Acute myoglobinuria as a fatal complication of heroin addiction

A fatal case of myoglobinuria complicating heroin addiction is described. Clinically the patient had no overt symptoms of rhabdomyolysis. Pathologists should be alerted to this rare complication in heroin addicts who die of no apparent cause. The antimyoglobin immunoperoxidase technique is useful in confirming the diagnosis.     

Acidic and neutral drugs screen in blood with quantitation using microbore high-performance liquid chromatography–diode array detection and capillary gas chromatography–flame ionization detection

Blood previously acidified with aqueous saturated ammonium chloride solution was extracted with ethyl acetate. The dried extract was subjected to acetonitrile–hexane partition. The acetonitrile portion was analysed for the presence of acidic and neutral drugs by HPLC–DAD (200 mm×2.1 mm I.D. microbore ODS-Hypersil column) and GC–FID (25 m narrow-bore×0.25 mm I.D. HP-5 column with 0.33 μm film thickness). The protocol was found to be suitable for both clinical toxicology (including emergency toxicology) and postmortem toxicology. At least 66 drugs of interest were unequivocally identified by RRTs (HPLC) and UV spectra (DAD) match while another 12 were unequivocally identified by double RRTs match (HPLC and GC). Quantitation was facilitated by incorporating calibration blood standards in each assay batch. The five drugs most commonly encountered in clinical blood specimens (1150 cases) were: paracetamol (47.4% of the cases); chlormezanone (6.6%), theophylline (1.74%), naproxen (1.65%) and mefenamic acid (1.56%). The following drugs were detected in toxicologically significant quantities in postmortem blood specimens (245 cases): phenobarbitone (1.22% of the cases), naproxen (0.82%), chlormezanone (0.82%), theophylline (0.82%), carbamazepine (0.41%) and paracetamol (0.41%).     

Reviews

Wing Thye Woo, Stephen Parker & Jeffrey D. Sachs (eds), Economies in Transition: Comparing Asia and Eastern Europe. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1997, xiv + 412 pp., £33.95 h/b, £16.95 p/b.

Guy Standing, Russian Unemployment and Enterprise Restructuring: Reviving Dead Souls. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxix + 404 pp., £45.00.

Ellen Mickiewicz, Changing Channels: Television and the Struggle for Power in Russia. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, xiii + 340 pp., $35.00.

Naum Nim (ed.), Dos'e na tsenzuru, No. 1. Moscow: Fond zashchity glasnosti, 1997, 208 pp.

Taras Kuzio, Ukraine under Kuchma: Political Reform, Economic Transformation and Security Policy in Independent Ukraine. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xxiii + 281 pp., £50.00.

Mary Buckley (ed.), Post‐Soviet Women: from the Baltic to Central Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xvii + 316 pp., £15.95.

Neil Hood, Robert Kilis & Jan‐Erik Vahlne (eds), Transition in the Baltic States: Micro‐level Studies. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1997, xv + 299 pp., £50.00.

V. Stanley Vardis & Judith B. Sedaitis, Lithuania: The Rebel Nation. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997, xi + 242 pp., £14.50.

Lonnie R. Johnson, Central Europe. Enemies, Neighbours, Friends. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xii + 339 pp., £15.99.

Gale Stokes, Three Eras of Political Change in Eastern Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, xvi + 240 pp., £13.99.

Kevin F. F. Quigley, For Democracy's Sake: Foundations and Democracy Assistance in Central Europe. Washington, DC: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1997, xix + 190 pp., £13.00.

James Gow, Triumph of the Lack of Will. International Diplomacy and the Yugoslav War. London: C. Hurst and Co., 1997, 343 pp., £14.95.

Robert Chenciner, Daghestan: Tradition and Survival. Richmond: Curzon, 1997, xi + 307 pp., £25.00

William C. Wohlforth (ed.), Witnesses to the End of the Cold War. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996, xvi + 344 pp., $39.95.

Vladimir N. Brovkin (ed.), The Bolsheviks in Russian Society: The Revolution and the Civil Wars. London: Yale University Press, 1997, vi + 333 pp., £21.00.

Carl Van Dyke, The Soviet Invasion of Finland 1939–40. London: Frank Cass, 1997, xiv + 288 pp., £35.00.

Maurice Friedberg, Literary Translation in Russia: A Cultural History, University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University Press, 1997, viii + 224 pp.     

接管放弃的决定因素及后果

过去三十年接管行为引起了学术界的广泛关注,其中大多数研究关注于成功的接管,尤其是研究接管行为对被接管目标公司和竞价公司双方股东财富的影响。与成功接管不同的是,被迫放弃的接管行为(即接管放弃)相对而言受学术界的关注较少。这种令人惊讶的现象是因为相当大比例的接管竞价不成功。本文试图通过对接管失败方面文献的综合调研来说明这种研究上的偏颇。本文关注于两方面文献:第一,回顾和讨论可能影响接管结果的因素;第二,分别从目标公司和竞价公司的角度考察接管放弃的后果。还要分析未来的研究领域,这将进一步深化公司对接管放弃的因果关系的认识。     

Casino Politics,Organized Crime and the Post-Colonial State in Macau

Organized crime and politics have been traditionally intertwined in Macau. During the colonial era, the Portuguese administration was characterized by bureaucratic corruption and a cozy relationship with casino capitalists. The colonial state had limited autonomy vis-à-vis the casino capitalists. With the growth of tourism and the associated casino industry in Macau during the 1990s, organized crime groups penetrated various casinos and emerged as a baffling problem. Yet, neither the Portuguese administration nor the casino capitalists had the capability to contain the use of violence by organized crime groups. As Macau approached the end of the Portuguese colonial rule, the People's Republic of China (PRC) decided to intervene in the rapidly deteriorating law and order. The Chinese intervention took the forms of stationing the People's Liberation Army in the Macau Special Administrative Region (SAR), penalizing the triad boss Wan Kuok-kuoi, and supporting the new Edmund Ho Government's attempts at civil service reforms. The SAR Government also liberalized the casino industry by embracing American investment. Due to market competition, the local casino capitalists have been forced to improve the management of casinos and to minimize the infiltration of triads. Unlike the colonial state, the post-colonial state in the Macau SAR has enhanced its relative autonomy vis-à-vis the local casino capitalists, directly or indirectly curbing the detrimental impact of organized crime. The case study of Macau is illustrative of the critical role of state autonomy vis-à-vis casino capitalists, whose previous monopoly over casino management encountered the infiltration of organized crime that grasped the opportunities for maximizing profits in the era of the rapidly expanding casino industry. The Macau example also demonstrates the city-state's use of market competition as a means to improve casino management and to contain the spread of organized crime at least in the short run.