Forensic Analysis of Human Autopsy Tissue for the Presence of Polydimethylsiloxane (Silicone) and Volatile Cyclic Siloxanes using Macro FT‐IR,FT‐IR Spectroscopic Imaging and Headspace GC‐MS

This study describes effective and straightforward primary and secondary methods for the detection of silicone in human autopsy tissue. The primary method is polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) specific and employs either macro‐attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR‐FT‐IR) spectroscopy for samples with a high PDMS concentration (relative to that of the matrix) or micro‐FT‐IR spectroscopic imaging in a reflection/absorption modality for samples with a low PDMS concentration. Although the secondary method is not PDMS specific, it employs headspace gas chromatography with mass spectrometric detection (HS/GC‐MS) for the detection of low molecular weight volatile cyclic siloxanes (VCS), which are characteristic marker compounds for PDMS. Overall, the combined results from the primary and secondary analyses provide reliable evidence for the presence of silicone.     

Legal Compliance in Street‐Level Bureaucracy: A Study of UK Housing Officers

Street‐level bureaucratic theory is now at a fairly mature stage. The focus on street‐level bureaucrats as ultimate policymakers is now as familiar as it is important. Likewise, the parallel sociolegal study of the implementation of public law in public organizations has demonstrated the inevitable gap between law‐in‐the‐books and law‐in‐action. Yet, the success of these advances comes at the potential cost of us losing sight of the importance of law itself. This article analyzes some empirical data on the decision making about one legal concept—vulnerability in UK homelessness law. Our analysis offers two main contributions. First, we argue that, when it comes to the implementation of law, the legal abilities and propensities of the bureaucrats must be taken into account. Bureaucrats' abilities to understand legal materials make a difference to the likelihood of legal compliance. Second, we must also pay attention to the character of the legal provisions. Where a provision is simple, it is more likely to facilitate legal knowledge and demands nothing of bureaucrats in terms of legal competence. Where the provision is also inoffensive and liveable, it is less likely to act as an impediment to legal conscientiousness.     

Representation and participation in child care proceedings: what about the voice of the parents?

In Ireland, the Constitution guarantees very strong rights to parents and the family, and there has been a long and unfortunate history of failures to adequately protect children at risk. As a result, there has been much discussion in recent years about the need to improve legal mechanisms designed to protect the rights of children. By comparison, little attention has been given to establishing whether the theoretically strong rights of parents translate into strongly protected rights in practice. This paper presents new empirical evidence on the manner in which child care proceedings in Ireland balance the rights and interests of children and parents, including the rates at which orders are granted, the frequency of and conditions in which legal representation is provided, and the extent to which parents are able to actively participate in proceedings. A number of systemic issues are identified that restrict the capacity of the system to emphasise parental rights and hear the voice of parents to the extent that would be expected when looking at the legal provisions in isolation.     

Predictive validity of the dynamic risk assessment and management system in individuals with intellectual disability residing in the community

Background. The Dynamic Risk Assessment and Management System (DRAMS) was created to measure dynamic risk in individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID). Steptoe, Lindsay, Murphy, and Young, (2008) examined the construct validity, reliability and predictive validity of the dynamic risk assessment and management system (DRAMS) in offenders with intellectual disability and found that the total DRAMS score and sections on mood, antisocial behaviour and intolerance/agreeableness predicted incidents with a medium effect size for offenders with ID residing in high secure settings.     

‘Two children to make ends meet’: the ideal family size,parental responsibilities and costs of children on two sides of the Iron Curtain during the post-war fertility decline

One of the major corollaries of the post-war fertility boom and decline is that two-child families became common across Europe after the 1970s. Despite the general agreement on the convergence of fertility trends, there is still little understanding of how this change took place in a comparative perspective of Western and Eastern Europe, which at that time were characterised by Cold War tensions of different ideological regimes. This study addresses this aspect by focusing on individual decisions around childbearing, child-rearing and family size. Based on 104 oral histories from Switzerland and Ukraine, this study illuminates that the urban setting provided parents with a similar set of constraints and opportunities, which eventually resulted in strikingly similar perceptions of the costs of childrearing on two sides of the Iron Curtain. Individuals’ motives to postpone first birth in Switzerland and second birth in Ukraine rested on a similar aspiration to invest in the well-being of children by ensuring material security for the family. This aim was increasingly achieved through female labour-force participation and adoption of modern contraception – the pill in Switzerland and abortion in Ukraine. While the timing of returning to the labour market and the share of women working after entering parenthood might have varied across the two contexts, a good mother became increasingly defined in both contexts in terms of providing emotionally and financially for her children. Although the introduction of modern birth control methods allowed couples to plan family size more carefully, it also made Swiss and Ukrainian women increasingly carry the major costs and actual burden of birth control. Altogether, this study challenges the common assumption around the persistence of strikingly different demographic realities in post-war Western and Eastern Europe by uncovering the mechanisms behind the stabilisation of family size around the two-child family ideal.     

