Regional Leaders in the Diffusion of Tort Innovations among the American States

Many studies have analyzed the diffusion of legislative policies,but relatively little work has been done on the spread of judicialinnovations. An analysis of the spread of eight tort doctrinesamong the American states indicates that there were clear regionalleaders, including some states that were not early adoptersof the innovations but still served as leaders for their neighbors.There was little relationship between being a regional leaderfor legislative adoptions and being a regional leader in judicialadoptions, indicating that different processes influenced diffusionin these two arenas of state political activity.     

Kritische Ereignisse,Memory Frames und Protest in Südkorea (1980–1987)

Am Fallbeispiel der südkoreanischen Demokratiebewegung geht es um die Frage, wie sich die kollektive Erinnerung an vergangene Ereignisse (?Memory Frame“) auf den Verlauf von Protestwellen auswirkt. Der Artikel beginnt mit einer Diskussion von Sewells ?Eventful History“-Ansatz. Davon ausgehend wird im zweiten Schritt das Konzept der Memory Frames entwickelt, das der Analyse von Geschichtskonstruktionen in Protestbewegungen dient. Im dritten Schritt werden die Memory Frames der vormodernen Choson-Dynastie, der Nachkriegsdiktaturen und der Demokratiebewegung einander gegenüber gestellt. Im vierten Schritt geht es darum, welche historischen Ereignisse für den Memory Frame der Demokratiebewegung ausschlaggebend waren. Im fünften Schritt wird gezeigt, wie sich mit dem Konzept der Memory Frames der rhythmische Verlauf von Protestwellen in Südkorea (1981–1986) erklären lässt. Die Untersuchung mündet schließlich in dem Ergebnis, dass die regelmäßigen Rhythmen auf einem eigendynamischen Kreislauf aus Erinnerung, Protest, Konfrontation und Bestätigung beruhten.     

A distributional theory of government growth

This article presents a closed form solution for time-consistent taxation and public spending in a dynamic game between government and median voter. Extending Meltzer and Richard’s static analysis of government size the article offers a theory of growth of government. At low stages of economic development the median voter, identified as a relatively poor worker, prefers to have no or only small redistributive taxation in order to foster savings. Through this channel he expects improvements of his labor productivity and wage. At higher stages of development, however, when capital is relatively abundant and prospects of further labor productivity gains through capital accumulation are smaller, the incentive to tax and redistribute income rises. Yet, in line with previous work on growth and infrastructure spending the median voter prefers a constant share of productive public spending at all times. Hence, government growth is solely driven by an expanding welfare state.     

Validity Beliefs and Ideology Can Influence Legal Case Judgments Differently

Jurors sometimes enter a case both with prior beliefs about its likely validity and with more general ideologies that are relevant to the case. Although prior validity beliefs may serve as heuristics, directly biasing decisions when cognitive capacity is low, we hypothesized that ideology may bias systematic thought even when cognitive capacity is high. This experiment studied simulated individual juror decisions in a sex-discrimination case, measuring validity beliefs about such cases as well as feminist ideology, and exposing participants to 1 of 3 case versions under time pressure or no time pressure. Validity beliefs had a direct, heuristic impact on judgment only under time pressure. However, feminist ideology had a mediated influence on judgment via valenced thoughts about the evidence, even under no time pressure. Also, people with initially proplaintiff beliefs judged a woman's sex-discrimination suit more negatively than did prodefendants if the evidence was weak. The results suggest that when jurors can fully process information, validity expectancies might backfire if not supported by case evidence, but ideology can have a more pervasive influence on the decision-making process.     

Y-chromosomal STR haplotypes in Macedonian population samples

Eleven Y-chromosomal short tandem repeats (STRs), DYS19, DYS389I, DYS389II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS385, DYS437, DYS438, DYS439 were typed in DNA samples from Macedonian population (n = 150).     

Experimental tests for the validation of active numerical human models

The development of numerical human models is a topic of current interdisciplinary research. In the field of automotive safety these models can be applied for the optimization of protection systems. In forensic research human models can be used for the investigation of injury mechanisms and for the prediction and reproduction of injury patterns. However, up to now human models have been validated on the basis of PMHS tests without considering the effects of muscle activity. This paper shows two experimental volunteer test set-ups for the generation of experimental validation data. In a pendulum set-up the influence of muscle activity on the human kinematics was investigated. A drop test set-up was developed for the analysis of the effects of muscle activity on impact response characteristics of muscle tissue. Experimental results, presented in this paper, can be used for the validation and optimization of active numerical human models.     

Evaluation of haplotype discrimination capacity of 35 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat loci

The haplotype discrimination capacity of the 9 Y-chromosomal short tandem repeat (Y-STR) loci comprising the so called minimal haplotype together with additional 26 recently described single-copy Y-STRs was evaluated within 391 males from Germany, The Netherlands, and Turkey. The aim of this study was to identify the minimum number of Y-STRs needed in addition to the recommended 9 minimal haplotype loci or the 11 SWGDAM loci for individualizing male lineages. Highest gene diversities were shown for DYS385 loci, DYS449, DYS481, DYS570, DYS447, DYS576, DYS389-II, and DYS390 (D=0.7518-0.8746). The five Y-STRs DYS447, DYS449, DYS481, DYS570, and DYS576 comprised the smallest set of loci in addition to the previously recommended standard Y-STRs leading to the individualization of all males from each single population group. Complete resolution of the pooled population was achieved by the additional genotyping of two further loci, DYS446 or DYS505 and DYF406S1 or DYS522.