Determination of ethyl glucuronide in human hair by SPE and LC-MS/MS

A method for the sensitive and selective determination of ethyl glucuronide (EtG) in hair has been developed using solid-phase extraction (SPE) and liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Washed and cut hair segments were extracted by ultrasonication (3h, 50 degrees C) and the extracts were cleaned-up with aminopropyl SPE columns. LC-MS/MS analysis was performed using a polar-endcapped phenyl-hexyl-RP-phase with negative mode electrospray ionisation (ESI) using a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer (Sciex API 365) with a turboionspray source and post-column addition of acetonitrile for enhanced sensitivity. The MS/MS transitions monitored were m/z 221 -->75 for EtG and 226 -->75 for D(5)-EtG as an internal standard. The method was selective and sensitive, with a detection limit of 51 pg/mg hair at a signal-to-noise ratio of 3:1. The mean recovery was 96%, with an intra- and inter-day precision of less than 11.7% at a concentration of 200 pg/mg. The linearity was assessed in the range of 25-2000 pg/mg hair, with a correlation coefficient of 0.997. The method was successfully applied to 97 human hair samples which were taken at autopsies from persons with known alcoholism or were obtained from alcoholics who were hospitalized for ethanol withdrawal, from social drinkers and from children having not consumed any alcohol. Although, approximately two-third of the alcoholics showed EtG concentrations in hair of higher than 51 pg/mg (up to >4000 pg/mg), in one-third the EtG concentration was below the detection limit. However, only in one of five hair samples of "social drinkers", the EtG concentration was above the detection limit (51 pg/mg). No EtG has been detected in the hair of children. These investigations demonstrate that heavy alcohol consumption may be but not necessarily has to be detectable by EtG analysis in hair.     

Neuere Rechtsprechung zum Schächten aufgrund § 4a TierSchG

Das betäubungslose Schlachten warmblütiger Tiere durch Blutentzug, das sog. Schächten, sorgt seit den Entscheidungen des Bundesverfassungsgerichts im Jahr 2002 für erhebliches Aufsehen. Im Widerstreit zwischen Religionsfreiheit und Tierschutz hatte das Gericht der bis dahin eher restriktiven Genehmigungspraxis aufgrund von § 4a TierSchG eine Absage erteilt. Daraufhin gab der Gesetzgeber dem Tierschutz in Art. 20a GG n.F. Verfassungsrang. Seither müssen die unteren Verwaltungsbehörden besonders schwierige Einzelfallentscheidungen unter Berücksichtigung der verfassungsrechtlichen Wertentscheidungen treffen. Der folgende Beitrag erläutert die aufgetretenen Probleme und die Lösungsansätze der neueren Rechtsprechung. 1) Der Beitrag gibt die private Meinung des Verfassers wieder.     

Alcohol involvement in violence. A study from a Danish community

All cases of assaults with violence (n = 1639) from a well defined area were registered for 1 year. A positive alcolmeter test (% greater than 0.2) was registered in 488 cases (29%). A further 216 patients (13%) were found under the influence of alcohol according to a simple clinical judgement. In nine of ten manslaughter and murder cases alcohol was involved. Young men, 19-29 years of age, comprised the majority of victims. Of the episodes of violence 66% took place during the weekend. In 250 cases the alcohol concentration surpassed 1.5%. Almost 50% of the violence episoded took place in or around restaurants. Blunt violence was concerned in 73% of the episodes. Gunshot was registered in five cases, stabbings in two cases.     

Criminalizing Consequences of Sanctions: Embargo Busting and Its Legacy

The upsurge in the use of economic sanctions in the post-Cold War era has prompted much scholarly and policy debate over their effectiveness and humanitarian consequences. Remarkably little attention, however, has been devoted to their criminalizing consequences and legacy for the post-sanctions period. In this article, I develop an analytical framework identifying and categorizing the potential criminalizing effects of sanctions across place (within and around the targeted country) and time (during and after the sanctions period), and apply and evaluate this framework through an in-depth examination of the case of Yugoslavia. For comparative leverage and to assess the applicability of the argument beyond the Yugoslavia case, the analysis is briefly extended to other cases both within and outside the Balkans (Croatia and Iraq). The article suggests that sanctions can unintentionally contribute to the criminalization of the state, economy, and civil society of both the targeted country and its immediate neighbors, fostering a symbiosis between political leaders, organized crime, and transnational smuggling networks. This symbiosis, in turn, can persist beyond the lifting of sanctions, contributing to corruption and crime and undermining the rule of law. The article is one of the first efforts to integrate the study of sanctions and transnational crime, and suggests that the criminalized collateral damage from sanctions and its post-sanctions legacy should be made a more central part of the evaluation of sanctions.     

Strukturale Psychologie. Zum Verhältnis von Sozialraum,Habitus und Persönlichkeit

The article addresses Pierre Bourdieu’s occasional reflections on a “structural psychology” and suggests an approach to further develop this concept as part of his relational program. For this purpose, the paper first elaborates the psychoanalytical and psychological aspects of habitus-field theory. Based on data from the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) it then illustrates the empirical correspondence between Bourdieu’s social space and the big five personality factors as well as occupational interests on the basis of various indicators. The psychological information is transferred into empirical typologies, and the resulting classes are used for a psychologically informed reconstruction of the social space. The study and its results demonstrate the potential of a psychological interpretation of Bourdieu’s habitus concept and a socio-spatial, structural interpretation of psychological characteristics.     

