The Ayala Mazar-Xiaohe culture: new archaeological discoveries in the Taklamakan desert, China

This article, accompanied by colour photos, records the author's recent archaeological expedition in the Taklamakan Desert. His advance northwards along the now mostly sand-covered beds of the Keriya River proved to be a march backward through time, from the Iron Age city of Jumbulakum to the early Bronze Age necropolis of Ayala Mazar. The artifacts he found are contemporary with, and similar to Chinese discoveries at Xiaohe. This proves that Xiaohe was not an isolated case and provides evidence for a whole culture based on some sort of fertility cult. The remains also suggest that some, at least, of the peoples concerned had Indo-European affiliations.     

Erfolgsbezogene Entlohnung als Voraussetzung des Maklervertrages

Wesentlich für die T?tigkeit als Makler ist die Vermittlung von Gesch?ften. "Vermitteln" bedeutet dabei, zwei potentielle Vertragspartner zusammenzubringen und zum Gesch?ftsabschluss zu bewegen. Der Maklervertrag ist an eine erfolgsbezogene Entlohnung geknüpft, die nur bei verdienstlicher Vermittlungst?tigkeit gebührt. Grunds?tzlich wird der Makler daher nur für den Fall entlohnt, dass das in Aussicht genommene Gesch?ft durch seine Vermittlungst?tigkeit zustande kommt. Bei Vereinbarung einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung ist der Vertrag nicht als Maklervertrag zu qualifizieren. Die Vereinbarung einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung für Leistungen, die sich unter anderem auf die Vermittlung von Gesch?ften beziehen, steht mit dem MaklerG somit im Widerspruch. In diesem Fall gelangt nicht Maklerrecht zur Anwendung. Der Umstand, dass für Publikations- und Verkaufsbemühungen Entlohnung vereinbart wurde, ?ndert nichts am Vorliegen einer t?tigkeitsbezogenen Entlohnung.     

Postmortem interval of skeletal remains through the detection of intraosseal hemin traces. A comparison of UV-fluorescence, luminol, Hexagon-OBTI®, and Combur® tests

With the goal of obtaining additional practically applicable methods for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains, 39 samples of human and 5 samples of domestic animal long bones with known PMI (PMI=1 to approximately 2000 years) were tested with two established methods (UV-fluorescence of a freshly sawn cross-section and the luminol test) and two screening tests (Hexagon-OBTI? test and Combur? test) that were being tried out in this context for the first time. The hypothesis underlying this experiment was the supposition that the PMI-related chemiluminescence of the luminol reaction for bone is based on the presence of persisting hemin from hemoglobin molecules in bone. Our results showed that lack of luminescence and reduced UV-fluorescence were more meaningful results for estimating PMI and excluding forensic relevance than a positive luminol reaction or strong UV-fluorescence, as both of the latter findings revealed the limitations of these methods in this particular context. Particularly for cases showing a positive luminol reaction, the use of additional absolute dating methods may be indicated. Against our expectations, both the Combur? test strips and the Hexagon-OBTI? test, which were both devised to demonstrate blood, delivered negative results for all samples. They are thus not suitable for estimating the PMI of skeletal remains. Future research will be necessary to elucidate whether the negative results obtained for these tests may be due to the poor solubility of potentially present hemoglobin or hemoglobin breakdown products in the Tris buffer used in this experiment.     

Acute poisoning involving the pyrrolidinophenone-type designer drug 4'-methyl-alpha-pyrrolidinohexanophenone (MPHP)

A 36-year-old woman consulted the medical emergency unit of a private health center for abdominal pain and gastroenteritis of 5 days duration. Acute right pyelonephritis was diagnosed. Five hours after admission she became unconscious in a state of clinical shock. She was transferred to an intensive care unit but resuscitation attempts were unsuccessful and she died 3 h later. Three days after death, she was buried in the family vault. Five days after the burial, her husband lodged a complaint with the public prosecutor because he had not received a clear explanation from the physicians concerning the cause of his wife's death. After analysis of the medical records of the deceased by two forensic pathologists, a medicolegal autopsy was ordered by the public prosecutor. The corpse was exhumed and autopsy performed 9 days after death. Massive hemoperitoneum was diagnosed with a macroscopically ruptured subcapsular hematoma. Pathological study confirmed acute right pyelonephritis and demonstrated the precise cause of the hemorrhage: rupture of the hepatic artery at the hilar part, following infectious arteritis which was probably secondary to the acute pyelonephritis. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first published report of such a case.     

