Fatal intoxication by dextromethorphan: a report on two cases

A report is given of two young people who died after intake of dextromethorphan, one by suicide and the other for uncertain reasons. To our knowledge this is the first reported fatal intoxications with this drug.     

Creatine phosphokinase in serum and cerebrospinal fluid, and microscopic findings in brain and heart in hypothermic rabbits

Signs of hypothermia injury were studied in rabbits cooled to a core temperature of 30 degrees C by immersion in ice water and thereafter rewarmed to 35 degrees C. Anaesthetized control rabbits were kept normothermic (37 degrees C) for a corresponding time (4 h). Creatine phosphokinase (CPK) activity increased 24 h after hypothermia to 20-fold in serum. In cerebrospinal fluid the activity was already significantly (5-fold) increased after hypothermia and was still as high at 24 h. Smaller increase was also found in the control normothermic rabbits both in serum (10-fold) and cerebrospinal fluid (2-fold). The values had returned to the initial level after 1 week. Small haemorrhages were observed in the brain at 24 h and slight scarring was seen in the myocardium of some rabbits which had lived 4 weeks following hypothermia. The results indicate that CPK can be a useful marker in the diagnostics of hypothermia death, especially in cerebrospinal fluid, which is less affected than blood by autolysis.     

Epidemiology of Suicide Attempts among Youth Transitioning to Adulthood

Suicide is the second leading cause of death for older adolescents and young adults. Although empirical literature has identified important risk factors of suicidal behavior, it is less understood if changes in risk factors correspond with changes in suicide risk. To address this knowledge gap, we assessed if there were different trajectories of suicidal behavior as youth transition into young adulthood and determined what time-varying risk factors predicted these trajectories. This study used four waves of data spanning approximately 13 years from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. The sample included 9027 respondents who were 12–18 years old (M?=?15.26; SD?=?1.76) at Wave 1, 50% male, 17% Hispanic, and 58% White. The results indicated that 93.6% of the sample had a low likelihood for suicide attempts across time, 5.1% had an elevated likelihood of attempting suicide in adolescence but not young adulthood, and 1.3% had an elevated likelihood of attempting suicide during adolescence and adulthood. The likelihood of a suicide attempt corresponded with changes on depression, impulsivity, delinquency, alcohol problems, family and friend suicide history, and experience with partner violence. Determining how suicide risk changes as youth transition into young adulthood and what factors predict these changes can help prevent suicide. Interventions targeting these risk factors could lead to reductions in suicide attempts.     

Can Tourism Promote Inclusive Growth? Supply Chains,Ownership and Employment in Ha Long Bay,Vietnam

Inclusive growth is contested yet adopted by the World Bank to reduce poverty and inequality through rapid economic growth. Research has tested inclusive growth in sectors including agriculture, but few studies apply it to tourism which is significant for many developing countries. The paper interrogates tourism-led inclusive growth: supply chains, economic linkages/leakage, ownership, employment and expenditure. It draws from fieldwork in Vietnam where tourism has rapidly developed with partial economic benefits for local communities, but does not appear to fall within the inclusive growth paradigm. It is unclear if tourism-led growth will become any more inclusive in the short-to-medium term.     

Five Challenges to Legalizing Economic and Social Rights

In recent years, dozens of human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) across the globe have begun to advocate for economic and social rights, which represents a significant expansion of the human rights movement. This article investigates a central strategy that NGOs have pursued to realize these rights: legalization. Legalization involves specifying rights as valid legal rules and enforcing them through judicial or quasi-judicial processes. After documenting some of the progress made toward legalization, the article analyzes five unique challenges involved in legalizing economic and social rights. It is important to identify these challenges because they must be overcome if the human rights movement wishes to refute the notion that economic and social rights are inherently non-justiciable (and therefore, to some, invalid as rights). These challenges also point to the possibility that legalization is not the only, or even the best, strategic pathway to realize economic and social rights effectively.

Commentary on the Newly Published White Paper Concerning the Rule of Law in China

On February 28, 2008, the State Council Information Office published a white paper entitled China＇s Efforts and Achievements in Promoting the Rule of Law. This document is the first white paper published by the government on China＇s rule of law. It contains eight chapters and six appendices to review China＇s achievements on the road to practicing the rule of law in a compre- hensive way, and to expound the official Chinese policy and position on this is- sue. With some essential points inside, the publication of this white paper is of great significance, especially this year, to China＇s rule of law, human rights prog- ress, and its communication and dialogue with the international community.     

