Ökonomisches Kapital der Eltern und Medizinstudium im Ausland. Wie Europäisierungs- und Globalisierungsprozesse die Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheiten verändern

The fact that university degrees are accepted throughout Europe has led to the founding of medical faculties, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, that offer medical studies in German or English and thus attracting students from richer Western European countries like Germany. Unlike medical studies in Germany, access to these foreign universities is not dependent on the final school exam grade, but on the ability to pay high tuition fees. The article compares the social class background of medicine students in Germany with German medicine students in Hungary. The analysis shows that the percentage of medicine students who come from higher social classes is even higher in Hungary than it already is in Germany. Studying medicine in Hungary primarily serves as an immediate reproduction of the parents’ profession as many of German medicine students in Hungary have a parent who belongs to the medical profession. The case of German students studying medicine abroad illustrates how Europeanization and Globalization have changed the reproduction of social inequalities; upper classes profit most from the new opportunities.     

Konsekrationsinstanzen im digitalen Wandel – Beiträge zur Erweiterung des feldanalytischen Forschungsprogramms am Beispiel populärer Musik

The article has two objectives: First, pursuant to the recent papers on a “sociology of (e)valuation,” an extension of Bourdieusian field theory will be presented, which reacts to three problems with this theory that were expressed in the critical reception: the immanent tendency to emphasize reproduction more strongly than transformation; the disregarding of technology; and the simple dualism of cultural and economic logic. To begin with, a dynamization of the research program will be undertaken, in that fault lines and transformation dynamics will be revealed that could lead to the invalidation of Pierre Bourdieu’s strict homological assumptions. Following up on that, it will be shown how technology, which was neglected by Bourdieu, can become an (external) factor that causes fundamental changes in fields. Finally, in connection with Jörn Lamla’s reflections on “cultural capitalism” and through a differentiation of the concept of the instance of consecration, a level of analysis will be specified on which the transformation dynamics under discussion can be observed. Secondly, the successful integration of technology in new forms of consecration in the field of pop music will be examined. On the basis of the reaction of classical pop-music journalism to the new value assignment instances that have arisen through digitalization, it can be shown that the challenge arising from new forms of consecration results in negotiatory processes in the field of pop music journalism in which various repositionings in the relationship of cultural and economic logics appear.     

Contribution of Antemortem Computed Tomography Findings to Cause of Death Determination: An Unusual Fatal Stroke

In the case reported here, the antemortem computed tomography scan (CT scan) was essential in the forensic investigation. A 32‐year‐old man was found fully awake with a facial abrasion, after what seemed to be a car accident. He lost consciousness suddenly one hour after initial management. Successive CT scan showed a facial fracture and a metallic foreign body in the carotid canal associated with an occlusion/dissection of the left internal carotid, a pseudoaneurysm, and a carotid‐cavernous fistula. The victim died from a stroke. Autopsy confirmed that the facial abrasion was a gunshot entrance wound, the metallic foreign body being a projectile. Intracranial vascular injuries linked with gunshot wounds are most of the time isolated and due to pelet embolism. The observed vascular injury association has never been described in the existing literature. The CT scan provided a better understanding of the chronology of events that led to death.     

An Accelerated Analytical Process for the Development of STR Profiles for Casework Samples

Significant efforts are being devoted to the development of methods enabling rapid generation of short tandem repeat (STR) profiles in order to reduce turnaround times for the delivery of human identification results from biological evidence. Some of the proposed solutions are still costly and low throughput. This study describes the optimization of an analytical process enabling the generation of complete STR profiles (single‐source or mixed profiles) for human identification in approximately 5 h. This accelerated process uses currently available reagents and standard laboratory equipment. It includes a 30‐min lysis step, a 27‐min DNA extraction using the Promega Maxwell^®16 System, DNA quantification in <1 h using the Qiagen Investigator^® Quantiplex HYres kit, fast amplification (<26 min) of the loci included in AmpF?STR^® Identifiler^®, and analysis of the profiles on the 3500‐series Genetic Analyzer. This combination of fast individual steps produces high‐quality profiling results and offers a cost‐effective alternative approach to rapid DNA analysis.     

For fear of popular politics? Public attention and the delegation of authority to the United States executive branch

Legislators are thought to delegate policymaking authority to administrative actors either to avoid blame for controversial policy or to secure policy outcomes. This study tests these competing perspectives and establishes that public attention to policymaking is a powerful predictor of the extent to which significant United States statutes delegate authority to the executive branch. Consistent with the policy‐concerns perspective, by one calculation statutes dealing with high‐attention issues entail 48 percent fewer delegating provisions than statutes dealing with low‐attention issues – a far stronger relationship than is typically found in the delegation literature. As per the blame‐avoidance perspective, a number of additional analyses yield results consistent with the notion that fears about future public attention motivate statutory delegation if legislative conflict is sufficiently great. Overall, however, the results suggest that conflict typically is not sufficiently great and that legislators are generally more inclined to limit statutory delegation when the public is paying attention.