A bizarre case of vehicular suicide

The upper torso of a man was discovered under a highway sign next to tire tread marks leading from the highway and continuing beyond the sign. The victim's lower torso and automobile were also found along the same path 31 m (101 ft) and 41 m (133 ft) beyond the sign, respectively. The decedent was initially thought to be a disposed, homicide victim who had been dismembered by his assailant(s). Accident reconstruction revealed that the victim was the driver of the automobile and was transected by the highway sign stanchion as he protruded through the passenger side window of his moving vehicle. Based on the scene findings, autopsy, and psychological autopsy, the manner of death was classified as suicidal. The criteria used by medical examiners for vehicular suicide are also discussed.     

Procedural goods in a democracy: How one is treated versus what one gets

There are four classes of procedural goods, each of which is an appropriate ground for answering the question: “Is this a fair procedure?” (i) It is unfair not to treat a person with dignity; the dignity goods are self-respect, personal control, and an understanding of the procedures that determine relevant outcomes. (ii) It is unfair to impose upon a person heavy (net) costs, such as overburdened cognitive capacities and high information costs, excessively painful interpersonal conflict, threats beyond those inherent in the situation, and humiliation. (iii) It is unfair to disregard (but not necessarily to violate) the person's own sense of justice, the codes of honor and practice of his own group and culture. And, of course, (iv) it is unfair to use a procedure that does not have the highest probability of achieving distributive or retributive justice. Few of the standard articles of democratic theory (e.g., liberty, equal treatment before the law, rights, and sharing of power) offer sufficient protections for the first three of these procedural goods.     

Federal laboratories: Economic development and intellectual property constraints

The United States is increasingly looking at ways to link public-sector investments in science and technology with national economic-development goals. The federal laboratories are a reflection of this trend and much has been done to make them a more attractive source for innovative ideas in the private sector. One significant change that has resulted in making the laboratories more interactive with US industry has been the easing of government patent policy for both government-and contractor-operated national laboratories. However, there still are intellectual-property constraints, especially in the areas of technical data and software, that need immediate attention if the full intent of technology-transfer legislation is to be met. Previously he was a science policy analyst in the US General Accounting Office's Resource, Community and Economic Development Division.     

Reviews

The Open Media Research Institute, The OMRI Annual Survey of Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union 1995: Building Democracy. Introduction by J. F. Brown. New York and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xvi + 344 pp., $85.00.

William Gay & T. A. Alekseeva, Capitalism with a Human Face: The Quest for a Middle Road in Russian Politics. London: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996, xxix + 235 pp., £21.50.

Claus Offe, Varieties of Transition: The East European and East German Experience. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1996, viii + 249 pp., £45.00 h/b, £14.95 p/b.

Harald Baldersheim, Michal Illner, Audun Offerdal, Lawrence Rose & Pawel Swianiewicz (eds), Local Democracy and the Processes of Transformation in East‐Central Europe. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, xiv + 257 pp., £48.50.

Neil Malcolm, Alex Pravda, Roy Allison & Margot Light, Internal Factors in Russian Foreign Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, ix + 356 pp., £40.00.

Pavel K. Baev, The Russian Army in a Time of Troubles. London: Sage Publications, 1996, xiii + 204 pp., £14.95.

Glen E. Schweitzer, Moscow DMZ: The Story of the International Effort to Convert Russian Weapons Science to Peaceful Purposes. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, ix + 291 pp., $21.95.

The Aspen Institute, Managing Conflict in the Post‐Cold War World: The Role of Intervention. Washington, DC: The Aspen Institute, 1996, v + 123 pp.

Jorn Gjelstad & Olav Njolstad (eds), Nuclear Rivalry and International Order. London: Sage, 1996, x + 212 pp., £39.50.

Rick Fawn & Jeremy Larkins (eds), International Society after the Cold War. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, 1996, xi + 302 pp., £14.99.

Georg Brunner, Nationality Problems and Minority Conflicts in Eastern Europe. Gutersloh: Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 1996, 198 pp., DM25.00.

Andrew Wilson, Ukrainian Nationalism in the 1990s. A Minority Faith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xvii + 300 pp., £45.00 h/b, £15.95 p/b.

Ann Louise Armstrong, Thomas A. Reiner & Janusz Szymer, Transition in Land and Housing: Bulgaria, the Czech Republic and Poland. London: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1996, iv + 298 pp.

John R. Lampe, Yugoslavia as History: Twice There was a Country. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996, xx + 421 pp., £14.95.

Jonathan Aves, Workers against Lenin: Labour Protest and the Bolshevik Dictatorship. London: I.B. Tauris, 1996, x + 220 pp., £39.50.

