Directors’ responsibilities in a new decade

Liverpool Law Review -     

Heroin impurity profiling: trends throughout a decade of experimenting.

Heroin is still one of the most frequently abused drugs of today. All over the world, law enforcement agencies try to eradicate the illicit production and trafficking of this potent and highly addictive narcotic. To this aim, important information is provided by physical and chemical toxicological analysis of confiscated samples, with special attention for the identification and the quantification of minor components, such as the impurities related to the origin and manufacturing. By combining these data complex characterisations, i.e. impurity profiles, chemical signatures or fingerprints, can be obtained and used for comparative analysis. This review focuses on heroin impurity profiling during the 1990s, proclaimed by the United Nations as the 'Decade for Eradicating Drug Abuse'. Special attention will be given to the new trends in analytical techniques as well as in data handling strategies, so called chemometrics, to produce these profiles. The latter can be used in comparative analysis of seized heroin samples for tactical (batch-to-batch comparison) and strategic (origin determination) intelligence purposes.     

Rural migration in Korea: a transition to the modern era

Because industrialization and modernization have been stressed as characteristics of an advanced society, pre-industrial and early industrial societies have often been depicted as sedentary and stable in the literature on migration; however, findings have begun to appear that question such depictions. In this paper, we examine the migration patterns of the rural Korean population during Japanese colonial rule (1910–1945), the period immediately preceding full-scale industrialization. In order to determine whether the population can be characterized as mobile or sedentary, we examine patterns of geographic mobility in association with migration distances and in association with migrants' ages. Our results suggest that during this era, as Korea headed down the road to modernity, individual movements followed mixed migration patterns. Specifically, migration in Korea prior to modernization exhibited both a stable-oriented pattern and a life-at-stake-oriented pattern. These findings confirm the context-specific diversity of migration processes across different societies and historical periods.     

The role of interest rates during the transition to a market economy

We construct a simple two period model of an economy in transition from being centrally planned to being market oriented. Using this model, we draw certain positive conclusions about economic policies that reduce distortions during the transition period. In particular, we focus on the role of interest rates, a market parameter that has previously been almost entirely ignored in planned economies. Using stylized data derived from Czechoslovakia, we show that increase in nominal interest rates can actually be welfare-improving by partially compensating for the distortions induced by the transition process. The model is sufficiently general to be applied to a number of transition economies, and we use the cases of Czechoslovakia, the USSR, and China as examples of some of the phenomena that we are trying to explain. We show that the model generates a constrained, suboptimal equilibrium. In particular, we see that raising interest rates during the transition period reduces repressed savings, brought about by shortages in the controlled market. An improvement in consumer utility can therefore be brought about.     

犯罪理论体系研究导论

犯罪理论体系是由一系列关于犯罪的条件、形态、种类、刑事责任等的概念、范畴、原理、原则依一定关系组成的有层次、有结构的知识系统,它是关于犯罪的(立法与司法)实践的理论化与系统化,是在理论与实践的互动过程中形成和发展起来的。任何犯罪理论体系都有自己的结构、要素与功能。犯罪理论体系一般具有解释、认识、预见、评价和创制5大功能。决定理论体系的科学性有两个主要的标准:外在标准和内在标准。构建犯罪理论体系的方法是:"从抽象上升到具体"、"逻辑与历史相统一"和"系统论",它们相辅相成,都是构建犯罪理论体系的科学方法。