Suicide by 120 stab wounds of the chest?

The case history of a suicide due to 120 stab wounds of the chest is presented. The victim was a 41 years old man with a paranoid-hallucinative psychosis. The problem to distinguish homicides and suicides is discussed by the well-known criminalistic and forensic-medical criterias. Induced by this very unusual case the autopsy material with stab wounds was analyzed retrospectively (n = 246, out of about 14,000 autopsies at the Institut of Forensic Medicine in Hamburg). Cases with more than 40 single lesions are normally homicides. However, the pattern of the injuries is more important than the number--especially in doubtful cases.     

Poisoning caused by a paint stripping agents containing dichloromethane]

It is widely known that inhalation of the solvent dichloromethane can lead to severe intoxication. We report on a fatal accident of a 29-year-old painter. He had to remove the old chlorocaoutchoucpaint of two overflow pools adjoining an empty swimming pool by sand-blasting. After obviously having finished his work in the first pool the painter was found dead, lying on the floor of the second pool. Later an almost empty 10-kg-canister of a paint stripper (macerating agent) the main component of which was dichloromethane was found in the car of the painter. Blood samples of the corpse measured by head space gas chromatography and electron capture detection showed dichloromethane levels in the range of 513-773 micrograms/ml.     

Operationalizing Social Capital: A Strategy to Enhance Communities'"Capacity to Concert"

This article addresses a concern increasingly being voiced in the donor establishment: fifty years of development assistance programs have failed to produce conclusive evidence that they can foster sustainable economic and social development in poor countries. The nature of donor programs is such that it emphasizes economic remedies and orients aid to finite projects. Yet recent evidence suggests that sustained development may be more a continued civic process whereby communities form their capacity to come to their own understandings about public ways of behaving and relating, whereby they develop their capacity to concert . This translates into a practical capability to pinpoint underlying problems, assess alternative approaches, and devise solutions most likely to be sustained. This micro capability may also have important macroeconomic implications in terms of institutional predictability and—through it—in terms of scale economies, transaction costs, transparency, incentive to innovate, and climate to implement public policies. The article suggests an alternative approach to development assistance and offers concrete recommendations to donors.     

The Politics of Vulnerability: Constructing Local Performance Regimes for Homeland Security

Paradoxically, the greater the national security threats, the more important the role of local policy in the United States. In this article we examine homeland security initiatives—particularly the tension between risk and vulnerability—and the governance dilemmas they pose for local communities. In contrast to the usual emphasis on coordination and capacity, we argue for conceptualizing local imperatives attendant to homeland security as collective action problems requiring the construction of local performance regimes. Performance regimes must engage three challenges: (1) to enlist diverse stakeholders around a collective local security goal despite varying perceptions of its immediacy; (2) to persuade participants to sustain their involvement in the face of competing demands, and (3) to create a durable coalition around performance goals necessary for reducing local vulnerability. Using these analytic categories casts local homeland security issues in strategic terms; it also encourages comparisons of local governance arrangements to respond to risk and vulnerability.     

Monopoly rights in the privatization of telephone firms

Data from utility privatization sales in 74 countries is analyzed to investigate why governments award monopoly rights, and how monopoly affects government revenue from these sales. Financially constrained governments are more likely to award monopoly rights. Interest groups and institutions are important. Increased importance of taxed business users reduces the probability of a government granting monopoly rights, while an increase in the importance of subsidized residential users has the opposite effect. Durable democracies and market-oriented governments are less likely to award monopoly rights. Monopolies increase government revenue by 66 percent.     

Term Limits,Campaign Contributions,and the Distribution of Power in State Legislatures

Using campaign contributions to legislators as an indicator of member influence, we explore the impact of term limits on the distribution of power within state legislatures. Specifically, we perform a cross‐state comparison of the relative influence of party caucus leaders, committee chairs, and rank‐and‐file legislators before and after term limits. The results indicate that term limits diffuse power in state legislatures, both by decreasing average contributions to incumbents and by reducing the power of party caucus leaders relative to other members. The change in contribution levels across legislators in different chambers implies a shift in power to the upper chamber in states with term limits. Thus, the impact of term limits may be attenuated in a bicameral system.