Women in politics in the people's republic of china: Holding up half the sky?

In China, there has been a long tradition of oppression, with the burden falling particularly on rural women. Since 1949, Chinese leaders have supported women's emancipation as a natural consequence of Socialist economic development. Government actions to mitigate the problem of inequality have enhanced some achievements but are largely inadequate. This paper examines the issue of Chinese women in politics and concludes that negative influences of the past, misunderstanding of the connection between general and gender specific policies, and the absence of general commitment to the ideology of sex equality have been the obstacles to women's emancipation in China.     

The next generation of court-mandated domestic violence treatment: a comparison study of batterer intervention and restorative justice programs

Objectives

The most common approach to treatment of domestic violence crimes in the United States is the mandated group-based Batterer Intervention Program (BIP). Several alternative treatment approaches have been developed over the years, including a restorative justice-based treatment program for domestic violence offenders called Circles of Peace (CP). This study compared a CP program administered in Arizona with a local BIP program, in controlled settings.

Methods

This study involved a randomized controlled trial with 152 domestic violence cases randomly assigned to either BIP or CP between September 2005 and March 2007. Independent sample t tests were used to measure treatment outcomes post-random assignment, in terms of both domestic violence and non-domestic violence re-arrest rates during four follow-up periods (6, 12, 18, and 24 months).

Results

CP participants experienced less recidivism than BIP during all follow-up comparisons. However, statistically significant differences were detected only for the 6-month (p?<?.1) and the 12-month (p?<?.05) follow-up comparisons for non-domestic violence re-arrests, and no statistically significant differences were detected for the domestic violence re-arrests.

Conclusions

The findings are generally statistically non-significant at .05. While these results do not suggest a change in policy from BIP to CP for domestic violence crimes, it does dispel the popular belief that restorative justice cannot be used to treat domestic violence criminal activity, in that CP does no worse than the traditional batterer intervention program. Given the low statistical power and high attrition rates, more research is necessary to test CP and restorative justice treatment generally in court-mandated domestic violence cases in order to understand the treatment impact on both domestic violence and non-domestic violence offenders.     

The functioning and regulation of escrow accounts

Abstract

About 40 million Americans have mortgages serviced by escrow accounts. Yet escrow accounts are rarely covered by an explicit agreement between borrower and lender and are often poorly understood. As a result, escrow accounts have become the subject of growing controversy. Federal regulation of escrow accounts has become increasingly detailed and intrusive during the past two decades, and the subject is under almost continuous regulatory review. In the 1990s, the attorneys general of at least 10 states have sued large escrow account servicers over administration of accounts.

The purposes of this article are to explain briefly how escrow accounts work, benefit relevant parties, and are regulated by federal agencies, and to evaluate alternative regulatory programs. Most of the legitimate social goals of federal regulation could be achieved by requiring an explicit escrow agreement at the time of closing on a mortgage. A second‐best requirement would be that interest be paid on escrow balances.     

Signals Intelligence and the Coder Special Branch of the Royal Navy in the 1950s

The Coder (Special) Branch was created to meet the needs of the Navy in gathering Russian language intelligence in the early years of the Cold War. It also supported a national signals intelligence effort coordinated by GCHQ. The article explores our recruitment, brief cryptography training, lengthy training in the Russian language, radio training, and our work in monitoring radio traffic at the radio stations set up in north Germany, first at Cuxhaven, later at Kiel. It concludes with a brief discussion of theIsis case at the central criminal court in London which arose from one of the first unauthorized discussions of these sorts of activities. This case ended with the successful prosecution of two former Coders for breaching the Official Secrets Act.     

Loners,Colleagues, or Peers? Assessing the Social Organization of Radicalization

This study explores the utility of a sociological model of social organization developed by Best and Luckenbill (1994) to classify the radicalization processes of terrorists (i.e., extremist perpetrators who engaged in ideologically motivated acts of violence) who are usually categorized as loner or lone wolf attackers. There are several organizational frameworks used to define or classify violent acts performed by individuals who may or may not have ties to extremist groups, but these studies largely ignore the role of social relationships in radicalization and the extent to which they inform our knowledge of terror. To address this gap, we apply the Best and Luckenbill model of social organization using a qualitative analysis of three case studies of four lone actor or small cell terrorists. The findings demonstrate lone actors are not always true loners in the context of radicalization, and highlights the ways that the Internet and social ties foster the radicalization processes of terror.

     

Accountability in Governance Networks: An Assessment of Public,Private, and Nonprofit Emergency Management Practices Following Hurricane Katrina

What is the most effective framework for analyzing complex accountability challenges within governing networks? Recognizing the multiscale and intersector (public, private, and nonprofit) characteristics of these networks, an accountability model is advanced organized around democratic (elected representatives, citizens, and the legal system), market (owners and consumers), as well as administrative (bureaucratic, professional and collaborative) relationships. This concept draws from 2005 events following Hurricane Katrina. Multiple failures of governing networks to plan for and respond to Katrina include a breakdown in democratic, market, and administrative accountability as well as a pervasive confusion over trade‐offs between accountability types emerging from crises. This essay offers several useful recommendations for emergency management planners as well as for those who teach and research.     

Forensic implications of respiratory derived blood spatter distributions

The nature of blood aerosols produced in physiological studies of an upright subject expiring small volumes through straws, spitting and mouthing sounds, and a semi-prone subject spitting through a bloody mouth or snorting through a single nasal orifice and by a simplified physical model of the respiratory system were investigated. Each manoeuvre produced many hundreds of droplets of a range of size, the vast majority being less than 1mm diameter. Droplets under 1mm dia. travelled over 1m - much further than could be expected if their flight was ballistic, like that of impact spatter. Respired blood aerosol properties are explained in terms of established mechanics of airflow shear induced aerosol production and the fluid mechanics of exhaled air movement.     

Bladder rupture after intentional medication overdose

We report the case of a 51-year-old woman who had a medical history of diabetes, depression with past suicide attempts, and suicidal ideation. She was found unresponsive in a motel with multiple bottles of medicines (melatonin, carisoprodol, ativan, and clonazepam) and an unopened bottle of wine. She was transported to the local hospital and treated for benzodiazepine toxicity and aspiration pneumonitis.The decedent gradually became more alert and was extubated 3 days after hospital admission. The decedent was reportedly getting up to use the restroom when she became tachypneic and diaphoretic and complained of generalized body pain. Her condition quickly declined, and she was pronounced deceased. A postmortem examination revealed an acute bladder rupture and soft tissue hemorrhage.A review of the literature reveals that isolated bladder rupture after minimal or no trauma in association with alcohol or drug ingestion is an infrequently reported, but recognized, injury. The diagnosis of bladder rupture should be considered in a patient with lower abdominal pain, even without a history of trauma. A history of voiding or bladder dysfunction should increase the suspicion for this injury. If suspected, a retrograde cystogram should be obtained promptly. Failure to consider and recognize this injury may lead to significant morbidity.