Initially suspected killing with a political background identified as accidental carbon monoxide poisoning

During a parish fair the police was called to a conflict between two rival right-wing youth groups in the early morning hours. Shortly afterwards a burning car was discovered near the marquee with a charred male body on the driver's seat. It was assumed that there was a connection between the two events. At autopsy no injuries were found that were not attributable to postmortem consumption by the fire. The BAC value was 1.76 per thousand, the CO-Hb concentration 78%. The body could be identified by comparing pre- and postmortem X-rays of the molars and premolars of the right upper jaw. Reconstruction of the course of events and classification as an accident was possible only after calling in technical experts: The victim had gone back to his car to take a nap and kept the engine running because of the cold temperature. The car had been fitted improperly with a sport exhaust pipe, which caused both the carbon monoxide poisoning and the fire.     

Decision costs in legislative bargaining: an experimental analysis

We conduct an experiment to assess the effects of different decision rules on the costs of decision making in a multilateral bargaining situation. Specifically, we compare the amount of costly delay observed in an experimental bargaining game under majority and unanimity rule. Our main finding is that individual subjects are more likely to reject offers under unanimity rule. This higher rejection rate, as well as the requirement that all subjects agree, leads to more costly delay. This result provides empirical support for a classic argument in favor of less-than-unanimity decision rules put forth by Buchanan and Tullock (The calculus of consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1962).     

The Ayala Mazar-Xiaohe culture: new archaeological discoveries in the Taklamakan desert, China

This article, accompanied by colour photos, records the author's recent archaeological expedition in the Taklamakan Desert. His advance northwards along the now mostly sand-covered beds of the Keriya River proved to be a march backward through time, from the Iron Age city of Jumbulakum to the early Bronze Age necropolis of Ayala Mazar. The artifacts he found are contemporary with, and similar to Chinese discoveries at Xiaohe. This proves that Xiaohe was not an isolated case and provides evidence for a whole culture based on some sort of fertility cult. The remains also suggest that some, at least, of the peoples concerned had Indo-European affiliations.     

Postmortem interval of skeletal remains through the detection of intraosseal hemin traces. A comparison of UV-fluorescence, luminol, Hexagon-OBTI®, and Combur® tests

With the goal of obtaining additional practically applicable methods for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains, 39 samples of human and 5 samples of domestic animal long bones with known PMI (PMI=1 to approximately 2000 years) were tested with two established methods (UV-fluorescence of a freshly sawn cross-section and the luminol test) and two screening tests (Hexagon-OBTI? test and Combur? test) that were being tried out in this context for the first time. The hypothesis underlying this experiment was the supposition that the PMI-related chemiluminescence of the luminol reaction for bone is based on the presence of persisting hemin from hemoglobin molecules in bone. Our results showed that lack of luminescence and reduced UV-fluorescence were more meaningful results for estimating PMI and excluding forensic relevance than a positive luminol reaction or strong UV-fluorescence, as both of the latter findings revealed the limitations of these methods in this particular context. Particularly for cases showing a positive luminol reaction, the use of additional absolute dating methods may be indicated. Against our expectations, both the Combur? test strips and the Hexagon-OBTI? test, which were both devised to demonstrate blood, delivered negative results for all samples. They are thus not suitable for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains. Future research will be necessary to elucidate whether the negative results obtained for these tests may be due to the poor solubility of potentially present hemoglobin or hemoglobin breakdown products in the Tris buffer used in this experiment.     

Ideological Party Cohesion in Macro‐comparative Politics: The Nordic Social Democratic Parties from a Comparative Perspective

‘Party cohesion’ is a central concept in the analysis of agenda‐setting, veto players and coalition‐building as well as in the analysis of policy efficiency and party responsiveness. However, there is no indicator to measure party cohesion in a systematic manner over time and across parties. As a consequence, most established studies treat political parties as unitary actors although from an analytical point of view they should be considered collective actors. In order to overcome this deficiency, in this article a time‐variant and party‐specific index of party cohesion is developed which can be used in macro‐comparative statistical analysis. The concept of ‘ideological cohesion’ is developed along the Left–Right dimension. This index is applied in order to compare the party cohesion of Nordic social democratic parties (SDs) with their counterparts in 17 additional countries. The results show that the myth of the cohesion of Nordic SDs is only true for the golden age of the welfare state. Currently, most of the Nordic SDs actually have a lower party cohesion than their counterparts in many other countries.     

Erfolgsbezogene Entlohnung als Voraussetzung des Maklervertrages

Wesentlich für die T?tigkeit als Makler ist die Vermittlung von Gesch?ften. "Vermitteln" bedeutet dabei, zwei potentielle Vertragspartner zusammenzubringen und zum Gesch?ftsabschluss zu bewegen. Der Maklervertrag ist an eine erfolgsbezogene Entlohnung geknüpft, die nur bei verdienstlicher Vermittlungst?tigkeit gebührt. Grunds?tzlich wird der Makler daher nur für den Fall entlohnt, dass das in Aussicht genommene Gesch?ft durch seine Vermittlungst?tigkeit zustande kommt. Bei Vereinbarung einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung ist der Vertrag nicht als Maklervertrag zu qualifizieren. Die Vereinbarung einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung für Leistungen, die sich unter anderem auf die Vermittlung von Gesch?ften beziehen, steht mit dem MaklerG somit im Widerspruch. In diesem Fall gelangt nicht Maklerrecht zur Anwendung. Der Umstand, dass für Publikations- und Verkaufsbemühungen Entlohnung vereinbart wurde, ?ndert nichts am Vorliegen einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung.     

Alcohol and drug use among rural and urban incarcerated substance abusers

A number of prisoners use drugs. Limited information is available about the extent to which urban and urban substance abusers differ in their drug use in criminal justice settings. In addition, many believe that rural areas are protected from drug use. However, findings from this study show only marginally statistical significant differences in drug use between incarcerated rural and urban drug users. It was expected that urban drug users would be more drug career involved with consistently higher levels of drug use and associated problems. Specifically, rural drug users in this study were older at age of first use of marijuana and cocaine; report fewer years of cocaine, hallucinogen, and heroin use; and report more alcohol and sedative use. Findings from this study suggest that rural and urban drug users are similar and that rural areas may be protective from some drug use but risky for other drug use.