Mission impossible in Cyprus? Legitimate return to the partnership state revisited

Cyprus has been divided for far longer than it has been united. There have been many attempts to reconcile conflicting parties but without remarkable success. The two communities – Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots – see the solution to the “Cyprus problem” in opposite terms. Although recent public opinion surveys have concluded that the most preferred option for the Turkish Cypriots would be “independence of the TRNC” and “reunification of the country”, for the Greek Cypriots, there is much less information about the legitimacy of these competing regimes and their respective claims. This paper seeks to fill this gap by identifying different legitimacy sources and their effect on the course of conflict settlement. Somewhat paradoxically it appears that those most strongly identifying themselves with the Republic of Cyprus, and approving the regime legitimacy of the Greek Cypriot government, are actually for status quo and not for the reunification of the country which makes the return to the partnership state mission impossible.     

Breaking new ground: Afghanistan's response to landmines and unexploded ordnance

Operating since the late 1980s, in an environment of shifting wars, the Humanitarian Mine Action ( HMA ) programme in Afghanistan has nonetheless been highly successful in reducing the impact of landmines. This article discusses three factors that have contributed to its success: the building of national capacity; the systematic application of surveys; and the ability to act flexibly and innovatively. Having operated under the auspices of the UN, but in the absence of a functioning government, the programme faces new challenges with the potential transition to peace in Afghanistan. Ultimately, however, the programme is a world leader in its field, and as one of the best functioning sectors in economic and humanitarian assistance to the country, it represents a key resource for a new internationally recognised Afghan government.     

Introducing Human Mandible Identification [(hu)MANid]: A Free,Web‐Based GUI to Classify Human Mandibles

Statistical programs have revolutionized the way in which forensic anthropologists conduct casework by allowing practitioners to use computationally complex analytics at the click of a button. Importantly, the products of these statistical programs are reproducible and contain measures of error or uncertainty, thereby strengthening conclusions. This paper is an introduction to (hu)MANid, a free, web‐based application that uses linear and mixture discriminant function analyses to classify human mandibles into one of many worldwide and/or periodic reference groups. The mechanics, development, and use of the application will be discussed. Further, the program was tested against other software to compare model performances and classifications. Total correct classifications among the test cases and programs were identical. Ten mandibles were tested using both statistical procedures. Mixture discriminant analysis improved classification by an average of 9.3% and correctly identified three more mandibles than LDA. Therefore, we believe (hu)MANid will be an asset to the anthropological community.     

Aquatic fatalities--a systematic retrospective analysis

In a retrospective analysis of the autopsy material (n = 5,767) of the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Hanover Medical School covering the period of 1998-2007, all aquatic fatalities were evaluated, categorized and systematically compared under epidemiological and forensic criteria. The total of 156 cases of death by drowning (2.7 % of all autopsies) included 38 bathtub drownings and 28 deaths in the water for which no pathological anatomical cause of death could be reliably demonstrated. A control group (n = 221) was investigated for the presence of aqueous liquid in the sphenoid sinuses and compared with the findings of the drowning cases without signs of putrefaction. About 16 % of the control cases had fluid in the sphenoid sinuses compared with 57.6 % in the drowning group. Most of the drowning victims were men (60.9 %), whereas in the group of bathtub drownings the majority were women. More than half of the drowning cases (n = 89) could be classified as accidents. The individual groups showed a different incidence of findings associated with drowning.     

Economic Burden of Child Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence in the United States

Because the effects of children’s exposure to intimate partner violence (IPV) carry long lasting consequences for the affected children, IPV exposure may impose a significant economic burden to localities, states, and society at large, made explicit over the victim’s lifetime and over a wide range of behaviors and outcomes, including use of social services, health and healthcare utilization, educational outcomes, workforce productivity, and criminal behavior. While much research has been conducted on the effect of IPV exposure on multiple short- and long-term outcomes, no research to date has examined the economic burden associated with IPV exposure. Using an incidence-based approach, we estimated the aggregate discounted costs associated with healthcare spending, criminal behavior, and labor market productivity accrued by a 20-year-old victim in 2016 projected to the age of 65, applying a 3% discount rate. The average lifetime costs derived from childhood IPV exposure are estimated to be over $50,000 per victim (2016 U.S. dollars) due to increased healthcare costs ($11,000), increased crime costs ($14,000), and productivity losses ($26,000). Over an annual birth cohort of young adults, these costs amount to over $55 billion nationwide. IPV exposure imposes a substantial economic burden to society at large in the form of increased healthcare costs, increased crime costs, and reduced productivity. This study offers an explicit quantification of substantial lifetime costs, which should encourage policy makers to redouble efforts to reduce the incidence of IPV and successfully ameliorate its effects on IPV-exposed children.     

Research and standardisation in nanotechnology: evidence from Germany

Nanoscience and nanotechnology are science fields which are growing extremely dynamically. Germany occupies the top position in Europe and is only second to the US worldwide, which can be attributed to growing research promotion by the state. Based on a general conceptual framework on the role of different types of standards in the research process and technology life cycle, we argue that the market success of nanotechnology applications depends very much on the development of corresponding standards, which clarify not only terminology, measurement and testing methods, but also regulate safety and health aspects and specify interfaces. Other countries, European and international standardisation organisations have launched first initiatives rather early. However, Germany was not able to translate its excellent starting position in nanotechnology research into a leading position in standardisation initiatives, which pave the way for future commercialisation of nanotechnology and also the basis for the next generation of research activities. Based on a survey among stakeholders of German nanotechnology research, we are able not only to provide a first empirical validation of our conceptual model on the role of standards in the research process, but also to define the major problems at the interface between research and standardisation, and finally, to recommend possible options for their solution.

Does Participation Lead to Ongoing Infrastructure Maintenance? Evidence from Caribbean Landslide Mitigation Projects

Donor-funded infrastructure projects may focus on construction and neglect longer-term sustainability. Engaging local communities has been proposed as way of inducing ongoing maintenance by facilitating coordination and a sense of ownership, but there is little evidence on its effectiveness in practice. We analyse data from inspections of 103 landslide hazard mitigation drains in Saint Lucia several years after construction. We conclude that community participation at the beginning of the project, by accessing local knowledge, is associated with improved construction quality, but appears to have no impact on subsequent maintenance, suggesting that contractual provision for maintenance may be required.