Reviews

Janos Kornai, Highways and Byways. Studies on Reform and Post‐Communist Transition. Cambridge, MA and London: MIT Press, 1995, xv + 241 pp., £26.95

Ha‐Joon Chang & Peter Nolan (eds), The Transformation of the Communist Economies: Against the Mainstream. Basingstoke and London: Macmillan, 1995, xii, + 438 pp., £47.50.

Paul Cook & Frederick Nixson (eds), The Move to the Market?: Trade and Industry Policy Reform in Transitional Economies. London: Macmillan, 1995, xvi + 280 pp., £45.00.

Tom Gallagher, Romania after Ceausescu. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1995, viii + 267 pp., £16.95.

Carol Barner‐Barry & Cynthia A. Hody, The Politics of Change. The Transformation of the Former Soviet Union. New York: St Martin's Press, 1995, xi + 371 pp., £14.99.

Daniel Orlovsky (ed.), Beyond Soviet Studies. Washington: The Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995, xi + 349 pp., £20.50.

Aleksandr Gurov, Krasnaya Mafiya, Moscow: Samotsvet, 1995, 328 pp., no price.

Beatrice F. Manz (ed.), Central Asia in Historical Perspective. Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1994, x + 245 pp., £40.95.

H. B. Paksoy (ed.), Central Asia Reader—The Rediscovery of History. Armonk and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, ix + 206 pp., $60.00 h/b $21.95 p/b.

Peter Ferdinand (ed.), The New States of Central Asia and Their Neighbours. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, for The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1994, 120 pp., $14.95.

Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), Central Asia and the World—Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. New York: Council on Foreign Relations Press, 1994, 251 pp., $16.95

Stephen Kotkin & David Wolff (eds), Rediscovering Russia in Asia: Siberia and the Russian Far East. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1995, xxiii + 356 pp., $65.00 h/b, $24.95 p/b.

Suzanne Goldenberg, Pride of Small Nations: The Caucasus and Post‐Soviet Disorder. London: Zed Books, 1994., xvi + 233 pp., £14.95.

Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian & Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geo‐politics of Nagorno‐Karabagh. London: Zed Books, 1994, xxi + 198 pp., £14.95.

Shireen T. Hunter, The Transcaucasus in Transition. Nation‐building and Conflict. Washington, DC: The Center for Strategic and International Studies, 1994, xiii + 223 pp., $19.95.

Edward Allworth (ed.), Muslim Communities Reemerge. Historical Perspective on Nationality, Politics and Opposition in the Former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, trans. Caroline Sawyer. Durham & London: Duke University Press, 1994, xii + 365 pp., £57.00 h/b, £23.50 p/b.

S. Frederick Starr (ed.), The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xiii + 313 pp., $22.95.

Vladimir Shlapentokh, Munir Sendich & Emil Payin (eds), The New Russian Diaspora: Russian Minorities in the Former Soviet Republics. London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xxv + 221 pp., £48.00 h/b, £19.00 p/b.

Michael Rywkin, Moscow's Lost Empire. New York & London: Armonk, M. E. Sharpe, 1994, xiii + 214 pp., £40.00 h/b, £16.00 p/b.

Tobias R. Philibin III, The Lure of Neptune. German‐Soviet Naval Collaboration and Ambitions, 1919–1941. University of South Carolina, 1994, xxi + 192 pp., $34.95.

Yu. L. Dyakov & T. S. Bushueva, The Red Army and the Wehrmacht. How the Soviets Militarised Germany, 1922–1933, and Paved the Way for Fascism. New York: Prometheus Books 1995, 348 pp., £21.00.

Iosif Stalin v ob"yatiyakh sem'i: iz lichnogo arkhiva (Sbornik dokumentov), compiled by Yu. G. Murin, edited by V. N. Denisov. Moscow: Rodina, 1993, 222 pp., no price.

Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia. A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994, xvi + 360 pp., £35.00.

Susan Layton, Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, xiii + 354 pp., £40.00.

Arto Luukkanen, The Party of Unbelief: The Religious Policy of the Bolshevik Party 1917–1929. Helsinki; Studia Historica 48, 1994, 274 pp., no price.

John Fennell, A History of the Russian Church to 1448. London: Longman, 266 pp., £12.99.     

