An unusual oxidation type on bulb filament after a car crash dive

A car with two dead bodies trapped inside was discovered in a gravel pit. The main hypothesis of investigators was a traffic accident simulation by night. Examination of a broken light-bulb revealed both a rather unusual oxidation type and small rounded cavities never reported before. Tests were performed and allowed forensic scientists to establish that the lightbulbs were switched on during the crash dive, in contrast with the investigators idea.     

全球水资源危机和中国的“水资源外交”

全球水资源危机是人类在二十一世纪面临的一个关键性挑战,它必将给各国社会稳定、整体经济乃至国与国关系带来一系列重大影响。有关国家已开始密切关注水资源匮乏问题及其可能带来的政治、军事影响。对于中国来说,水资源作为一种战略商品,不仅是其国内的热点问题,也是一个地区和国际问题,中国应该通过政治、经济途径推进新的、积极的"水资源外交"。     

Religious decline in the 20th century West: testing alternative explanations

Retrospective questions from recent surveys let us estimate rates of church attendance among children and their parents in ten Western democracies throughout most of the 20th century. We combine these time series with standard sources to test competing theories of religious change. Although our attendance estimates affirm the prevalence of religious decline, our statistical tests offer no support for traditional theories of secularization (which link decline to changes in income, education, industrialization, urbanization, and family life). Nor can we attribute much of the observed decline to growth in the welfare state. But increased school spending by governments does reduce church attendance, and this effect is not the result of greater educational attainment. In shaping the content of schooling, governments may strongly influence long-run religious trends.     

Taxation of non-resident trusts in Canada and taxation of Canadian beneficiaries of non-resident trusts qualified as foreign investment entities

As a general rule, non-resident trusts are not subject to taxin Canada and distributions from Canadian non-resident trustsare not subject to tax in the hands of the Canadian beneficiaries.However, there are exceptions. The purpose of this article isto focus on the new conditions under which a non-resident trustcould be subject to tax in Canada or treated as a foreign investmententity for tax purposes which triggers a Canadian tax liabilityfor the beneficiary.     

Governance of professional sports leagues—Cooperatives versus contracts

Historically, European team sports leagues were run by their respective national and international associations and were legally independent from the professional clubs playing in these leagues. Recently, European leagues have adopted an organizational form similar to their North American counterparts who are organized since their beginning in a cooperative-like manner. Based on a comparative institutional analysis, we explain the advantages of the cooperative form of league organization over contractual governance. With our four-stage game-theoretic model, we show that contractual governance of sports leagues leads to larger investment distortions than cooperative league organization.     

Estimating the shooting distance of a 9-mm Parabellum bullet via ballistic experiment

We demonstrate here how the shooting distance of a 9-mm Parabellum FMJ bullet (115gr) has been estimated via shooting experiments. Such a bullet was found by investigators near a concrete wall, fairly distorted at its tip. The bullet carries no evidence of multiple impact and no evidence of ballistic impact on the wall has been reported. We estimated the impact velocity by comparing the questioned bullet with a set of comparison bullets hitting a wall (rigid target) with different velocities. The shooting distance was recovered from the impact velocity by studying the typical behavior of a manufactured 9 mm bullet weighting 115 g (7.45 g), shot in pistol or a sub-machine gun. The results demonstrated that the questioned bullet was a lost bullet. The shooting distance also helped the investigators, narrowing the range of the estimated positions of the shooter.