VAWG mainstreaming in access to justice programmes: a framework for action

If we are finally to end violence against women and girls (VAWG), then this commitment needs to be embedded into all development programmes, regardless of sectorial focus. Women and girls are vulnerable across the board and recognition of this reality is the first step. This article proposes a VAWG mainstreaming framework that addresses how to centralise a VAWG lens into development programming, irrespective of programmatic priorities. The article outlines the need for such a lens and presents the approach through a number of stages. The model is then applied to two programme areas, microfinance and HIV/AIDS, demonstrating its applicability across development issues.     

The dissolution of the large complex households in the Balkans: Was the ultimate reason structural or cultural?

The article examines three village communities—Lekenik in Civil Croatia, Bobovac in the Croatian Military Border, and Orašac in Serbia—to answer the question of why the inhabitants of these villages experienced radical changes in their collective lives and their household organization during the nineteenth century. Complex households had developed in these villages in previous centuries, but a series of political, social, and economic changes, starting in the middle decades of the century, combined to make the continuation of the large complex household unfeasible. In the final analysis, the process of transformation of the large and complex households was rooted in economic change, particularly in the arrival of a monetized economy and mercantile capitalism. The cultural values of complex households still existed after the dissolution of the large complex households, and continued to be important well into the twentieth century.     

A systematic and quantitative analysis of PCR template contamination

A quantitative and systematic analysis is provided for ubiquitously present template DNA interfering with the quantification of human DNA by PCR. Two sources contributing to DNA background were identified. The first one is interpreted as DNA present in chemicals and on equipment and the second as caused by operator handling. The amounts were equivalent to 2.5 and 8.9 pg per mL of sample, and the estimated frequencies of contamination were 65 and 35%, respectively, resulting in an effective limit of detection of 17.4 pg/mL. Below this level--named effective laboratory background--a result could not be considered as authentic. Knowledge of these parameters is important for laboratories that analyze minute amounts of human DNA by PCR for purposes such as quantification, typing, and sequencing.