Alternative direct-to-amplification cell lysis techniques for forensically relevant non-sperm cells

While efforts have been made to reduce the pervasive backlog of sexual assault evidence collection kits, the actual laboratory process remains very time-consuming due to the requirement of a differential lysis step before DNA purification, as well as intricate mixture analysis towards the end of the DNA workflow. Recently, an alternative, direct-to-amplification sperm lysis method (using 1 M NaOH) was identified. However, a direct cell lysis method for non-sperm cells has not been identified yet. Thus, the primary objective of this work was to find an alternative method that is quick, inexpensive, and does not require multiple purification steps for the lysis of non-sperm cells in sexual assault samples. In this study, vaginal swab samples were lysed with the control method, prepGEM™, as well as six alternative reagents: alkaline buffer with 25–200 mM NaOH, high-salt stain extraction buffer, modified radioimmunoprecipitation assay (RIPA) buffer, mammalian protein extraction reagent (M-PER™), digitonin buffer, and urea/thiourea buffer. Quantification using Quantifiler® Trio of vaginal and semen lysates revealed that the alkaline (25 mM NaOH) and M-PER™ methods were efficient for the lysis of vaginal epithelial cells without substantial sperm cell lysis. Following quantification, analysis of STR profiles from vaginal lysates revealed that the M-PER™ method showed promising results across all metrics examined, including the percentage of detected STR alleles, mean peak heights, peak height ratio, and interlocus balance. Thus, this method was recommended as an alternative to the traditional differential lysis method for non-sperm cells given its ability to produce amplification-ready lysates without any DNA purification step.     

The Stability of Collected Human Scent Under Various Environmental Conditions*,†

Abstract: Human scent evidence collected from objects at a crime scene is used for scent discrimination with specially trained canines. Storage of the scent evidence is usually required yet no optimized storage protocol has been determined. Storage containers including glass, polyethylene, and aluminized pouches were evaluated to determine the optimal medium for storing human scent evidence of which glass was determined to be the optimal storage matrix. Hand odor samples were collected on three different sorbent materials, sealed in glass vials and subjected to different storage environments including room temperature, ?80°C conditions, dark storage, and UVA/UVB light exposure over a 7‐week period. Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in the headspace of the samples were extracted and identified using solid‐phase micro‐extraction–gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (SPME–GC/MS). Three‐dimensional covariance mapping showed that glass containers subjected to minimal UVA/UVB light exposure provide the most stable environment for stored human scent samples.     

Is an exemption from US groundwater regulations a loophole or a noose?

In the United States, the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) regulates most groundwater used for drinking water. The Act covers most urban areas but because it does not cover small water systems, it implicitly exempts nearly half of those living in rural America. In large measure, monitoring required by the SDWA has illustrated the prevalence of naturally occurring arsenic in groundwater in concentrated areas throughout the country. Even though many in Congress seem aware of this threat and have, indeed, supported more stringent arsenic standards, Congress, on the whole, has failed to update the SDWA to cover those water systems left unprotected by the Act. Conventional political science theory suggests that effective congressional oversight depends on Congress creating both active (e.g., hearings and commissioned studies) and passive oversight mechanisms (i.e., citizen suits and opportunities for constituent feedback). In this case, Congress had, in fact, created sufficient tools to detect a serious problem but, having identified it, nevertheless failed to respond. Why? In exploring Congress’s inaction, we find something unexpected: the structure of the SDWA has created perverse incentives not only for unregulated water systems but also for regulated systems to push to keep exempted water systems unregulated. The outcome is that those outside of the SDWA’s protections remain outside and continue to drink contaminated water by the glass full. So, while Congress created a loophole, it may have inadvertently tied a noose.     

Transnational activities of Chinese crime organizations

This study investigates the major pockets of activity of Chinese criminal groups from 2000–2003, throughout the world except for Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The main geographical regions of such activity are Australia, Europe, Japan, Latin America, North America, Russia, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. The report notes the participation of such groups in all major types of crime, including trafficking of human beings and various commodities, financial crimes, extortion, gambling, prostitution, and violent crimes. For the purposes of this report, the term “Chinese” refers to individuals of purely Chinese ethnic origin living in any part of the world. The criminal groups described vary in size and degree of structure; they include syndicates, triads, gangs, and ad hoc combinations of organization members and non-members. Because of this variety, an increasing tendency toward ad hoc activity, and the lack of specificity in many open sources, the term “group” is used when a criminal activity is not attributed to a specific type of organization. The report's sources are several recent monographs, journal articles on various aspects of such crime in the geographical regions where it occurs, and Internet reports by journalists and law enforcement agencies. Some sources published prior to the time period covered by the report have been used to provide background and establish long-term trends.