Legal rights and communicable disease: AIDS, the police power, and individual liberty

The policy debate over AIDS has focused on how to balance the rights of individuals who have the disease against the rights of the public. This paper examines the nature of both sets of rights by analyzing the development of public health law and its dominant visions today. The article argues that while once public health rights implied a vast reserve of community authority and obligation to prevent illness, today the rights of the public and those of individuals are seen as being in opposition. Public health jurisprudence now presupposes that illness is primarily a matter of individual concern. In this view, the science of medicine mediates the relationship between the individual and the public. This understanding of rights protects some of the interests of infected individuals, but is inadequate for addressing many of the major problems raised by the AIDS epidemic, particularly the spread of infection among the uninfected.     

民法草案人格权法编评述

一、民法草案人格权法编的亮点和成功之处     

我国民法典中的人格权制度的构建

人格权制度是对生命、健康、名誉、隐私等人格利益加以确认并保护的法律制度.     

青少年骨龄标准身高、体重和体重指数生长图表

目的制订青少年骨龄标准身高、体重和体重指数生长图表,为年龄推测时评价青少年基本发育状况提供参考。方法研究样本为2005年中国5城市抽取的3-19岁汉族正常青少年和儿童16570名（男8282,女8288）。应用RUS-CHN法评价受试者手腕部骨龄,由Box-Cox幂指数分布（Box-Cox power exponential distribution,BCPE）模型估价以骨龄分组的身高、体重和体重指数（Body mass index,BMI）百分位数。结果根据最小Akaike信息准测（Akaike Information Criterion,AIC）和广义AIC（Generalized AIC）选择了身高、体重和BMI BCPE模型μ,σ,ν,τ参数的自由度,依据BCPE模型所估价的百分位数曲线下样本例数的百分数与理论期望值相差在0.01%-1.21%之间。结论所选择的BCPE模型符合青少年儿童样本以骨龄分组的身高、体重和BMI数据的实际分布,所提出的生长图表可用于年龄推测中青少年基本生长发育状况的评价。     

A cross-cultural review of sudden mass assault by a single individual in the oriental and occidental cultures

A nonrandom sample of North American cases of sudden mass assault by a single individual (SMASI, n = 30) is compared with a nonrandom sample of Laotian amok cases (n = 18) and other amok studies. Perpetrators in both studies show evidence of social isolation, loss, depression, anger, pathological narcissism, and paranoia, often to a psychotic degree. The term "innovative perpetrator" is reintroduced and expanded upon. Similarities among samples far outweigh differences, leading the authors to conclude that SMASI and its appearance in different cultures is not a culture-bound syndrome.     

The determination of the age of an individual by the morphological signs of the pubic symphysis

The series of 365 pelvic bones from the area of pubic joint (195 female and 170 male) were studied. The author developed regression equations to determine individual age on the basis of the results of age dynamics study in relation to 5 morphologic characteristics of pubic joint (joint surface, front and rear borders, upper and lower ends). This method makes it possible to determine individual age within the interval of 15-90 years of age (mean error 7.23 years, correlation factor 0.9261).     

A study of individual,environmental, and interactive effects in explaining adjustment to prison

The interactionist model of adjustment to prison suggests that inmates have unique characteristics which work as internal determinants of behavior, but do so within the framework of the prison's social environment, which facilitates or impedes satisfaction of needs. Distress occurs at the point of transaction where an individual's adaptive capacity is inadequate to meet internal and/or environmental demands. Past research examined the influence of both individual and environmental characteristics in determining patterns of prison adjustment but failed to investigate the fit between person and environment. Using multiple measures of individual effects, environmental effects, and congruence between person and environment, this study found that all three dimensions are significantly related to how inmates adjust to prison. Implications of these findings for prison administration are discussed.     

Estimation of the age of an individual based on times of eruption of permanent teeth

This is a community based study of the times of eruption of permanent teeth to establish the age of an individual. The study is based on dental examination of 1008 subjects in the age group 5-14 years, residing in Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India. The median age of eruption was computed based on the concept of "Ex" which is defined as the age at which a specified percentage of individuals show eruption of a given permanent tooth. The median age "E50" was computed by transformation of percentages to probits and plotting a graph between age and probits. E50 was computed graphically corresponding to a probits value of 5.0 or 50%. A mathematical regression equation [Kusri's] was computed for each graph. The age of an individual can be computed based on the E50 value of the permanent tooth which erupted last. The probability of the given individual being above or below the assessed age can be estimated by referring to graph and probit transformation table.     

