Suture Embolism of the Left Superior Lobar Pulmonary Artery

Endogenous pulmonary thromboemboli are a common cause of noncardiac sudden natural death. Embolism of exogenous material is a rare but potential finding in autopsies following surgeries, medical procedures, penetrating trauma, and nonparenteral drug abuse. This report describes the first case of a suture embolism of the left superior lobar pulmonary artery following complicated abdominal surgery.     

Carrion fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) larval colonization of sunlit and shaded pig carcasses in West Virginia, USA

Two pig (Sus scrofta L.) carcasses were placed in sunlit and shaded plots in September 2003, and again in May 2004. Mean ambient temperatures between sunlit and shaded plots were not significantly different in either September or May, but mean ambient temperatures at sunlit and shaded plots in 2004 were significantly higher than corresponding means for sunlit and shaded plots in 2003. Mean maggot mass temperatures were significantly higher than ambient plot temperatures for all four experimental plots (i.e., sunlit and shaded carcasses in both 2003 and 2004). In addition, maggot mass temperatures on sunlit carcasses were positively, and significantly, correlated with ambient temperatures, whereas there was no significant correlation between maggot mass and ambient temperatures at shaded plots. Carcass decomposition proceeded more rapidly in 2004 in the presence of higher ambient temperatures, and sunlit carcasses decomposed faster than shaded ones in both 2003 and 2004 experiments. Phaenecia coeruleiviridis (Macquart) and Phormia regina (Meigen) third instars dominated collections on all four carcasses, but there was little temporal overlap between these species with third instars of the former dominating collections in the early portion (approximately 40%) of each experimental period (with the exception of the shaded carcass in 2004 where both species were co-dominant), and the latter assuming dominance in the latter portion (approximately 60%). Lower accumulated degree hour values were calculated for instar development on 2004 carcasses subjected to higher ambient temperatures.     

Feature reviews

Perspectives on the Philippines

Crisis in the Philippines: The Marcos Era and Beyond. John Bresnan, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 1986. 284pp. n/p

The Philippines Reader: A History of Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance. Daniel B Schirmer and Stephen Rosskam Shalom, Boston, Massachusetts: South End Press. 1987. 425pp. $11.00hb

The Philippines After Marcos. R J May and Francisco Nemenzo, London: Croom Helm. 1985. 239pp. £19.95hb

Touching Ground, Taking Root: Theological and Political Reflections on the Philippine Struggle. London: Catholic Institute for International Relations. 1986. 214pp. £5.75pb

Winds of change in Moscow

The Sixth Continent: Russia and Mikhail Gorbachev. Mary Frankland, London: Hamish Hamilton. 1987. 292pp. £12.95hb

The Waking Giant. The Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Martin Walker, London: Michael Joseph. 1986. 282pp. £14.95hb

The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline. Seweryn Bialer, London: I B Tauris. 1986. 391pp. £19.50hb

The Soviet Union under Gorbachev. Edited by Martin McCauley, London: Macmillan. 1987. 247pp. £29.50hb/£9.95pb

The future of China

China—Politics, Economics and Society: Iconoclasm and Innovation in a Revolutionary Socialist Country. Marc Blecher, London: Frances Pinter, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Riener. 1986. 232pp. £22.50hb/£6.95pb

The China Challenge: Adjustment and Reform. David S G Goodman, Martin Lockett and Gerald Segal, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul (for Royal Institute of International Affairs). 1986. 86pp. £5.95pb

The Political Economy of Reform in Post‐Mao China. Edited by Elizabeth J Perry and Christine Wong, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1985. 331pp. £11.95pb

Apartheid observed

Move Your Shadow: South Africa, Black and White. Joseph Lelyveld, London: Sphere Books. 1987. 390pp. £3.95pb

Black and Gold: Tycoons, Revolutionaries and Apartheid. Anthony Sampson, London: Hodder and Stoughton. 1987. 280pp. £12.95hb

The Sanctions Handbook. Joseph Hanlon and Roger Omond, Harmondsworth: Penguin. 1987. 389pp. £4.95pb

South Africa: No Easy Path to Peace. Graham Leach, London: Methuen. 1986. 312pp. £2.95pb

King Solomon's Mines Revisited: Western Interests and the Burdened History of Southern Africa. William Minter, New York: Basic Books. 1986. 401pp. n/p

Environmental warfare

Herbicides in War: The Long‐Term Ecological and Human Consequences. Edited by Arthur H Westing, London: Taylor and Francis. 1984. 210pp. £15.00hb

Environmental Warfare: A Technical, Legal and Policy Appraisal. Edited by Arthur H Westing, London: Taylor and Francis. 1984. 107pp. £12.00hb     

The capitalist conjuncture: over-accumulation,financial crises,and the retreat from globalisation

This article argues that the key crisis that has overtaken today's global economy is the classical capitalist crisis of over-accumulation. Reaganism and structural adjustment were efforts to overcome this crisis in the 1980s, with little success, followed by globalisation in the 1990s. The Clinton administration embraced globalisation as the ‘Grand Strategy’ of the USA, its two key prongs being the accelerated integration of markets and production by transnational corporations and the creation of a multilateral system of global governance, the pillars of which were the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. The goal of creating a functionally integrated global economy, however, stalled, and the multilateral system began to unravel, thanks among other things to the multiple crises created by the globalisation of finance, which was the main trend of the period. In response partly to these crises, partly to increasing competition with traditionally subservient centre economies, and partly to political resistance in the South, Washington under the Bush administration has retreated from the globalist project, adopting a nationalist strategy consisting of disciplining the South through unilateralist military adventures, reverting to methods of primitive accumulation in exploiting the developing world, and making other centre economies bear the brunt of global adjustments necessitated by the crisis of over-accumulation.     

Building a nation: religion and values in the public schools of the USA,Australia, and South Africa

Although the systems of public schools differ among Australia, South Africa and the USA, all three countries recognize that religion plays a significant role in determining values. All three countries have written constitutions but only South Africa and the USA have a Bill of Rights that protects persons’ exercise of religious beliefs. In Australia, the place of religion in education has largely been shaped by state legislatures, administrative regulations and interpretations of the national constitution. In the USA, the long tradition of religious values being represented in public education has been severely restricted over the past 60 years, resulting in artificial judicial lines being drawn between private religious expression and government expression. However, even private expression can be prohibited if it interferes with the educational mission of a school. South Africa had a long tradition of Christian religious practices in government schools under apartheid. However, the post-apartheid 1996 Constitution and 1996 South African Schools Act still give these schools considerable latitude in investing religious values into the educational process. In Australia, values, religion and education have always been a preoccupation of those providing education, although the blurring of public and private education in Australia has resulted in a different direction for the role of religion than in the USA.