Are facial image analysis experts any better than the general public at identifying individuals from CCTV images?

The aim of this study was to examine the accuracy and reliability of a small group of facial imagery experts, and compare their abilities with members of the general public, to ascertain whether or not training and experience will affect the ability to identify faces from CCTV footage.A number of clips from CCTV footage were utilised alongside face pools. The participants were asked to identify the actor in each CCTV clip and provide a level of confidence in the decision.The experts tested in this study were consistently better at identification than the public, with almost double the identification rates and half the errors. These results suggest that training and experience in facial analysis will produce more reliable and accurate facial identification.     

Going Nordic—Can the Nordic model tackle grand challenges and be a beacon to follow?

Nordic countries are known for having extensive welfare services, a highly compressed wage structure owing to strong social partners, as well as effective regulation and governance in public administration. Various typologies capture aspects of the institutional features of families of nations across various policy areas, showing that there is a specific Nordic variant of political economy. While there is an extensive literature focusing on socio-economic outcomes in the Nordic countries, there is less scholarly focus on the linkages between the regulatory processes, and their policy output, in response to various challenges. This volume examines how exogenous challenges (market liberalization promoted by EU integration and the gig economy, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic) and endogenous challenges in the welfare state (regulation of child-care quality and retirement ages) are tackled in a selection of Nordic countries. After a bibliometric analysis on the state of the literature, features of the Nordic model are presented. Then, the contributions of the articles to the special issue are summarized, after which lessons for other models of political economy are pinpointed. We find that although there is high variation within the Nordics in the studies of the special issue, there is a trend whereby, over time, a broader range of actors involved in the policy and regulatory process. Although not perfect, challenges are solved incrementally and often at an early stage. In other words, the Nordic regulatory model is highly adaptable to different challenges. Thus, the Nordic model does present crucial lessons for other types of political economy.     

Dreams and Nightmares: Practical and Ethical Issues for Patients and Physicians Using Personal Health Records

Electronic health records for patients, personal health records (PHRs), have become increasingly popular among policy makers and purchasers, but uptake among patients and physicians has been relatively slow. PHRs have varying uses that might make them more or less appealing to different stakeholders. The three core uses for PHRs — promoting communication, data use, and patient responsibility — each raises a set of potential practical and financial dilemmas. But some ethical concerns are also at play, some of which are rarely recognized as values-based barriers to the use of PHRs. Recognizing these ethical issues, and addressing them explicitly in PHR design and policy making, would help PHRs to achieve their promise.     

Three Patterns of Domestic Violence in Households: Single Victimization,Repeat Victimization,and Co-occurring Victimization

Using National Crime Victimization Survey data (1992–2004), this study analyzed the effects of household variables, victim characteristics, and incident characteristics on three household family violence patterns (single victimization, repeat victimization and co-occurrence). Eighty percent of family violence households experienced one victimization; 15% experienced repeat victimization; 5% experienced co-occurrence. The total number of people in the household was positively related to multiple violent victimization households, especially co-occurrence households. Victims with less than a high school education (compared to victims with a high school education) had significantly higher odds of living in a co-occurrence household versus a repeat victimization household. Victims who experienced threatened attacks compared to completed attacks with no injury had higher odds of living in single victimization or repeat victimization households but had lower odds of living in co-occurrence households. Respondents victimized by ex-spouses, parents/stepparents, siblings, and other relatives had consistently higher odds of living in co-occurrence households versus repeat victimization households compared to those victimized by spouses.     

Baby Boom or Bust? the New Media Effect on Political Participation

A considerable number of studies have investigated the influence of new media on political attitudes and behaviors. However, much of this research focuses on young people, ignoring other age cohorts, particularly Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964). To fill this gap, this research examines the influence of attention to specific forms of traditional and online media on Baby Boomers’ online and offline political participation during the fall 2012 U.S. presidential campaign. Drawing on a Baby Boomer survey panel, responses were collected during the 2012 general election to analyze the empirical relationship between attention to traditional and online media sources and political participation. Data analyses reveal that Boomers’ attention to traditional media sources, particularly television, did not increase their offline and online political participation. Instead, various forms of offline and online participation were consistently heightened by Boomers’ attention to presidential candidate websites. In addition, attention to Facebook for campaign information was positively linked to online engagement. Boomers’ attention to blogs, Twitter, and YouTube were associated with only certain types of online and offline activities.