Marktvermittelte Massenkunst

Zusammenfassung Der Artikel zeigt, dass Max Horkheimer und Theodor W. Adorno in ihrer Kulturindustriethese die empirischen Befunde von Alexis de Tocquevilles Kunstdiagnose demokratischer Gesellschaften ihrer eigenen Manipulationsperspektive subsumiert haben. Ihre Theorie der Kulturindustrie nahm in Tocquevilles Kunstsoziologie des zweiten Amerikabandes ihren Anfang. Mittelma?, Publikumsorientierung, unterhaltender Charakter und soziale Indifferenz sind sowohl den marktvermittelten künstlerischen Produkten der Demokratie Tocquevilles als auch den kulturindustriellen Produkten Horkheimers und Adornos gemein. Fordert der demokratische Mensch Tocquevilles inhaltliche Selbstbezüglichkeit seines Alltags in künstlerischen Produkten und verliert das Kunstwerk somit seinen sublimierenden Charakter, sind die kulturindustriellen Produkte bei den Frankfurtern analog durch eine Verdoppelung der Realit?t und den damit einhergehenden Verlust ihres gesellschaftstranszendierenden Gehalts gekennzeichnet. Da bei Tocqueville die Demokratie als Lebensform zutiefst mit individuellem Wirtschaftsstreben verknüpft ist, k?nnen die Sp?tkapitalisten Horkheimer und Adorno die empirischen Befunde seiner Analyse marktvermittelter Massenkunst zu ihrer Manipulationshypothese kapitalistischer Herrschaft ausbauen. Es ist von einer „integrativen Adaption“ von Tocquevilles Kunstdiagnose durch die Frankfurter die Rede, da das Identische der Kulturindustrie Horkheimers und Adornos der Integriertheit der demokratischen „h?fischen Gesellschaft“ Tocquevilles, das Nicht-Identische der Kunst in der bürgerlichen Sozialphilosophie der pers?nlichen Freiheit des franz?sischen Aristokraten entspricht.

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Summary Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s theory of culture-industry is based on the sociology of art in Alexis de Tocqueville’s second volume of Democracy in America. The article shows how Horkheimer and Adorno subsumed the empirical findings of Tocqueville’s art-diagnosis of democratic societies under their own culture-industrial manipulation perspective. Aiming at the average audience, mediocrity, public taste, entertaining interest and social indifference are characteristics of the market-mediated artistic products of Tocqueville’s democracy as well as of the products of Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s culture-industry. Tocqueville’s democratic person demands self-reference regarding the content of her or his everyday life in art and, as a result, the work of art loses its sublime character. Analogue to this, the culture-industrial products analyzed by the Frankfurt School theorists duplicate the reality and therefore lose their society transcending content. Since Tocqueville’s democracy is fundamentally connected to the economic effort of the individual, Horkheimer and Adorno can extend his empirical findings of commercial popular art within their own late-capitalistic manipulation hypothesis of capitalist power. The concept of the identical („Das Identische“) in Horkheimer’s and Adorno’s culture-industry corresponds to Tocqueville’s tyranny of unanimity in democratic societies; the concept of the non-identical of art in the bourgeois social philosophy to the personal freedom of the French aristocrat.

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Résumé L’article montre que dans leur thèse de l’industrie de la culture, Max Horkheimer et Theodor W. Adorno ont repris les résultats empiriques du diagnostic de l’art des sociétés démocratiques mené par Alexis de Tocqueville. Leur théorie de l’industrie de la culture a pris son origine dans la sociologie de l’art du deuxième tome de la Démocratie en Amérique de Tocqueville. Le juste milieu, l’orientation vers le public, le caractère divertissant et l’indifférence sociale se retrouvent aussi bien dans les produits de l’art dans la démocratie chez Tocqueville, que dans les produits de l’industrie de la culture chez Horkheimer et Adorno. L’homme démocratique de Tocqueville exige des produits artistiques une référence intrinsèque à son quotidien, ce qui fait perdre à l’œuvre d’art son caractère sublimatoire. Les produits de l’industriede la culture se caractérisent de manière analogue chez les Francfortois par un dédoublement de la réalité et par la perte concomitante de leur contenu par lequel la société se trouve transcendée. Comme la démocratieest chez Tocqueville intimement liée à une aspiration individuelle vers l’échange économique, les capitalistes tardifs Horkheimer et Adorno peuvent utiliser ces résultats empiriques pour l’esquisse de leur propre thèse de la manipulation capitaliste. Le caractère intégré de la „société courtoise“ démocratique chez Tocqueville (à savoir le caractère non identique de l’art dans la philosophie sociale bourgeoise) correspond alors au caractère identique de l’industrie de la culture chez Horkheimer et Adorno.

     

The credibility of monetary reform – New evidence

The history of monetary policy is characterised by crisis and reform. The paper is dedicated to an explanation of what makes monetary reforms successful. A cross-sectional econometric analysis is chosen to deal with this problem. It is based on a standard macroeconomic model of commitment and credibility. As the dependent variable, we calculate a post-reform inflation rate. The exogenous variables are the degree of legal commitment, the constraining influence of institutions and a new variable for ex-ante credibility of the reform. The paper allows for the conclusion that monetary commitment, the consideration of institutional constraints and abstinence from the money press are crucial for the success of a monetary reform.     

Transnationale Diskurse in der europäischen Medienöffentlichkeit: Die Debatte zum EU-Beitritt der Türkei

In December 2004, the European Council decided unanimously to initiate accession talks with Turkey. Although Turkey’s definite membership depends on successful negotiations and will be decided upon later, the Council will hardly be able to revise this offer and it seems reasonable to assume that Turkey will join the EU sooner or later. This article presents a comparative analysis on whether and how intensively this decision was accompanied by a transnational discourse in the public sphere of the mass media. The study is based on leading quality newspapers from the EU member states France, Germany, and Great Britain.