The determination of drugs of abuse in whole blood by means of FPIA and EMIT-dau immunoassays--a comparative study

Six groups of common drugs of abuse (cannabinoids, benzoylecgonine, opiates, barbiturates, benzodiazepines and amphetamines) were determined in whole blood after acetone precipitation, using enzyme multiplied immunoassay (EMIT dau) and fluorescence polarisation immunoassay (FPIA--Abbott TDx and ADx) methods. Both methods, designed primarily for urine, allowed the determination of all above mentioned class of drugs but amphetamine. Only 1 ml of a pre- or postmortem blood sample was needed. The sensitivity of cannabinoids determination was higher by FPIA. The FPIA method gave more precise results, particularly in the case of autopsy blood. The method was applied for drug screening in autopsy and police blood samples. The results (both positive and negative) were in agreement with those obtained with chromatographic methods.     

Suicide with chloroquine combined with maprotiline and trimipramine]

Report on suicide with chloroquine in combination with maprotiline and trimipramine. Chloroquine and his metabolite monodesethylchloroquine could be determined in organs and body fluids. The highest organ-concentrations of chloroquine were found in liver and kidney. The survival time and dose are discussed.     

On party attachment in Western Europe and the utility of eurobarometer data

An analysis of 25 Eurobarometer surveys conducted between 1974 and 1988 in each of the European Community member‐countries shows that there is no single trend discernible throughout Western Europe. Although levels of party attachment are decreasing in most member‐states, four different patterns have emerged, and they closely relate to more general developments in the respective party systems. These patterns are: strong dealignment (Ireland); peripheral dealignment (United Kingdom and Italy); post‐realignment (Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Greece, Belgium); and stable alignment (West Germany).     

Sources of Civic Engagement in Latin America: Empirical Evidence from Rural Ecuadorian Communities

The concept of civic engagement has greatly influenced the policy-making process in the field of development cooperation. However, in contrast to a vast quantity of empirical studies for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)–world, there is only little knowledge with respect to developing countries. Using Ecuadorian rural communities as an example, this paper analyses socioeconomic, political and cultural sources of civic engagement with multivariate regression analyses, which demonstrate that volunteering strongly depends on the cultural tradition. Additionally, the empirical results show that a pure application of the theoretical assumptions and operationalisations from the OECD–world is misleading, when analysing social processes in developing countries.     

The difficult issue of age assessment on pedo-pornographic material

The issue of juvenile pornography has seen an increase in the past few years of the number of expert opinions requested to forensic pathologists, paediatricians and other various experts within the forensic and medical fields concerning the age of represented individuals. Regardless of the entity of the problem, no actual method exists which can allow us to give an objective and scientific answer, particularly in the postpubertal stage. Using parameters related to sexual maturation can be very dangerous. Nonetheless some experts still insist with similar types of “expertises”. This study aims at verifying the ability of different experts in assessing age of postpubertal individuals represented in pornographic material. Results underline the difficulties and major uncertainties of age evaluation by visual observation of photographic material particularly when the subjects have reached the sexual maturation stage – and therefore in verifying whether the individual is above or below 18 years of age (an important age limit for most European countries as far as this type of crime is concerned). Furthermore the study stresses the need both to search for an alternate approach and to apply extreme caution in judicial evaluation.     

Geschlechtsspezifische Lohnungleichheit in Betrieben, Berufen und Jobzellen (1993–2006)

Whereas educational inequalities between women and men and differences in labor market participation shrinked or even diminished during the last decades, the gender pay gap remained stable over time. This is remarkable because the pay gap has attracted much more attention as the main target of anti-discrimination policies. Using data from the IAB (Institute for Employment Research), we analyze whether the average pay gap between women and men working full-time can be explained by their employment in different industries, occupations, and firms. As the smallest level of analysis we focus on occupations within firms (job cells). This strategy of analysis yields the best possible approximation to the concept of “within-job wage gap”. The results show that women with equivalent training and occupational experience earn wages that are 12 percent less than the wages of men in such job cells. Even though the educational participation of women rose to that of their male counterpart, the gender composition of labor market participation changed and the pressure of equal employment policies grew, the gender wage gap does not decrease within our observation period (1993–2006). In conclusion, we discuss theoretical and methodological reasons for this finding.     

Sports accident or natural death? Hematocephalus internus caused by rupture of a choroid plexus angioma

This is a case report of a young policeman who collapsed in the course of a football game. He died seven days later due to a massive intraventricular hemorrhage that resulted in internal hematocephalus. The source of the bleeding was obviously a bilateral angioma of the choroid plexus of the lateral ventricles.