Developing Codes of Conduct: Regulatory Conversations as Means for Detecting Institutional Change

The introduction of a new corporate governance code in Sweden, modeled after prevailing Anglo-Saxon norms of corporate governance, offers the opportunity to investigate global regulatory convergence. Using the metaphor of regulatory space, this article analyzes the positions of the parties who submitted formal responses to the introduction of "The Swedish Code of Corporate Governance—A Proposal from the Code Group." While the globalization of financial markets might forecast unconditional acceptance of the proposed code by business and financial interests, the analysis of who made comments, and what was said, reveals three categorically distinct groups: Swedish business "insiders" connected to the existing institutional framework who opposed changes that would erode traditional division of functions, including collective responsibility for the actions of company boards; "outsiders" (i.e., foreign investors and more marginal Swedish investors) aligned with Anglo-Saxon internationalization of the markets who would change the system of corporate accountability; and the professions (i.e., auditors), who advocated for their professional interests. Of the three groups, Swedish business insiders were most successful in gaining support for their positions. Although international financial and political interests were key to the introduction of the Code in the first place, the article demonstrates how the dynamics of national (local) culture and power structures influence the transfer of regulatory law across jurisdictions.     

Copyright in the Information Society: Scenario's and Strategies

Copyright law trades off the costs of limiting access to information against the benefits of providing incentives to create information in the first place. The development of digital rights management (DRM) may disturb the balance between creation and distribution of information. What policy strategy should be followed by a national government given that effective systems of DRM may develop and given that legislation and policy-making increasingly take place at the level of the European Union? Because the quality of the protection that can be obtained by DRM is uncertain, two scenarios are developed. The scenarios require different policy reactions. Alternative policy strategies are discussed.     

The systemic error in the vertical component of handgun bullet trajectory reconstructions

Establishing the path or trajectory of a fired bullet is an often recurring part of shooting incident reconstruction. The current study describes how gravitational pull causes a systemic error on the vertical component of a trajectory reconstruction. Bullet drop, drop angle, and vertical offset are explained and calculated for 10 different handgun/ammunition combinations over a range of distances up to 100 m. The presented results are intended to provide forensic firearm examiners with a reference frame for the magnitude of error introduced on handgun bullet trajectory reconstructions over distance. Threshold values of 20 and 30 m are proposed as conservative distances up to where bullet trajectories can be modeled as straight lines with subsonic/transonic handgun bullets and with supersonic handgun bullets respectively. Both the bullet drop and vertical offset will be below 5 cm at these distances for those categories. The drop angle will be below 0.3°.     

“Wisdom of crowds”? A decentralised election forecasting model that uses citizens’ local expectations

Many studies report the “wonders of aggregation” and that groups (often) yield better decisions than individuals. Can this “wisdom of crowds”-effect be used to forecast elections? Forecasting models in first-past-the-post systems need to translate vote shares into seat shares by some formula; however, the seat–vote ratio alters from election to election. To circumvent this problem, this paper proposes citizen forecasting, which aggregates citizens’ local expectations to directly forecast constituencies. Using data from the 2010 British Election Study, this paper finds (1) that groups are better forecasters than individuals, (2) that citizen forecasting correctly predicts a hung parliament, and (3) that marginality and group size are important predictors for “getting it right”.     

Magazine Influence on Cartridge Case Ejection Patterns with Glock Pistols

In this study, the cartridge case ejection patterns of six different Glock model pistols (one specimen per model) were compared under three conditions: firing with a loaded magazine, an empty magazine, and without magazine. The distances, covered by the ejected cartridge cases given these three conditions, were compared for each of the six models. A significant difference was found between the groups of data for each of the tested specimens. This indicates that it is important that, to reconstruct a shooting scene incident based on the ejection patterns of a pistol, test shots are fired with the same pistol type and under the correct magazine condition.     

Eyewitnesses: A comparison of live,video, and photo line-ups

An experiment was conducted in which the effectiveness of three line-up methods (live, video, and photographs) was compared. Participants witnessed a staged event and were subsequently required, by one of the three methods, to identify the target. Both target-present and target-absent line-ups were used. The results showed that all methods led to an equal number of correct identifications (hits). In the target-absent line-ups, participants more often incorrectly identified a person in the video and photographs condition than in the live condition. Presenting photographs simultaneously or sequentially did not affect the number of correct judgments. Dynamic video images, showing locomotion and facial expression, had a marginal significant effect on the number of correct judgments as compared with the static video images. Practical implications are discussed.     

An unusual case of 3 fatal, accidental CO poisoning cases by re-routed ventilation

A case of fatal carbon monoxide poisoning is presented where three members of a family, aged between 23 and 66 years, died while having dinner. After analysing the scene and evaluating the personal circumstances there was no doubt that death was due to accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. The fact that three persons of different ages died almost simultaneously as well as the technical reconstruction appears noteworthy to the authors. Scrutiny of the technical circumstances revealed that the waste air containing carbon monoxide was re-routed because of the oppressively hot weather conditions. The fumes from the stove heating in the living room flowed into the chimney and from there via another pipe into the kitchen oven and finally reached the atmosphere of the kitchen where the three members of the family died.     

Influence of Muzzle Instability on Bullet Deflection after Perforating Laminated Particleboards

The influence of muzzle instability on bullet deflection, when perforating laminated particleboards, was studied with three different handgun bullet types. The mean deflection angles of .32 Auto FMJ and .38 Special SJHP bullets were calculated to be 0.90° and 0.83°, respectively after perforating particleboards orthogonally at a 1 m muzzle-to-target distance. The mean angles dropped to 0.70° and 0.58° at a 15 m muzzle-to-target distance. The differences in deflection angles proved to be statistically significant (p < 0.05) with p-values of 0.023 and 0.001, respectively. The mean calculated deflection angles of .38 Special LRN bullets also dropped from 1.51° to 1.38° when the muzzle-to-target distance was increased from 1 to 15 m, but this difference was not significant (p-value of 0.357). The results support the hypothesis that muzzle instability has an influence on deflection. The possible implications for shooting incident reconstructions and for future research are discussed.