Francesca Gori & Sivio Pons (eds), The Soviet Union and Europe in the Cold War, 1943–53. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1996, xxv + 448 pp., £45.00.

Igor Lukes, Czechoslovakia between Stalin and Hitler. The Diplomacy of Edvard Benes in the 1930s. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, xiii + 318 pp., £22.50.

S. C. M. Paine, Imperial Rivals: China, Russia and Their Disputed Frontier. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, xxi + 417 pp., $75.00.

Felix Corley, Religion in the Soviet Union: An Archival Reader. London: Macmillan, 1996, xiv + 402 pp., £45.00.

Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: Triumphalism and Defensiveness. London: Macmillan, 1996, vi + 240 pp., £40.00.

John Gooding, Rulers and Subjects: Government and People in Russia 1801–1991. London: Arnold, 1996, xii + 387 pp.

Richard Taylor (ed.), William Powell (trans.), S. M. Eisenstein: Selected Works. Volume III: Writings, 1934–47; Volume IV: Beyond the Stars: The Memoirs of Sergei Eisenstein. London: British Film Institute, 1996, xiv + 405 pp. (vol. III), £35.00; xxi + 889 pp. (vol. IV), £45.00.

Dmitri N. Shalin (ed.), Russian Culture at the Crossroads: Paradoxes of Postcommunist Consciousness. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996, ix + 341 pp., £13.50.

H. Goscilo & B. Holmgren (eds), Russia. Women. Culture. Bloomington & Indianapolis, 1996, xiv + 386 pp., £19.50.

Pamela Chester & Sibelan Forrester (eds), Engendering Slavic Literatures. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996, xvii + 249 pp., £15.50.

John E. Bowlt & Olga Matich (eds), Laboratory of Dreams: The Russian Avant‐Garde and Cultural Experiment. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996, xvii + 359 pp., £45.00.

Joshua Rubenstein, Tangled Loyalties: The Life and Times of Ilya Ehrenburg. London: I. B. Tauris, 1996, xii + 482 pp., £19.50.

Moskva voennaya, 1941–1945: memuary i arkhivnye dokumenty. Moscow: Mosgorarkhiv, 1995, 755 pp.

Leningrad v osade: sbornik dokumentov o geroicheskoi oborone Leningrada v gody Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny, 1941–1944. St Petersburg: Liki Rossii, 1995, 640 pp.     

Reviews

Robert V. Daniels, Russia: The Roots of Confrontation, Cambridge, Mass. and London, England: Harvard University Press, 1985, xiii + 411 pp. £22.75.

Harry Gelman, The Brezhnev Politburo and the Decline of Detente. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1984, 268 pp. £9.95.

Stephen F. Cohen, Rethinking the Soviet Experience. Politics and History Since 1917. New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985, xiii + 222 pp. £15.00.

Shugo Minagawa, Supreme Soviet Organs: Functions and Institutional Development of Federal and Republican Presidia and Standing Commissions, Nagoya: University of Nagoya Press, 1985, xxi + 346 pp., 5000 yen.

Pekka Sutela, Socialism, Planning and Optimality. A study in Soviet economic thought (Helsinki, The Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters). Commentationes Scientiarum Socialium vol 25. 1984, 230 pp. No price.

Christopher T. Saunders, ed., East‐West Trade and Finance in the World Economy. London: Macmillan, 1985, ix + 338 pp., £30.00.

P. T. Wanless, Taxation in Centrally Planned Economies, London & Sydney: Croom Helm, 1985, xi + 141 pp., £16.95.

Christopher Coker, NATO, the Warsaw Pact and Africa, London: Macmillan for RUSI, 1985, xii + 302 pp. £25.00.

Ellen Jones, Red Army and Society: A Sociology of the Soviet Military. London: Allen & Unwin, 1985, xviii + 230 pp. £18.00.

Thomas F. Remington, Building Socialism in Bolshevik Russia. Ideology and Industrial Organization, 1917–1921, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984, x + 222 pp., $19.95.

Teodor Shanin, Russia as a ‘Developing Society’: The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century, Volume 1, Basingstoke and London, Macmillan, 1985, XVI + 268 pp., £27.50 h/c, £8.95 p/b.

Olimpiad S. Ioffe, Soviet Law and Soviet Reality, Dordrecht, The Netherlands, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1985, Law in Eastern Europe series No. 30, 234 pp., Dfl. 135, U.S. $45.50, £34.50.

James M. Swanson, Scientific Discoveries and Soviet Law: A Socio‐historical Analysis. Gainesville, Florida, University of Florida Press, 1985, viii + 150 pp. $11.00.

