Riots in the UK: Morality,Social Imaginaries,and Conditions of Possibility

This article explores the controversies provoked by two recent exhibits in which People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) draws analogies between animal exploitation and the Holocaust and slavery. PETA's comparisons between the plight of animals and that of Jews and blacks are transgressive insofar as they disrupt settled notions of species difference by challenging the sacrosanct moral divide between humans and animals, and insofar as they do this by re-connecting race and species difference in a historically charged way. In the end, the controversies over PETA's exhibits raise difficult questions about the intersection of race and species as hierarchical categories ordering social life, what comparisons are “inadmissible” and why, and the responsibilities or obligations one social justice struggle might be said to have toward other struggles.     

From Activist Housewives to Wal-Mart Moms: The Rise of Consumerism and the Conservative Agenda

Abstract

In an interview held at the Kennedy School of Government on December 9, 1998, Harvard sociologist William Julius Wilson responds to questions posed by Teodros Kiros on topics centrally important to understanding contemporary American society. The interface between race and class, affirmative action, and social stratification are discussed in light of Wilson's major works: Power, Racism and Privilege; The Declining Significance of Race; The Truly Disadvantaged; and When Work Disappears.     

Social Support Related to Women Who Have Remained with Their Partners After the Physical Violence has Ceased

Using a U.S. nationally representative sample (N?=?5,692; U.S. National Comorbidity Survey- Replication Part II [NCS-R]; Alegria et al. 2007), this research explored social support as a possible protective factor for abused women. Women who were physically abused by their partners, but not during the past year reported more positive social support from friends than women who continued to experience physical violence or women who had not experienced partner violence. Women who had experienced recent physical violence reported more negative social support than women who had not experienced partner violence. These findings suggest that positive social support might be a protective mechanism for women in abusive relationships.     

Transforming Prevention Systems in the United States and The Netherlands Using Communities That Care

Josine Junger-Tas introduced the Communities That Care (CTC) prevention system to the Netherlands as a promising approach to address the growing youth violence and delinquency. Using data from a randomized trial of CTC in the United States and a quasi-experimental study of CTC in the Netherlands, this article describes the results of a comparison of the implementation of CTC in 12 U.S. communities and five Dutch neighborhoods. CTC communities in both countries achieved higher stages of a science-based approach to prevention than control communities, but full implementation of CTC in the Netherlands was hampered by the very small list of prevention programs tested and found effective in the Dutch context.     

Are they different? A comparison of risk in Dangerous and Severe Personality Disordered and Personality Disordered hospitalized populations

Abstract

There has been considerable interest internationally in the assessment and treatment of individuals who have a severe personality disorder and who might pose a high risk of future recidivism. In the UK, the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme was initiated to deal with just this group. It is unclear, yet, whether those admitted to these services are different from those admitted to conventional personality disorder (PD) services. In the present study, 60 patients admitted to DSPD services, under DSPD criteria, were compared with 44 patients admitted to personality disordered (non-DSPD) services within the same high secure psychiatric hospital, on risk measures, including (1) an index of predicted future violence, (2) previous offending behaviour and (3) ‘pre-treatment’ levels of institutional risk-related behaviour. Results indicated that DSPD patients do pose a greater clinical and management risk, have a higher number of ‘pre-treatment’ risk-related behaviour, and have a greater number of convictions and imprisonments after age 18, relative to PD patients. The implications and limitations of these results are discussed.     

A Strange Drift to the Right: The Civic Historiography of Michael Sandel

Michael Sandel's Democracy's Discontent strives to contribute to the project of "democratic theory," which aims to bring people together across ideological differences. Sandel wants to revitalize citizenship by uniting religious conservatives and those committed to a more just political economy through an appeal to the American tradition of civic republicanism. However, his project is fundamentally incoherent. First, Sandel's narrative conflates the republican and religious aspects of the American founding, ignoring the fact that civic republican political theory actually developed in direct opposition to the ideal of a Christian polity. Second, his version of civic republicanism deviates from the historic tradition in a way that renders it much more conservative than it actually was and might still be. Third, his reading of American history consistently highlights conservative themes. Consequently, Sandel ultimately undercuts the progressive aspects of his own vision, detracting from rather than contributing to the transideological aspirations of "democratic theory."     

