Free Fatty Acids Composition in Adipocere of the Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchí Ancient Remains Found in a Glacier*

Abstract: Adipocere is a postmortem decomposition product consisting of mostly a mixture of free fatty acids (FFAs) that are formed because of the hydrolysis of triglycerides in adipose tissues. This article describes a simple and robust method for the extraction, identification, and quantification of FFA commonly found in adipocere using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS). This method was applied to analyze tissues from Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchí, ancient remains discovered in a retreating glacier in the Tatshenshini‐Alsek Park, British Columbia, Canada in August 1999. The lyophilized tissues were grinded and extracted with hexane. The trimethylsilyl fatty acid derivatives were analyzed by GC/MS, and the relative abundances of myristic acid, palmitic acid, oleic acid, and stearic acid were determined. Milligram per gram levels of saturated fatty acids were found in the tissues of the ancient remains, while the levels of unsaturated fatty acids, such as palmitoleic acid, were found to be negligible. The results provided further evidence of the existence of adipocere found during forensic examination of the Kwäday Dän Ts’ìnchí ancient remains.     

常见嗜尸性甲虫及蝇类虫体不同部位mtDNA的提取效果

目的探讨改良后十六烷基三甲基溴化铵(cetyltriethylammnonium bromide,CTAB)法对常见嗜尸性昆虫虫体不同部位mtDNA的提取效果。方法随机采集放置在呼和浩特地区室外草地家兔尸体上丽蝇科的丝光绿蝇[Lucilia sericata(Meigen)]、埋葬甲科的Nicrophorus fossor(Erichson)各13例,采用改良CTAB法分别提取每只昆虫头部、胸肌、腿部、翅膀4个部位的mtDNA,核酸蛋白测定仪检测DNA纯度及质量浓度,琼脂糖凝胶电泳检测其PCR产物,测定PCR产物序列,上传GenBank。结果 13例丝光绿蝇[Lu-cilia sericata(Meigen)]的胸肌均提取到了DNA,10例头部样本、6例腿部样本、4例翅膀样本得到DNA;13例Nicrophorus fossor(Erichson)胸肌DNA均提取成功,5例头部样本、8例腿部样本及3例翅膀样本提取出DNA。结论改良CTAB法可用于对嗜尸性昆虫胸肌及其他部位进行DNA的提取。     

神经伦理学:检验与僭越普遍与相对主义伦理的新进路

随着神经科学研究方法的突破,伦理学研究范式诉求的高涨,神经伦理学作为伦理学与认知神经科学的重要交叉学科正在迅速兴起和逐渐成熟。它超越了传统伦理学的抽象人性论基础,突破了思辨例举论证思路,借助认知神经科学的先进技术,从脑神经生理方面寻找证据,成功解决了传统伦理学中的诸多争论,巧妙化解了传统伦理学中的诸多难题和争论。未来的神经伦理学一方面需加强神经科学家与伦理工作者之间的有效合作;另一方面要积极强化学科内"科学家-实践者"的素养训练。     

Where the homeless come from: A study of the prior address distribution of families admitted to public shelters in New York City and Philadelphia

Abstract

This study investigates hypotheses regarding the association of census tract variables with the risk for homelessness. We used prior address information reported by families entering emergency shelters in two large U.S. cities to characterize the nature ofthat distribution.

Three dense clusters of homeless origins were found in Philadelphia and three in New York City, accounting for 67 percent and 61 percent of shelter admissions and revealing that homeless families’ prior addresses are more highly concentrated than the poverty distribution in both cities. The rate of shelter admission is strongly and positively related to the concentration of poor, African‐American, and female‐headed households with young children in a neighborhood. It is also correlated with fewer youth, elderly, and immigrants. Such areas have higher rates of unemployment and labor force nonpartici‐pation, more housing crowding, more abandonment, higher rates of vacancy, and higher rent‐to‐income ratios than other areas.     

社会公正与以德化民

道德教化与社会公正相辅相成,社会公正是社会主义公民道德教化的本质体现,也是建构高尚的公民道德的基本保障;以德化民有利于促进社会公正的实现。因此,实现社会公正是党和政府的重要任务。我们应该着重从党、国家、政府和社会等多个层面加强营造社会公正的氛围,从而为实现以德化民打下坚实的基础。     

