Pulmonary Cement Embolism After Kyphoplasty

Pulmonary polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) cement embolism after kyphoplasty (KP) surgery is a quite frequent event as well as the pulmonary embolization of central venous catheter fragment. This report shows the case of a subject who, after KP, developed pulmonary embolism and who underwent thoracic surgery. After hospital discharge, the subject advanced a claim for damages toward the hospital where he was operated, complaining sensation of tenderness at the chest surgical scar and esthetic damage. To understand the nature of the embolism (either central venous catheter fragment or cement), chemical investigations were then ordered. Spectrometry identified the PMMA cement used for KP. When doubts rise about the origin of the embolized material, chemical investigations may reveal important data not only for clinical but also for forensic purposes.     

Mental Capacity in Patients Involuntarily or Voluntarily Receiving Psychiatric Treatment for an Acute Mental Disorder

Despite the growing amount of data, much information is needed on patients' mental capacity to consent to psychiatric treatment for acute mental disorders. The present study was undertaken to compare differences in capacity to consent to psychiatric treatment in patients treated voluntarily and involuntarily and to investigate the role of psychiatric symptoms, competency, and cognitive functioning in determining voluntariness of hospital admission. Involuntary patients were interviewed with the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT‐T), the 24‐item Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS), the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and the Raven's Colored Progressive Matrices, and their data were compared with those for age‐ and sex‐matched voluntary patients. Involuntary patients performed worse in all MacCAT‐T subscales. Capacity to consent to treatment varied widely within each group. Overall, involuntary patients have worse consent‐related mental capacity than those treated voluntarily, despite capacity to consent to treatment showing a significant variability in both groups.     

The Performance of Nursery Schools in Italian Municipalities

In a neo-liberal approach, the need to increase levels of cost saving, effectiveness, and quality in producing local public services is correlated to awareness of the limited resources available and is an economic issue that has been much debated in recent decades. Ways of measuring and evaluating public services have stimulated academic interest for several years now. In this context, evaluating the levels of performance of public services provided by non-profit organizations (NPOs) as a consequence of contracting-out by public administration is an essential variable in rationalizing—both in terms of quantity and quality—public expenditure.

The aim of this article is to measure multi-dimensional aspects of nursery school services offered by Italian municipalities and to verify whether using different management models makes a difference in the results obtained. We examine data contained in final accounts of main Italian municipalities in order to evaluate effectiveness, cost saving, and quality aspects of the nursery school service supplied.

Regarding overall performance, the distinction between direct management and contracting-out has not brought out significant differences in terms of effectiveness and cost saving, even if the direct management solution is better than the externalized one. By contrast, as previous research showed, quality levels for externalized services are on average lower than for directly managed services.     

Italy and the new international economic order

In order to make it more effective as an actor on the international scene, the European Union is being urged to reverse its foreign policy priorities. EU enlargement policy has fallen out of grace and many want to see Europe acquire a “normal” foreign policy with a global rather than merely regional reach, significant military means and centralised governance. Management of various conflicts in Africa and Asia is also in vogue. Such a policy shift will define the nature of Europe's actorness. It is argued that, with all its defects, the EU performs quite well as a civilian regional power and efforts to transform it into a traditional military power with a global reach could make things worse rather than better.     

Suburbia’s “Crime Experts”: The Neo-Conservatism of Control Theory and the Ethos of Crime

This essay tackles the relationship between morality and crime by way of the debate surrounding Travis Hirschi’s double contribution to so-called “control theory,” first as “social bonding theory,” and subsequently as a “general theory” of crime. The assessment conducted herein construes the first version of “control” as an expression of patriotism, and its late formulation, on account of its emphasis on varying individual levels of self-mastery, as an implicit reaffirmation of the inevitability of class division. Over the years, the fixation with “self-control” has become a rubric for the suburban anxieties of an upper-middle class surrounded by expanding (ghetto) poverty and plagued by familial dysfunction and the alienation of its own offspring. In the final analysis, these reflections form the basis for a general reformulation, inspired by the sociology of Thorstein Veblen, of the relationship between class and crime and condign punishment by leveraging the notion of ethos (a common mindset peculiar to each class), and proving thereby that crime is systematically determined by this very mindset, which is the spiritual complement to class formation, rather than by the conventionally classless categories of rational self-interest or idiosyncratic proneness to violence.     

Transaction Costs,Information Technologies,and the Choice of Marketplace among Farmers in Northern Ghana

Abstract

Using a transactions costs framework, we examine the impact of information and communication technologies (mobile phones and radios) use on market participation in developing country agricultural markets using a novel transaction-level data set of Ghanaian farmers. Our analysis of the choice of markets by farmers suggests that market information from a broader range of markets may not always induce farmers to sell in more distant markets; instead farmers may use broader market information to enhance their bargaining power in closer markets. Finally, we find weak evidence on the impact of using mobile phones in attracting farm gate buyers.     

Two Critical Passages on the Road to Mercosur

This article challenges two traditional interpretations of the genesis of Mercosur. First, the literature is evenly divided among those who trace back the beginning of the process to the military administrations of Brazil and Argentina, and those who entirely credit their newly democratic administrations. By contrast, this paper argues that integration was initially discussed in a situation of regime asymmetry, Argentina having already returned to democracy and Brazil being still in the final stage of transition. Second, the creation of the common market is generally associated with the 1988 Treaty of Integration signed by Presidents Alfonsín and Sarney of Argentina and Brazil, respectively, while Presidents Menem and Collor are deemed to have simply reduced the period for its implementation from ten to five years. By contrast, this article suggests that in 1988 the project of a common market was still just an aspiration and that in fact that treaty only established a free trade area, its actual progression into a common market being undertaken by the latter two leaders. The first argument tempers the democratic mysticism surrounding integration, the second suggests a partial rehabilitation of the now discredited neoliberal presidents.