大脑功能一侧化研究的新进展

80年代初，大脑两半球功能活动一侧化现象的基本发现引起了人们对心理活动机制的许多推测。近期的研究对这一问题有了一些新的认识：分离后的左右脑可能不存在“双重意识“；左右脑半球有可能都介入视觉空间信息的加工；正常人左右脑半球的机能优势活动存在复杂的时间－空间动态－侧化关系。     

The Relationship between Ombudsman, Government, and Citizens: A Survey Analysis

Since the 1960s, ombudsmanship has become increasingly popular. Although there is a great deal of literature on ombudsmen, existing research rarely focuses on the people who actually use the ombudsman's services. This article examines those who seek the help of ombudsmen in Belgium, and asks whether ombudsmen's intervention has a noticeable effect on citizens' confidence in government and public administration. Based on three surveys of 626 complainants, our analysis suggests that we should not see the ombudsman in Belgium as merely an instrument to help citizens but that they can also function as "change agents" and provide early warnings of problems in public administration. The role of ombudsmen in directly strengthening trust in government is limited at best. Furthermore, it seems that the profile of ombudsman complainants is skewed; our findings indicate that the socially disadvantaged are less likely to use the institution.     

Negotiated Case-ending Settlements: Ways of Speeding up the (Court) Process

The subject of this article is a special type of fast-tracked case-ending decisions called “negotiated case-ending settlements”. Those proceedings are based on a kind of agreement between the parties, end with a real conviction of the offender and their legal consequence is a true but mitigated punishment. They can be found in six of 11 countries studied, namely, in England & Wales, Croatia, France, Hungary, Poland and Spain. The English guilty plea procedures, the French appearance before a court after prior admission of guilt and the Polish prosecutor’s application for a conviction to be rendered without a trial as well as the voluntary submission to penalty are examined more closely here. The comparative study focuses on the stage, where the negotiation is made, the conditions for the use of these settlements and the PPS’s role therein.     

Living Apart Together: The Relationship Between Public and Private International Law

Netherlands International Law Review -     

Issues in community conservation: the case of the Barberton Medicinal Plants Project

Over-exploitation of medicinal plants for traditional healing practices endangers pristine conservation areas. In South Africa, the Mpumalanga Parks Board (MPB) attempted through a medicinal-plants project to promote nature conservation and benefit traditional healers. The project was well planned and implemented, infrastructure was created, and a model farm was established to propagate medicinal plants. Yet, although the project was aimed at community development, very little materialised. This article outlines the need for medicinal-plant propagation in South Africa and uses the project to illustrate shortcomings in attempts to link nature conservation with sustainable livelihoods and community development.     

The Weak Government Thesis: Some New Evidence

Public Choice - This paper presents new evidence on the hypothesis that coalition governments will find it more difficult to keep their budgets in line after an adverse economic shock than do...     

Y chromosome SNP analysis in a Portuguese population sample using a multiplex PCR and minisequencing strategy

The study of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) located on the Y chromosome specific region Y-SNPs (92R7, M70, M22, Tat, P25, SRY10831, M173, M213 and M9) was used to characterize a population sample from Central Portugal, in order to investigate the frequency distribution of the male lineages and to compare the observed results with those obtained in other Portuguese regions.The genotyping strategy was according to the described by Brion et al. [M. Brion, et al., Int. J. Legal Med. 119 (2004) 10-15].In this population sample from Central Portugal a typical Western European haplogroup composition was found. The majority of samples (almost 70%) were assigned inside haplogroup R. As for other Iberian populations, the most frequent haplogroup was R1b-P25 (52.2%), followed by F(xK)-M213 (15.2%), E-B-SRY10831.1, R1(xR1a,b)-M173 and R1a-SRY10831.2 (each of them with a 8.7% frequency), K2-M70 (4.3%) and L-M22 (2.2%). When comparing our sample with other samples from Portugal, no significant differences were found.     

After the Ivory Tower: Gender,Commodification and the ‘Academic’

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.