EU–Korea relations in a changing world project: main results and recommendations

The paper provides an overview of the most important results of a project on EU–Korea economic and regulatory relations funded by the European Commission. The paper first outlines the emergence and development of EU–Korea relations. In the second part, the paper presents the main findings clustered in three thematic areas. A first thematic area focuses on a discussion of the EU–Korea Free Trade Agreement. The second cluster analyzes EU–Korea cooperation on regulatory policies with a main focus on cooperation in the policy areas of security (arms trade and control), chemical regulation, environmental regulation, education, development cooperation and industrial policy. The third part focuses on EU–Korea cooperation concerning regional and international issues. In the third part, the paper presents the main recommendations which were formulated on the basis of the project.     

Federalism and Decentralization in Sub-Saharan Africa: Five Patterns of Evolution

Abstract

The 1990s were marked by democratic reforms throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. This went in tandem with decentralization reforms which either created or strengthened subnational levels of government. More than twenty years later it seems everywhere to the south of the Sahara there is a gap between the institutional/constitutional blueprints introducing the reforms and the facts on the ground. Understanding and explaining this gap in the workings of federalism and decentralization is important to both theorists and practitioners. This article proposes five benchmarks in order to map out the evolutionary patterns of the last two decades: a) symmetrical recentralization; b) differentiated performance; c) legitimizing traditional authority structures and indigenous conflict resolution; d) politicization of local conflicts over land, water, and other natural resources; and e) federal extinction.     

Animal-related fatalities--part I: characteristic autopsy findings and variable causes of death associated with blunt and sharp trauma

Animals may be responsible for an array of potentially lethal injuries. Blunt force injuries characteristically involve larger animals such as cattle or horses that may kick, crush, or trample a victim causing head and facial injuries. Farm workers in particular are at high risk of lethal injuries involving the head and torso. Significant blunt trauma may be found in vehicle occupants after collisions with large animals such as camels or moose. Rarely, zookeepers may be crushed by particularly massive animals such as elephants. Sharp force injuries usually involve carnivore bites, most often from dogs with a "hole and tear" pattern of wounding. Injuries from animals such as alligators and sharks may have a significant component of crushing. Incised wounds may result in death from exsanguination and air embolism. On occasion, blunt or sharp trauma from animal activity may be confused with postmortem damage or with inflicted injury from an assault.     

Facial symmetry in robust anthropometrics

Image analysis methods commonly used in forensic anthropology do not have desirable robustness properties, which can be ensured by robust statistical methods. In this paper, the face localization in images is carried out by detecting symmetric areas in the images. Symmetry is measured between two neighboring rectangular areas in the images using a new robust correlation coefficient, which down-weights regions in the face violating the symmetry. Raw images of faces without usual preliminary transformations are considered. The robust correlation coefficient based on the least weighted squares regression yields very promising results also in the localization of such faces, which are not entirely symmetric. Standard methods of statistical machine learning are applied for comparison. The robust correlation analysis can be applicable to other problems of forensic anthropology.     

Selective culturing and genus-specific PCR detection for identification of Aeromonas in tissue samples to assist the medico-legal diagnosis of death by drowning

The detection of autochthonous aquatic bacteria in tissue samples from drowning cases is increasingly considered as an alternative approach to assist the medico-legal diagnosis of death by drowning. Bacteria belonging to the genus Aeromonas may be suitable candidates for this application as they are ubiquitous in natural aquatic environments but are generally not part of the human microbiota. The research aims of this study were (i) to develop a sensitive, specific and rapid screening and confirmation method for Aeromonas species in tissue samples and (ii) to evaluate aseptic sternal puncture as a post-mortem sample technique and bone marrow as an alternative matrix to provide evidence of death by drowning. The presence of Aeromonas in tissue samples was verified by cultivation using the selective media Ampicillin Dextrin Agar (ADA) and Ryan's Aeromonas Medium. The use of ADA medium was found most optimal for the sensitive, inexpensive and quick detection of aeromonads in human tissue samples. Positive culture plates were confirmed by harvesting all colonies for DNA extraction and subsequent PCR amplification using Aeromonas genus-specific primers. Aeromonads were detected in lung swab, blood and bone marrow of drowned bodies (n=3), but were negative in these three matrices for all negative controls (n=90) tested. Bone marrow proved to be a suitable alternative matrix and can be sampled post-mortem by an aseptic sternal puncture. In conclusion, this study confirms previous indications that aeromonads in cultures from blood of water bodies can be considered a potential marker for drowning. Given the fact that the number of immersed bodies (drowned and non-drowned) included in this study is statistically not significant, however, more tissue samples need to be investigated to confirm the validity of these methods to aid the diagnosis of death by wet drowning.     

Behold the shut-eyed sentry!

Whistleblowers, employees of conscience who report on wrongdoing, integrate into their socially useful role one of exposing institutional torpor and bureaucratic incompetence in those official structures responsible for the investigation and correction of wrongdoing. This paper reports on the finding from Australia's largest study into whistleblowers. It shows a crisis of competence in the official capacity of government structures to respond effectively to disclosures made in the public interest.     

Legal Aid in Mental Hospitals

This report on the experience of five in-hospital legal aid projects and one community-based project for the deinstitutionalized examines the workloads of the lawyers and paralegals who labor in this setting and the various approaches and predispositions they bring to the job or learn while they are at it. The caseloads as well as interviews and observations reveal enormous differences in approach from project to project. The work of some lawyers and their aides confirms the utility and importance of making legal aid directly available to patients on the hospital grounds. But the experience of a couple of other projects warns that certain styles of lawyering can be counterproductive and damaging. In general, lawyers in the mental hospital setting must avoid the legalistic and overly adversarial approach to the problems that are brought to them—many of which are of uncertain legal content, credibility, or psychological makeup. Lawyers must also be careful not to have their own legal priorities get in the way of the best interests of their patient-clients or even those of the hospital as a total institution. The best approach to lawyering in the institutional setting is one that softens the "traditional" legal and adversarial aspects in favor of a more mediatory stance in which fact finding, counseling, and the resolution of issues by compromise are dominant functions. And significant legal attention should be devoted to each of the major categories of problems faced by patients—commitment-discharge, institutional, and civil—if the institutional lawyer's credibility and effectiveness are to be maintained both with the patients and the staffs in charge of their treatment and custody.     

URLTA in Operation: An Introduction

The following articles examine the impact of legislation modeled after the Uniform Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (URLTA) in Portland, Oregon, and Cleveland, Ohio. Their conclusion is that the legislation has been only marginally effective, benefiting primarily middle-income tenants in the suburbs or in the cities' better neighborhoods, while largely failing in the aim of helping the inner-city poor and upgrading the quality of slum housing. The general lesson is an old one: law reform attempts at rearranging basic social-legal relationships often fail to achieve their intended effects, particularly when their effectuation is left to the initiative or ingenuity of those individual private parties who are least likely to possess or display these traits.