Sex Classification Using the Three‐Dimensional Tibia Form or Shape Including Population Specificity Approach

The aims of this study were to enable geometric morphometric sex classification using tibial proximal and distal sexual dimorphism and to evaluate the secular trend of tibial shape/form from the early 20th century to the present day. The study samples consisted of 61 adult tibias from an early 20th‐century Czech population and 57 three‐dimensional tibias from a 21st‐century population. Discriminant function analysis with cross‐validation was carried out to assess the accuracy of sex classification. Shape analysis revealed significant sex differences in both tibial extremities of the 21st‐century sample and in the proximal tibia of the 20th‐century population. Sex‐based divergence varied between the analyzed samples, raising the issues of population specificity and diachronic change. Classification using tibial form was more successful than using tibial shape. The highest values of correct assignment (91.80% and 88.52%) were found using the form from the early 20th Czech population.     

Traumatic testicular displacement in motorcycle drivers

Testicular displacement is a rare clinical presentation of blunt scrotal injury that may take place in road traffic accidents involving motorcycle occupants. We are presenting two cases of motorcycle occupant fatalities, 21 and 24 years of age, where testicular displacement and other signs of groin trauma have been determined. In both cases, discrete external signs of scrotal trauma were noted on examination, while unilateral and bilateral traumatic testicular displacement, respectively, have been documented at autopsy. For motorcycle occupants involved in collision, it is necessary to perform a thorough analysis of injuries, in particular to look for specific trauma arising from fuel-tank impact to genitalia and/or groin. These injuries are of great medico-legal importance both at postmortem and in clinical cases involving motorcycle occupants involved in collision.     

The Western Balkans and the EU budget: the effects of enlargement

ABSTRACT

The Western Balkan region needs credible European development prospects to break the cycle of enlargement and accession fatigue and to speed up regional adjustment to the EU. Post-accession EU budget flows can provide the necessary funding for such prospects. This article assesses the expected changes in the size and composition of EU budget flows to the Western Balkan countries after their EU accession. Our results show a sudden and substantial increase in gross and net flows, which gradually intensifies over several years before levelling off. EU budget flows are economically important relative to the size of the Western Balkan economies, and their composition is strongly biased towards development policies. We also find that Western Balkan enlargement comes at a minimal budgetary cost for the remaining EU member states. Our findings can help reduce scepticism behind the Western Balkan countries’ accession fatigue and the EU’s enlargement fatigue.     

The chameleon of mens rea and the shifting guises of culture-specific genocidal intent in international criminal proceedings

This article examines the significance of the mens rea-related evidence present in the specific language and discourse identified in the records of the International Military Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The author argues that international proceedings have seen the emergence of a new type of evidence: a cognitive, linguistic, culturally determined plural of genocidal mens rea. As a result, the mental element of genocidal intent can neither be interpreted nor understood without an advanced forensic approach to the language used by the network of génocidaires. Based on a combination of cognitive and social science research with the humanities, the article applies a hybrid method of analysis to some of the genocide cases in international criminal justice and demonstrates how and why this approach ought to be introduced into the process of identification of the guilty minds of the architects of genocide.     

Socio-economic differentiation in the post-communist rural Baltics: the case of three kolkhozes

This paper uses longitudinal quantitative data to examine socio-economic differentiation in the rural Baltic areas after decollectivization. It argues that the rural social structure in the post-Soviet Baltics is best determined by two criteria: source of income (income from farming entrepreneurship or income from salaries) and land holdings. Four rural groups are identified: people getting their main income from farming can be differentiated into large landowners engaged in the commercial production of agricultural goods and people with small or medium-sized farms; and people earning their main income from wages can be separated into people with no farming activities and people who are still keeping small or medium-sized farms. The paper also finds that the importance of farming activities in the countryside decreases while importance of wage income tends to increase.