Beating Social Democracy on Its Own Turf: Issue Convergence as Winning Formula for the Centre‐Right in Universal Welfare States

Recent elections yielded sweeping majorities for the centre‐right in Scandinavia with a decade of pure centre‐right majorities in Denmark and the longest sitting centre‐right coalition in Sweden for decades. This is a blind spot in the issue voting literature, which would not expect centre‐right parties to flourish in contexts where welfare issues have a natural salience as in the case of universal welfare states. In contrast, Scandinavian universal welfare states ought to benefit social democracy when it comes to issue voting on welfare issues. It is argued in this article that centre‐right parties can beat social democrats by credibly converging to its social democratic opponent on issues of universal welfare. Issue ownership voting to the benefit of centre‐right parties will then be strongest among voters perceiving the centre‐right to have converged to social democracy and perceiving the centre‐right as issue‐owner. Using Danish National Election Studies, 1998–2007, the article shows that the Danish Liberal Party outperformed the Social Democrats on traditional welfare issues among those voters perceiving the Liberals to be ideologically close to the social democrats. The findings help us to understand why centre‐right parties have recently turned into serious competitors on social democracy's turf: the universal welfare state.     

Evaluating Freedom of Information Laws: Objectives,Approaches, and Practical Considerations

Freedom of information (FOI) laws aim to improve the public’s opportunities to access official information from public authorities and hence to increase the level of transparency. Thus, it is important to know whether and to what degree the effects intended by establishing FOI laws are achieved and how their implementation could be improved. In order to answer these questions, FOI laws have to be evaluated. Unfortunately, attempts to evaluate FOI laws are still in their infancy. To promote sound evaluation, this article aims to provide guidance on how comprehensive FOI law evaluations might be designed and conducted.     

Decision costs in legislative bargaining: an experimental analysis

We conduct an experiment to assess the effects of different decision rules on the costs of decision making in a multilateral bargaining situation. Specifically, we compare the amount of costly delay observed in an experimental bargaining game under majority and unanimity rule. Our main finding is that individual subjects are more likely to reject offers under unanimity rule. This higher rejection rate, as well as the requirement that all subjects agree, leads to more costly delay. This result provides empirical support for a classic argument in favor of less-than-unanimity decision rules put forth by Buchanan and Tullock (The calculus of consent: logical foundations of constitutional democracy, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1962).     

Crisis intervention after the Tsunami in Phuket and Khao Lak

After the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, the German government set up a crisis task force that implemented crisis-intervention teams covering Thailand (Phuket and Khao Lak), Sri Lanka, and Sumatra. Two crisis teams were sent to Phuket; the first one on 28 December 2004, and the second one on 3 January 2005, each for an average of 1 week. This intervention was primarily for the benefit of German citizens and their expatriates and relatives caught up in a major catastrophe as well as the German helpers. This article describes the organizational structures of the German crisis intervention, protective factors for the helpers, psychiatric syndromes--often acute traumata, the problems of the identification process for relatives, and crisis intervention itself. Consequences for further crisis intervention after natural disasters are discussed.     

Charred body: virtual autopsy with multi-slice computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging

The correct examination of a charred body is a forensic challenge. Examination, interpretation, and conclusion in respect to identification, vital reactions, toxicological analysis, and determining cause and manner of death are all more difficult than without burns. To evaluate what can be seen in the case of a charred body, we made an examination with the new radiological modalities of cross-section techniques, via multi-slice Computed Tomography (MSCT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), prior to performing the classical forensic autopsy. In a charred body case of a single motor vehicle/fixed object collision with a post crash fire, the radiological methods of MSCT and MRI made it possible to document the injuries caused by burn as well as the forensic relevant vital reactions (air embolism and blood aspiration). In conclusion, we think postmortem imaging is a good forensic visualization tool with a great potential for the forensic documentation and examination of charred bodies.     

Initially suspected killing with a political background identified as accidental carbon monoxide poisoning

During a parish fair the police was called to a conflict between two rival right-wing youth groups in the early morning hours. Shortly afterwards a burning car was discovered near the marquee with a charred male body on the driver's seat. It was assumed that there was a connection between the two events. At autopsy no injuries were found that were not attributable to postmortem consumption by the fire. The BAC value was 1.76 per thousand, the CO-Hb concentration 78%. The body could be identified by comparing pre- and postmortem X-rays of the molars and premolars of the right upper jaw. Reconstruction of the course of events and classification as an accident was possible only after calling in technical experts: The victim had gone back to his car to take a nap and kept the engine running because of the cold temperature. The car had been fitted improperly with a sport exhaust pipe, which caused both the carbon monoxide poisoning and the fire.