Veldt fires in South Africa: Implications on osteometry and the biological profile

Standard operating procedures for forensic anthropological analyses dictate that thermally altered remains should not be measured, hindering the creation of a biological profile. Few studies have addressed estimating biological parameters from burned remains, with the greatest focus of this research area being on cremated remains. However, veldt fires are more common than cremation in the South African forensic context. The aim of this study was to explore the degree of structural changes observed in domestic pig (Sus scrofa) bones associated with thermal destruction and the potential impact on the estimation of a biological profile using standard osteometric methods. A total of 96 pig femora were divided equally into two categories: fresh and dry. Within each category, equal samples were exposed to different durations of burning, namely, 5, 10, and 20 min. Ten standard femoral anthropological measurements were collected before and after burning. Technical error of measurement and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were used to assess changes in the femoral dimensions before and after burning. Most measurements were significantly different after burning, with the fresh bones decreasing in size by up to 7.8% and the dry bones decreasing in size by up to 4.0%. The magnitude of post-burning measurement changes for both burn conditions was similar to, or smaller than has previously been reported for observer measurement errors of commonly used variables investigated for standard osteometric studies. Veldt fires are less intense than cremation, thus causing less shrinkage.     

The Institutionalised Participation of Management and Labour in the Legislative Activities of the European Community: A Challenge to the Principle of Democracy under Community Law

The legislative procedure established by Articles 138-139 of the Amsterdam Treaty is sensitive with regard to democratic prerequisites, but does not, in the final analysis, breach the formal principle of democracy established under Community law. Although the establishment of a parliamentary right of consultation is desirable, sufficient democratic legitimation is nonetheless supplied by virtue of Council and Commission participation within the legislative procedure and by their unlimited right to examine and reject substantive provisions designed by management and labour. By the same measure, the participation of management and labour in the Articles 138-139 legislative process is not of itself sufficient to create democratic legitimation. However, although management and labour organisations might never claim to represent the public of Europe as a whole, they can contribute to the 'substantive' legitimacy of European social law-making where they are adequately representative of persons and groups affected by EC legislative acts and take positive steps to ensure that the interests of such persons are reflected in secondary EC law. Accordingly, the Commission and the Council should review the representative nature of organisations engaged in European social law-making, paying particular attention to under-represented interests and, if necessary, should also make use of their right of rejection where privately negotiated agreements neglect these interests.     

Female criminals—It's not always the offender!

Numerous crimes (including murder), all having a common denominator, occurred in Germany and Austria between 1993 and 2009. All of these cases presented with identical female DNA traces being found at the crime scene. The crimes committed differed markedly, as did the suspects involved, which were of varied origin. Many of these cases could be solved. However, none of the suspects could identify an involved female. Fourteen of these cases (including one murder) occurred in Upper Austria.A special task force of the Austrian police, together with the Institute of Legal Medicine in Salzburg, began systematically searching for errors in the investigative process after the cases became more and more incoherent and nebulous. In the end, the DNA trace evidence was shown to be contaminated. A woman involved in the manufacture of the cotton swabs turned out to be the source of the female DNA profile.Following this, several products of other manufacturers were tested for contamination with DNA. It was noted that cotton swabs which had been sterilised with radiation were often contaminated. As a result, it is recommended that the manufacturing process, as well as the products themselves used in collection of DNA trace evidence, should be re-evaluated with the emphasis on preventing contamination.     

Rebels in Northern Uganda after their return to civilian life: between a strong we-image and experiences of isolation and discrimination

This article is based on biographical interviews and field research carried out in two adjacent regions of northern Uganda on local peace and post-war processes. It focuses on the situation of former rebel fighters following their return to civilian life. In the case of Acholiland, these are primarily former “child soldiers” of the so-called Lord’s Resistance Army who were recruited by violent abduction; in West Nile they are primarily men who more or less voluntarily joined local rebel groups as adults. The following questions were investigated: How do rebels who have returned from the “bush” speak about their past and their present? What discourses do they confront within the groupings, or we-groups, to which they are regarded as belonging and whose collective knowledge they refer to? What is the nature of their present situation and how can it be socio- and psychogenetically explained and interpreted?     

