An unusual cause of sudden child death

Since the rise of HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa, there has been a massive promotion of condom use. Unfortunately, this promotion has not always been accompanied with instructions for safe use. In this case report, we describe a small child who aspirated a condom and subsequently died.     

Private authority and public policy interactions in global context: Governance spheres for problem solving

Private organizations play a growing role in governing global issues alongside traditional public actors such as states, international organizations, and subnational governments. What do we know about how private authority and public policy interact? What are the implications of answering this question for understanding support for, and effects of, policy development generally? The purpose of this article is to reflect on these questions by introducing, and reviewing, a special issue that challenges explicit claims, and implicit methodologies, that treat private and public governance realms as distinct and/or static. We do so by advancing a theoretical and conceptual framework with which to explore how the contributions to this special issue enhance an understanding about governance interactions across a range of empirical, sectoral, and regional domains. We specifically introduce the concept of governance spheres to capture the proliferation of issue domains denoted by highly fluid interactions across public and private governance boundaries.     

How Can the European Union Contribute to a COP-6 Agreement? An Overview for Policy Makers

During the 6th Conference of Parties (COP-6) in The Hague, the Netherlands, November 2000, crucial progress on a number of outstanding issues related to the Kyoto Protocol will have to be made to open the way for its early ratification, if not to save it from complete failure. Given the present lack of internal US political support for the Kyoto Protocol, the EU may play a pivotal role in making the Kyoto Protocol agreement a reality even without initial ratification of the US, if its able to provide sufficient leadership. In this overview article we discuss the main issues under negotiation, the problems of finding agreement and opportunities for the EU to catalyse a compromise agreement at COP-6, building on key scientific papers as included in this issue and discussions at the European Forum on Integrated Environmental Assessment Climate Policy Workshop in Amsterdam. Key elements are the inclusion of sinks, the use of the Kyoto Protocol mechanisms as a supplement to domestic action and the international compliance system. Domestic implementation of climate policy is a major factor for the EU's credibility.     

The economics of pre-crime interventions

Several observers suggest that we may have undergone a shift from a post-crime to a pre-crime society in which the principal focus has become the pursuit of security by anticipating and forestalling future harms, rather than responding retrospectively to harms that have actually happened. This paper is about the economics of pre-crime interventions. It investigates the welfare consequences of risk assessment and early interventions to prevent individuals from engaging in criminal activities. Furthermore, it deals with the question of what constitutes an optimal application of risk assessment and early intervention. Finally, it presents three rules of thumb to identify conditions where pre-crime intervention may be welfare enhancing.     

Productive forces,the passions and natural philosophy: Karl Marx, 1841–1846

ABSTRACT

This article explores the emergence of Karl Marx’s concept of history over the period 1841 to 1846. Whereas in Marx’s view the productive forces shaped human history, it is argued in this article that Marx believed the productive forces in their turn were fuelled by psychological drives; in effect, Marx made the passions the deepest motive force of history. ‘Historical materialism’ as it crystallized in those early years was a theory of materialized subjectivity. Marx’s comments on various Antique and Modern philosophies of nature evince that he discerned important parallels between the developmental processes of human history and of nature. If Marx traced the dynamism of the productive forces to the human passions, he was adhering to an essentially Romanticist ontology of self-creative, impassioned nature.     

Family negativity and delinquent behavior in adolescence: a predictive multivariate latent growth analysis

ABSTRACT

The current study had three aims: (1) to explore whether there is over-time change in adolescent delinquency and negativity in the parent–adolescent, sibling and marital relationships during adolescence; (2) to examine the interactions of negativity across subsystems; and (3) to examine whether levels and changes in adolescent delinquency are predicted by levels and changes in negativity in all family subsystems. Data of 497 families participating in the RADAR-young study were used. Ratings of all family members were used to measure negativity in family relationships, and adolescent self-report was used for delinquency. Multivariate latent growth curve models showed over-time increases in mother-adolescent negativity and over-time decreases in sibling negativity, as well as significant individual differences in these changes. Second, evidence for both social contagion and compensatory processes in family negativity was found. Third, initial levels of parent–adolescent negativity were related to initial levels but not over-time changes of adolescent delinquency, whereas initial levels of sibling negativity were related to over-time changes but not initial levels of adolescent delinquency. Finally, increases in parent–adolescent negativity were related to faster increases in adolescent delinquency, and decreases in sibling negativity were related to slower increases in adolescent delinquency. Implications of these results are discussed.     

Size calculation of restriction enzyme HaeIII-generated fragments detected by probe YNH24 by comparison of data from two laboratories: the generation of fragment-size frequencies.

Restriction fragment-length polymorphism of locus D2S44 detected by the highly polymorphic probe YNH24 and restriction endonuclease HaeIII can be used to improve parentage testing when representative fragment-size frequencies can be obtained. By joining the results of different laboratories, it is possible to set up a meaningful databank. Therefore, the same randomly chosen samples were tested for the HaeIII RFLP detected by probe YNH24 in Düsseldorf (DUS) and Amsterdam (AMS). The results of the different fragment-size calculations obtained by using internal markers and a computerized system (DUS-cad and AMS-cad), and by using external markers and manual calculations (DUS-man), were analyzed. Comparing these results, no statistically significant differences were seen. The results obtained with probe YNH24 and enzyme HaeIII in Düsseldorf and Amsterdam can be used to attain a sufficient number of samples to generate relevant fragment-size frequencies.     

Justice and power in civil law negotiations

The relationship between power and justice in civil law negotiations is discussed. It is argued that the concept of power is essential to understand justice behavior in civil law negotiations. Distributive justice appears to be hardly relevant in civil law disputes and should be replaced by retributive justice to understand the behavior of the parties. The analysis leads to the observation that justice is more likely to be relevant for the powerless party in civil law disputes than for the power-holder. I conclude that both the relative power and justice behavior cannot be studied without taking into account the perception by individuals of both the relevant norms and the salient characteristics of the interaction.