Fatal intoxication by Remoxipride

The case history and toxicologic findings of a 23-year-old woman who committed suicide with Remoxipride are described. Remoxipride is a recently developed neuroleptic drug of the benzamide type. Remoxipride was detected in the liver, stomach content, blood, and urine. The concentration of Remoxipride in the blood was 230 mg/L. The recommended therapeutic level for Remoxipride should not exceed 7 to 8 mg/L. The victim had no blood alcohol, but an ethanol concentration of 0.048 g/100 L was detected in the urine. The mechanism of death from Remoxipride intoxication is not known. In clinical studies, sinus bradycardia and infrequent supraventricular and ventricular ectopic beats have been noted.     

ABO and Lewis typing of secretion stains on nitrocellulose membranes using a new dot-blot-ELISA technique

A new method for ABO and Lewis typing of body fluids is described. It combines the advantages of a good antigen binding to nitrocellulose membranes, the need of only very small amounts of stain material and the high sensitivity of an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for antigen detection. This is of special interest because conventional ABO and Lewis typing of secretion stains need relatively large stain dimensions. The method is very easy to handle, does not need any expensive equipment and gives a permanent record. Furthermore the high sensitivity offers the possibility of analyzing even sweat and urine stains without the need of concentrating these extracts.     

Partnership and public administration: conceptual and practical considerations

Abstract: In recent years, there has been a proliferation of partnerships involving public organizations. The use of partnerships has evolved from an ad hoc response to particular problems to a general approach to problem-solving and to improving the efficiency, effectiveness, and responsiveness of public organizations. Partnerships are also used to empower individuals, groups, and organizations outside government by enabling them to make a genuine contribution to government decisions affecting them. It is important, therefore, to explain the meaning and types of partnership, to examine their purposes, benefits, and participants, and to assess their political implications. In-depth evaluative studies of partnerships are scarce, but there are enough data on partnerships and enough sufficient and theoretical materials on inter-organizational relations in general to formulate hypotheses about the requirements for successful partnerships. Sommaire: Au cours des dernieres annees, on a assiste a une proliferation des partenariats impliquant des organismes publics. Leur utilisation a evolue, passant de la simple reponse concue pour un probleme particulier a une approche generate visant a resoudre les problemes et a ameliorer l'efficacite et la receptivite des organismes publics. Cette forme d'association sert aussi a deleguer davantage de pouvoirs aux particuliers, aux groupes et aux organismes non-gouvernementaux en leur permettant de contribuer vraiment aux decisions gouvernementales qui les touchent. II importe done d'expliquer la signification et les differents types de partenariats, d'examiner leurs objectifs, leurs avantages et leurs participants, et d'evaluer aussi leurs repercussions politiques. Les etudes sur ce sujet sont rares, mais il existe a cet egard suffisamment de donnees et de materiel conceptuel et theorique sur les relations interorganisationnelles en general, pour pouvoir formuler des hypotheses sur les elements qui garantissent la reussite d'une association en partenariat.     

Methodology and interpretation of morphiate detection in urine samples

In TLC screenings of 335 urine samples taken because of suspicion of heroin consumption, positive evidence of morphine was found in about 50% of the cases, which was confirmed without exception by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. In 66% of the positive cases, morphine and codeine were found; in about 31% only morphine was found, and the median value of 0.4 mg/l free morphine and 1.0 mg/l conjugated morphine was considerably lower than in the whole collection of samples. Comparison of the codeine/morphine quotients (Q), especially the free bases, proves that the groups of heroin/morphine or codeine consumers can be distinctly differentiated. The critical conditions of the conjugated bases worked out by Dutt et al. (1983) proved to be right. Using the equation Qf less than 0.5 square root c, a boundary condition for the free flare bases can also be developed, which is dependent on the sum of the codeine and morphine concentrations and which proves heroin/morphine consumption with 98% certainty.     

