Manners of Killing and Rituals in Apulian Mafia Murders*

Abstract: The Apulian (South of Italy) territory saw the birth of a criminal organization called Sacra Corona Unita (SCU, United Holy Crown) which transformed the rules of traditional mafia organizations. This work examined 83 victims of the SCU between 1980 and 2000. The bodies were mainly of SCU members and in some cases, of police and law enforcement officers and other citizens caught in the crossfire. Some of these were discovered; thanks to the collaboration of “repented” SCU members who became police informers. The condition of the bodies varied in relation to the date and manner of killing. In some cases anthropometric research methods were necessary. In 73% of the cases, lesions of the head were the only marks left on the body. In conclusion, the existence of some social aspects connected with the symbolisms and membership rites that characterized the origin, evolution, and decline of the SCU is stressed.     

Introduction to Special Section: Quantitative Approaches to the Measurement and Analysis of Female Empowerment and Agency

This special issue presents four novel applications of quantitative methods to address measurement and analytical issues in the appraisal of female empowerment and agency. The methods presented comprise mixed methods, dominance analysis and structural equation models. The use of these methods is illustrated with empirical applications in Cambodia, India, Mali, and Turkey.     

France in ten slices: An analysis of aggregate data

Many causal relationships cannot be detected by national averages, whether based on regression analysis of aggregate data or on survey data, because the local social context explains an important part of the variance. An analysis by deciles of aggregate data shows the great territorial diversity of social contexts in France. The unit of analysis is the French canton. The 2,450 cantons are distributed by deciles of such variables as religious practice, social structure, and vote. In the second part, six extreme deciles are analysed: the most leftist part of France, the most rightist, the most industrialized, the most agricultural, the most devout, and the most irreligious. For a country with such a territorial diversity, generating a polymorphism of parties, the national averages based on aggregate data or on survey data are largely fallacious, particularly those concerning the causal relationships. Slicing in deciles is the most efficient method for analysing aggregate data     

Moral Values and Responsible Administration: Live Organs Transplant Systems in the United States and Germany

This article explores the unexpected ways in which recently introduced accountability mechanisms shape hospital administrators’ and physicians’ actions in Germany and in the United States. Though the reforms were designed to provide governments with more control over hospitals by increasing doctors’ and managers’ direct answerability to clients, this research finds that they fail to achieve these objectives by overlooking and clashing with existing behavioral settings within the medical sector. This analysis employs a newly synthesized theoretical framework at the nexus of ethics and accountability, as well as a comparative empirical exploration of the organ transplant systems in Germany and the U.S.     

The effects of university-level policies on women’s participation in academic patenting in Italy

The Journal of Technology Transfer - A growing stream of the academic literature has investigated the factors that hamper the participation of women researchers in patenting and commercialization...     

A Rare Case of Sudden Death Due to Hypotension during Cesarean Section in a Woman Suffering from Pheochromocytoma and Neurofibromatosis

Sudden death following acute hypotension due to an undiagnosed pheochromocytoma (PHEO) is a rare event. Moreover, histopathology of the myocardium in such cases is rarely reported. We present a case of a woman who died during delivery. A 37‐year‐old parturient, who was 38 weeks pregnant, suffering from neurofibromatosis underwent a cesarean section following peridural anesthesia. Acute hypotension, acute intra‐operative pulmonary edema and supraventricular paroxysmal tachyarrhythmia occurred during delivery, followed by death. The autopsy revealed the presence of a PHEO, confirmed immunohistochemically with chromogranin‐A (CgA), CD20 antibody (L26), anti‐Keratocan antibody (KER‐1) and neuron‐specific enolase (NSE), and a PHEO‐induced cardiomyopathy. The physiopathology of both stress‐induced cardiomyopathy and PHEO‐induced cardiomyopathy, as well as the role of anesthesia in provoking the death, are discussed. The association of an undiagnosed PHEO with neurofibromatosis as the cause of sudden death in pregnancy is an obstetric urgency that raises forensic pathology issues.     

Party system change and parliamentary scrutiny of the executive in Italy

Conventional wisdom suggests that internal institutionalisation of parliamentary procedures causes greater policy effects on executive decisions and secondary legislation. The role played by parliaments in policy-making depends on internal processes, but it also depends on other factors, such as the changing structure of the party system – the bipolarisation of which determines the legislative opposition's strategy and performance. The empirical research discussed in this paper shows that the Italian parliamentary process for approving and implementing secondary legislation changed considerably – from pervasive and substantive to formalistic and procedural – during the 1990s, as a result of the parliamentary opposition behaving differently in response to the accomplished alternation in government. Despite the greater institutionalisation of the Italian Parliament, parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation has in fact had a diminishing impact on policy. This paper evaluates the increasingly limited power of parliamentary committees to amend delegated legislation in draft against a comparative analysis of the law-making process and performance of the opposition. The effect on policy of parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation is found to be proportionately related to consociational practices during the legislative process. The scrutiny of parliaments is greater when the balance between the legislative majority and opposition is characterised by consociational practices.     

Political support and tax reforms with an application to Italy

In 2001 the Italian government introduced a personal income tax reform to be implemented in successive phases. In 2004 taxes were reduced to all income levels with higher gains for low-income and high-income individuals than for middle-income ones. A large debate arised. This paper explores the political economy reasons under this tax reform, mainly the attempt of the government to attract the uncertain voters (swing voters). A probabilistic voting model is introduced to capture the importance of swing voters. The model predicts that the average personal income tax rate tends to be lower for groups of lower income, higher preference for leisure and containing more politically mobile voters (swing voters). However, data from Italian polls show that, while the tax reform was a good strategy to attract swing voters, the specific design of the reform, which favored high-income and low-income individuals, but not the middle class, was not the more appropriate strategy.     

Frequency assessment of SNPs for forensic identification in different populations

Allele frequencies for 16 previously described autosomal SNPs were tested in 1020 unrelated individuals originating from three different continents (Africa, Asia and Europe). The populations analyzed included Africans from Benin Gulf (180), Asians from Mongolia (160) and Europeans from Italy (680).