Forensic Facial Reconstruction: A Systematic Review of Nasal Prediction Techniques

Prediction facial features from the skull are recurring theme on the forensic literature. The nose has been investigated since it has a significant role in facial recognition and the literature shows that there is not an universal method for nasal prediction. This study aimed to conduct a systematic review to analyze what are the most consistent techniques of nasal reconstruction. Primary studies describing or validating nasal reconstruction techniques in adults and published in journals of Forensic Sciences were included in this review. Tedeschi‐Oliveira's method positioned nasal tip with acceptable accuracy as Gerasimov's method. The Krogman's and Iscan's technique underestimated nasal projection in North Americans. The Prokopec's and Ubelaker's method obtained accuracy in Caucasoid. George's method presented results similar to reference standard in Caucasoid. In a supplementary way, studies are needed to accurately estimate the nasal width.     

Of words and deeds: Latin American declaratory regionalism, 1994–2014

The idea of an integrated Latin American region goes back to the early post-independence period, and yet, in substance, Latin American regionalism has remained far behind its stated aims. The perceived implementation gap has raised the question why policymakers continued to talk about something they appeared to avoid in practice. This article contributes to the debate on Latin America’s integration gap by exploring the phenomenon of declaratory regionalism - the practice of referring to the region and its institutions in political speeches. Based on quantitative text analysis of the speeches presidents delivered annually at the UN’s General Assembly between 1994 and 2014, we show that this practice has not been uniform. Presidents distinguish between different forms of regionalism, integration and cooperation, and frame the geographical region they refer to accordingly. In motivating presidents to speak about integration as opposed to cooperation, ideology and democratic performance stand out as crucial factors.     

The legacy of social conflicts over property rights in rural Brazil and Mexico: Current land struggles in historical perspective

This article proposes an approach to the agrarian question that focuses on the establishment of absolute private property rights over land in Brazil and Mexico. The author argues that current land struggles are conditioned by the property regimes inherited from past struggles. The author examines the liberal reforms of the nineteenth century and argues that the balance of class forces led to the slow establishment of absolute private property in Brazil, while in Mexico they triggered the Revolution of 1910–1917, which limited agrarian capitalism. The author then turns to the consequences of these different property regimes in the twentieth century and argues that capitalist social relations have been more dominant in the Brazilian than in the Mexican countryside. The conservative modernization of the 1960s and 1970s is identified as a turning point in the fully capitalist development of agriculture in Brazil. The shift toward food imports, the elimination of subsidies, and the reform of Article 27 of the Constitution signal the re-establishment of the conditions for capitalist development of agriculture in Mexico. The article ends with an assessment of the MST and EZLN's strategies to protect peasants’ access to land and to influence the institutional setting determining access to land.     

Evaluation of the composition of street cocaine seized in two regions of Brazil

This work evaluates cocaine purity and the concentration ranges of adulterants and inorganic constituents for 31 street cocaine samples seized in two different regions of Brazil from July 2008 to May 2010. Cocaine and adulterants, such as caffeine, lidocaine and benzocaine, were quantified by Gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), and the inorganic constituents were determined by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Optical Emission Spectrometry (ICP-OES) and ion chromatography (IC). The cocaine concentrations in the samples seized in the Amazonas state (AM samples) ranged from 154 to 978 mg g^? 1, and these samples did not contain any of the adulterants studied. The cocaine concentrations in the samples seized in the Minas Gerais state (MG samples) ranged from 63.9 to 753 mg g^? 1. Caffeine was the main adulterant found in 76% of the MG samples, ranging in concentration from 5.5 to 645.3 mg g^? 1. Lidocaine was found in 66.7% of the MG samples, with concentrations ranging from 16.3 to 576.7 mg g^? 1. Benzocaine was found in only one MG sample, at a concentration of 84.8 mg g^? 1. Fourteen elements were identified by ICP-OES, and a wide variation was observed in the concentrations of Ca, Mg, Na, P, Al, Fe, Mn and Zn. Pearson Product–moment Correlations between the analytes allowed the constituents to be associated with the chemicals used in the manufacturing of cocaine and with some common diluents. The study of the purity of cocaine and the presence and concentration of adulterants and inorganic constituents is important because the latter can have deleterious effects on health.     

Local Chairs vs International Networks: the Beginning of the Scholarly Career in a Peripheral Academic Field

Sensitive to the differences between centers and peripheries of knowledge production, this article explores how scholars in peripheral fields use knowledge from central fields to structure their academic careers. The article presents the findings of a case study of career choices of political scientists in Argentina. In order to understand the interplay between foreign knowledge and local strategies of enacting networks, this article focuses on the beginning of academic careers. At this early stage, political scientists in Argentina usually have to make a decision whether to stay in the country or go abroad for postgraduate education. Relying on positioning theory and recent developments in Science and Technology Studies, we identified two alternative positioning strategies. Those who stay in Argentina tend to hoard as many scholarly positions as possible, enacting local networks oriented towards teaching. Scholars who go abroad enact networks with international dimensions, in the process enrolling persons and objects, though not always successfully. Scholars with international experience tend to be research oriented, and they mention the working conditions abroad as particularly attractive. We show the extent to which these findings challenge some views of centers and periphery and highlight the active role of scholars in peripheral scientific fields.     

Punishment and Rights in European Union Citizenship: Persons or Criminals?

While European Union (EU) citizenship has traditionally been key to limiting criminalisation at national level, over recent years crime has become a criterion to distinguish between the good and the bad citizen, and to allocate rights according to that distinction. This approach has been upheld by the EU Court of Justice (CJEU) in its case‐law, where crimes show the offender's disregard for the societal values of the host Member States, and deny his/her integration therein. This article argues that citizenship serves to legitimate criminal law. The Court outlines two—counterposing—types of human being: the law‐abiding citizen and the criminal. The article shows the legal unsoundness of the Court's approach. It does so by analysing and locating the case‐law over a crime–citizenship spectrum, marked at its opposing ends by Duff's communitarian approach to criminal law, on the one hand, and Jakobs' criminal law of the enemy, on the other.     

Between the Accepted and the Legal: Violence in Honor Disputes in Uruguay (1945–1970)

This article addresses the specific character of interpersonal violence in Uruguay during the second half of the twentieth century (1945–1970). This study tries to establish the relation between self-defense and honor as expressed by Uruguayan law and accepted social codes. Deriving from this relation, the analysis identifies the emergence of a double system for legitimizing the use of violence: the honor disputes stipulated by the law and the observance of accepted and shared sociocultural codes. Walter Benjamin and Max Weber believed that the State had to establish the monopoly on violence as a way of guaranteeing its very existence. Nevertheless, it seems from this analysis that contrary to this assumption, it was from the law itself and the spaces it left open for subjective interpretation that private violence was legitimized. Moreover, this study proposes an approach that contradicts existing research which uncritically assumes the idealized pacific character of Uruguayan society.