Martin Fincke, ed. Handbuch der Sowjetverfassung, vols. I and II. Duncker and Humblot, Berlin, 1983, XVI + 1336 pp. including index and synopsis of Constitutions. Vol. I DM 236.00. Vol. II DM 270.00.

Laszlo Antal, Gazdasagiranyitsai és pénzügyirendszerunk a reform útján (The Changes in Our Economic Policy and Monetary System in Connection With the Reform). Budapest, Kozgasdasagi es Jogi Konyvkiado, 1985, 326 pp. 72 forints.

Harold Lydall. Yugoslav Socialism: Theory and Practice. London and New York, Oxford University Press, 1984, 302 pp. £18.50.

Saul Estrin, Self‐management: economic theory and Yugoslav practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, x + 264 pp., £27.50.

Nora Beloff, Tito's Flawed Legacy, Yugoslavia and the West: 1939 to 1984. Victor Gollancz Ltd, London 1985, maps, bibliography, index; 287 pp; £12.95.

Adam Bromke, Eastern Europe in the Aftermath of Solidarity. Boulder: East European Monographs, Distributed by Columbia University Press, New York. 1985. viii + 206 pp. $29.00.

Stanley M. Max, The United States, Great Britain and the Sovietisation of Hungary, 1945–48. Colorado: Eastern European Monographs, 1985, 195 pp. $26.00.

Phillip J. Bryson, The Consumer Under Socialist Planning: The East‐German Case, New York: Praeger Publishers, 1984, x + 206 pp. £33.95.

Roy Allison, Finland's Relations with the Soviet Union 1944–84. London and Basingstoke: (Macmillan in Association with St Antony's College, Oxford), 1985. ix + 211 pp. £25.

Paolo Spriano, Stalin and the European Communists, London, Verso, 1985. 315 pp. £16.95.

Gwyn Prins ed, The Choice, Nuclear Weapons versus Security. (London, Chatto and Windus, Hogarth Press, 1984, xvii + 251 pp. £12.95 hardback, £6.95 paperback.)

Anthony Arnold, Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion in Perspective (Revised and enlarged edition). Stanford University, Stanford, Ca, Hoover Institution Press, 1985, xix + 179 pp. $10.95 (paperback).

Nish Jamgotch, Jr. ed. Sectors of Mutual Benefit in U.S. ‐ Soviet Relations. Durham, NC, Duke University Press, 1985, xxii + 254 pp. £35.00 (hardback).

John Massey Stewart and Alan Wood, Siberia: Two Historical Perspectives, The Great Britain‐USSR Association and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies: London, 1984, 50 pp. £4.50 (UK), £4.95 (elsewhere in Europe), £6.25 (Rest of World [airmail]).

Tatyana Mamonova, ed. Women and Russia. Feminist Writings from the Soviet Union, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1984. xxiii + 273 pp. £19.50 h/b £5.95 p/b.

D. V. Filat'ev, Katastrofa Belogo dvizheniya v Sibiri: Vpechatleniya ochevidtsa. Paris: YMCA‐Press, 1985. 142 pp.

The Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ed., Information Bulgaria, A Short Encyclopaedia of the People's Republic of Bulgaria, translated by Sofia Press Agency, Pergamon Press, Oxford 1985, 976 pp, index, bibliographies, maps, tables, £98.

Robert Weiner, Romanian Foreign Policy and the United Nations. (New York: Praeger, 1984), 206 pp. $28.95).

Zbigniew Landau and Jerzy Tomaszewski, The Polish Economy in the Twentieth Century. (Croom Helm, Beckenham, 1985). vi + 346 pp. £25.00.

John N. Stevens, Czechoslovakia at the Crossroads. New York: Columbia University Press, 1985, xiv + 349 pp., $35.00.

Karel Vítek, Problémy man?elské rovnováhy. [Problems of marital equilibrium] Prague, 1985, 284 pp. p/b K?s 26.00.     

A Participant Evaluation of the U.S. Navy Parent Support Program

This study reports on the results of a program evaluation of the U.S. Navy New Parent Support Program (NPSP). NPSP is composed of two components: center-based parenting classes and home-based visits. Data are presented on: (a) satisfaction with program quality, (b) how well the program met its primary objectives (e.g., helps reduce parenting stress), (c) how well the NPSP met its Reasons for Being (RFBs; e.g., Helps service members concentrate on their job), and (d) program impact on mission-related outcomes (i.e., quality of life (QOL), readiness, and program impact on their decision to remain in the military). Results indicate that parents who take part in both the parenting classes and home-based visits report that the program exceeded their expectations, the program improved their perceptions of their parenting and coping skills, they perceived that the program demonstrated the Navy's concern for Sailors and their families, and the program enhanced the family's quality of life. Implications of study findings are discussed.