New forensic approach to age determination in children based on tooth eruption

The present study proposes equations for age determination both in living and dead children, obtained with the help of stepwise ascending multiple linear regression. The equations should be applied, based on the number of erupted teeth and tooth germs, which were detected on radiographs, during clinical examination and in infant skeletal remains. The proposed equations proved to be efficient just like Demirjian's method used as a reference today, and permit age estimation till 20 years of age.     

Influence of bleaching on the enantiomeric disposition of amphetamine-type stimulants in hair

The aim of this work was to study the influence of hair bleaching on the enantiomeric ratios of amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), including amphetamine, methamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine, 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxyethylamphetamine. Hair specimens from 14 STA users were treated with a commercial bleaching product during 40 min. After alkaline digestion and solid-phase extraction of bleached and non-bleached hair, the STA enantiomers were derivatised with an in-house synthesised chiral reagent, the (2S,4R)-N-heptafluorobutyryl-4-heptafluorobutoyloxy-prolyl chloride. The diastereoisomers were quantified by GC/MS-NCI. The results showed that the concentrations of all enantiomers decreased in bleached hair in comparison with the non-treated hair (median values between 20 and 39%). The enantiomeric ratios of the STA in bleached hair were not significantly different from those determined in non-treated hair. Our findings pointed out that bleaching treatments decrease concentrations of STA in hair without influencing their enantiomeric ratios.     

Regionalization in East Asia

Institutional regionalization has come very late to East Asia compared with Europe, but its pace has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s. Many agreements, including bilateral ones such as those signed between Japan and Singapore, or pluri-lateral ones such as those between ASEAN countries, cover an ever increasing number of countries of the East Asian region, including Japan, India, and China. We first analyze Asian integration as a de facto, spontaneous, development of trade. Trade specialization in Asia has often been described as guided by the different levels of development of the countries participating in the regional integration. It constitutes a vertical division of labor between poor countries exporting natural resources and/or labor-intensive products to developed countries exporting machinery, sophisticated parts and components, and high-tech products. This trade structure is radically different from the European horizontal division of labor (exchange of different varieties of similar goods). Then we look at the micro-economic level how Japanese firms tend to integrate Asia into their international network, with Japanese partners being used as relays for Japanese export of semi-manufactured products. Last we present a simulation with the MIRAGE model of a scenario of general regionalization in which all the regions of the world develop preferential treatment for neighboring countries. These agreements are limited to industrial products with particular attention to the automotive sector. The main results are that Asia is the main winner in such a scenario, and within Asia it is Japan and Korea that will be the main winners. In fact, because developing Asia is one of the most protected regions of the world, the impact of liberalization is also the highest. Second, Japan and Korea are best placed to profit from these regional agreements, because other developed countries are excluded from the market of developing Asia. They also have superiority in manufacturing goods whereas countries like China might have problems upscaling their industrial production. Nevertheless our model did not take into account the voluntary pace of development chosen by China and that she will use her powerful state system to avoid being locked into low-tech, low-value-added products.

Strategic spin-off: a new incentive contract for managing R&D researchers

Innovation is a strategic challenge for high-tech companies and as such, justifies large investments in R&D. After exploring the limits of the underlying postulates of the organizational management of innovation (the necessary specialisation of researchers, the possibility of human discontinuity of innovation and possibility of controlling researchers), the objective of this paper is to show that the relationship between managers and researchers is characterised by asymmetric information (Laffont , J. J. (1985). Economie de l’incertain et de l’information, Economica.) to the benefit of the researchers. This asymmetry supposes the setting up of management practices which incite researchers to optimise the company’s interests, but this can only be done to at the expense of management control. In R&D activities, the informational asymmetry in agency relationship can be overcome by incentive managerial practices (Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976) Theory of the firm: managerial behavior, agency cost, and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305–360.). The relationship between the manager (principal) and the researcher (agent), can be resolved by setting up the practice of strategic spin-off. This practice which enables a researcher to create a company based on work that he himself has carried out within the R&D department of his “mother” company, constitutes both an economic incentive (through the status of shareholder) and a symbolic one (through the status of entrepreneur). The incentive is strong for the researcher both to reveal his information and to obtain financial value from his research. Implementing this incentive contract means putting into place certain managerial and organisational practices designed to accompany the researcher–entrepreneur: (training, incubator, venture-capital structure etc.). The practice of strategic spin-off is beginning to emerge in high tech enterprises. This is why we have chosen to make an in-depth case study of the French company most involved in strategic spin-off, namely France Telecom.

Max Weber on the Labour Contract: Between Realism and Formal Legal Thought

Although Max Weber's review essay of the first part of Philipp Lotmar's The Labour Contract may appear peripheral to his overall contribution to legal sociology, it contains important insights on the relationship of law to economics, the utility of sociological empirical research for jurisprudence, the epistemological gap between 'legal dogmatics' and the sociology of law, and the fundamental distinction between state and non-state law in properly understanding the developmental logic of labour law.
In the review, far from appearing as a rigid partisan of positivistic legal formalism, Weber admits of a kind of 'legal pluralism' as a necessary path to the sociology of law, and allows some measure of realism, when celebrating Lotmar's analysis of the social facts of law as a precondition for proper juristic treatment of the labour contract. Nevertheless, Weber remained distrustful of legal realism which, for him, was founded on an epistemological confusion between 'is' and 'ought'.     

欧盟模式对世界治理的启示

作为法国前总理,米歇尔·罗卡尔先生在这篇文章中阐述了法国在欧盟和世界格局中的协调作用,认为从法国和欧盟的经验来看,当今世界的许多问题和矛盾都可以且应该用对话的方式解决。文章批评美国在反恐斗争中的单边主义立场,并且对美国的伊朗问题政策提出警告。文章还对中国建设“和谐社会”表示赞赏,认为和谐的、非军事的对话对于亚洲和世界都是很重要的。