Mortuary operations in the aftermath of the 2009 Victorian bushfires

On the day of the 2009 Victorian bushfires the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine activated its emergency plan. Within 48 h a temporary body storage facility was constructed adjacent to the existing mortuary. This temporary facility had the capacity to store up to 300 deceased persons. Pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists, police and mortuary assistants responded from all around Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia. The existing forensic mortuary and staff were divided into two areas: DVI (disaster victim identification) and "routine operations". A high priority for the mortuary was to ensure the casework of the "routine" deceased persons (those cases which were not related to the bushfires) was handled concurrently and in a timely manner. On admission each set of victim remains was given both a Coroner's case number in addition to the DVI number allocated at the scene. The case was CT scanned, examined by a pathologist, an anthropologist, and odontologist and in some instances a fingerprint expert. Where possible a DNA sample was taken. All processes, samples, labels and paperwork underwent a quality assurance check prior to the case completion. Regular audits were conducted. All of post mortem examinations were completed within 20 days of admission. Occupational health and safety issues of the staff were a high priority; this included correct manual handling, infection control and psychological debriefings. During the operation it was found that some remains were contaminated with asbestos. Procedures were set in place to manage these cases individually and each was isolated to reduce the risk of exposure by staff to asbestos. This overall mortuary operation identified a number of significant challenges, in particular the management of multiple parts of human remains for one individual. A new procedure was developed to ensure that all human remains, where possible, were reconciled with identified deceased persons prior to the release to the funeral director. It also highlighted the need to have well documented plans in place including plans for temporary mortuary facilities.     

Toward a concept of psychosocial maturity

Schools below the college level traditionally have been preoccupied with only one outcome of education: growth in measurable cognitive skills. While there is at present a growing recognition of the school's actual and potential role in promoting personal and social growth, a convincing model of nonacademic objectives is lacking, as is a tool for assessing children's progress toward nonacademic objectives. To this end, the authors construct a model of psychosocial maturity which specifies measurable attitudes and dispositions. The model of psychosocial maturity integrates sociological and psychological views of the person; that is, it takes into account the requirements of societies as well as the healthy development of individuals. The model outlines three general dimensions of maturity which are likely to be relevant in all societies. These are (1) the capacity to function adequately on one's own, (2) the capacity to interact adequately with others, and (3) the capacity to contribute to social cohesion. Nine attributes judged pertinent to these capacities in this society are then defined. The final sections of the paper discuss problems in the measurement of psychosocial maturity, describe the form of an instrument presently being devised, and suggest research uses of the instrument.Preparation of this paper was supported by funds from The National Institute of Education, Contract No. NE-C-00-3-0013.Received his Ph.D. trom Radeliffe College. She is interested in multidisciplinary approaches to the study of personality development and directs a program of research on school, family, and peer influences on attitudinal development over the childhood and adolescent years.Received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University. Major interests and current research are in educational sociology, mathematical sociology, and social stratification.     

The presence of absence: Beyond the “great goddess” in Ana Mendieta's Silueta Series

Ann Liv Young's The Bagwell in Me, which premiered at The Kitchen in NYC, 2008, continues this experimental dance-theater artist's characteristically brutal, anatomizing exposure of the performers’ bodies through both sexual and violent narratives. This analysis examines how Young's construction of a certain type of subject on the stage challenges the subjectivities of her audience members, provoking moments of potential eruption. By setting up the possibility of abjection through the ambivalent dynamic of attraction and repulsion, and bombarding the audience with tropes that engender a push toward Georges Bataille's concept of “radical formlessness,” I argue, Ann Liv Young's performance places notions of the stable subject – composed of a “whole” body that is coherently organized and intelligibly coded in terms of sex, gender, sexuality and race – into question. Not only will this analysis explore how viewing oral sex as choreography speaks to Bataille's discussion of radical formlessness through decontextualization and the maddening effects of staring at the sun, but it will also interrogate how the same strategy of radical formlessness could have entirely different performative effects regarding the threat of bodily coherence and taxonomy within the narrative of historical racial violence.     

Books in review

She has written widely on sociological and cultural aspects of psychoanalysis. Her most recent book, Feminists and Freudians: A Comparative Perspective,has just been published in German and is forthcoming in English.     

Courtship violence using couple data: characteristics and perceptions

This study examined courtship violence using couple data. Participants were 50 heterosexual dating couples with at least one member of the couple being a university student. Using the Conflict Tactics Scales 2 (CTS2), both members of a couple reported on received and inflicted physical and psychological violence. The prevalence of physical aggression depended on how violence was defined. On the CTS2, 60% of couples were considered physically violent when within-couple agreement was not considered; this dropped to as low as 28% when agreement had to be present. Women were more likely than men to report inflicting psychological aggression and to report aggressing against their partner with a playful intent. Taken together, these findings demonstrate the need to continue to examine courtship violence, especially by utilizing responses from both members of a couple.     

Improving suicide risk assessment in a managed-care environment

This article describes the quality improvement intervention of a managed behavioral healthcare company to improve the quality of suicide risk assessments by its panel of providers. At-risk cases are identified by the patient's self-reported high frequency of suicidal ideation on a standardized outcome measure. Clinicians also assess severity of suicidal ideation based on clinical interviews. The clinician's assessment is identified as probably erroneous if the patient report indicates a high frequency of suicidal ideation and the clinicians assessment of suicidal ideation is none. The article describes the methods used to encourage clinicians to utilize information from the patient self-report measure as part of the clinical assessment. Probable suicidal ideation assessment errors were subsequently reduced by 29% over a 1-year period of administration.