Case report of suicide by inhalation of nitrogen gas

Nitrogen is an inert gas that is a normal constituent of the air that we breathe. It is a suffocating gas that does not support life and that can be a cause of death by the displacement of oxygen in the atmosphere. The majority of deaths associated with nitrogen have occurred in the setting of scuba diving. Although other suffocating gases have been used as a means of committing suicide, the literature contains little information about the use of nitrogen as a suicidal agent. A case of a 50-year-old man who committed suicide using a homemade suicide device and nitrogen gas is presented.     

Relationships between characteristics of teachers and teachers' assessments of sources of information

The Researchers' primary purpose was to explore relationships between (a) urban area secondary school teachers' assessments of thirty three sources of information apt to influence their practice and (b) specific characteristics of these teachers. A sample of 245 teachers, or 61% of the set contacted, participated. Qualitative and quantitative analyses of data offered by the respondents were carried out. Both predictable and perplexing outcomes of the data analyses were documented. The Researchers concluded: a) That demographic profiles of teachers can be discerned which are related to assessments of various information sources; and b) that teachers' needs for information can be linked to preferred sources of information. They were unable to explain why variables like years of teaching experience, sex, and age were related significantly to teachers' assessments of sources of information.     

European Law and International Regimes: The Features of Law Beyond the Nation State

Different forms of law are perceived of as possessing differing degrees of legal quality. A quality continuum suggests itself, running from 'high quality' national law, through to 'lesser quality' European law and to 'low quality' international law. This article seeks to explain the perceived differences in the quality of these laws with reference to legal theoretical perceptions of what it is that constitutes the law's quality. It argues that only a theory of law which identifies the core of the law's integrity as lying in its ability to act as a fulcrum between spheres of social and public discourse and the exercise of power can fully explain the divergence in legal quality between national, European and international law. With specific regard to the quality of European law, it concludes by arguing that it is weakened by its relative lack of social internalisation—in comparison with a higher degree of legal and political internalisation—within the European public.     

Konkordanztheorie und Abstimmungsdaten: eine explorative Aggregatsanalyse auf Bezirksebene

Bei Überprüfung der Konkordanztheorie für die Schweiz stellt sich immer wieder das Problem, wie sich die Konfliktlinien zwischen den Sprachgruppen, Konfessionen, sozialen Schichten und Stadt‐Land in der bundesstaatlichen Geschichte seit 1848 tatsächlich entwickelt haben. Es bleibt unklar, wie sich die Intensität dieser Konfliktlinien und das Ausmass an Konkordanz wechselseitig beeinflusst haben. Stimmt die Vermutung, dass die Konfliktlinien an Bedeutung verloren haben und dass die schweizerische Gesellschaft insgesamt homogener geworden ist? War Konkordanz in diesem Prozess eher die Ursache oder die Folge verminderter Konfliktintensität? Regionalisierte Daten der Volksabstimmungen bieten zusammen mit weiteren Quellen der amtlichen Statistik reiches Material, um die Bedeutung von Sprache, Konfession, sozialer Schichtung und Stadt‐Land in der bundesstaatlichen Geschichte zu bestimmen. In explorativer Weise werden in diesem Aufsatz 51 Abstimmungen in der Zeitspanne von 1992 bis 1997 auf der Basis von Aggregatdaten auf der Bezirksebene untersucht. Die Studie dient der Entwicklung eines geeigneten Modells, das in einer späteren Längsschnittanalyse auf alle eidgenössischen Abstimmungen angewendet werden soll.     

School vouchers and academic performance: results from three randomized field trials

This article examines the effects of school vouchers on student test scores in New York, New York, Dayton, Ohio, and Washington, DC. The evaluations in all three cities are designed as randomized field trials. The findings, therefore, are not confounded by the self‐selection problems that pervade most observational data. After 2 years, African Americans who switched from public to private school gained, relative to their public‐school peers, an average of 6.3 National Percentile Ranking points in the three cities on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. The gains by city were 4.2 points in New York, 6.5 points in Dayton, and 9.2 points in Washington. Effects for African Americans are statistically significant in all three cities. In no city are statistically significant effects observed for other ethnic groups, after either 1 or 2 years. © 2002 by the Association for Policy Analysis and Management.