnormal returns compared to their counterparts in both short and long term. With a dataset of 2061 observations from Nasdaq Stockholm and Nordic Growth Market during the period 1999-2017, we find that the abnormal returns are higher for unsustainable dividend-payers in the short term, while in the long run the result is on the opposite. Moreover, we find that the larger the difference between dividends paid and reported earnings, the higher the short-run abnormal returns but the lower the long-run abnormal returns to shareholders. Our results are robust to controlling for influences of other events on announcement dates and alternative measurement for model parameter, though not unambiguous. This study contributes to broadening the area of unsustainable dividends, which is perceived as a hot topic. It may be of interest to both individuals and institutions, who often have a longer-term perspective on their investments.

Challenges in global politics like climate change, maritime piracy and fighting highly contagious diseases concern global public goods. The related policy decisions are mostly made by teams. In contrast, economic models of global public goods typically assume a single rational decision-maker. We use a laboratory experiment to compare team decisions to decisions of individuals in a finitely repeated public good game with and without a costly punishment option. Teams of three participants coordinate on decisions either by majority or unanimity rule. We find that in absence of a punishment option teams contribute more to the public good than individuals. With a punishment option subsequently to the contribution decision team treatments exhibit a less frequent use of anti-social punishment and lower levels of social as well as anti-social punishment. Extreme preferences for punishment are eliminated by the majority decision rule. Overall, team decisions are closer to the social optimum and teams yield higher net payoffs when compared to individuals.

This study attempts to make the case for prison education. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries a number of theories of punishment were produced. Some of these, namely, those of Emile Durkheim, Michel Foucault, Rusche and Kirchheimer and Norbert Elias are reviewed in this study. It is argued that these theories should lead one to conclude that a sound educational programme is indispensable if we want to realise the benefits claimed on behalf of imprisonment or avoid the ills attributed to it. The initial, rudimentary idea of an education for prisoners goes back to the end of the eighteenth century. A cursory historical review is included to highlight the lack of substantial development in prison education. In order for prison teachers and educators to know what they are really about in their work, they need to know and understand their students, the prisoners, and the context in which they have to teach, the prison. Drawing on a spectrum of scholarship and research this study offers an analysis of these two aspects which, one hopes, will shed some light on why prison fails, with some exceptions, to reform prisoners. The last section reviewsthe content of education `programmes' provided in prisons in the United Kingdom and North America during the last two centuries and makes proposals concerning the kind of regime that is needed to ensure a greater measure of success and the pedagogical approach that fits today's world.

Caesarean birth is the mode of delivery for almost a quarter of births in New Zealand (NZ), and as the rate steadily rises, the expectation of a ���natural birth��� remains ubiquitous in society. Research investigating the impact of caesarean birth has previously demonstrated mixed findings regarding psychological outcomes, and recently caesareans have become topical with the addition of the idiom ���too posh to push��� to our lexicon. This implies that caesarean is an easy option, and may have shaped a sense of stigma against caesareans, particularly elective caesareans. The previous research demonstrating differences in psychological outcomes between planned and unplanned caesareans was conducted when caesarean birth was less common, and tended to be quantitative in design. The purpose of this qualitative research was to investigate the experiences of 32 women, including both first-time and non-first time mothers, who have undergone caesarean birth, half planned and half unplanned, in order to gain insight into their perceptions of their experiences and identify aspects that contributed to positive and negative experiences. Semi-structured interviews were used to explore their perceptions, including how they and others have reacted to their caesarean experience. These interviews were analysed using thematic analysis to identify themes to help to understand their experiences. This research supported a number of previous findings regarding caesarean birth including increased rates of induction associated with caesarean birth; differences in initial interaction between mother and infant for planned or unplanned caesareans; trust in medical experts; low occurrence of 'maternal' request for caesarean; and perceptions of societal attitudes towards caesarean. In addition, this research identified themes regarding the roles of expectations and preferences with the actual caesarean or breast feeding experience, influenced by individual and social factors. Negative outcomes were associated with a lack of reconciliation between actual experience, expectations and preferences; while positive outcomes were associated with effective reconciliation, through the development of rationales, applied both prospectively and retrospectively.