Unveiling environmental justice through open government data: Work in progress for most US states

Open government data (OGD) are critical for environmental justice (EJ) policymaking, which is characterized by power and information asymmetries across government agencies, affected populations, and advocacy groups. We contend that not only should state governments provide OGD but also they should remove the burden associated with data access and use it to address the data divide and facilitate the participation of vulnerable populations in policymaking. Applying a user-oriented approach, this article evaluates the completeness, usability, and accessibility of EJ-OGD initiatives across the 50 US states. Results show that only one out of five states achieves at least half points on our EJ-OGD Implementation Score, suggesting that most states do not provide OGD to answer two core EJ questions: “To what extent is my community exposed to environmental harm and health hazards? Is the exposure disproportionately high given my community's socioeconomic characteristics?” We discuss implications for equity and next steps for the government.     

Claiming the Right to Health in Brazilian Courts: The Exclusion of the Already Excluded?

The aim of this article is to test a widespread belief among Brazilian legal scholars in the area of social rights, namely, the claim that courts are an alternative institutional voice for the poor, who are usually marginalized from the political process. According to this belief, social rights litigation would be a means (supposedly “a better means”) of realizing rights such as the right to health care, since supposedly both the wealthy and the poor have equal access to the courts. To probe the consistency of this belief, we analyzed the socioeconomic profiles of plaintiffs in the city of Sao Paulo (Brazil) who were granted access to specific medications or medical treatments by judicial decisions. In this study, the justiciability of social rights has not proven to be a means of rendering certain public services more democratic and accessible.     

Social or political cleavages? A spatial analysis of?the?party system in post-authoritarian Chile

Lipset and Rokkan??s (Party system and voter alignments: cross national perspectives, Lipset and Rokkan eds., New York: Free Press, pp. 1?C64, 1967) sociological model of cleavages and the so-called ??freezing hypothesis?? dominate theorizing about party system formation. Torcal and Mainwaring (Br. J. Polit. Sci. 33:55?C84, 2003) show the relevance of a purely political cleavage for structuring the party system in the case of Chile, challenging the freezing hypothesis??s claims. They also dispute case-specific research that argues Chile??s party system still reflects a ??three-thirds?? division between Left, Right, and Center. Revisiting this debate, our study employs spatial maps of the party system. Such political-economy models are rare in studies of Latin American politics. The application here supports a democratic/authoritarian political cleavage in Chile.     

Occlusion of left and right coronary arteries and coronary sinus following blunt chest trauma

Blunt chest trauma from rapid automobile airbag deployment causing coronary artery occlusion and myocardial infarction is a rare but potentially fatal condition. We present the case of a 37-year-old man who developed extensive anterior and inferior myocardial infarction because of occlusion of both left anterior and right coronary arteries following blunt injury to the chest in a car accident. The patient was scheduled for emergency coronary angiography but left and right coronary ostia were not cannulated because of thrombus formation probably. The patient died, and the autopsy revealed external compression by epicardial hematomas involving separately left and right coronary arteries and the coronary sinus without signs of coronary and/or aortic dissection. To our knowledge, this is the first case presenting occlusion of both coronary arteries secondary to blunt chest trauma causing acute myocardial infarction in a young man without signs of prior coronary artery disease.     

Tests of one Brazilian facial reconstruction method using three soft tissue depth sets and familiar assessors