Identifying Trajectories of Adolescents’ Depressive Phenomena: An Examination of Early Risk Factors

Few studies have examined risk factors of childhood and early adolescent depressive symptomatology trajectories. This study examined self-report depressive symptomatology across a 6-year time period from 2nd to 8th grade to identify latent groups of individuals with similar patterns of depressive phenomena in a sample of 951 children (440 girls, 511 boys). Analyses, using semiparametric group modeling (SGM), identified 5 trajectory groups for girls and boys: low depressed stables, low depressed risers, mildly depressed stables, moderately depressed changers, and moderately depressed risers. Individual risk factors, with the exception of shy/withdrawn behavior, were significantly different across trajectory group membership for boys and girls, as was low-income status for boys. Boys in the low depressed and mildly depressed stable trajectory groups had significantly higher levels of antisocial behavior, attention problems, and lower social competency compared to girls in similar groups. These results suggest that universal prevention programs implemented in early elementary school that target selected risk factors may be helpful in reducing future adolescent mental health problems, specifically depressive symptomatology.     

The Five Cs Model of Positive Youth Development: A Longitudinal Analysis of Confirmatory Factor Structure and Measurement Invariance

The understanding of positive development across adolescence rests on having a valid and equivalent measure of this construct across the breadth of this period of life. Does the Positive Youth Development (PYD) construct based on the Five Cs model have satisfactory psychometric properties for such longitudinal measurement invariance? Using longitudinal data derived from the 4-H Study of PYD, we assessed 920 youth (61.6% female) from a racially and ethically diverse sample (67.3% European American) who participated in three waves (Grades 8–10) of data collection. Building on prior findings that the Five Cs (i.e., Competence, Confidence, Connection, Character, and Caring) model of PYD was a robust measure that could be assessed comparably during early adolescence, we tested a hierarchy of second-order confirmatory factor analysis models to assess the extent to which PYD can be measured equivalently across middle adolescence. Evidence was found for strict measurement invariance across three measurement occasions, including equivalence of first-order and second-order factor loadings, equality of intercepts of observed variables, and equality of item uniqueness and disturbances of the first-order factors. These results suggest that PYD can be measured in the same way across measurement occasions, a prerequisite for the study of development. Implications for research and application of being able to measure PYD equivalently across adolescence are discussed.     

从德国统一进程看德国及柏林的国际法律地位

从国家法角度看,德意志帝国没有由于德国在第二次世界大战中战败而消亡。作为平等的国际法律主体,联邦德国与民主德国于1973年同时被联合国接纳,获得国际社会的承认。联邦宪法法院认为,在1990年两德统一之前,联邦德国与德意志帝国在国际法上的主体身份是一致的。1990年10月民主德国根据《基本法》第23条加入联邦德国之后,联邦德国成为整个德国在国际社会中的惟一代表。对于德国的法律地位和柏林曾一度拥有的相对特殊的地位,关、英、法、苏四国的行动具有决定性影响。     

Can We Make Accurate Long-term Predictions About Patterns of De-escalation in Offending Behavior?

This study consists of a comparative analysis of patterns of de-escalation between ages 17–18 and 32, based on data from two well-known prospective longitudinal studies, the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development (a study of 411 working-class males in London) and the Montreal Two Samples Longitudinal Study (a sample of 470 adjudicated French-Canadian males). Analyses focus on within-individual change, with individuals serving as their own controls. In this regard, the magnitude of measured change is relative to the past degree of involvement in offending. These results are contrasted with predictors of between-individual differences in offending behavior at age 32. We investigate the respective roles of cognitive predispositions and social bonds in the prediction of patterns of de-escalation, and assess whether it is possible to make relatively long-term predictions (over a 15-year period) about offending in adulthood. Findings suggest that traditional measures of social bonds and cognitive predispositions measured at age 17–18 are generally weak predictors of de-escalation up to age 32. However, these measures are stronger predictors of between-individual differences in offending gravity. These findings highlight the difficulties in making accurate long-term predictions about changes in individual offending patterns early in the criminal career.