THE ADMINISTRATION OF FRENCH NATIONAL ECONOMIC PLANNING: LESSONS FOR AUSTRALIA

"We are therefore giving priority to setting up economic planning machinery with industry and employee co-operation to restore strong but balanced economic growth."—E. G. Whitlam, The Australian , 14th May, 1973.     

THE WILENSKI REVIEW

Since the early 1950s a spate of large-scale inquests on government administration has swept the English-speaking world, under governments of all political complexions. The phenomenon has received no general explanation, but its continuity has had certain practical advantages. It has added to the stock of techniques for conducting inquiries. It has suggested that linking investigation with implementation may reduce the risk of "pigeonholing". It has revealed the importance of political support for essays in reform. The experience also invites, by now, some reflections upon the role of vested interests in the reform process, the impermanence and relativity of particular recipes for reform, and the constant emergence of new perspectives for appraisal of administration. Although Professor Wilenski's Interim Report * is well over a year old, his Review is still in full swing, and is worth discussing not only on its own merits but also for the way it illustrates some of these points.
* Directions for Change: An Interim Report , by Professor Peter Wilenski, Commissioner, Review of N.S.W. Government Administration, Sydney, D. West, N.S.W. Government Printer, November 1977. Pp. ix + 353. Illustrations by Patrick Cook.     

Does carcass enrichment alter community structure of predaceous and parasitic arthropods? A second test of the arthropod saturation hypothesis at the Anthropology Research Facility in Knoxville, Tennessee

In a second test of an arthropod saturation hypothesis, we analyzed if the on-campus Anthropology Research Facility (ARF) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, with its 20+ yr history of carcass enrichment, is comparable to non-enriched sites in community structure of predatory and parasitic arthropods that prey upon the sarcosaprophagous fauna. Over a 12-day period in June 1998, using pitfall traps and sweep nets, 10,065 predaceous, parasitic, and hematophagous (blood-feeding) arthropods were collected from freshly euthanized pigs (Sus scrofa L.) placed at ARF and at three surrounding sites various distances away (S2-S4). The community structure of these organisms was comparable in most paired-site tests with respect to species composition, colonization rates, and evenness of pitfall-trap abundances on a per carcass basis. Site differences were found in rarefaction tests of both sweep-net and pitfall-trap taxa and in tests of taxonomic evenness and ranked abundances of sweep-net samples. Despite these differences, no evidence was found that the predatory/parasitic fauna at ARF was impoverished with fewer but larger populations as a result of carcass enrichment. Comparison of the sarcosaprophagous and predatory/parasitic faunas revealed a tighter (and more predictable) linkage between carrion feeders (sarcosaprovores) and their carrion than between carrion feeders and their natural enemies (predators and parasitoids), leading us to conclude that ARF is more representative of surrounding sites with respect to the sarcosaprovore component than to the predatory/parasitic component within the larger carrion-arthropod community.     

Judging capacity: paternalism and the risk-related standard

There is a strong academic and medical consensus on judging patients' decision-making capacity in accordance with the seriousness of consequent risks, and this is supported in certain areas of the law. Supporters of the risk-related standard perceive an asymmetry between the level of capacity required for consent to a treatment, and the level required to competently refuse the treatment, particularly if the probable outcome of refusal is death. Despite the intuitive appeal of the risk-related standard, its opponents propose that when the risks of treatment or treatment-refusal are high, we should not require a higher standard of capacity, but be scrupulous in ensuring that a procedural standard is observed. This article considers both standards, from the point of view of the persons, interests and principles which ethics and the law seek to protect. It argues that a risk-related standard is incoherent, that a rigorously applied procedural standard will minimise paternalistic medical interventions, and that this should be reflected in the law.     

Suicidal asphyxiation by using pure helium gas: case report, review, and discussion of the influence of the internet

Suffocation by inhaled gases has been reported involving a variety of gases. We report a case of suicidal asphyxiation by forced replacement of oxygen with helium by using a complex homemade mask. In this case, a young woman researched suicide on the Internet and found an advocated method of suicide using helium. To our knowledge, there is only 1 previously reported case of suicidal asphyxia by using helium.