Italian Aid Policy in the 60's

The search for common language has become a demanding issues in the Russia-EU relationship. One of the strongest messages contained in Russia's “sovereign democracy” concept is its desire to be regarded as a “normal” country, a full-fledged member of the international community. The concept embodies a search for its own subjectivity, which is ultimately felt to be a pre-condition for its self-assertion vis-à-vis Europe. Russia does not question any of the basic European norms; instead it seeks to offer an alternative version of each of them. For the Western audience, analysis of these concepts is essential for a better comprehension of Russia's foreign policy arguments.     

Neo‐nationalism and Neo‐Atlanticism in Italian foreign policy

The European Union has low expectations for the international climate regime after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol effectively expires. The United States is not thought likely to sign up to new binding international commitments, whereas EU countries have experienced unexpected difficulties in implementing existing commitments. As a consequence, the European Union may be prepared to settle for a surprisingly weak follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol. At the same time, the European Union will pursue bilateral and regional climate agreements with like-minded countries, parallel to the UN framework and possibly independently of it. Collectively, such agreements could produce an international climate regime that is more robust than what could be agreed at the consensus-based UN level. Nevertheless, the European Union will continue to support the UN process as the only legitimate forum for international negotiations on climate change.     

Introduction: the accountability function of the courts in new democracies

Much of the literature on ‘democratic consolidation’ has adopted a forward‐looking, future‐oriented perspective. Rather than studying past regimes, it tries to assess the life expectancies of contemporary ’third wave’ democracies. The article contends that authors have usually been unaware of the methodological complexities this choice of time perspective involves. If we want to reach reasonable judgements about the chances of democratic survival in a given country we have to be conscious of the probabilistic nature of such a prospective exercise. And we have to make (and justify) some basic analytical decisions. We have to explain the time horizons we are adopting as well as the future conditions we are assuming. We have to make clear how we construct the binary opposition between ‘consolidated’ and ‘non‐consolidated’ democracies. We have to decide whose expectations of democratic stability we take into account. And we have to cope with conflicting and unstable perceptions. Unless we ‘consolidologists’ heed these methodological ground rules, it is unlikely that we will ever reach shared judgements, or else, intelligible disagreements, about empirical states of democratic consolidation.     

In search of a democratic justice – what courts should not do: Argentina, 1983–2002

This study examines why, after so many years of economically costly judicial reforms in La1in America, the judicial system in most of the region is s1i11 working so poorly. The study assesses that part of the problem stems from a wrong theoretical analysis. Academics and leading reformers alike have placed too much emphasis on the politically dependent character of many Latin American judges, or the lack of basic resources both among judges and the people at large – such things as good salaries, administrative facilities, training, education and information. However, these serious problems are only part of the story. The case of Argentina shows that in order to reflect properly on future judicial reforms we should mainly concentrate our attention on the (questionable) constitutional ‘means and motives’ that have already been granted to the judges.     

Microwave Selective Thermal Development of Latent Fingerprints on Porous Surfaces: Potentialities of the Method and Preliminary Experimental Results

The thermal development of latent fingerprints on paper surfaces is a simple, safe, and chemicals‐free method, based on the faster heating of the substrate underlying the print residue. Microwave heating is proposed for the first time for the development of latent fingerprints on cellulose‐based substrate, in order to add to the thermal development mechanism the further characteristic of being able to heat the fingerprint residues to a different extent with respect to the substrate, due to the intrinsic difference in their dielectric properties. Numerical simulation was performed to confirm and highlight the selectivity of microwaves, and preliminary experimental results point out the great potentialities of this technique, which allowed developing both latent sebaceous‐rich and latent eccrine‐rich fingerprints on different porous surfaces, in less than 30 sec time with an applied output power of 500 W. Microwaves demonstrated more effectiveness in the development of eccrine‐rich residues, aged up to 12 weeks.     

Building civil society in Lao PDR: the Decree on Associations

Since 2006, international organisations in Lao PDR have worked closely with local actors in order to foster the creation of an enabling environment for civil society. By conceiving of civil society development as a system involving a number of closely-connected actors and levels, international actors have been able to contribute to both the adoption of a Decree on Associations, which for the first time in Lao history regulates the civil society sector, and to the organisational strengthening of the few existing domestic organisations. This paper evaluates the impact of international actors' initiatives and assesses civil society's prospects for engaging in human rights work.     

Security governance in a comparative regional perspective

This article aims to explore the relationship between domestic economic and political conditions and the performance of 14 regional organizations over a range of security provisions. It argues that the willingness of member states to increase the range of security provisions of a regional organization is influenced by the combination of high levels of economic and political development and low levels of dispersion among the members of a regional organization. In order to evaluate this assumption, two aspects of regional organizations are explored. The first is to examine the development of security governance provisions of 14 regional organizations as well as the levels of empowerment or autonomy of those organizations. The second is to analyze how six economic and political variables influence the range of security provisions and the degree of empowerment of regional organizations. The final part of the article examines how regional organizations play a significant role in stimulating and reproducing regional governance orders.     

Faith,Folie à Famille,and Mummification: A Brief Review of the Literature and a Rare Case Report

Folie à deux is a rare clinical syndrome characterized by the transference of delusional ideas from one person to one or more other people in close association with the primary affected patient. Mummification indicates the preservation of the corpse of a person for a variable period of time. A brief review of the literature in this field is presented, and an exceptional case is described, characterized by the association of both these rare phenomena. The case is an example of folie à fammille which developed out of a condition of extreme religiousness and seclusion of an entire family. The shared psychosis led to the horrible death of some of the family members, while the last surviving member of the family lived for more than a year and a half with their mummified remains. The Judge commissioned a forensic psychiatry assessment to verify the survivor's ability to bear witness. The development of the psychiatric syndrome and its consequences are extensively discussed.     

Should health authorities offer risk-sharing contracts to pharmaceutical firms? A theoretical approach

In this paper, we characterise the risk-sharing contracts that health authorities can design when they face a regulatory decision on drug pricing and reimbursement in a context of uncertainty. We focus on two types of contracts. On the one hand, the health authority can reimburse the firm for each treated patient regardless of health outcomes (non risk-sharing). Alternatively, the health authority can pay for the drug only when the patient is cured (risk-sharing contract). The optimal contract depends on the trade-off between the monitoring costs, the marginal production cost and the utility derived from treatment. A non-risk-sharing agreement will be preferred by the health authority, if patients who should not be treated impose a relatively low cost to the health system. When this cost is high, the health authority would prefer a risk-sharing agreement for relatively low monitoring costs.