Histological diagnosis of myocardial sarcoidosis in a fatal fall from a height

The major issues of medico-legal relevance in fatal falls from a height are the manner of death and the reconstruction of the event. We present a peculiar case of a fatal fall from a height of about 9 m, involving a 27-year-old woman. At the death scene investigation, no suicide notes, housebreaking marks, or signs of fight were found, thus weakening both the suicide and homicide hypotheses. Combining circumstantial, autopsy and toxicology data, the kinematic analysis of the jump/fall, and the histological evidence of a myocardial sarcoidosis involving the left ventricle, we hypothesized that the young woman might have accidentally fallen from the window because of a sudden loss of consciousness related to cardiac disease undiagnosed during life. We believe that our brief report is a good example of the powerful additional information that histological investigations can offer for reconstructing the dynamics of the event in falls from a height and other traumatic fatalities.     

On revolt and endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes

Numerous empirical studies have investigated the direction of causality between democracy and economic growth (as well as the level of income per capita), but this empirical work has been paralleled by relatively few theoretical models that endogenize the institutional structure of the regime. Moreover, the different types of autocratic regimes have received relatively little attention. This paper develops a game-theoretic model of endogenous economic policy in autocratic regimes facing a revolt or an insurgency. In this model, there are three players: the regime, the rebels, and the masses. There are three stages in the game. In the first stage, the regime determines the level of infrastructure and the tax rate. In the second stage, the masses allocate their time between production and helping the rebels. In the third stage, the regime and the rebels simultaneously choose their fighting effort levels in a contest, in which the probability of survival of the regime is determined. It is found that autocratic regimes facing a revolt endogenously sort themselves into “tinpot” regimes that maximize their consumption at the cost of their survival, and (weak and strong) “totalitarian” regimes that maximize their probability of survival at the expense of their consumption. Empirical implications of the model are derived, and the relevance of the model to public policy is discussed.     

Allele frequencies for markers CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS, vWA, D16S539, D7S820, D13S317 in the general population of Nicaragua

POPULATION: General Hispanic-admixed individuals from Nicaragua.     

Revisiting the Transatlantic Triangle: The Decolonisation of the British Caribbean in Light of the Anglo-American Special Relationship

The international collapse in the price of sugar, together with increasing immigration restrictions in the late 1920s and 1930s, produced great pressure on wages and employment throughout the British Caribbean. The underlying tensions reached their boiling point in the years between 1935 and 1938. The chronology proved fateful and speaks for itself: a sugar strike in St. Kitts, 1935; a revolt against an increase of customs duties in St. Vincent, 1935; a coal strike in St. Lucia, 1935; labor disputes in the sugar plantations of British Guiana, 1935; oil strikes in Trinidad and Tobago, 1937; urban riots in Barbados, 1937; and acute disturbances in Jamaica, 1938. While these disturbances, together with the radicalization of the colonial discourse, facilitated the archipelago's constitutional decolonization, attributing all social, economic, and constitutional postwar reforms to the riots alone constitutes an immense leap of faith. A careful analysis of the chronology, let alone a detailed study of the archival records, suggests a robust correlation between the islands' constitutional evolution and the geopolitical worries of the Anglo-American alliance. The German threat, on the one hand, led Britain to re-articulate its colonial project and, on the other, compelled the US to make sure the British did not walk away from their responsibilities. The strategic importance of “the slums of empire” came to light dramatically once the theater of war became apparent. The Caribbean now became “the show window” where British and American interests collided against each other.     

Institutional professionalization of lawyers in state-socialism and post-socialism: Poland and Russia compared

The paper compares institutional professionalization of advocates (licensed private-practice lawyers) and in-house lawyers during the state-socialist and the post-socialist periods in Poland and Russia. The comparative analysis uses the conceptual framework of the sociology of professions. It shows that: (1) advocates were able to preserve a certain degree of collective autonomy and self-regulation during most of the socialist period in both countries; (2) Polish advocates were better integrated at the national level than their Soviet/Russian counterparts; (3) these institutional path dependencies determined the degree of autonomy and self-regulation in the post-socialist period; (4) the discrepancy between both countries is particularly pronounced in the case of in-house lawyers who were able to establish themselves as a self-regulated profession in Poland, but never made such an attempt in Russia; and (5) there was a process of partial ‘advocatization' of legal professionals who practiced in-house during the state-socialist period. The term ‘advocatization' means a change in the form of professional practice from employment relationship to service-for-fee practice. This process could be observed in both countries, but it took very different forms due to the institutional differences described above.     

Conformity and Individuals’ Response to Information About Aggregate Turnout

Political Behavior - How do voters react to information about aggregate turnout? Do high turnout levels mobilize or discourage citizens to vote? We argue that it depends on individuals’...     

Peace building with the body: resonance and reflexivity in Colombia’s Legion del Afecto

ABSTRACT

Youth in Medellín, Colombia have been recognized as potential peacebuilders through initiatives for urban peace and non-violence, including the initiative Legión del Afecto. This paper explores the development of the Legión del Afecto in order to ask questions about the peace building potential of specific frames (e.g. coexistence) and specific strategies of mobilization (e.g. embodied). We describe how differences between the earlier and later years of the Legión have come to highlight tensions between affective versus market-based relationships in motivating youth. These tensions may be productive, but without serious attention to reflexivity, may also derail peacebuilding efforts.     

Alphabetic bias in partisan elections: Patterns of voting for the Spanish Senate, 1982 and 1986

Recent research has suggested that, in partisan elections, candidates derive no special advantage from being placed first or as high as possible on the ballot, and that, consequently, measures to neutralize this alphabetic or positional bias are unnecessary. We warn against these conclusions, and analyse one case of particularly clear alphabetic voting: the 1982 and 1986 Senate elections in Spain. The aggregate alphabetic advantage that candidates enjoyed over their party's next lower candidates on the ballot ranged from 1.7 to 3.7 per cent. And, in both elections, more than 10 per cent of the 188 senators elected in four-member districts can be shown to have been elected as a result of their alphabetic advantage.     

Y chromosome STR haplotypes in the Caribbean city of Cartagena (Colombia)

Haplotype data were obtained from a sample of 173 unrelated male individuals from Cartagena (Colombia), for 16 Y-chromosome STRs (DYS19, DYS385, DYS389 I, DYS389 II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439, DYS460, DYS461, DYS635, GATA H4 and GATA A10). No shared haplotypes were observed, demonstrating the usefulness and informative power of these Y-STRs in male lineage identification in Cartagena. Genetic distances were calculated using previously published haplotype data and the lowest values were found for the comparisons with samples of Iberian origin.