German and Italian Municipalities’ Internal Control Systems: Convergence to a Neo-Weberian Reform Pattern?

This article contributes to the debate on convergence/divergence of public management reforms toward the new public management (NPM) paradigm by analyzing the internal control systems (ICSs) in Germany and Italy. Specifically, the study describes the ICS established at the normative level in German and Italian municipalities and evaluates the extent of the decisional convergence to NPM, using the INTOSAI guidelines. Although similarities between the two ICSs and the INTOSAI guidelines emerged, decisional convergence is not demonstrated. Instead, these countries seem to converge to a Neo-Weberian reform pattern since they are cautious in the introduction of new managerial tools and they maintain their domestic original ICS.     

Impaling Dracula: How EU Accession Empowered Civil Society in Romania

Europeanisation scholars increasingly debate when and in what ways the European Union influences domestic politics. This article adopts a ‘bottom-up’ design and the process-tracing method to examine the influence of the EU enlargement context over the political power of the new social movements in Romania between 2000 and 2004 when the EU acquis was being negotiated. It finds that domestic civil society empowerment resulted from the nexus of three interacting causal pathways: the Executive's desire to accede to the EU; a transnational advocacy network, which included domestic NGOs, reinforcing the Executive's anticipatory self-constraint; and to a somewhat lesser extent, the Executive's self-identification with certain elements of the advocacy network, reinforced by a general concern for their external reputation.     

Cardiac Inhibitory Reflex as a Cause/Mechanism of Death

The role of cardiac inhibitory reflex as a potential cause of death is still a matter of debate. This study reports two cases of death under unusual circumstances. Case 1 corresponds to a man found hanging where the role of ligature compression of the carotid sinus became relevant as a possible explanation of death. In Case 2, the participation of a vasovagal syncope was clearly triggered by the laryngoscopic procedure. It is proposed that cardiac inhibitory reflex should be taken into account in those cases of unexpected death, which fulfills the following three criteria: (i) The investigation of the circumstances of the death is consistent with a hypothesis of cardiac arrest. (ii) A typical triggering peripheral stimulus is present. (iii) The performance of a complete autopsy cannot rule out the participation of a cardiac inhibitory reflex in the cause of death.     

A 27‐Locus STR Assay to Meet All United States and European Law Enforcement Agency Standards,

Different national and international agencies have selected specific STR sets for forensic database use. To enhance database comparison across national and international borders, a 27‐locus multiplex system was developed comprising all 15 STR loci of the European standard set, the current 13 STR loci of the CODIS core, the proposed 22 STR loci of the expanded CODIS core, 4 additional commonly used STR loci, and the amelogenin locus. Development required iterative primer design to resolve primer‐related artifacts, amplicon sizing, and locus‐to‐locus balance issues. The 19.5‐min assay incorporated newly developed six‐dye chemistry analyzed using a novel microfluidic electrophoresis instrument capable of simultaneous detection and discrimination of 8 or more fluorescent dyes. The 27‐locus multiplex offers the potential for a new international STR standard permitting laboratories in any jurisdiction to use a single reaction to determine profiles for loci they typically generate plus an expanded common STR profiling set of global interest.     

Comparison of Different Swabs for Sampling Inorganic Gunshot Residue from Gunshot Wounds: Applicability and Reliability for the Determination of Firing Distance

This study concentrates on samples of bare pork skin, with and without bristles, and dried bovine ribs shot with a semi‐automatic pistol to find the best methodology and sampling surface in the search for inorganic gunshot residues (IGSR). Four quadrants of known surface areas were sampled at different distances from the bullet's hole with different swabs: tapes in graphite, Leukosilk® white tape, 3M® transparent tape, and a cotton swab to assess the technique able to collect the highest amounts of IGSR with the lowest contribution of the blank. The cotton swab wet in 10% HNO₃ gave the best results. The highest amounts of IGSR, measured by ICP‐OES and MS, were detected on a surface of 3‐cm radius from the bullet's edge. The amount of metals collected decreased with the firing distance between 20 and 60 cm. The procedure was efficient for sampling different tissues like skin and bones.     

