Technological innovation within the Spanish tax administration and data subjects' right to access: An opportunity knocks

In this paper, we analyse the data subjects' right to access their personal data in the context of the Spanish Tax Administration and the legal consequences of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation. The results show that there are still difficulties related to the scope of this right, the establishment of proper storage criteria, and in the procedures used by the data controllers to provide accurate information to the data subjects. This situation highlights the necessity to incorporate such technological innovation as metadata labelling and automatic computerised procedures to ensure an optimum management of the data subjects' access to their tax related personal information.     

Three to Four Year Prospective Evaluation of Personality and Behavioral Risk Factors for Later Disordered Eating in Adolescent Girls and Boys

Findings of a 3- to 4-year prospective investigation of personality, temperament, and behavioral factors predictive of the later development of disordered eating in an adolescent population are presented. The sample consisted of 726 girls and 698 boys who entered the study in grades 7–10 in year 1 or in grade 7 in year 2. Predictors of eating disorder risk score were determined separately by gender. For both girls and boys, the latent variable of negative affect/attitudes determined at study entrance was the only significant predictor of final-year risk score. Semistructured diagnostic interviews confirmed an eating disorder diagnosis in 52.8% of 36 female subjects in the high eating disorder symptom group. A substantial history of lifetime and current comorbidity also was noted in this group. The function of negative affect/attitudes as a generalized psychopathology vulnerability factor and as a specific factor increasing risk for disordered eating is discussed.     

Forensic mitochondrial DNA analysis of 691 casework hairs

A five year retrospective review of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) analysis on 691 casework hairs was carried out. A full or partial mtDNA profile was obtained for > 92% of hairs. With increasing age of the hair, the likelihood of obtaining a full profile decreased, although "mini-primer sets" could often be used to capture a partial profile. With increasing color and diameter of the hair, the likelihood of obtaining a profile increased. Full or partial profiles were obtained on more than 80% of 114 hairs < or = 1.0 cm. Mixtures were observed in 8.7% of hairs tested; mixtures increased with the age of the hair and were presumed to be due to exterior surface contamination that could not be sufficiently cleaned prior to extraction, since the overall level of laboratory contamination was low. The frequency of sequence heteroplasmy was 11.4%, and both hot-spot and novel sites were observed. In about one-third of these observations, another sample in the case showed either the same heteroplasmic site or a nucleotide substitution at that site.     

Spirituality and anti-Western rhetoric in Uzbekistan in the early 2000s: the consequences of international misrecognition

References to the spirituality-morality (ma’naviyat) of the Uzbek people increased substantially throughout the course of Islam Karimov’s years in office as the President of Uzbekistan. Uzbek values were presented as qualities springing from the country’s supposedly unique civilizational heritage, cast as something distinct from “Western” civilizational norms and practice. This source of distinctiveness, however, soon gave way to a type of exclusionary discourse in the early 2000s, centered on clearly differentiating Uzbekistan from the “West.” This essay provides a lens through which to understand the phenomenon, arguing that international recognition of status partly accounts for the rise in the particularly anti-Western variant of Karimov’s rhetoric. Authorities in Uzbekistan, not unlike in Russia, built their foreign policy on the need to secure the country’s (allegedly) important status in the international arena; anti-Western rhetoric arose as a response to misrecognition, as it evaded appeals to equality of status and legitimized growing isolationism. The essay reviews the origins of that rhetoric, the meaning of recognition, and the backdrop against which anti-Western moralizing rhetoric arose in Uzbekistan’s international engagement. It also concludes with a brief assessment of how that rhetoric might affect (or not) the foreign policy of Uzbekistan’s new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.