What Exactly Have We Learned from Decades of Applying “Business Solutions” to Public Organizations?

Editor's Note: The Perspectives in this issue are from prominent higher education leaders with roots in public administration and public policy. I asked the contributors to reflect upon experiences or principles grounded in our field that they have found meaningful during the course of their careers. My thanks to Rebecca Blank, Michael Crow, Mark Emmert and Kenneth Ruscio for their thoughtful and stimulating essays. JLP     

The Universal Adversary will attack: pigs,pirates, zombies,Satan and the class war

This article explores a category to have recently emerged out of the national security state: the Universal Adversary. The category appears in emergency planning documents and suggests a new way of thinking about the enemy that is becoming embedded in the logic of security and emergency. However, the radical expansiveness of the category offers new possibilities for thinking about the “universality” with which the enemy of bourgeois order has historically been considered and offers new ways of connecting this universality with a particular figure: the disgruntled worker.     

Preparation of a Ytterbium‐tagged Gunshot Residue Standard for Quality Control in the Forensic Analysis of GSR

Preparation of a ytterbium‐tagged gunshot residue (GSR) reference standard for scanning electron microscopy and energy dispersive X‐ray spectroscopic (SEM‐EDS) microanalysis is reported. Two different chemical markers, ytterbium and neodymium, were evaluated by spiking the primers of 38 Special ammunition cartridges (no propellant, no projectile) and discharging them onto 12.7 mm diameter aluminum SEM pin stubs. Following SEM‐EDS microanalysis, the majority of tri‐component particles containing lead, barium, and antimony (PbBaSb) were successfully tagged with the chemical marker. Results demonstrate a primer spiked with 0.75% weight percent of ytterbium nitrate affords PbBaSb particles characteristic of GSR with a ytterbium inclusion efficiency of between 77% and 100%. Reproducibility of the method was verified, and durability of the ytterbium‐tagged tri‐component particles under repeated SEM‐EDS analysis was also tested. The ytterbium‐tagged PbBaSb particles impart synthetic traceability to a GSR reference standard and are suitable for analysis alongside case work samples, as a positive control for quality assurance purposes.     

The Potential of High-throughput Metagenomic Sequencing of Aquatic Bacterial Communities to Estimate the Postmortem Submersion Interval

Human remains can be discovered in freshwater or marine ecosystems, circumstances where insects and other invertebrates have infrequently been used for understanding the time of postmortem submersion. In this study, the identification and succession of epinecrotic bacterial communities on vertebrate remains were described during decomposition in a temperate headwater stream during two seasons (summer and winter). Bacterial communities were characterized with 454 pyrosequencing and analyzed at phyletic and generic taxonomic resolutions. There was a significant increase in genera richness over decomposition during both seasons. Additionally, multivariate statistical modeling revealed significant differences in bacterial communities between seasons at both taxonomic resolutions and siginificant genera differences among sampling days within each season, suggesting a succession of these communities. These data are the first to describe aquatic bacterial succession using high-throughput metagenomic sequencing on vertebrate remains submerged in a freshwater habitat, and provide initial evidence for their potential use in forensic investigations.     

Generational Wartime Behavioral Health Crises: Part One of a Preliminary Analysis

As the USA enters into its 12th year of war, the persistent drum beat of negative news headlines of unmet mental health and social needs of veterans fuels public perception of a twenty-first century military behavioral health crisis. For many Americans, the status quo harkens back to previous wartime crises. Wartime mental health crises continue to happen, despite the personal and financial consequences. This paper address this crisis by carefully tracking the critical decisions that lead to the current situation. This is the first of a two-part preliminary analysis of generational wartime behavioral health crises. We first define wartime mental health crises and how current and past conditions qualify as such a crisis. Next, we point out that there is a continual underestimate of war and post-wartime behavioral health needs. We then provide an extensive review of official military records, government investigations, and news media reports; a compelling evidence of a major crisis in the twenty-first century. In the final section of the paper, we discuss the themes that emerged from the review that both confirm the generational failure to learn fundamental war trauma lessons.     

Investigating Recurrent Generational Wartime Behavioral Health Crises: Part 2 of a Preliminary Analysis

This is the second of a two-part analysis of generational wartime mental health crises. Wartime mental health crisis has been defined as a sentinel public health event whereby mental health demand of the military population demonstrably exceeds the mental health system’s capacity to provide adequate access to timely, effective mental health and social support services during and/or after a period of war. The present study extends an analysis that substantiated a twenty-first century wartime crisis by investigating the hypothesis of repetitive mental health crises following every major American war since the 20th century. Compelling evidence of recurring generational crises is established by citing first-hand primary sources from wartime cohorts. A clear trend emerged, possibly linking the pattern of wartime crises with generations of self-reported failure to learn well-documented war trauma lessons (e.g., the need to adequately plan, prepare, and train for inevitable war stress casualties). The authors discuss the need for further research that would elucidate so-called “psychiatric lessons of war” and contribute to the prevention of cyclic crises.     

Books in review

has taught at the universities of London and York. He is author of The Making of Sociology, The Shaking of the Foundations: Family and Society,and The Abolitionists—The Family and Marriage under Attack.Fletcher’s own book on Burt, Science, Ideology, and the Media,will be issued by Transaction in 1991.