Book reviews

Richard Parsons. The Carpets of Afghanistan. London: Oriental Textile Press, 1983; £25.

Michael Rywkin. Moscow's Muslim Challenge: Soviet Central Asia. London: C. Hurst & Company, 1982. 183 pp., bibliography and index.     

Validation of chest X-ray comparisons for unknown decedent identification

Comparing skeletal structures between antemortem and postmortem chest radiographs is widely used by forensic specialists from many disciplines to positively identify unknown decedents. However, validity assessments of this method have been fairly limited. This study had three objectives: 1) to quantify the reliability of ante- and postmortem chest radiograph comparison for decedent identification; 2) to identify useful radiologic features supporting decedent identification; and 3) to recognize sources of error in decedent identification related to use of comparative radiographs. A forensic pathologist, a forensic anthropologist, and two radiologists participated in the study. Our results showed that chest radiograph comparisons proved reliable, if basic decedent information was provided, and antemortem and postmortem radiographs were adequately positioned and exposed. A "morphological approach" using normal anatomical structures for comparison may provide the most efficient method for accurate identification.     

Elections and Economic Turbulence in Brazil: Candidates, Voters, and Investors

The relation between elections and the economy in Latin America might be understood by considering the agency of candidates and the issue of policy preference congruence between investors and voters. The preference congruence model proposed in this article highlights political risk in emerging markets. Certain risk features increase the role of candidate campaign rhetoric and investor preferences in elections. When politicians propose policies that can appease voters and investors, elections may have a limited effect on economic indicators, such as inflation. But when voter and investor priorities differ significantly, deterioration of economic indicators is more likely. Moreover, voter and investor congruence is more likely before stabilization, when an inverted Philips curve exists, as opposed to following stabilization, when a more traditional Philips curve emerges.     

布莱尔、布朗的鹰谷议程与全球政治的不平等发展

2005年7月在苏格兰鹰谷(Gleneagles)举行的八国首脑会议上,布莱尔和布朗提出了帮助贫困国家发展的议程。通过反思“鹰谷”会议及其后续会议的成果与启示,批评布莱尔、布朗和“变贫困为历史”活动内在包含的概念框架,可以看到,“变贫穷为历史”的目标是无法实现的。在金融、贸易和环境领域等发展策略的三个主要竞技场中,世界各国于一种复杂的结构不平等模式中运作。布莱尔和布朗的鹰谷议程不得不面对不平等发展的全球政治,而且这个议程由于这些政治条件的限制被弄得歪七扭八。     

The Coming of Parliamentary Television: The Lords and the Senate Compared

Subscribing to a Burkean view of representation, legislators have long tended to resist constant public scrutiny. In recent years, however, they have overcome this reluctance in a large number of countries and voted to allow the televising of their proceedings. But why they did so remains a mystery. Some media theorists argue that television exposure is a 'great democratizer'. It demystifies public authority figures and obliges them to become more accountable for their actions. The experience of the British House of Lords and the United States Senate suggests instead that television was invited in by rational political actors as a means of achieving their goals in a time of change. In this view, television is best seen not as a force in its own right, but as a medium of communication that can be strategically deployed by goal-oriented political élites responding to different political circumstances and institutional incentive structures.     

The Cost of Discrimination in Latin America

Indigenous and linguistic minorities are in an inferior economic and social position. The ethnic concentration of inequality is increasingly being recognized in the literature. In this review, studies from six Latin American countries that estimate the costs to an individual of being an economic minority are reviewed. The studies decompose the overall earnings gap into two components. One is the portion attributable to differences in the endowments of income-generating characteristics (“explained” differences) and the other is attributable to differences in the returns that majority and minority workers receive for the same endowment of income-generating characteristics (“unexplained”). This latter component is often taken as reflecting the “upper bound” of wage discrimination. In two studies for Bolivia, one using a 1966 survey and the other a 1989 survey, decomposition of the differential between indigenous and nonindigenous earnings leads to the conclusion that most of the overall differential is due to productivity. In Guatemala, Mexico and Peru, only one-half of the earnings differential can be attributed to differences in productivity-enhancing characteristics. In Paraguay, decomposition of the overall earnings differential between monolingual Spanish speakers and Guaraní speakers shows that most of the differential is explained by human capital differences. In Brazil, however, there is a significant cost to “being non-white.” Harry Anthony Patrinos is a Senior Education Economist at the World Bank. He leads the Economics of Education Thematic Group and manages EdInvest (www.worldbank.org/edinvest), the Education Investment Information Facility. He is co-author ofDecentralization of Education: Demand-Side Financing (1997). His latest co-edited book isPolicy Analysis of Child Labor: A Comparative Study (St. Martin's Press, 1999).Indigenous People and Poverty in Latin America: An Empirical Analysis (edited with George Psacharopoulos), was one of the first studies of the socioeconomic situation of indigenous peoples in Latin America.     

Segmental analysis for cocaine and metabolites by HPLC in hair of suspected drug overdose cases

Hair samples of eight postmortem cases were analyzed in segments of 1 to 3 cm for cocaine, benzoylecgonine and cocaethylene. Samples were prepared for analysis by digestion in 0.1 M HCl and subsequent extraction with mixed-mode solid-phase extraction columns. Measurement was made by reversed-phase, narrow-bore HPLC and fluorescence detection using two laboratory-made internal standards. The concentrations were in the region of 0.29-316 ng/mg of hair for cocaine, 0.43-141 ng/mg of hair for benzoylecgonine and 0.93-1.83 ng/mg of hair for cocaethylene. All eight investigated cases had cocaine-positive segments. In six of the cases, all segments were positive, suggesting regular cocaine use and two showed in-between negative segments indicating an interruption or a change of the abuse intensity. The results showed a second, remarkable observation, i.e. enormous concentration differences (factor >150) for both cocaine and benzoylecgonine between the different subjects. Furthermore, interindividual cocaine/benzoylecgonine ratios ranged from 0.02 to 8.43. We believe these observations could in part be attributed to both some of the still existing limitations in the analytical approach(es), especially the mandatory hair washing steps, and in our still too limited knowledge of the hair incorporation processes. Nevertheless, in some cases, segmental analysis proved to be an important tool to distinguish, together with postmortem examination, deadly chronic abuse from single acute drug overdosage.