Cyberbullying in Portuguese Schools: Prevalence and Characteristics

This study examined the extent and nature of cyberbullying in 23 Portuguese schools. A sample of 3,525 sixth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade students completed a self-response questionnaire assessing their perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying. The findings showed that 7.6% of students have been victimized, and 3.9% have bullied others at least once over the last year. The incidences of victimization were higher for females and for the older students. In contrast, more boys reported having bullied others in the eleventh grade. The most frequent medium of cyberbullying was via websites, whilst sending offensive messages was the most widely reported type of behavior. Telling someone about cyberbullying is among the most frequent coping strategies used by cybervictims, who usually chose to tell their friends rather than adults. Implications of these findings for students, schools, and parents are discussed.     

The Difficult Task of Diagnosing Prostate Cancer Metastases on Dry Bone

The interpretation of pathology on skeletal remains is mandatory for implementing the biological profile and for disease recognition. Prostate cancer is one of the most common tumors, with a high preference for the skeleton as a primary site of metastasis. Its diagnosis on bone is however still ambiguous, due to its “osteoblastic” and resorptive manifestation. This study investigates distribution and appearance of prostate cancer metastases on dry bone on six known cases (selected from the Milano Cemetery Skeletal Collection) and one healthy individual. A macroscopic inspection was performed highlighting the abnormalities observed, describing location, shape, dimension, and aspect. A great amount of proliferative and mixed lesions was noticed, but also cases of pure lytic lesions were displayed. The multiple appearances of the manifestations observed display the difficulty in correctly identifying such a pathology, but also the potential and advantages provided by investigating a study sample with known antemortem history.     

Survival of Atherosclerotic Calcifications in Skeletonized Material: Forensic and Pathological Implications

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease creating calcifying plaques in the arterial walls. Because its paleopathological diagnosis remains little studied on skeletal remains, its impact on forensic and archeological data is completely underestimated. Here, 24 skeletal remains from the Milano Cemetery Skeletal Collection have been studied to evaluate the chance of atherosclerotic calcification survival, retrieval, and identification. Through direct comparison with a known autopsy collection and literature, the identification and categorization of several types of calcifications were performed. Clothing elements such as tights or socks played a definitive role in the preservation of the calcifications; hence they are more likely to be found in forensic cases than in archeological ones. Therefore, vascular calcifications are possible to collect and identify in skeletal remains if sufficient care is given to their recovery. Consequently and as markers of the disease, such identification can provide valuable pathological information for forensic and archeological cases.     

Histological Determination of the Human Origin of Bone Fragments

Abstract:  A frequently encountered task in the forensic scenario is verification of the human origin of severely degraded fragments of bone. In these cases histological methods which consider osteon size and morphology can prove to be useful. The authors in the present study verify the applicability of published algorithms to flat and subadult bones from human, dog, cat, cow, rabbit, sheep, pig, chicken, quail, and turkey samples. Metric analysis was performed on 2031 Haversian canals. Analyses carried out on human samples confirmed a success rate of around 70% on long adult bones; however the percentage of wrong answers was particularly high in the case of newborns and older subadults as well as on flat bones in general. Results therefore suggest that such regression equations should be limited only to bone fragments from long adult bones.     

The difficult issue of age assessment on pedo-pornographic material

The issue of juvenile pornography has seen an increase in the past few years of the number of expert opinions requested to forensic pathologists, paediatricians and other various experts within the forensic and medical fields concerning the age of represented individuals. Regardless of the entity of the problem, no actual method exists which can allow us to give an objective and scientific answer, particularly in the postpubertal stage. Using parameters related to sexual maturation can be very dangerous. Nonetheless some experts still insist with similar types of “expertises”. This study aims at verifying the ability of different experts in assessing age of postpubertal individuals represented in pornographic material. Results underline the difficulties and major uncertainties of age evaluation by visual observation of photographic material particularly when the subjects have reached the sexual maturation stage – and therefore in verifying whether the individual is above or below 18 years of age (an important age limit for most European countries as far as this type of crime is concerned). Furthermore the study stresses the need both to search for an alternate approach and to apply extreme caution in judicial evaluation.