线粒体DNA和端粒与年龄相关性的研究进展

用DNA技术从分子水平上推断年龄,已成为法医学和人类学研究领域的新热点。目前用于年龄推断研究的DNA标记主要是线粒体和端粒。本文从线粒体DNA和端粒的概念、线粒体DNA的缺失和突变、端粒长度变化与年龄的相关性等方面对该领域的研究进展进行了综述。旨在为法医实践及进一步的研究提供新的方法和思路。     

The effect of social status on women's age at first childbirth in the late seventeenth- to early eighteenth-century Korea

While records on historical population are available and do exist, the fact that they are so limited in nature is a critical problem. We applied the method of family reconstitution to a Korean household register to deal with these limitations. Based on family reconstitution from five successive registers, we calculated women's age at first childbirth for each social status in two ways: “observed woman's age” at first childbirth = woman's current age–age of her first child, and “estimated woman's age” at first childbirth, which uses linear regression analysis on the basis of positive association between women's age and the age of their firstborn. Our results shed light on the effects of social status and cultural factors on the age at which women in pre-industrial Korea bore their first child.     

The effect of social status on women's age at first childbirth in the late seventeenth- to early eighteenth-century Korea

While records on historical population are available and do exist, the fact that they are so limited in nature is a critical problem. We applied the method of family reconstitution to a Korean household register to deal with these limitations. Based on family reconstitution from five successive registers, we calculated women's age at first childbirth for each social status in two ways: “observed woman's age” at first childbirth = woman's current age–age of her first child, and “estimated woman's age” at first childbirth, which uses linear regression analysis on the basis of positive association between women's age and the age of their firstborn. Our results shed light on the effects of social status and cultural factors on the age at which women in pre-industrial Korea bore their first child.     

Does advancing age modify the presentation of disease?

A group of patients who had died of either cardiac tamponade due to ruptured myocardial infarct, perforated peptic ulcer, or diverticulitis with perforation were studied to determine the effect that age has on the presentation of these three potentially fatal diseases. With advanced age, a decrease in the number of patients who had symptoms typical for the disease that was ultimately the cause of death was found. We also noted a number of patients who did not experience any symptoms, and some patients who experienced symptoms that were not typical of their disease. In many instances, the disparity between disease severity and symptoms had resulted in the disease not being diagnosed either because the patient did not seek medical advice or because the doctor was unable to make the appropriate diagnosis from the patient's symptoms.     

Economic status,social status,and rate of internationalization in US law firms

We note that in the legal industry, socially constructed status may be an especially powerful type of firm position, and may also relate to internationalization through opening offices in new foreign markets. Hence, in this analysis we offer the first effort to simultaneously consider relationships between socially derived firm status and internationalization, and economic status and internationalization in a legal industry context. Specifically, we use longitudinal data on large US corporate law firms from 1984 to 2008. We find an inverted U-shaped relationship between social status and rate of internationalization. Additionally, we identify an inverted U-shaped relationship between economic status, or domestic market share, and rate of internationalization.     

如何正确看待法医骨龄和刑事责任年龄

骨龄又叫骨骼测定年龄,刑法所规定的“刑事责任年龄”为某一个体的“生活年龄”,二者所代表的含义不同,且存在着较大的差异。司法机关直接利用骨龄作为对犯罪嫌疑人定罪量刑的证据判案时常引发不小争议。故此,实现“骨龄”推断到“生活年龄”推断是法医任重而道远的任务。本文分析了二者的差异及原因,并呼吁尽快出台综合评定其个体“生活年龄”的全新标准或规范。     

Power, crime and criminology in the new imperial age

As a consequence of the U.S. pursuit of neo-liberal global hegemony in the post-Soviet era, the language of empire has returned to political discourse and social analysis after an eighty-year absence. Although the pursuit of empire and the exertion of imperial control is deeply and demonstrably injurious to the nations and people subjected to this control, orthodox criminology has given relatively little attention to this emerging world of transnational social injury, choosing instead to continue its traditional focus on private crimes of greed, lust and rage. In this essay I detail how legal formalism, methodological individualism, ameliorative motives, mass-communications and the reward structure of orthodox criminology combine to form a meta-theoretical framework that has kept the criminological gaze averted from injurious actions of transnational structures of power. I then offer an alternative framework for a criminology of empire and other power crimes focused on how intersections among economic, political and cultural processes generate social injuries that are analogous to crimes in their nature and consequences, and that, as a result should become as significant a focus of criminological inquiry as the street crimes that now dominate criminological research and writing. What do we do with our knowledge about the suffering of others, and what does this knowledge do to us? -Stanley Cohen      

Fourier transform infrared reflectance spectra of latent fingerprints: a biometric gauge for the age of an individual

To determine if changes in fingerprint infrared spectra linear with age can be found, partial least squares (PLS1) regression of 155 fingerprint infrared spectra against the person's age was constructed. The regression produced a linear model of age as a function of spectrum with a root mean square error of calibration of less than 4 years, showing an inflection at about 25 years of age. The spectral ranges emphasized by the regression do not correspond to the highest concentration constituents of the fingerprints. Separate linear regression models for old and young people can be constructed with even more statistical rigor. The success of the regression demonstrates that a combination of constituents can be found that changes linearly with age, with a significant shift around puberty.