Analysis of cognitive inhibition and flexibility in juvenile delinquents

Executive functions are still developing during adolescence. It is important to analyse if juvenile delinquency is related to a delay in the development of these functions. The objective of this study was to analyse cognitive inhibition and flexibility, two components of executive functions, in juvenile delinquents. Participants were 81 males, 17.46 ± 1.60 years old. Three groups were compared: a juvenile delinquent inmate group (IG), an age-paired group (APG), and an age- and education-paired group (AEPG). A modified Stroop task was used to assess cognitive inhibition and flexibility. The IG and the AEPG (low-education adolescents) had significantly more difficulties than the APG on inhibition; the IG and the AEPG had no significant differences. No group differences were found on flexibility. Since all low-education adolescents have difficulties on inhibition, these difficulties are not an exclusive characteristic of juvenile delinquents. Analysis of cognitive processes in juvenile delinquents must control for education to determine how specific are the difficulties found in these adolescents.     

Near Infrared Spectroscopy Detection and Quantification of Herbal Medicines Adulterated with Sibutramine

There is an increasing demand for herbal medicines in weight loss treatment. Some synthetic chemicals, such as sibutramine (SB), have been detected as adulterants in herbal formulations. In this study, two strategies using near infrared (NIR) spectroscopy have been developed to evaluate potential adulteration of herbal medicines with SB: a qualitative screening approach and a quantitative methodology based on multivariate calibration. Samples were composed by products commercialized as herbal medicines, as well as by laboratory adulterated samples. Spectra were obtained in the range of 14,000–4000 per cm. Using PLS‐DA, a correct classification of 100% was achieved for the external validation set. In the quantitative approach, the root mean squares error of prediction (RMSEP), for both PLS and MLR models, was 0.2%w/w. The results prove the potential of NIR spectroscopy and multivariate calibration in quantifying sibutramine in adulterated herbal medicines samples.     

新世纪城市社区管理模式的建构

建设符合市场经济体制要求的新型社区管理模式，是我国政治体制改革的重要方面，改变政府的单一行政管理模式，强化社区的功能，是21世纪社区建设的目标。     

NAFTA,tourism, and environment in Mexico

The purpose of this paper is to determine how NAFTA influenced the Mexican tourism sector and its effects on the environment. The linkage between the tourism sector and NAFTA is done through the analysis of foreign direct investment and cross-border trade in services. The quantitative section of the paper focuses on analyzing commercial presence in the form of hotels and restaurants, as well as the use of services abroad. The paper concludes that NAFTA represented greater certainty to investors but was not the main driver behind the investments in tourism services. The analysis of visitors from US and Canada in Mexico recognizes that NAFTA did not have significant impact on the tourism flow. NAAEC, on the other hand, serves in this research as a qualitative connection between tourism sector and the environment for attending to citizen submissions on failures in environmental law enforcement in Mexico regarding tourism projects. It is included with an economic-environmental balance in Cancun—which shows that the greatest environmental impact is of global importance: CO₂ released into the air by air transportation, followed by the local impact of water consumption, waste generation, and electricity usage, in that order.     

The "coffin fly"Conicera tibialis (Diptera: Phoridae) breeding on buried human remains after a postmortem interval of 18 years

The "coffin fly,"Conicera tibialis Schmitz (Order: Diptera, Family: Phoridae), is well known for its frequent occurrence on buried corpses, in some cases after postmortem intervals of even 3-5 years. The present report describes the presence of a large amount of individuals of C. tibialis inside the coffin of a buried human corpse exhumed 18 years after death in central Spain. Adults, some of them newly emerged, and empty puparia were found in connection with the remains. Such postmortem interval is significantly longer than previously known for this species and raises the question on the current state of knowledge about the use of insects for estimating the postmortem interval in old, buried remains.     

Economic growth and import requirements

This article points out that our knowledge of the specific form and analytical reasons underlying the interrelationship known to exist between international trade and economic growth is limited and that this situation is largely due to the lack of an adequate theoretical framework. Comparative cost theory is not very helpful in this respect be cause the explanation of the rise of trade it provides does not lead to useful and unambiguous inferences about the role of trade in economic growth nor about the characteristics of trade flows during growth.

The difficulty may in part be attributed to the circumstance that comparative cost doctrine provides theoretical support for an ideal system of trading which nations have consistently refused to follow. The article suggests that this situation of fact results because the primary objective that nations pursue in trading is not to exploit (at a given level of employment and capacity use) whatever comparative cost differences may exist, but to ‘develop’ their national economies; and to this end the policy objectives that are given highest priority in all countries are those that induce a maximum level of domestic manpower employment and as intensive a utilization as possible of the national resource base. The trade implications of adhering to this ‘national development’ objective are easy to visualize: nations will tend to import only those commodities needed to supplement their own output so that total supply (domestic plus imported goods) fits the prevailing requirements; and they will import such commodities because an important condition for growth is a reasonable long‐run coincidence between the commodity composition of total supply and total demand. Since no country can have an all‐encompassing resource base nor attain full productive diversification, it follows that all countries must have certain minimum import requirements.

The core of the article is devoted to a discussion of an exponential‐type formula (M = ay^b P^e A^d) which defines aggregate import requirements in terms of the level of per‐capita income, the population and the geographical area of the respective countries. The discussion shows that the formula implicitly takes into account characteristics of the resource base such as its magnitude, quality and degree of exploitation. This formula, in its linear logarithmic form, is then used for a regression analysis of the imports of a uniform sample of 53 countries in three years, viz. 1953, 1958 and 1963. Data of 20 countries in 1913 and U.S. data for the period 1889–1953 are similarly analysed. The results show that the formula permits excellent fits of the data and that all the variables selected—including area—are statistically significant even at the 99 per cent confidence level. These results are interpreted as supporting evidence of the validity of the views advanced earlier regarding the economic motivation for trading and the factors that determine levels of import requirements.

The last part of the article deals with some of the implications of the empirical findings (regarding the function of trade and the role of natural resources in economic growth, the possibilities of successful import substitution and the relation between geographical size and trade requirements—relation of practical importance in connection with customs unions and similar economic integration arrangements). A few broad policy implications of the views advanced in the article are also presented.     

Public health powers in relation to infectious tuberculosis in England and France: a comparison of approaches

This article examines the legal responses to infectious tuberculosis in England and France. Given that tuberculosis has re-emerged as a public health threat in both countries, the differing jurisprudence and legal frameworks of disease control in the two jurisdictions warrant examination. Two questions arise in that respect: firstly, what is the role of the State in the protection of public health in the context of tuberculosis, and secondly, to what extent can the law intervene to coerce individuals to undertake health measures for the protection of society at large. These issues reveal the tensions that exist between the individual and public interest. France and England differ greatly in their responses to such tensions. Paradoxically, France, that has traditionally embraced strong State intervention, has been reluctant to curtail individual freedoms for the benefit of public health. Conversely, England, that has tended to be more closely associated with liberalism, has been ready to accept and even promote restrictions to individual freedoms in the collective interest.