Security, Equality, and the Clash of Ideas: Sweden's Evolving Anti-Trafficking Policy

Seeking to explain the emergence of anti-trafficking initiatives, scholars have explored two sets of ideas??national security and gender equality??thought to shape policy. In this study, we examine whether such ideational influence accounts for Sweden's evolving anti-trafficking policy over the past decade. As powerful domestic ideas about gender inequality informed the adoption of an abolitionist prostitution policy in the 1990s, one would expect similar ideas to influence domestic responses to the related issue of cross-border trafficking. However, our case study shows that the policy area of trafficking has largely followed a different ideational path. Gendered ideas, periodically nested in a human rights discourse, have been salient in the public debate on trafficking in human beings, especially during the campaign to boycott the 2006 FIFA World Cup. However, they have exerted substantially less influence on Swedish legislative initiatives to combat trafficking, with security concerns still holding sway.     

Fairness in Non-human Primates?

Humans have a sense of fairness, i.e. an interest in the ideal of equity. This sense allows them to compare their own efforts and subsequent outcomes with those of others, and thus to evaluate and react to inequity. The question is whether our closest living relatives, the non-human primates, show the behavioural characteristics that might qualify as necessary components to a sense of fairness, such as inequity aversion. In this article, we review the five different experimental approaches to studying behaviours related to fairness in non-human primates, including their underlying logic and main findings that represent the current state of research in this field. In the critical condition of all these studies, a subject and a conspecific partner have either to invest different efforts or receive different outcomes while observing each other. The main question is whether??and how??subjects react to unequal situations that humans would perceive as ??unfair??. Taken together, the results from all five approaches provide only weak evidence for a sense of fairness in non-human primates. Although apes and monkeys are attentive to what the partner is getting, they do not seem to be able or motivated to compare their own efforts and outcomes with those of others at a human level. Even though the debate is still on-going, we believe that a full sense of fairness is not essential for cooperation. Obviously, apes and monkeys are capable of solving problems cooperatively, without a strong, humanlike sense of fairness. They are mainly interested in maximizing their own benefit, regardless of what others may receive. It is thus possible that a sense of fairness only exists rudimentarily in non-human primates.     

La Naissance de l’Auteur: Origines Politique et Juridique d’un Concept Littéraire

Si le concept d’auteur est une notion centrale de la littérature et de la théorie littéraire, il s’agit d’abord d’une notion juridique qui a été mobilisée par les philosophes modernes, en particulier Hobbes et Spinoza, dans le but politique et scientifique de lutter contre le régime traditionnel des autorités et de défendre la liberté de pensée contre les interprétations normatives des docteurs de la loi et de la religion. L’article remonte aux origines politiques et juridiques de l’auteur-législateur moderne et retrace sa marche vers la Souveraineté.     

Detection of cocaine in blood stains]

Cocaine is rapidly degraded in blood samples, and its degradation was found to be highly dynamic in nature. The analysis of blood spots dried on filter paper may provide a method to minimize the break-down of cocaine and to largely preserve the analytical profile of the parent drug and its hydrolysis products at the time of sampling. The short term stability of cocaine in 100 microL blood spots prepared from unpreserved and preserved (sodium fluoride, 0.25%) blood samples was compared to the stability of the particular whole blood specimens stored in tubes at ambient temperature and at -20 degrees C. Due to dehydration, both the chemical and the enzymatic hydrolysis of cocaine and its products could be stopped in dried blood spots. More than 75% of the initial cocaine concentration could be detected in the blood spots, and the analytical profile was ensured for 17 days. Provided its practical suitability, the spot technology should offer a simple approach to detect actual impairment of motorists taken in police custody in the view of section 24a of the German traffic act as well as in cocaine associated criminal cases.     

Serum beta-glucuronidase activity in polytrauma patients and in centrifuged autopsy blood samples]

The serum activity of beta-glucuronidase was investigated in 58 patients after severe trauma as well as in 43 autopsy cases. In 10 cases the enzyme activities in postmortem blood samples from the femoral vein were compared to those present in the correspondent heart blood samples. An elevated activity of beta-glucuronidase was observed in 14% of the patients within the first 36 h after severe trauma increasing to 62% in blood samples collected later on. The activity of beta-glucuronidase in the heart blood samples was always higher than in the corresponding sample from the femoral vein. In cases of prolonged post-mortem interval an elevated activity might have been due to bacterial contamination. In postmortal blood samples from the femoral vein an elevated enzyme activity was found in 70% of the study material. The results of the preliminary study on the activity of beta-glucuronidase in blood samples frequent in forensic routine work indicated that an elevated enzyme activity might be present for the following scenery: after severe trauma, in alcohol/drug abuse, presence of putridity/autolysis, presence of inflammatory processes, in diabetes as well as in carcinoma diseases. The significance of elevated beta-glucuronidase activity concerning alterations of unconjugated drug concentration due to in vitro cleavage of O-glucuronides should be investigated.     

Illicit drug abuse in the Marmara region of Turkey

Data on the analysis of 840 illicit drug samples of a total weight of 749.677 kg, confiscated in the Marmara Region, Turkey, from January 1986 to April 1987 is presented. The majority (82.3%) of all cases examined by the Division of Narcotic Drugs Research Laboratories of the Council of Forensic Medicine of Turkey, related to Cannabis products. Heroin represented 16.7% and all other controlled drugs made up the remaining 1%. From the 691 samples analyzed, 43.15% was Cannabis plant material. From the 140 illicit heroin samples analyzed by capillary gas chromatography, 61% had a diacetylmorphine content between 30 and 48%. O-6-monoacetylmorphine was detected in 43% of the samples ranging from 0.4 to 8.6%. Almost half (46.6%) of all heroin samples contained procaine ranging from 0.7 to 22%.     

The death and mortal remains of Francisco Pizarro

When Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in 1541, he was buried near the Cathedral of Lima, but was later moved into the crypt under the altar. In 1891 mummified remains were identified as those of Pizarro and placed in a sarcophagus on public exhibition. In 1977 bones were discovered in a walled over niche in the crypt. The skull was in a lead box engraved with Pizarro's name. Which remains--the bones, or the mummy--are those of Pizarro? This question and more can now be answered. This paper will give evidence of the exact wounds that Pizarro received in his final sword fight, as well as a facial sculpture of the skull now identified as that of the conqueror of Peru.