Race and treating other people's children as adults

Juvenile offenders are sometimes transferred to a criminal court where they may stand trial as adults. The rationale for this current trend cannot be justified based on evidence from developmental psychology, the evidence of consistent positive effects for particular intervention strategies, and ethical arguments for justification of punishment. The rationale in actuality reflects the selective manipulation of the alternative conceptions of young people as dependent and vulnerable or as autonomous and responsible to continue to justify policies that entail cultural and racial discrimination. Discretionary decisions at various stages of the justice process amplify racial disparities as minority youths proceed through the system and result in more severe dispositions than for comparable White youths.     

Party strategies and electoral competition in post-Communist countries: Evidence from Poland

Poland's major post-Communist party, the SLD, was an electorally successful legacy party during the 1990's. An analysis of Polish National Election Studies data and data from a separate study of new firm creation in Poland indicates their success was built on two important and related factors. One is the growth of new firms, which stimulated the growth of a centrist constituency who voted for parties supporting economic reforms. Second, the SLD adapted to this constituency by themselves becoming more economically liberal, as documented by Grzyma?a-Busse (2002). A conditional logit model of voter choice in the 1997 and 2001 elections relates votes to the distance between voters' preferences on economic policies and the positions of the competing parties. From this analysis we estimate that if the SLD had remained an ideological non-reformist party as did the KS?M in the Czech Republic and the CPRF in Russia it would have been a far weaker party as measured by vote and seat shares. Without the new firm creation, an ideological SLD cum KS?M could have been electorally successful as was the CPRF. The paper concludes by contrasting the the Polish, Czech and Russian post-Communist parties and extending the implications of the results to other developing and industrial economies faced with the need for structural change.     

The effect of misperception on strategic behavior in legislative settings: Social psychology meets rational choice

This paper is about the conditions under which simple social psychological processes can affect collective decisions. In rational choice theory, social psychological effects are said to cancel out, be randomized, or be corrected by communication. Yet as Janis and Mann (1977) argued, there are generally recurring conditions in which such factors influence individual decisions. The question is, Under what conditions can we expect these factors to affect collective decisions? This paper suggests a general approach to identifying the effects of strategic misperception, illustrates it with an example of a social psychological process that affects player perceptions, and describes the preference distributions in which this simple process would change majority voting outcomes. The general conclusion is that strategic misperception may affect majority decisions under so many distributions of preferences that decisions cannot be predicted from knowledge of actors' preferences alone.     

Sampling Increases Music Sales: An Empirical Copyright Study

The Supreme Court instructs that the most important consideration in analyzing fair use is the effect on the market for the original. Employing music sales data, this article presents evidence of digital sampling's effect on the sales of sampled songs. Our results indicate that a reassessment of fair use in the area of music sampling is needed since sales of sampled songs increased after being repurposed within new songs. These results are robust and highly statistically significant. Findings of this nature favor a judicial determination that sampling constitutes a fair use, even when considering the influence that a new work has on extant licensing markets for sample clearance. This article argues that the current sample–licensing market is a product of aberrant antisampling case law arising from a lack of relevant empirical data and nonutilitarian judicial opinions. As set forth herein, the goal of encouraging creative activity without hindering copyright owners’ capacity to financially gain from their work is served by implementing a limited presumption of fair use for sampling. The findings are further applicable outside of the fair use analysis, as the study is important in the private law when viewed through a law and strategy lens. Forward thinking music firms should reframe their approach by encouraging sampling of their works to secure cost‐free advertising and achieve a competitive advantage.     

Forensic Performance Analysis of Load‐Limiting Devices in Automotive Seat Belt Retractors

The introduction of frontal airbags and seatbelt pretensioners for front seat occupants provided an opportunity to address injuries caused by seatbelt loading by introducing load‐limiters, which were intended to reduce belt loading while maintaining proper restraint. Investigation and forensic analysis of real‐world crashes identified that the implementation of these devices, in some circumstances, increased the potential of injury. This paper focuses on the trade‐offs of load‐limiters, that is, the reduction loading to the occupant versus the corresponding increase in seatbelt webbing and occupant movement. If the additional webbing introduced is not controlled, the risk of injury to the occupant is increased and could result in more frequent and severe injuries rather than a reduction. This paper quantifies the webbing introduced by load‐limiter activation through forensic analysis of the seatbelt involved in real‐world crashes and testing and assesses its effect on the injuries sustained by the occupant.     

In a World of Their Own: Security‐cleared Counsel,Best Practice,and Procedural Tradition

This article charts how security‐cleared counsel have been constructed as a mechanism for managing the tension between security and fairness in secret trials and transferred across national boundaries as an example of ‘best practice', before going on to evaluate recent cross‐cultural and transnational research on this ‘best practice'. Particular attention is paid to the central role played by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in promoting the role of ‘special advocates’ and a contrast is made between the methodologies deployed by the Court and those used in recent research to identify and problematize ‘best practice’ within the closed world of security‐cleared counsel. The article then goes on to explore the relationship between ‘best practice’ and procedural tradition and argues that normative solutions advancing ‘best practice’ need to pay careful attention to the procedural contexts and cultures in which they are embedded.     

Laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry of triacylglycerols and other components in fingermark samples

The chemical composition of fingermarks could potentially be important for determining investigative leads, placing individuals at the time of a crime, and has applications as biomarkers of disease. Fingermark samples containing triacylglycerols (TAGs) and other components were analyzed using laser desorption/ionization (LDI) time-of-flight mass spectrometry (TOF MS). Only LDI appeared to be useful for this application while conventional matrix-assisted LDI-TOF MS was not. Tandem MS was used to identify/confirm selected TAGs. A limited gender comparison, based on a simple t-distribution and peaks intensities, indicated that two TAGs showed gender specificity at the 95% confidence level and two others at 97.5% confidence. Because gender-related TAGs differences were most often close to the standard deviation of the measurements, the majority of the TAGs showed no gender specificity. Thus, LDI-TOF MS is not a reliable indicator of gender based on fingermark analysis. Cosmetic ingredients present in some samples were identified.     

The Shifting Politics of Climate Science

The global warming controversy has experienced a tumultuous period, with the credibility of climate science repeatedly questioned and a lack of international solidarity on the issue. While climate science institutions have accomplished much in their history, the current impasse highlights the limits of previous approaches. Determined critics have contested the authority of established scientific institutions, which have failed to measure up to their mythic ideals. While the imperfections of climate science have exposed some avenues for reform, they also suggest that the public stands to benefit from a more accurate understanding of science as both a process and body of knowledge. Uncertain and incomplete knowledge need not be an obstacle for action, and climate science can be made more robust and credible if it is removed from the center of what are largely political disagreements.