The temporal fate of drugs in decomposing porcine tissue

Drug levels in decomposed individuals are difficult to interpret. Concentrations of 16 drugs were monitored in tissues (blood, brain, liver, kidney, muscle, and soil) from decomposing pigs for 1 week. Pigs were divided into groups (n = 5) with each group receiving four drugs. Drug cocktails were prepared from pharmaceutical formulations. Intracardiac pentobarbital sacrifice was 4 h after dosing, with tissue collection at 4, 24, 48, 96, and 168 h postdosing. Samples were frozen until assay. Detection and quantitation of drugs were through solid phase extraction followed by gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer analysis. Brain and kidneys were not available after 48 h; liver and muscle persisted for 1 week. Concentration of drugs increased during decomposition. During 1 week of decomposition, muscle showed average levels increasing but concentrations in liver were increased many fold, compared to muscle. Attempting to interpret drug levels in decomposed bodies may lead to incorrect conclusions about cause and manner of death.     

Counterterrorism strategies in the lab

We conduct experiments to test the collective action dilemmas associated with defensive and proactive counterterror strategies. Defensive policies are associated with creating public ??bads' (e.g., a commons) whereas proactive policies are akin to the voluntary provision of public goods. When combined, the inefficiency of collective action is exacerbated, resulting in a situation known as a Prisoner??s Dilemma squared (PD²). Deterministic versus probabilistic equivalent versions of the associated externalities are compared within a laboratory setting. Experimental results reveal that the collective action problem associated with counterterror strategies is deepened in uncertain environments, and is indeed a robust regularity that is not easily overcome; as individuals gain more experience, they become even more self-interested.     

Bystander reaction to women fighting: developing a theory of intervention

This article explores accounts of bystanders to female-on-female public violence. Group interviews with participants in the night-time economy are carried out. Whereas men tend to respond to the discussion topic of female-on-female violence with laughter, this laughter reveals ambivalence and discomfort as much as amusement. Men seem to negotiate the tension between the expectation that they should intervene in emergencies and a catalogue of costs that attend intervention. Female bystanders appear to have a different set of concerns. They talk about feelings of shame at the interpersonal and the group level. Women cite the public spectacle, and the opportunity for men to demean or sexualize women, as reasons for intervention. The article concludes with some recommendations about the importance of exploring female violence in its own terms, beginning with a series of identified moral and social dilemmas incurred within possible third-party intervention.     

Political Debates on Asylum Seekers during the Fraser Government, 1977–1982

Between 1977 and 1982, the Australian Government resettled over 54,000 Vietnamese refugees. It also admitted 2,059 Vietnamese asylum seekers who arrived by boat without state authorisation. Although the number of Vietnamese asylum seekers was significantly smaller than the number of Vietnamese refugees processed offshore in refugee camps, the unexpected arrival of these boat people stimulated debate in Parliament and in the press about an appropriate response. This article examines the language politicians used to describe Vietnamese asylum seekers and the arguments used to justify their inclusion or exclusion. The evidence demonstrates that the political rhetoric used in this period in Australia's immigration history cannot be solely categorised as inclusive or humane. Rather, the overall impression is one of resistance and pragmatism.     

Family learning environment: The subjective view of adolescent males and females

This study investigates sex differences in two aspects of family learning environment as subjectively viewed by adolescents: parents' educational expectations and relationships with parents. Analysis of the data collected from 105 young Israeli adolescents (65 males and 40 females) shows sex differences in both aspects of family learning environment. These differences are (a) a negative relation between idealistic expectations and academic performance for females and a positive relation between realistic expectations and academic performance for males, and (b) a positive relation between estimated similarity with father and academic performance for females and a negative relation between social emotional relationship with father and academic performance for males. These sex differences are viewed in light of the greater complexity of female identity as it is related to low achieving females' perceived pressure to improve academic performance and high achieving females' feeling closer to their fathers.Received Ph.D. from Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Current research interests include social aspects of adolescents' development and schooling with special emphasis on adolescents' self-image and future time orientation.     

The impact of stress and coping: Developmental changes in the transition to adolescence

Developmental change in the impact of stressful life events and coping styles were assessed among Israeli preadolescent and adolescent boys. A school sample completed a questionnaire tapping emotionally, cognitively, and practically oriented styles of coping, along with a life event survey. Teachers reported on behavior and adjustment. Analyses revealed that coping among preadolescent males was relatively undifferentiated and of limited efficacy. The transition to adolescence saw an increased qualitative differentiation of emotionally from practically or cognitively oriented coping styles, as well as quantitatively greater use of cognitively oriented coping. Further, cognitively and practically oriented coping served as effective foils to the adverse effects of stress, whereas emotionally oriented coping was counterproductive. Discussion focused on the possible contribution of cognitive growth to coping, as well as the relative utility of adult models for the study of coping in young populations.Received doctorate in educational psychology from University of California, Los Angeles. Current research interests include stress and coping across the life span, social sources of adolescent self-esteem, and intergroup relations in the junior high school.Received doctorate in clinical psychology from Hebrew University. Research interests include social and emotional development in children and adolescents.Received doctorate from Groningen University. Research interests include longitudinal studies of health and well-being in normal families and those with mentally ill members.Received master's degree in clinical child psychology from Bar-Ilan University. Research interests are in family relations and socioemotional development.     

Right-Libertarian Parties and the “New Values”: A Re-examination*

Among the most noted and studied societal tendencies of recent decades have been those associated with structural change in industrial societies becoming postindustrial. Within political science, much attention has been focused on the behavioural and institutional effects of value change accompanying that transition, and especially on the diminishing impact of class and ideology on politics. Among the institutional effects have been (at times and in some places) decline in support for “established” parties and the rise of alternative political organizations, including new parties on both the left and right. Many of the new parties of the left, and especially those labelled “left-libertarian”, are generally viewed as harbingers of things-to-come in the “new” politics - progressive vehicles, driven along by the tides of change. In contrast, the new parties of the right are generally viewed as conservative, authoritarian, materialist reactions to change - representing transitional efforts to stop change and its effects. The latter parties presumably tell more about the past, the present, and efforts to preserve them, than about the “new” in politics. The purpose of this article is to explore the possibility that some of the new right-wing parties - especially those in social democracies - might themselves be viewed more accurately (or at least as justifiably, based on reinterpretation of the available evidence) as reflections of new values and as vehicles of forward-looking change. If so, then those parties, like their left-libertarian counterparts, may tell us something about the future of postindustrial politics.     

Central and East European Bank Responses to the Financial ‘Crisis’: Do Domestic Banks Perform Better in a Crisis than their Foreign-Owned Counterparts?

In the context of transition, nine out of the 10 post-communist countries that ultimately joined the European Union reluctantly privatised the bulk of their banking sectors with foreign capital. The financial crisis of 2008–2009 therefore sparked fears that foreign banks would remove their operations from their Central and East European markets because of a ‘home bias’ in lending. Such fears were predicated on the widely held beliefs that banks' loyalties lie with their home markets and that it is therefore desirable to protect domestic bank ownership to help combat an economic downturn. This essay casts doubt on the value of banking sector protectionism by comparing foreign and domestic bank behaviour in Central and Eastern Europe during the crisis. The essay finds no consistent relationship between domestic control and either limited economic vulnerability or countercyclical lending.