Regulation of Cohabitation, Changing Family Policies and Social Attitudes: A Discussion of Britain Within Europe

This article considers the differing legal and policy responses to the common trends of family restructuring away from marriage within Britain and Europe. Conceding that Europe is in the process of losing heterosexual marriage as a universal epicenter of family law at the very time when legal harmonization within Europe is being promoted, it goes on to explore the best way forward for regulating same- and different-sex cohabiting couples. It concludes that the legal response to these trends should be "de-moralized" but principled. A plurality of legal regulative structures to accommodate the now diverse family forms that are found within our less marriage-centric societies should be put in place providing at least some default protection for all families, yet allowing people to opt out and make their own arrangements.     

'Arming the key battleground': German rearmament, 1950-55

Saki Dockrill, Britain's Policy for West German Rearmament, 1950-1955, Cambridge Studies in International Relations No 13, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991, £27.50.

Thomas Alan Schwartz, America's Germany. John J. McCloy and the Federal Republic of Germany, Cambridge, USA, Harvard University Press, 1991, £23.95.     

From little monkey to neurotic invalid: Limitation,selection and assumption in Antony Alpers' life of Katherine Mansfield

In lists of the ‘famous’, and especially ‘famous artists’, the only category containing a substantial number of women is that of writers of fiction. The stratagems practised by male gatekeepers in order to exclude women from serious consideration as artists, thinkers and creative human beings do not, however, cease to operate in the field of writing; rather, they operate in a different way. In order to succeed as artists of any kind, women must in some way hold unusual and subversive views, at least of themselves and their place in the world. Frequently (though not always) they also hold a mirror up to the inferior position generally allocated to women, and the many forms taken by sexist oppression.However, the price of being admitted to the canon of those writers acknowledged by the male establishment as ‘great’ has generally been a refusal to acknowledge or recognise, in the work or even in the life, the existence of any subversive content which could challenge the dominance of the androcentric world view. Evidence of subversion is suppressed altogether, denied, discredited, or distorted. Antony Alpers' treatment of Katherine Mansfield's life and work, and in particular of the connections between the two, illustrates this process.     

A comparative reliability analysis of computer-generated bitemark overlays

This study compared the reliability of two methods used to produce computer-generated bitemark overlays with Adobe Photoshop (Adobe Systems Inc., San Jose, CA). Scanned images of twelve dental casts were sent to 30 examiners with different experience levels. Examiners were instructed to produce an overlay for each cast image based on the instructions provided for the two techniques. Measurements of the area and the x-y coordinate position of the biting edges of the anterior teeth were obtained using Scion Image software program (Scion Corporation, Frederick, MD) for each overlay. The inter- and intra-reliability assessment of the measurements was performed using an analysis of variance and calculation of reliability coefficients. The assessment of the area measurements showed significant variances seen in the examiner variable for both techniques resulting in low reliability coefficients. Conversely, the results for the positional measurements showed no significant differences in the variances between examiners with exceptionally high reliability coefficients. It was concluded that both techniques were reliable methods to produce bitemark overlays in assessing tooth position.     

Liberal and conservative dissensus in areas of domestic public policy other than business and economics

This research is part of a project that examines the nature of political ideology in the United States and its impact on the formulation of public policy. Here we explore the bases of liberal – conservative dissensus in areas of domestic policy other than business and the economy using a model developed by Janda, Berry, and Goldman. We find that the major elements of dissensus are: a strong conservative disposition to defend order; with a few exceptions a liberal indifference to order as conservatives define it; conservative opposition to the expansion of federal power over states or individuals and/or expansion in federal (and often state and local government) spending unless order is threatened; much greater liberal emphasis on equality; and varying conceptualizations of basic values to the degree that liberals and conservatives seem almost to be talking past each other using two different languages.