Islands and Undesirables: Introduction to the Special Issue on Irregular Migration in Southern European Islands

This introduction presents the challenges to studying irregular migration in the southern European islands. After presenting the debates surrounding the category of irregular migration and recent developments in irregular migration to southern European islands, we argue that the situation of islands needs to be contextualized within the broader scheme of Euro-Mediterranean irregular migration. We then propose considering islands as remarkable “places of condensation” in the Euro-Mediterranean migratory setting. The article introduces two themes that will be developed throughout the special issue: (1) analyzing and challenging narratives of islandness and (2) policing and bordering the islands.     

Are Perceptions of Organizational Justice Universal? An Exploration of Measurement Invariance Across Thirteen Cultures

Previous research examined whether justice effects are comparable, focusing on quantitative differences in justice effects. This study examines whether justice perceptions are structured similarly or whether they are qualitatively different across working populations from 13 nations. Confirmatory factor analysis and multi-group analysis show that Colquitt??s (J Appl Psychol 86:386?C400, 2001) four-dimensional model of justice works well across these samples. However, factor intercorrelations and reliabilities are found to systematically vary between cultural samples. Perceptions of justice are more highly intercorrelated in power distant and collectivistic samples, in line with extensions of the relational model of authority. Score reliabilities were lower in collectivistic settings.     

Young Children’s Competency to Take the Oath: Effects of Task,Maltreatment, and Age

This study examined maltreated and non-maltreated children’s (N = 183) emerging understanding of “truth” and “lie,” terms about which they are quizzed to qualify as competent to testify. Four- to six-year-old children were asked to accept or reject true and false (T/F) statements, label T/F statements as the “truth” or “a lie,” label T/F statements as “good” or “bad,” and label “truth” and “lie” as “good” or “bad.” The youngest children were at ceiling in accepting/rejecting T/F statements. The labeling tasks revealed improvement with age and children performed similarly across the tasks. Most children were better able to evaluate “truth” than “lie.” Maltreated children exhibited somewhat different response patterns, suggesting greater sensitivity to the immorality of lying.     

Fatal aortic injury during laparoscopy: report of two cases

The authors report the cases of two young women who died of massive hemorrhage resulting from trocar aortic injuries during abdominal laparoscopy. In the first case, wherein the patient underwent laparoscopy for cecopexy, the forensic autopsy showed a through-and-through perforation of the abdominal aorta and of the ileum. The other woman, who had morbid obesity, underwent a laparoscopy for gastroplasty. In this second case, the main postmortem findings were stab wounds of the thoracic aorta and of the diaphragm.     

The application of Kvaal's dental age calculation technique on panoramic dental radiographs

INTRODUCTION: Literature reports on a method for dental age calculation which is based only on radiological measurements on periapical dental radiographs: the relationship between chronological age and the two-dimensional dental pulpal size was analysed by means of multiple regression analyses. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate whether this approach could be feasible and could lead to statistically sound results with adequate repeatability when applied on panoramic radiographs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: One hundred and ninety seven panoramic radiographs were collected at random from patients of whom the age ranged from 19 to 75 years. According to the reported technique, six teeth were selected on the panoramic radiograph: in the maxilla the central and lateral incisor and second bicuspid, and in the mandibula the lateral incisor, cuspid and first bicuspid. The same exclusion criteria as in the original paper were respected. Statistical analysis was carried out in order to spot significant differences between the chronological age and the calculated age. RESULTS: When the age was calculated based on measurements of all six teeth or of all three mandibular teeth, no significant differences were found between the real age and the calculated one. In all other instances using the individual teeth separately or using all three maxillary teeth statistical analysis revealed significant differences. CONCLUSION: There appears to be no significant difference between applying the original technique on standard long-cone periapical radiographs or on orthopantomograms, especially when carrying out measurements on all six selected teeth.     

Advisory bodies and morality policies: does ethical expertise matter?

Policy Sciences - Governments and parliaments struggle to design biomedical policies: while research and practice make rapid progress, they often trigger value conflicts. One response involves...