Crime prevention strategies by the United Nations: A global perspective

Most of the studies on crime show that no society is immune from crime and organized crime. Large or small, complex or simple, developed or underdeveloped, every society faces the task of controlling crime and organized crime. Furthermore, recent events reveal that the so‐called ‘'domestic crime'’ has become more globalized, or internationalized. Unless dramatic changes take place, collectively, e.g., by the United Nations, no single nation can expect to control or regulate illegal activities. In particular, crime prevention and criminal justice has been a long standing agenda item of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council; the two principal legislative bodies governing the United Nations program of work in the criminal justice field. The Council is, after the Assembly itself, the major legislative and policy‐making organ of the United Nations. The field of criminal justice is an important component of social and economic affair, the Economic and Social Council determines policy and initiates activities. Within the United Nations system, the most direct responsibility for international efforts toward crime prevention and control is borne by the recently created Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice (which has replaced the expert subsidiary body of the Economic and Social Council, namely, the Committee on Crime Prevention and Control) and the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch. The establishment of the Commission, by the Economic and Social Council in February 1992, ushered in a new era in United Nations involvement in crime prevention and criminal justice. The commitment of the Member States to the prevention of crime and the promotion of justice through strengthened international cooperation has been clearly spelled out in numerous General Assembly and Economic and Social Council resolutions. Those resolutions are indicative of the Member States’ heightened awareness and concern that crime, in its internationalized form, has to be tackled by a multilateral approach including international cooperative measures, and that interdependent efforts are urgently required. The Commission provides a means by which Governments can be directly involved in the determination and supervision of the program of work of the United Nations in crime prevention and can clearly manifest their political will. Its establishment was the result of a long process of review of the functioning and program of work of the United Nations in crime prevention and criminal justice, and was seen as an indispensable condition of a structural reorganization of United Nations activities in this field. For further information on CRIME PREVENTION AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, and THE UNITED NATIONS COMMISSION ON CRIME PREVENTION AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE, see UN Newsletter, Numbers 22/23, July, l993. Further information on Operational Activities of the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch since the First Session of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in April 1992 (on Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe Western Europe and North America and Global aspects, see the same documents, pp. 22–26 for more detail.     

World Ministerial Conference on Organized Transnational Crime

As we head toward the end of the millennium we, as specialists and experts in the field of international criminal justice, must pause to reflect seriously on the issue of global organized crime. Study in this regard requires that more rigorous attention be focused on the future directions of research, the creation of a network of regional and worldwide scholars to perpetuate a collaborative agenda, and data collection for comparison of various activities associated with law enforcement and correctional operations. We must find a more unified systemic approach to crime control. Regardless of whether a nation is large or small, developed or underdeveloped, rich or poor, every society is confronted with the task of controlling organized crime.

Organized crime is indeed a universal phenomenon. It has long been predicted that international organized crime will become a major force in the commercial, financial and military sectors of every country, eventually affecting directly the destiny of all countries. We may soon be confronted with an economic and financial crisis, in that governments everywhere cannot afford to watch events unfold by saying “there is no solution to the problem because it is beyond our ability to control the problem.” We must find a solution.

On June 26, 1995, American President William Clinton, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the United Nations at the ceremony held in San Francisco called for, “Support through the UN of the fight against forces of disintegration from crime syndicates and drug cartels. They cross borders at will. Nations can and must oppose them alone, but we know, and the Cairo Conference reaffirmed, that the most effective opposition requires strong international cooperation and mutual support.”

The original idea for a global high‐level conference on organized crime came from a magistrate who devoted his life to fighting the Mafia, Judge Giovanni Falcone, who died in a bomb attack in May 1992, in Italy. Following Judge Falcon's death, the Minister for Justice in Italy took on the idea of holding this conference in his address to the General Assembly that year. The conference was held in Naples two years later, organized by the Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Branch of the Secretariat of the U.N., under the guidance of the Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice and in accordance with the Economic and Social Council resolution 1993/29 of July 27, 1993, and the recommendation of the Commission was made at the second session. The 142 states represented at the Conference unanimously adopted the Naples Political Declaration and Global Action Plan Against Organized Transnational Crime, which was later approved by the General Assembly by resolution 49/159 on December 23, 1994.

For further information regarding the topic of international and transnational organized crime and associated issues, see World Ministerial Conference on Organized Transnational Crime, Naples, Italy, United Nations, Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Newsletter, No.26/27, November 1995; speech by President William Clinton on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the U.N., San Francisco, June 26, 1995; A Law Enforcement Source book of Asian Crime and Cultures: Tactic and Mindset, Douglas D. Daye, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1997; Transnational Criminal Organizations, Cybercrime and Money Laundering: A Handbook for Law Enforcement Officers, Auditors, and Financial Investigators, James R. Richards, CRC Press, Boca Raton, 1999; and Global Report on Crime and Justice, by UN Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Graeme Newman, ed., New York, Oxford University Press, 1999.     

Compressed modernity and its discontents: South Korean society in transtion

According to conventional economic indicators, since late 1997 history has been reversed for South Koreans since late 1997. Their current financial crisis, which would have led to a moratorium without the emergency bail-out packae from teh International Monetary Fund, seems to require not only economic austerity for business firms and citizen but also a total devaluation of their developmental ‘micacle’ in the latter half of the twentieth century. South Koreans' dilemma, if evaluated from a broad historical and theoretical perspective on their compresed modernity, is that the vary mechanisms which made their explosive economic growth possible tend to create various hazardous consequences in social, political, cultural as well as economic life. Patriarchal political authoritarianism chaebol's despotic and monopolistic business practice, abuse and exclusion of labour, neglect of basic welfare rights, ubiquitous physical dangers, and ideological self-nagation are particularly serious examples of such hazards of the uniquely South Korean modernity.     

Are Place-Based Policies Always a Blessing? Evidence from China’s National Poor County Programme

In this paper, we evaluate the effects of a large-scale and continuing place-based policy in China. In 1994, the Chinese central government designated 592 counties as National Poor Counties (NPC), which have been receiving preferential treatment in several aspects. Our identification strategy exploits a discontinuous criterion for determining a county’s eligibility of the programme. We find that the NPC programme failed to foster local economic growth. Further investigation suggests that local capture is partly responsible for this failure. Our findings yield important policy implications that, in countries with limited local accountability, place-based policies characterised by decentralised implementation are not always a blessing.