Korean foreign direct investment in Europe: The determining forces

Korea's more complete integration into the world economy has been stunted by past government policies aimed at preserving comprehensive control over the domestic economy. This situation has recently changed owing to prevailing structural weaknesses in the Korean economy and the dictates of the global competitive environment. Consequently, the level of Korean overseas investment has escalated, particularly in Europe — the Triad region which has traditionally attracted limited inward FDI from Korea's large chaebol companies. This paper examines the determining forces that lie behind this trend. It is recognized that early Korean investments in the EU were principally driven by reactionary motives when confronted by actual or anticipated policy threats. While it is argued that the pretext for such investment has not significantly diminished, the imperatives of globalization together with emerging economic conditions in both east and west Europe have provided considerable incentives for more proactive FDI strategies to be adopted. The recent announcements by senior chaebol of intended large‐scale investments in Europe suggest that this new pattern is becoming increasingly apparent.     

Simultaneous analysis of six amphetamines and analogues in hair, blood and urine by LC-ESI-MS/MS. Application to the determination of MDMA after low ecstasy intake

A rapid and sensitive method using LC-MS/MS triple stage quadrupole for the determination of traces of amphetamine (AP), methamphetamine (MA), 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy"), 3,4-methylenedioxyethamphetamine (MDEA), and N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MBDB) in hair, blood and urine has been developed and validated. Chromatography was carried out on an Uptisphere ODB C(18) 5 microm, 2.1 mm x 150 mm column (Interchim, France) with a gradient of acetonitrile and formate 2 mM pH 3.0 buffer. Urine and blood were extracted with Toxitube A (Varian, France). Segmented scalp hair was treated by incubation 15 min at 80 degrees C in NaOH 1M before liquid-liquid extraction with hexane/ethyl acetate (2/1, v/v). The limits of quantification (LOQ) in blood and urine were at 0.1 ng/mL for all analytes. In hair, LOQ was <5 pg/mg for MA, MDMA, MDEA and MBDB, at 14.7 pg/mg for AP and 15.7 pg/mg for MDA. Calibration curves were linear in the range 0.1-50 ng/mL in blood and urine; in the range 5-500 pg/mg for MA, MDMA, MDEA and MBDB, and 20-500 pg/mg for AP and MDA. Inter-day precisions were <13% for all analytes in all matrices. Accuracy was <20% in blood and urine at 1 and 50 ng/mL and <10% in hair at 20 and 250 pg/mg. This method was applied to the determination of MDMA in a forensic case of single administration of ecstasy to a 16-year-old female without her knowledge during a party. She suffered from hyperactivity, sweating and agitation. A first sample of urine was collected a few hours after (T+12h) and tested positive to amphetamines by immunoassay by a clinical laboratory. Blood and urine were sampled for forensic purposes at day 8 (D+8) and scalp hair at day 60 (D+60). No MDMA was detected in blood, but urine and hair were tested positive, respectively at 0.42 ng/mL and at 22 pg/mg in hair only in the segment corresponding to the period of the offence, while no MDA was detectable. This method allows the detection of MDMA up to 8 days in urine after single intake.     

Evaluation of preliminary isotopic analysis (13C and 15N) of explosives A likelihood ratio approach to assess the links between semtex samples

Currently, the use of isotopic ratio as corroborative evidence in criminal trials is explored. Beyond the analytical challenges that have been reported elsewhere, the crucial issue of the interpretation of analytical results in a fair and balanced way remains poorly documented. The aim of this paper is to propose a likelihood ratio approach for the evaluation of stable isotope data acquired from semtex samples. It will also lead to recommendations in relation to the acquisition of normalised international data.