Suing the State in Russia

An expert on Russian law and politics uses statistical data as well as field-work in Moscow, Saratov, and Yekaterinburg to examine the uses of arbitrazh courts in Russia. Data on cases initiated by the state and by private enterprises are compared to determine whether there is a trend of increasing faith in the court system to fairly resolve disputes between private actors and the state.     

‘Coping with the job’: prison staff responding to self-harm in three English female prisons: a qualitative study

This study considers how those who work in prisons are affected by and respond to repetitive self-harm of imprisoned women in English prisons. This paper considers the perspectives of custodial staff working in this area on a day-to-day basis. Semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 14 prison staff and explored using techniques of thematic analysis. The interviews examined: the emotional impact of working with and witnessing self-harm incidents, coping strategies used, training and the support available to prison staff. Findings indicate the strategies used by staff to cope emotionally with such incidents and these include presenting a ‘façade of coping’, rejecting support and becoming desensitised. It is concluded that staff felt they must portray themselves as coping well with self-harm in prison even when they were troubled and emotionally affected by it. However, some did describe accepting help when outside of the prison and this has implications for how support can be offered in the future. It is recommended that more should be done to support and train staff in this area.     

Multiplicative-innovation synergies: tests in technological acquisitions

Technological innovations enjoy synergies that vary in their speed and magnitude of impact, depending upon whether they are additive or multiplicative in nature. Additive-innovation synergies build incrementally on familiar technologies (as is reflected in the technologies built upon within their patents’ respective antecedents) and the duration of their effect is shorter-lived. Multiplicative-innovation synergies arise from combining greater proportions of diverse technologies and their effects have longer duration. The most-effective organizational-learning processes accompanying exposure to exotic technology streams via technological acquisition will occur if firms have properly invested in adaptive capacity to synthesize inventions using the unfamiliar knowledge. In the first tests of innovation synergies on firm performance, we find that technological novelty in patent content improves return on assets for firms that consistently invested in R&D. Using patent-content scores to characterize whether inventors have integrated greater proportions of exotic technological antecedents into their inventions (or not), we test the impact of innovation synergies on firms’ performance after technological acquisitions. Diversification posture (which could be an alternative explanation for performance differences) is negatively-correlated with innovation synergies in our results.     

Bruise Documentation,Race and Barriers to Seeking Legal Relief for Intimate Partner Violence Survivors: a Retrospective Qualitative Study

Documentation of physical injuries from intimate partner violence (IPV) is critically important when a victim seeks legal help. Bruising, a common IPV injury, is often less visible on victims of color. This retrospective qualitative study is focused on IPV survivors’ and service providers’ experiences with the complex interrelationship between IPV injury, bruise documentation, race and legal assistance. Focus group results with a racially diverse group of female IPV survivors and legal service providers indicate that all victims struggle with documenting their bruises, but for women of color, even documentation of visible bruising underrepresents the severity of their IPV injuries. Further, there are a number of social, logistic, and systemic barriers to injury documentation that may make legal relief for IPV difficult for all women, but particularly more difficult for women of color. Proposed solutions to address the gap include, improved documentation techniques, and greater education for legal service providers. Implications for the field of family violence generally and potential future research directions are also discussed.     

Muslim marriage (non) recognition: implications and possible solutions

Differences between traditional Muslim marriage practice and the statutory formalities required for entry into a legally recognised marriage in England and Wales have resulted in serious question-marks hanging over the legal status of a seemingly significant proportion of Muslim marriages. This article places the spotlight on the vulnerability of spouses who remain unaware of the lack of legal status which may attach to their marriage or who may have been misled by their spouse as to the latter’s intention to obtain legal recognition for the marriage. The article first considers the statutory formalities required under English law for entry into a legally recognised marriage before drawing on the most up-to-date empirical research to highlight the apparently widespread non-compliance with the formalities within the Muslim community. The article then reflects on the various practical implications which may arise for parties to an unrecognised Muslim marriage before considering how the situation may be ameliorated.     

