Why only Nixon could go to China

Right-wing politicians sometimes can implement policies that left-wing politicians cannot, and vice versa. Contemporary wisdom has it that only Nixon could have gone to China. We develop a model to explain this phenomenon. A policy issue could depend on information, on which every one could potentially agree on policy, or on values, on which agreement is impossible. Politicians, who value both reelection and policy outcomes, realize the nature of the issue, whereas voters do not. Only a right-wing president can credibly signal the desirability of a left-wing course of action. The Nixon paradox can hold then if citizens vote retrospectively on the issue.     

Millian Liberalism and Extreme Pornography

How sexuality should be regulated in a liberal political community is an important, controversial theoretical and empirical question—as shown by the recent criminalization of possession of some adult pornography in the United Kingdom. Supporters of criminalization argue that Mill, often considered a staunch opponent of censorship, would support prohibition due to his feminist commitments. I argue that this account underestimates the strengths of the Millian account of private conduct and free expression, and the consistency of Millian anticensorship with feminist values. A Millian contextual defense of liberty, however, suggests several other policy approaches to addressing the harms of pornography.     

Neuropsychological,Psychological, and Vocational Assessment of High Achievers in a Medicolegal Context

High achievers are a unique subset of persons referred for neuropsychological and psychological assessments in medicolegal contexts, including personal injury, disability, and workers’ compensation cases. Literature in this area is limited and poorly integrated, and neither a conceptual model nor best evidence-informed practices for the assessment of high achievers in the medicolegal context have yet emerged. Construct and methodological issues also hamper the ability of assessors to accurately and fairly assess this specialist group, which is particularly troubling in high-stakes forensic assessments. This paper reviews the current methodological issues involved in the assessment of high achievers and proposes an integrated, multimethod assessment model based on a particular vocational group, namely that of business leaders and entrepreneurs, that draws from available empirical research in different fields of psychological inquiry.     

The Decline of Federalism and the Rise of Morality-Policy Conflict in the United States

Morality policies-such as those pertaining to abortion, capitalpunishment, gambling, gay rights, pornography, and sex education—generateconflict over core values. These policies tend to be technicallysimple, potentially salient to the general public, and involvehigher than normal levels of citizen participation. They are,therefore, highly susceptible to being thrust into the activephase of policymaking when an incongruity develops between publicopinion and public policy. The reservation of authority to thestates on these issues embodied in the Tenth Amendment to theU.S. Constitution allows for closer policy-opinion congruence,therefore stabilizing morality policy politics. However, recentfederal actions on a range of morality policies have thrustthese issues onto the active political agenda of the states.     

Measuring the impact of fair trade on development

This study of the impact of fair trade relies on new field data from coffee and banana co-operatives in Peru and Costa Rica, including a detailed assessment of its welfare effects by comparing FT farmers with non-FT farmers as a benchmark. Attention is focused on three major effects: (a) direct tangible impact of FT arrangements on the income, welfare, and livelihoods of rural households; (b) indirect effects of fair trade for improving credit access, capital stocks, investments, and attitudes to risk; and (c) institutional implications of fair trade for farmers' organisations and externalities for local and regional employment, bargaining, and trading conditions. Although direct effects in terms of net income remain fairly modest, important benefits are found to include capitalising farmers and strengthening their organisations.     

Microwave-assisted extraction and differential scanning calorimetry in the chemical identification of sliming agents apprehended in the south region of Brazil

Over the past decades, consume of slimming agents considerably increased in several countries, including Brazil, due to weight-loss and stimulant properties. Since these drugs are controlled to prevent illicit and indiscriminate use, there is a parallel illegal market that uses the Internet and irregular pharmacies in order to distribute these formulations. Slimming agents produced by these illegal sources are known for being manufactured with little or none quality control resulting in uncertain and unknown formulations. For forensic purposes, apprehended pharmaceuticals have to undergo a process of chemical identification that can be difficult due to its complex matrix. In this sense, application of assisted energies in the extraction step such as microwave irradiation can be a promising method to increase the recuperation of the target molecules of the sample. Therefore, the aim of this research was to identify four slimming agents apprehended in Brazil by means of visual inspection, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, Differential Scanning Calorimetry and Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry. Moreover, the efficiency of solid-liquid extraction and microwave-assisted extraction was compared. It should be noted that our work was one of the few to use Differential Scanning Calorimetry and the application of microwave irradiation in the analysis of apprehended materials. Results showed that the majority of the samples was counterfeit being composed of one or several adulterants or contaminants. Initially, visual inspection resourcefully screened the slimming agents for possible signs of falsification, however it failed to detect fraudulent products that were very similar to veridical medicines. Sequentially, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy detected functional groups present in the samples while the presence or absence of the alleged active ingredients were successfully measured with Differential Scanning Calorimetry and, thus, providing a full chemical screening of the apprehended materials. Gas Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry confirmed the presence of adulterants such as caffeine, fluoxetine and phenolphthalein as well as contaminants such as sulfurol in the falsified samples. Finally, comparison of extraction procedures indicated that microwave-assisted extraction increased the recovery of compounds detected in chromatographic analysis to a greater extent than solid-liquid extraction.     

Fatal suicidal crossbow injury--the ability to act

We report a case of a 58-year-old man who committed suicide using a modern crossbow. The victim shot himself in the chest with a conical field-tip arrow from close proximity. We first presumed that this was a case of homicide committed with a firearm. We were, however, subsequently proved wrong. The reasons for the primary statement were as follows: the external morphology of the entrance wound being typical of a firearm discharged from long distance; the perforation found on the victim's clothing; the absence of the firearm at the place of death; the absence of the arrow in the wound. All of these reasons forced us initially to conclude that the case was one of homicide. In the reported case, the man, after having been shot with an arrow, was further able to act, even though the abdominal aorta and liver were seriously injured. While the arrow was in the wound, the injuries may not have led to massive bleeding because of incomplete tamponade of the defects by the arrow shaft. Pulling the arrow out of the victim's wound track initiated massive bleeding. Despite all these injuries, the man was capable of pulling the bow string again and reloading the crossbow with the arrow used in the first attempt. This case demonstrates that forensic investigations into crossbow injuries can be very difficult, especially when the bolt has been removed from the body.     

Urteilsveröffentlichung in einem ausländischen Medium

§ 51 MedienG ist im Verh?ltnis zu § 34 Abs 5 MedienG als lex posterior anzusehen, die der letztgenannten Bestimmung (teilweise, soweit § 51 MedienG auf eine Urteilsver?ffentlichung in einem ausl?ndischen Medium anzuwenden ist) derogiert hat. Ver?ffentlichungen haben grunds?tzlich im (auch ausl?ndischen) Medium selbst (durchsetzbar nach § 20 MedienG) – und nicht in einem Ersatzmedium – zu erfolgen. Die internationale Zust?ndigkeit des inl?ndischen Gerichts für die Anordnung der Urteilsver?ffentlichung als zivilrechtlichen Anspruch iSd EuGVVO auch auf einer Website bestimmt sich nach Art 5 Nr 3 EuGVVO, wonach Ansprüche aus einer unerlaubten Handlung (Deliktsklage) auch an jenem Ort geltend gemacht werden k?nnen, an dem das sch?digende Ereignis eingetreten ist. Auch die vom EuGH für ehrenrührige ?u?erungen in Medien entwickelte Sonderregel, nach der der Gesch?digte nicht in allen Staaten, in denen die ?u?erung verbreitet wurde, den gesamten Schaden einklagen kann, sondern jeweils nur jenen Teil, der sich in dem Staat konkret verwirklicht hat, steht dem nicht entgegen.