Ancillary studies in amniotic fluid embolism: a case report and review of the literature

The incidence of amniotic fluid embolism during pregnancy is approximately 1/50,000 and has a mortality rate in excess of 80%. The postmortem diagnosis of amniotic fluid embolism can be challenging for forensic investigators and pathologists. At autopsy, usually signs of disseminated intravascular coagulation suggest an amniotic fluid embolism. A definitive diagnosis of amniotic fluid embolism cannot be made until ancillary studies are performed on the decedent's tissues. We report a case of a 37-year-old G3P2 white female who was 36 weeks gestation when her membranes spontaneously ruptured. She suddenly became breathless, went into cardiogenic shock, and died. The autopsy revealed gross and microscopic findings of amniotic fluid embolism, which was confirmed with ancillary studies consisting of special stains, immunohistochemistry, and a serum tryptase level. The authors hope this case report, including gross and microscopic autopsy findings with procedural and ancillary studies, and review of the literature will help investigators and pathologists in the diagnosis of amniotic fluid embolism.     

Youth violence in everyday life

What we now know about violence in the United States is that it is a common occurrence and recurrence for youth. Self-report methods have greatly enhanced our understanding of interpersonal violence. Specifically, from the 1980s to the present the age group most vulnerable to violence is youth. In addition, and in any given year, one third will physically fight with peers, more than one third physically fight with dating partners, and a majority of those who fight with either peers or partners will repeat this at least one more time.     

Compensating victims for harms caused by pollution and other hazardous substances: a comparison of American and Japanese policies

This paper reviews recent American proposals to reform the system for compensating victims of pollution and compares them with the Japanese approach. American proposals fall into three categories: balanced approaches that combine administrative relief with tort reform; proposals that would provide administrative relief but eliminate tort remedies; and proposals to reform tort law which have nothing to say about administrative relief. While American policy-makers are still groping for a solution, in Japan tort law changes provided the rationale for a system of administrative relief that preserves the victims' right to sue. While the Japanese approach is not perfect, the early development of a policy reduced legal and political uncertainties and provided a stable environment for economic growth.     

Reviews

Susan Gross Solomon (ed.), Pluralism in the Soviet Union. Essays in Honour of H. Gordon Skilling. London: Macmillan, 1983, xiii + 179 pp. £20.00.

George Yaney. The Urge to Mobilize: Agrarian Reform in Russia, 1861–1930. Urbana, Chicago, London: University of Illinois Press, 1982, xii + 599 pp. £18.75.

Roy Medvedev, All Stalin's Men. Translated by Harold Shukman. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1983, x + 184 pp. £8.95.

Robert F. Byrnes (ed.), After Brezhnev: Sources of Soviet Conduct in the 1980s. London: Frances Pinter, 1983, xviii + 457 pp., bibliography and index, h/b £16.50, p/b £6.95.

Basile Kerblay, Modern Soviet Society (translated by Rupert Swyer). London: Methuen, 1983, xxvi + 321 pp. h/b £16.00, p/b £7.95.

Max Hayward, Writers in Russia: 1917–1978. Edited and with an introduction by Patricia Blake. London: Harvill Press, 1983, lxxvi + 340 pp. £7.95.

Dina R. Spechler. Permitted Dissent in the USSR. Novy mir and the Soviet Regime. New York: Praeger, 1982, xxiv + 296 pp. $27.95.

Everett M. Jacobs (ed.), Soviet Local Politics and Government, London: George Allen & Unwin, 1983, xiv + 225 pp. £15.00, $28.50.

Alan H. Smith, The Planned Economies of Eastern Europe. London: Croom Helm, 1983, 249 pp. £16.95.

John Löwenhardt, The Soviet Politburo. Translated by Dymphna Clark, Edinburgh: Canongate, 1982, 152 pp. £7.95.

Stephen Clissold, Djilas: the progress of a revolutionary. Introduction by Hugh Setton‐Watson. London: Temple Smith, 1983, 343 pp. £15.00.

Steven L. Burg, Conflict and Cohesion in Socialist Yugoslavia: Political Decision Making Since 1966. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton U. P., 1983, xii + 365 pp. $49.00.

Elizabeth Kridl Valkenier: The Soviet Union and the Third World. New York: Praeger, 1983, 185 pp. $21.95.

Dorothy Atkinson, The End Of The Russian Land Commune, 1905–30. Stanford, Calf.: Stanford UP, 1983, xii + 457 pp. $29.50.

Alain Touraine, et al., Solidarity: Poland 1980–81, Cambridge and Paris: CUP jointly with Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1983, xvii + 203 pp. paperback £6.95.     

Integrating blueprint and process: A structured flexibility approach to development management

Managing socio-economic development according to highly detailed pre-implementation plans rigidly applied has not had a high degree of success in generating sustained progress in the world's poorer nations. At the other end of the spectrum is the process approach that avoids specifying targets in advance, and concentrates upon building problem-solving capacity among the people involved. Many international donor and developing country agencies favour the blueprint model, despite its performance weaknesses, for its control and specificity. The process approach is limited by its lack of fit with agency procedures and incentives. This article discusses a structured flexibility approach to development management that integrates the blueprint model's planned structuring of action with the process model's flexibility and iterative learning orientation. This blend provides the basis for the programmatic and financial accountability required to obtain support from donor and developing country bureaucracies, and facilitates adaptive management to deal with uncertain and changing task environments. Case examples from the Caribbean, Portugal, and Pakistan illustrate the application of the structured flexibility approach.     

The Two Language Problem: Sélim Abou,Lebanon and the Ethnolinguistic Nation

Abstract

In 1961, Sélim Abou, then a young doctoral student and now chair of cultural anthropology at the Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut, published his thesis. It argued that Lebanon's most formative national characteristic is its French-Arabic bilingualism. Moreover, he proposes that Lebanese communities should be defined not by confession but by language. Abou’s work raised red flags for partisans of Arabic in Lebanon who argued that bilingualism was nothing more than a conceptual 'fig leaf' for maintaining French and an established cultural and political status quo that worked in favour of Lebanon’s Maronites. Critics suggested that his design was nothing more than a thinly veiled promotion of sectarian politics. Through an examination of his work, and of the critical response it provoked, this article examines the possibilities of language as an alternative category of analysis in Lebanon. While Abou’s bilingualism most certainly served as an apology for French colonialism and for Maronite interests, his work nonetheless illustrates alternative local categories of use other than “confession.” Instead of focusing on the criticism of Abou and his category, we must examine how language can provide possibilities that might crack open the hermetic and fragile structure of confessionalism, highlighting the types of moveable communities in the post-colony.