Facial reconstruction is a method that seeks to recreate a person's facial appearance from his/her skull. This technique can be the last resource used in a forensic investigation, when identification techniques such as DNA analysis, dental records, fingerprints and radiographic comparison cannot be used to identify a body or skeletal remains. To perform facial reconstruction, the data of facial soft tissue thickness are necessary. Scientific literature has described differences in the thickness of facial soft tissue between ethnic groups. There are different databases of soft tissue thickness published in the scientific literature. There are no literature records of facial reconstruction works carried out with data of soft tissues obtained from samples of Brazilian subjects. There are also no reports of digital forensic facial reconstruction performed in Brazil. There are two databases of soft tissue thickness published for the Brazilian population: one obtained from measurements performed in fresh cadavers (fresh cadavers' pattern), and another from measurements using magnetic resonance imaging (Magnetic Resonance pattern). This study aims to perform three different characterized digital forensic facial reconstructions (with hair, eyelashes and eyebrows) of a Brazilian subject (based on an international pattern and two Brazilian patterns for soft facial tissue thickness), and evaluate the digital forensic facial reconstructions comparing them to photos of the individual and other nine subjects. The DICOM data of the Computed Tomography (CT) donated by a volunteer were converted into stereolitography (STL) files and used for the creation of the digital facial reconstructions. Once the three reconstructions were performed, they were compared to photographs of the subject who had the face reconstructed and nine other subjects. Thirty examiners participated in this recognition process. The target subject was recognized by 26.67% of the examiners in the reconstruction performed with the Brazilian Magnetic Resonance Pattern, 23.33% in the reconstruction performed with the Brazilian Fresh Cadavers Pattern and 20.00% in the reconstruction performed with the International Pattern, in which the target-subject was the most recognized subject in the first two patterns. The rate of correct recognitions of the target subject indicate that the digital forensic facial reconstruction, conducted with parameters used in this study, may be a useful tool.     

The Issue of Age Estimation in a Modern Skeletal Population: Are Even the More Modern Current Aging Methods Satisfactory for the Elderly?,

The main idea behind age assessment in adults is related to the analysis of the physiological degeneration of particular skeletal structures with age. The main issues with these procedures are due to the fact that they have not been tested on different modern populations and in different taphonomic contexts and that they tend to underestimate the age of older individuals. The purpose of this study was to test the applicability and the reliability of these methods on a contemporary population of skeletal remains of 145 elderly individuals of known sex and age. The results show that, due to taphonomic influences, some skeletal sites showed a lower survival. Therefore, the methods with the highest percentage of applicability were Lovejoy (89.6%) and Rougé‐Maillart (81.3%), followed by Suchey‐Brooks (59.3%), and those with the lowest percentage of applicability were Beauthier (26.2%) and Iscan (22.7%). In addition, this research has shown how for older adults the study of both acetabulum and auricular surface may be more reliable for aging. This is also in accordance with the fact that auricular surface and the acetabulum are the areas more frequently surviving taphonomic insult.     

The Frontal Sinus Cavity Exhibits Sexual Dimorphism in 3D Cone‐beam CT Images and can be Used for Sex Determination

Few studies have assessed the use of the frontal sinus cavities for sex differentiation. In this study, a new methodology was used to assess the reliability of CBCT images of the frontal sinus cavity for determining sex based on the sexual dimorphism found in this anatomical structure. The survey sample consisted of 130 scans that were reconstructed three‐dimensionally. 3D images of the cavity volume in the frontal, lateral, and basal views were exported in TIFF. The following variables were measured in a second program: area, perimeter, bounding rectangle, ellipse fit, circularity, aspect ratio, roundness, solidity, and Feret's diameter. The methodology demonstrated the existence of sexual dimorphism with an accuracy of 80.0% in the logistic regression model. The basal view had the greatest explanatory power in the final model. This methodology may be used as an alternative way of determining a reliable biological profile during the analysis of skeletal remains.     

One-step liquid-liquid extraction of cocaine from urine samples for gas chromatographic analysis

An improved technique for cocaine extraction from urine samples for gas chromatographic (GC) analysis is described. Employing a simple liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) of cocaine with a mixture of ethyl ether:isopropanol (9:1) the method presents a mean recovery of 74.49%. Limit of detection (LOD) and limit of quantification (LOQ) were 5 and 20 ng/ml, respectively. The method is highly precise (coefficient of variation (CV) <8%) and linear from 20 to 2000 ng/ml. It can he applied to detect the presence of cocaine in urine as a marker of its recent use in drug abuse treatment protocols.     

Population genetics of eleven STR loci in the State of Sergipe, Northeastern Brazil

POPULATION: Over 259 unrelated individuals from the State of Sergipe (Northeastern Brazil).