The Limits of International Society: Understanding China’s Response to Nuclear Breakout and Third Party Non-Compliance

Abstract

Despite warnings of unchecked nuclear proliferation and the potential for state-sponsored WMD terrorism, official statements and consistent diplomatic activities show that China remains resolutely committed to a patient and peaceful strategy for dealing with third-party non-compliance and nuclear breakout. Although it has adopted more stringent national controls and has signed up to an ever-increasing array of international non-proliferation agreements, China prevents the decisive application of the enforcement mechanisms available to the UN Security Council, and is highly critical of non-proliferation initiatives that attempt to bypass these mechanisms. To put it another way, China is resolutely opposed to nuclear non-proliferation with teeth, preferring to keep the regime muzzled. This article examines the rationale behind China’s approach to this issue, drawing on the English School’s interlinking concepts of international system, international society, and global society to help explain China’s advocacy of peaceful non-proliferation and the resulting tensions in its relationship with the United States and other parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).     

Small Screens and Big Streets: A Comparison of Women Police Officers on Primetime Crime Shows and in U.S. Police Departments, 1950 to 2008

This article utilizes a longitudinal approach to assess the visibility of women as police officers in primetime crime shows from 1950 to 2008 and compares these numbers for television to actual data on women who work as police officers in the United States. We find that as expected, annual labor force data and crime show data both indicate increases in the number of minorities and women working in the criminal justice system over time. Given the robust literature on the general underrepresentation of women on television, however, we did not expect to uncover that both White and minority women are overrepresented as police officers on television every year compared to the occupational reality. Implications of the findings are discussed.     

Hair analysis for diphenhydramine after surreptitious administration to a child

Diphenhydramine is one of the first effective antihistamine agents to have been discovered. The compound is also used for its sedative and antiemetic effects. The first case involving repetitive sedation linked to the use of diphenhydramine as a drug-facilitated crime and subsequent impairment of a 9-year-old female victim is reported. Due to the long delay between the alleged crime and clinical examination, collection of blood or urine was of little value. Hence, the laboratory developed an original approach based on hair testing by LC-MS/MS. A single strand of hair from the victim was sampled about 7 weeks after the last suspected administration and was cut into small segments. After cutting into small pieces, about 20 mg of hair per segment was incubated overnight in a phosphate buffer (pH 8.4). The aqueous phase was extracted with 5 ml of a mixture of methylene chloride/diethyl ether (80/20), in presence of diazepam-d5, used as internal standard (IS). The hair extract was separated on an XTerra MS C18 column using a gradient of acetonitrile and formate buffer. Detection was based on two daughter ions: transitions m/z 256.2-152.1 and 167.1 and m/z 289.9-154.0 for diphenhydramine and the IS, respectively. In the hair of the child, diphenhydramine was detected at concentrations in the range 33-39 pg/mg, depending on the segment.     

Can Reinforcement Induce Children to Falsely Incriminate Themselves?

This study examined whether reinforcement can induce children to falsely incriminate themselves. Ninety-nine children in kindergarten through third grade were questioned regarding the staged theft of a toy. Half received reinforcement for self-incriminating responses. Within 4 min reinforced children made 52% false admissions of guilty knowledge concerning the theft, and 30% false admissions of having witnessed it. Corresponding figures for controls were 36 and 10%. Twelve percent of children admitted to participating in the theft, but the effect of reinforcement was only marginally significant. The findings indicate that reinforcement can induce children to falsely implicate themselves in wrongdoing.     

Age Estimation from the Teeth Using a Modified Demirjian System*

Abstract: The estimation of age at time of death is often an important step in the identification of human remains. The purpose of this study was to test the applicability of the Demirjian system on a sample of the Sydney child population and to develop and test age‐prediction models using a large sample of Sydney children (1624 girls, 1637 boys). The use of the Demirjian standards resulted in consistent overestimates of chronological age in children under the age of 14 by as much as a mean of 0.99 years. Of the alternative predictive models derived from the Sydney sample, those that provided the most accurate age estimates are applicable for the age ranges 2–14 years, with R‐square = 0.94 and a 95% confidence interval of ±1.8 years. The Sydney‐based standards provided significantly different and more accurate estimates of age for that sample when compared to the published standards of Demirjian.     

GitHub use in public administration in Canada: Early experience with a new collaboration tool

GitHub is a web‐based digital project hosting service that facilitates collaboration. We introduce how GitHub works and assess how it has been used in the public sector in Canada based on interviews with federal government leaders and a survey of Canadian public service GitHub users. With little research to date on public sector use of GitHub, and none on its use in Canadian governments, we explore the early experience with this collaboration tool and consider the possible implications for collaboration in government.     

The use of RAS and related models in manpower forecasting

With the increasing availability of statistics describing the occupational structures of different industries manpower forecasters are beginning to develop more sophisticated models. The economic rationale of such models has tended to be obscured by the mathematics involved and an understandable eagerness to put the data to use in forecasting. In addition, the systematic testing of the explanatory power of these models has been neglected where it has not been hampered by the shortage of data series. The RAS model has featured prominently in manpower discussions and this paper attempts an evaluation of its predictive ability and economic interpretation subject to the limits imposed by the data available for the British engineering industry. It is argued that such a model plays a useful initial role in the development of models for sectoral manpower forecasting but must lead on to a more sensitive treatment of the labour market and the decision problem of investing in human capital.