Trade at the margin: Estimating the economic implications of preferential trade agreements

Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs) have become the most prevalent form of international trade liberalization in recent decades, even though it remains far from clear what their effects on economies and their key units, firms, are. This paper evaluates the distributional consequences of trade liberalization within industries differentiating two distinct aspects in which trade liberalization could result in higher trade flows: the intensive vs. the extensive margin of trade. In particular, we analyze whether trade liberalization leads to increased trade flows because either firms trade more volume in products they have already traded before (intensive margin) or because they start to trade products they have not traded previously (extensive margin), or both. We test these arguments for the Dominican Republic–Central America–United States Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA-DR) and exporting firms based in Costa Rica for the time-period 2008–2014. The results of our study suggest that the effects of CAFTA-DR depend not only on whether we analyze the extensive versus the intensive margin of trade but also whether the product in question is homogenous or differentiated and whether the exporting firm under analysis is small or large. In particular, we find support for the theoretical expectation that firms exporting heterogeneous products, such as textiles, gain from trade agreements, such as CAFTA-DR, in that they can export more varieties of their products. Yet at the same time, they tend to lose at the intensive margin by a reduction in their trade volume while the opposite pattern occurs for firms exporting homogenous products.     

The ‘Ins’ and ‘Outs’ of Women’s/Gender Studies: a response to reports of its demise in 2008

In the spring of 2008, fuelled by the impending demise of the undergraduate Women’s/Gender Studies programme at London Metropolitan University, a series of public statements proclaimed the death of Women’s/Gender Studies. This article constitutes a response to these statements. Taking a broadly European view of the state of Women’s/Gender Studies, it argues that the discipline has established a research infrastructure, mainstreamed its undergraduate curricula and its pedagogical underpinnings, and continues to attract research funding and significant numbers of postgraduate students. It finally suggests that the ‘fate’ of disciplines is not teleological but iterative.     

Reasoning in Life: Values and Normativity in Georges Canguilhem

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique - This paper aims at giving an account of the philosophy of norms of Georges Canguilhem in the...     

Ambidexterity,external knowledge and performance in knowledge-intensive firms

The paper investigates the relationship between organizational ambidexterity and firm performance in knowledge-intensive firms. In particular, using a quantitative methodology involving a structural equation model, the research investigates whether external knowledge sourcing enhances the impact of ambidexterity on firm performance. The results show that organizational ambidexterity in knowledge-intensive firms does not, in fact, have a significant impact on firm performance, but it does have a positive and significant mediating effect considering external knowledge sourcing. The findings are presented along with interesting and significant implications for both theory and practice, largely stemming from the still much neglected relationship between organizational ambidexterity and external knowledge sourcing in the open innovation context.     

Is there a “Depth versus Participation” dilemma in international cooperation?

Much of the International Relations literature assumes that there is a “depth versus participation” dilemma in international politics: shallower international agreements attract more countries and greater depth is associated with less participation. We argue that this conjecture is too simple and probably misleading because the depth of any given cooperative effort is in fact multidimensional. This multidimensionality manifests itself in the design characteristics of international agreements: in particular, the specificity of obligations, monitoring and enforcement mechanisms, dispute settlement mechanisms, positive incentives (assistance), and organizational structures (secretariats). We theorize that the first three of these design characteristics have negative and the latter three have positive effects on participation in international cooperative efforts. Our empirical testing of these claims relies on a dataset that covers more than 200 global environmental treaties. We find a participation-limiting effect for the specificity of obligations, but not for monitoring and enforcement. In contrast, we observe that assistance provisions in treaties have a significant and substantial positive effect on participation. Similarly, dispute settlement mechanisms tend to promote treaty participation. The main implication of our study is that countries do not appear to stay away from agreements with monitoring and enforcement provisions, but that the inclusion of positive incentives and dispute settlement mechanisms can promote international cooperation. In other words, our findings suggest that policymakers do not necessarily need to water down global treaties in order to obtain more participation.