'Stranger' child-murder: issues relating to causes and controls

Most industrialised countries are concerned with a perceived increase in the killing of children and adolescents by strangers. Though reliable statistics are lacking, the growth of serial murder suggests that more young persons may be at risk than ever before. Explanations, either of a psychological or sociological kind, of child murder by strangers are inadequately developed. Despite the tendency to see such killers as psychiatrically ill a number of studies suggest that the majority of offenders do not differ significantly, at least in psychological traits, from non-offenders. Subcultural and other sociological perspectives stressing "social disadvantage" have low levels of exploratory power and do not assist greatly in understanding child killings. Despite sketchy and contradictory evidence on the effects of the media on sexual and violent crime case study material supports the view that pornography, including popular music, may increase the propensity of individuals to commit atrocities. Counter-measures to control stranger child killing lie in more sophisticated law enforcement (profiling and computer links between police forces) long periods of incarceration of the offender and more sophisticated analyses of the crimes.     

Differentiation of fetal and adult bloodstains by pyrolysis-gas-liquid chromatography

A pyrolysis-gas-liquid chromatographic method has been developed for the differentiation of adult and fetal bloodstains. In a blind-coded study, five adult and three fetal bloodstains were correctly identified on the basis of the pyrograms of stain extracts. The differentiation between adult and fetal bloodstains is based on the peak height ratio of two long-retention-time peaks appearing in their pyrograms. The first of these peaks has been tentatively identified as indole derived from the pyrolysis of tryptophan, while the second peak is an as-yet unidentified molecular fragment produced by the pyrolysis of some component of the hemoglobin molecule other than the amino acids tryptophan, tyrosine, and phenylalanine.     

Distorting Fundamental Norms of International Law to Resurrect the Soviet Union: The International Law Context of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Netherlands International Law Review - Russia’s invasion of Ukraine which commenced on 24 February 2022 represented just the latest, albeit most devastating, intervention in a neighbouring...     

Turmoil in Assam

Abstract

Thousands of Assamese have perished in ethnic, religious, and linguistic clashes. The native population has been outnumbered by Bengali‐speaking immigrant Hindus and Muslims, reducing the Assamese to a minority status in their home state. This human onslaught and the failure of the state and central governments to formulate a viable solution have given rise to an upheaval in the form of militant activities, largely headed by the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA). Two military operations have been conducted in the last 18 months to rout the separatist Maoist militants. In December 1991, ULFA declared a unilateral indefinite ceasefire. Negotiations for a permanent solution to the turmoil are currently underway. This article traces the origin, nature, and content of these developments.     

The collaboration of ‘ghostwriting’ and literature – the case of Kawabata Yasunari

Abstract: Kawabata Yasunari is Japan's first Nobel Prize recipient for literature and thus an emblem of the modern Japanese writer, but as this essay demonstrates, this writer's career, like that of so many throughout Japan's premodern and modern history, is spanned by the curious practice of ghostwriting. Taking up the specific case of Kawabata, the article exposes a wider conflict between the modern West's notion of the original artist, underwritten by its idea of individualized creativity, and modern Japan's persistent adherence to ghostwriting's more collaborative premodern concept of creativity. Subjecting fine-grained literary historical analysis to its far-reaching theoretical consequences for the modernness of modern literature, Japanese and otherwise, this essay shows how the spectre of Kawabata's ghostwriting haunts our contemporary, and therefore possibly anachronistic, understanding of ‘modern’ literary practice.     

Storm‐Related Postmortem Damage to Skeletal Remains

In April 2011, human skeletons were exposed to heavy storms at the outdoor Anthropology Research Facility (ARF) in Knoxville, Tennessee. Of the approximate 125 skeletons at the ARF in April 2011, 30 donations exhibited postmortem damage that could be attributed to the storms. At least 20 of the affected donations exhibit postmortem damage clearly associated with hailstones due to the oval shape and similar small size of the defects observed. The irregular shape and larger size of other defects may be a product of other falling objects (e.g., tree branches) associated with the storms. Storm‐related damage was observed throughout the skeleton, with the most commonly damaged skeletal elements being the scapula and ilium, but more robust elements (i.e., femora and tibiae) also displayed characteristic features of hailstone damage. Thus, hailstone damage should be considered when forensic practitioners observe unusual postmortem damage in skeletal remains recovered from the outdoor context.