Revealed preferences of a state bureau: Case of New Mexico's underground storage tank program

Leaking underground storage tanks (USTs) are a pervasive national environmental problem. Cleanup of leaking USTs is largely publicly financed and under the control of state agencies. In the transition to new compliance standards, individual states have taken advantage of provisions in federal regulations to implement their own programs. This raises the policy question of environmental federalism and the appropriate locus of government control. The objectives of this study are to examine the revealed preferences of a state UST bureau. New Mexico was one of the first state programs to use risk assessments in setting funding priorities. We analyze the statistical determinants of funding decisions and find strong evidence that risk information is used. Although our case study provides a measure of support for state control, the argument is strengthened if public financing is limited to the cleanup of historical pollution, rather than a means for providing insurance for prospective pollution. ©1999 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Aconitum alkaloid content and the high toxicity of aconite tincture

Although proprietary medicines and decoction of processed aconite roots are the most widely used, tincture accounts for the great majority of aconite poisoning cases in China, indicating that it is much more toxic than other formulations. Aconite tincture is often self-prepared at home and raw aconite plants or roots are often used. Even if processed aconite roots were used to make the tincture, the amount of Aconitum alkaloids is highly variable, depending on the adequacy of processing and quality control. Aconitum alkaloids dissolve efficiently in alcohol. For these reasons, tincture contains very high concentrations of Aconitum alkaloids. Despite its high intrinsic toxicity, overdose of aconite tincture by the users has been common. Severe aconite poisoning can be complicated by fatal ventricular tachyarrhythmias and asystole. The public should be repeatedly warned of the danger of taking aconite tincture by mouth.     

Police chiefs’ and students’ attitudes about the Miranda warnings

Several studies had concluded that the police subculture holds values and attitudes that are distinct from the rest of the population. Among these values is a focus on law and order. While researchers agree that police tend to hold different values, they disagree on the source of the attitudes. Some had argued that the attitudes reflected differences regarding who was recruited for law enforcement careers while others said that the differences reflected changes that occurred to individuals after becoming officers. This study examined whether police officers and students enrolled in criminal justice/sociology classes held similar or different attitudes towards the Miranda warnings. The findings suggested that in some ways, the two groups perceived the warnings in dramatically different ways, while in other ways their differences were simply a matter of degree. Implications are provided.     

Soilwater Conductivity Analysis to Date and Locate Clandestine Graves of Homicide Victims

In homicide investigations, it is critically important that postmortem interval and postburial interval (PBI) of buried victims are determined accurately. However, clandestine graves can be difficult to locate; and the detection rates for a variety of search methods (ranging from simple ground probing through to remote imaging and near‐surface geophysics) can be very low. In this study, simulated graves of homicide victims were emplaced in three sites with contrasting soil types, bedrock, and depositional environments. The long‐term monthly in situ monitoring of grave soil water revealed rapid increases in conductivity up to 2 years after burial, with the longest study evidencing declining values to background levels after 4.25 years. Results were corrected for site temperatures and rainfall to produce generic models of fluid conductivity as a function of time. The research suggests soilwater conductivity can give reliable PBI estimates for clandestine burials and therefore be used as a grave detection method.     

Civil Liberties and the Korean War

This article addresses the unsuccessful attempts to suppress free speech during the Korean War, and in particular explains the attempts to silence three reporters of alleged atrocities by United Nations forces. In the absence of carefully targeted legislation, the three individuals – Alan Winnington (a journalist), Monica Felton (a women's movement activist) and Jack Gaster (a solicitor) ‐ were threatened with or investigated for prosecution for treason or sedition, and Winnington was unable to renew his passport until 1968. Drawing heavily on archival sources (including MI5 files, which unusually fail to redact the identity of one of the lawyers who was reporting to Special Branch about Gaster's activities), the article explores the threat to civil liberties from the administrative as well as the legislative and the judicial power of the state. The article concludes by drawing contemporary parallels, and highlighting the continuing relevance of the writings of Winnington, Felton and Gaster.     

(Non‐)Enforcement of Directors’ Duties in Corporate Groups: Goh Chan Peng v Beyonics Technology Ltd

Corporate groups, a ubiquitous feature of modern business, pose formidable challenges for common law courts relying on traditional corporate law doctrine. Arising out of a corporate group's recent bid to recover millions of dollars in lost profits from a former director and CEO who had diverted a core business, Goh Chan Peng v Beyonics Technology Ltd raised thorny issues of separate legal entity doctrine, single economic unit theory, and reflective loss shared by common law legal systems. Despite finding that the defendant had breached his duties to the ultimate holding company, the Singapore Court of Appeal absolved the faithless director from most of his liabilities, relying on limited domestic precedent to the exclusion of a rich body of Commonwealth jurisprudence – including the House of Lords’ landmark Johnson v Gore Wood decision. This note explores the paths not taken by the court, and highlights the pitfalls of a narrow, autochthonous approach to problems of common law doctrine.