The Effects of German Unification on the Federal Chancellor's Decision-Making

The purchase of Germany's Mannesmann AG by Britain's telecommunications holding company Vodafone in spring 2000 represented the first major cross-border hostile takeover in German corporate history. As spectacle, the story surrounding the fall of one of Germany's grandest industrial giants lays bare the underlying themes shaping the country's national discourse over how to build a new national consensus on the function of economic activity for the state, for society, and for the German citizen. As such, the Mannesmann-Vodafone saga contains a clear caesura between the Old and the New Economy in Germany. Of course the question remains which values and institutions do the Germans want to carry over from the old world into the new. And there the line between past and present becomes distinctly less discernible.     

Construction of a roller device for the collection of hair and fiber evidence.

The discovery of hair and fiber evidence can be of critical importance in the investigation of crimes, particularly violent crimes. A procedure is described for the construction and assembly of a roller device that utilizes readily available components and single-sided adhesive tape. The advantages over previously described roller devices include decreases in both the potential for contamination and the time required for construction of the device, as well as the ability to disinfect all of the roller components.     

NEW DIRECTIONS IN MEDICAL OUTCOMES RESEARCH: THE VIEW FROM HARVARD

This study evaluates the emerging field of medical outcomes research based on interviews at Harvard Medical School. Medical outcomes research at Harvard is multifaceted, but may be summarized as involving certain key components. The emphasis at Harvard is on “quality of care,” viewed as a combination of outcomes evaluation and process evaluation, delivery of the service and its result. In a time of shrinking budgets, outcomes and process research can be justified economically because of the relatively low cost of patient self‐reports and because of their usefulness. Physicians may be motivated to measure quality of care by emphasizing the positive effects of research on the process of care and outcomes. Medical outcomes research is a field that is undergoing change and is becoming increasingly oriented toward the practical needs of patients and physicians.     

Innovation or Inertia: The U.S. Military and the Learning of Counterinsurgency

Following its encounter with insurgent violence in Iraq, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has sought to improve the U.S. military's ability to conduct counterinsurgency. This effort suggests a potential turning-point in the history of the U.S. military, which has traditionally devoted its attention and resources to “high-intensity” or “conventional” combat. Given this institutional culture, what are now the prospects of the U.S. military ‘learning counterinsurgency’? In many ways, the ongoing reorientation is promising and targeted, informed directly by the U.S. campaign in Iraq. At the same time, Pentagon priorities still reveal a remarkable resistance to change, and this in spite of the radically altered strategic environment of the War on Terror. Given this intransigence - and the eventual fall-out from the troubled Iraq campaign - the ongoing learning of counterinsurgency might very well fail to produce the type of deep-rooted change needed to truly transform the U.S. military.     

Managing incidental findings in human subjects research: analysis and recommendations.

No consensus yet exists on how to handle incidental findings (IFs) in human subjects research. Yet empirical studies document IFs in a wide range of research studies, where IFs are findings beyond the aims of the study that are of potential health or reproductive importance to the individual research participant. This paper reports recommendations of a two-year project group funded by NIH to study how to manage IFs in genetic and genomic research, as well as imaging research. We conclude that researchers have an obligation to address the possibility of discovering IFs in their protocol and communications with the IRB, and in their consent forms and communications with research participants. Researchers should establish a pathway for handling IFs and communicate that to the IRB and research participants. We recommend a pathway and categorize IFs into those that must be disclosed to research participants, those that may be disclosed, and those that should not be disclosed.