What Are the Federal Home Loan Banks Up To? Emerging Views of Purpose among Institutional Leadership

The Federal Home Loan Bank System has come under sharp criticism in recent years, and the question has been raised as to whether it still has a public purpose. In this article, we ask what leaders in the Federal Home Loan Banks view their institutions' purpose to be in light of legislative changes to their mandates in 1989 and 1999. Based on interviews with FHLB executive managers and board members, we identify three clearly distinguishable views of these institutions' mission: housing finance, support for the viability of community financial institutions, and support for and community development. We go on to identify some of the implications of these distinctive views for the behavior of the FHLBs and for their governance structures.     

Terrorism and relative justice

Terrorist violence and violent justice responses have much in common. While contextually dependant, both forms of violence lay claim to contestred legitimacies. The relationships between terrorism and justice responses require both theoretical and empirical examination if the prospects for controlling the violence they perpetrate is to be sharpened.

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Interrogating genomic diversity of E. coli O157:H7 using DNA tiling arrays

Here, we describe a novel microarray-based approach for investigating the genomic diversity of Escherichia coli O157:H7 in a semi-high throughput manner using a high density, oligonucleotide-based microarray. This microarray, designed to detect polymorphisms at each of 60,000 base-pair (bp) positions within an E. coli genome, is composed of overlapping 29-mer oligonucleotides specific for 60 equally spaced, 1000-bp loci of the E. coli O157:H7 strain EDL933 chromosome. By use of a novel 12-well microarray that permitted the simultaneous investigation of 12 strains, the genomes of 44 individual isolates of E. coli O157:H7 were interrogated. These analyses revealed more than 150 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and several deletions and amplifications in the test strains. Pyrosequencing was used to confirm the usefulness of the novel SNPs by determining their allelic frequency among a collection of diverse isolates of E. coli O157:H7. The tiling DNA microarray system would be useful for the tracking and identification of individual strains of E. coli O157:H7 needed for forensic investigations.     

Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Kalmyk population samples

Seventeen Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs), DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385ab, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, GATA-H4, DYS448, DYS456, DYS458, DYS635 were typed in DNA samples from the Kalmyk population (n=99). The population is characterized by a high proportion of duplicated DYS19 alleles and deletions of the locus DYS448 on the background of the Central Asian haplogroup C*. AMOVA analysis reveals a close vicinity to Mongolian and Kazakh populations and large genetic distance to geographical neighbours from Russia, Ukraine and the Caucasus.     

Family Business or Social Problem? The Cost of Unreported Domestic Violence

Social interest in problems such as domestic violence is typically motivated by concerns regarding equity, rather than efficiency. However, we document that taking steps to reduce domestic violence by reporting it yields substantial benefits to external parties. Specifically, we find that although children exposed to as‐yet‐unreported domestic violence reduce the achievement of their classroom peers, these costs disappear completely once the parent reports the violence to the court. This suggests that the public has an interest in helping families to overcome their problems in general and to report domestic violence in particular. It also suggests that social and judicial interventions may help combat negative peer effects in schools.     

Data breach notification law in the EU and Australia – Where to now?

Mandatory data breach notification laws have been a significant legislative reform in response to unauthorized disclosures of personal information by public and private sector organizations. These laws originated in the state-based legislatures of the United States during the last decade and have subsequently garnered worldwide legislative interest. We contend that there are conceptual and practical concerns regarding mandatory data breach notification laws which limit the scope of their applicability, particularly in relation to existing information privacy law regimes. We outline these concerns here, in the light of recent European Union and Australian legal developments in this area.