Australian Rules: The Rise of Rights and the Demise of the Right

Over a number of years there has been a public debate in Australia over the place of legal rights in the struggle for Indigenous economic, social and cultural gains. Most Indigenous leaders have called for a rights agenda as a solution to Indigenous disadvantage. However, one leader has been a vocal critic of this approach. This paper considers the possibility that although the debates may fundamentally represent different views as to how best to improve conditions for Indigenous Nations, they also represent differing approaches to harnessing the support of mainstream Australia in a politically conservative environment. In coming to this position, I am reminded of the arguments put by proponents of the Critical Legal Studies movement in US, that rights are merely abstractions, and the counter by Patricia Williams, a Critical Race Theorist, that as a result, they can be framed in a variety of ways and can take the form required by the community in which they are found. In Australia, minority groups must find an indexically-open vehicle, fitting to the Australian rhetorical structure(s), to represent their struggle for economic, social and cultural rights. Tracey Summerfield is a white woman born in Perth, Western Australia. Thanks to Stephanie Monck, a Kungarakan/Warramungu woman from the Northern Territory, who provided assistance and feedback on an earlier version. The views expressed here are, of course, those of the writer alone.     

On Some Connections Between Legal Communication and Violence

The first version of this article was written and published in 1989 in Tartu in Russian.¹ As perestroika gathered strength the possibility emerged to take a fresh academic look on concepts which had been dogmatically frozen by “historical Marxism” for many years. One of those laying in the dead end was the Marxist concept of law together with its relation to violence. For a young scholar studying at Tartu University 15 years ago, there was always a possibility to try to apply some ideas and approaches drawn from Yuri Lotman’s articles and lectures. The power of his ideas and its brilliant presentation had already for years fascinated everybody dealing with problems of society and culture in Tartu. The other sources of the present analysis are the ideas about the nature of law and legal communication as they appeared in the 1920s–30s in the works of several Soviet scholars as Eugene Pashukanis and Mikhail Reisner. Both scientists were later condemned and forgotten in the Soviet Union. I also felt very comfortable with the understanding of the nature of law as “language of interaction” expressed and developed by the American lawyer and scholar Lon L. Fuller. The present article focuses only on the logic of communication based on the principle of exchange, reciprocity/contract and mechanism (code) of symbolic equalizations necessary, for achieving such reciprocity. But it is appropriate to point out that in a broader context, contract and reciprocity in society are balanced by different types of principles of human interaction. In this broader understanding, L. Fuller and Y. Lotman are close in their interpretations of cultural interaction and human communication. If we compare Fuller’s article “Two Principles of Human Association”² to Lotman’s “‘Contract’ and ‘Devotion’ as Archetypical Models of Culture”³ we see their approaches are in fact complementary.¹ Kannike, S.H., “O nekotorykh svjazjakh pravovogo obshchenija s nasilijem. Istorija I sovremennost’”, in Tartu Ülikooli Toimetised 850. Studia luridica. Historia et theoria3 (Tartu: Tartu Ülikool, 1989), 76–93² Fuller, L., “Two Principles of Human Association”, in L. Fuller, (ed), The Principles of Human Order(Durham: N.C. Duke University Press, 1981), 67–85³ Lotman, Y.M., ““Dogovor” i “vruchenie sebja” kak arhitipicheskie modeli kul’tury”, in Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 513. Trudy po russkoi I slavjanskoi filologii 332. Literaturovedenije: problemy literaturnoi tipologii I istoricheskoi preemstvennosti(Tartu, 1981), 3–16     

Frontière Dépassée,Frontière Recomposée

La notion de frontière est au c?ur d’une ambivalence entre son caractère délimitateur, son rôle de contour spatial et la contestation des séparations qu’elle opère. La frontière juridico-politique, limite de systèmes, est soumise à de profonds bouleversements. Dès lors, elle fait l’objet d’une nouvelle acception et devient le lieu d’une coopération entre des acteurs soucieux d’un développement harmonieux et d’un retour à la normalité au bénéfice d’une nouvelle dimension de l’espace: le transfrontalier. Comment le droit a t-il accueilli ces évolutions? Quelle définition s’impose au juriste devant la notion de frontière?