Forced confabulation more strongly influences event memory if suggestions are other‐generated than self‐generated

Purpose. Virtually all eyewitnesses to a crime, who eventually testify in court, are interviewed by police officers at least once. How do these interviews affect what the eyewitnesses are subsequently likely to report? The purpose of this study is to compare the relative impact of self‐ versus other‐generated misinformation on confabulated memory about an event. Self‐generated misinformation can occur by encouraging eyewitnesses to guess or speculate about possible answers to questions about which they report having no memory. Other‐generated misinformation can occur by having an investigator suggest an answer to an eyewitness. Methods. After viewing a 5 minutes crime video, participants answered written questions. One week later these same questions were answered again. We specifically focused on individuals' answers to unanswerable questions that probed information not actually presented in the video. If a participant answered an unanswerable question, we know that their answer was confabulated because the information was not presented in the video. Results. If an answer to an unanswerable question was forced confabulated at time 1, that answer was more likely to be repeated at time 2 if it had been other‐generated (suggested in the question) rather than self‐generated (fabricated by the participant). Conclusions. Pressuring eyewitnesses to answer questions about an event, when they indicate that they do not know the answer, can result in false confabulations. Answers suggested by the investigator are more likely to be repeated later than are answers that are simply self‐generated or speculated by the eyewitness. These results are consistent with the reality monitoring framework and ‘recollect‐to‐reject’ metacognitive reasoning strategies.     

THE NEW BEGINNINGS PROGRAM FOR DIVORCING AND SEPARATING FAMILIES: MOVING FROM EFFICACY TO EFFECTIVENESS

This article describes a program of research on effectively transporting the New Beginnings Program (NBP), a university-tested prevention program for divorced families, to community settings. The four steps in this research are described: (1) selecting a community partner, (2) developing effective methods of engaging parents, (3) redesigning the NBP to be easily delivered with high quality and fidelity in community agencies, and (4) adapting the NBP to meet the needs of the full population of divorcing families. The article concludes with a discussion of plans for an effectiveness trial to evaluate the NBP when delivered in community settings.     

Freezing skeletal muscle tissue does not affect its decomposition in soil: Evidence from temporal changes in tissue mass,microbial activity and soil chemistry based on excised samples

The study of decaying organisms and death assemblages is referred to as forensic taphonomy, or more simply the study of graves. This field is dominated by the fields of entomology, anthropology and archaeology. Forensic taphonomy also includes the study of the ecology and chemistry of the burial environment. Studies in forensic taphonomy often require the use of analogues for human cadavers or their component parts. These might include animal cadavers or skeletal muscle tissue. However, sufficient supplies of cadavers or analogues may require periodic freezing of test material prior to experimental inhumation in the soil. This study was carried out to ascertain the effect of freezing on skeletal muscle tissue prior to inhumation and decomposition in a soil environment under controlled laboratory conditions. Changes in soil chemistry were also measured. In order to test the impact of freezing, skeletal muscle tissue (Sus scrofa) was frozen (?20 °C) or refrigerated (4 °C). Portions of skeletal muscle tissue (～1.5 g) were interred in microcosms (72 mm diameter × 120 mm height) containing sieved (2 mm) soil (sand) adjusted to 50% water holding capacity. The experiment had three treatments: control with no skeletal muscle tissue, microcosms containing frozen skeletal muscle tissue and those containing refrigerated tissue. The microcosms were destructively harvested at sequential periods of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 16, 23, 30 and 37 days after interment of skeletal muscle tissue. These harvests were replicated 6 times for each treatment. Microbial activity (carbon dioxide respiration) was monitored throughout the experiment. At harvest the skeletal muscle tissue was removed and the detritosphere soil was sampled for chemical analysis. Freezing was found to have no significant impact on decomposition or soil chemistry compared to unfrozen samples in the current study using skeletal muscle tissue. However, the interment of skeletal muscle tissue had a significant impact on the microbial activity (carbon dioxide respiration) and chemistry of the surrounding soil including: pH, electroconductivity, ammonium, nitrate, phosphate and potassium. This is the first laboratory controlled study to measure changes in inorganic chemistry in soil associated with the decomposition of skeletal muscle tissue in combination with microbial activity.