Physical components of soft-tissue ballistic wounding and their involvement in the generation of blood backspatter*

Gunshot backspatter comprises biological material expelled backward through bullet entry holes. Crime scene investigators analyze backspatter patterns to infer wounding circumstances. An understanding of the mechanism of backspatter generation, and the relationship between spatter patterns and bullet and tissue characteristics, would enhance the predictive value of such analysis. We examined soft-tissue ballistic wounding responses to determine the underlying components and how these might be relevant to the generation of backspatter. We identified five mechanistic components to ballistic wounding (elastic, viscous, crushing, cutting, and thermal), each related to mechanical disciplines (respectively, solid mechanics, fluid mechanics, fracture mechanics, rheology, and thermodynamics). We identified potential roles for these five components in backspatter formation and provide a scenario whereby a sequence of events incorporating these components could lead to backspatter generation and expulsion. This research provides a framework for the mathematical representation, and subsequent computational predictive modeling, of backspatter generation and pattern formation.     

Border carbon adjustments, WTO-law and the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities

This paper considers unilateral border measures, as contemplated by a number of developed states in conjunction with domestic emissions reduction schemes, as they relate to international trade and international environmental law. Specifically, I argue that to the extent that WTO-compliance requires strict adherence to the principle of nondiscrimination, as embodied in the national treatment and most-favored nation provisions in the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs, there is the potential for conflict with the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), both as a free-standing principle of customary international law and as set out in various multilateral environmental agreements and, in particular in the climate change context, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. This is insofar as the unilateral imposition of BCAs by developed countries shifts costs of compliance with environmental legislation in developed economies onto the developing world. Such allocation may conflict with the principle of CBDR, which recognizes the unequal contribution to environmental degradation of developed countries as well as their enhanced ability to address the challenges presented by such degradation and, as a consequence, requires that they undertake more onerous obligations with respect to climate change mitigation. The paper concludes with a discussion of the extent to which this conflict is illustrative of a deeper tension between efficiency and equity considerations inherent in the intersection of international economic law and international environmental law.     

On Coase and COVID-19

European Journal of Law and Economics - From an epidemiological perspective, the COVID-19 pandemic is a public health crisis. From an economic perspective, it is an externality and a social cost....     

Age spots: Gender sensitivity and the Hutchins Commission

The language of the Hutchins Commission report, A Free and Responsible Press, written in 1947, is sexist. The language flaws the report, but certainly does not destroy its value. Language must be separated from content, such as in Plato's and Kant's writings. Although the Hutchins Commission uses unfortunate language, its message goes beyond mere toleration to a supererogatory duty: The ideal of the marketplace of ideas shall be made concrete. Just as Plato's vision of women ruling in equal numbers has yet to become reality and just as Kant's ethical vision of every human's liberation from mistreatment has yet to be realized, the Hutchins Commission's call for a chorus of voices remains unfilled. The call has been echoed and in some case intensified, such as in Carol Gilligan's work on the voices of women. But the goals remain undiminished beacons that remind us—educators as well as the media—that we still have much work ahead in order to achieve inclusiveness.     

Public advocacy and the regulatory climate

A State's regulatory climate is an important determinant of utility capital costs and construction expenditures. This paper demonstrates the relationship of public (both proxy and qrassroots) advocacy movements with state regulatory climate and the cost of electricity. The perceived indifference of the utility industry and the regulatory process to public advocacy movements may be exploited by politicians seeking public office on an anti-utility platform. The result can be the weakening of the industry's long-run ability to produce a reliable power supply.     

How to Harness the Positive Potential of KKN: Explaining Variation in the Private Sector Provision of Public Goods in Indonesia

This article argues that the two prevailing perspectives that explain private sector participation in infrastructure in developing countries – new institutional economics and the rent-seeking approach – cannot account for the evident variations within and across sectors in a given country. This study uses two cases from Indonesia's attempt to promote private investment in toll road construction to demonstrate that a firm-level analysis is adequate to the task. In particular, the specific incentive structure that a rent-seeker faces may explain whether positive or negative rent will be facilitated.     

Is the Environment Getting Its Fair Share? An Analysis of the Australian Water Reform Process Using a Social Justice Framework

Australia is currently undergoing fundamental and far-reaching reforms in water management that have been prompted by wide-spread environmental degradation caused by past water management practices. This paper is an extract of a wider study that explores how governments incorporate social justice into water reform policies and how that effort is perceived by non-government stakeholders. Using a comprehensive Social Justice Framework, we used a mixed methods approach that combines a quantitative content analysis of key water reform documents with a qualitative semistructured interview process to identify and analyse three principles of social justice that apply to the environment as a water stakeholder: need as a distributive justice principle, representativeness and accuracy as procedural justice principles. We found that the environment is identified as a legitimate water stakeholder whose needs are meant to be assured through the water reform process. However, the environment suffers from a crisis of identity. Other water stakeholders claim to speak for the environment but say different things. Thus, due to a diversity of voices, strong government intention to satisfy environmental needs is diluted in practice. Furthermore, the prerogative to define and measure environmental needs through science, while deemed to be fair and objective, leads to unintended consequences that complicate management and disenfranchise less scientifically capable stakeholders. Overall, we believe that the formal recognition of the environment as a stakeholder in water reform is a significant forward step but its crisis of identity must be resolved before the environment can fully utilise its new role as a stakeholder.