Evaluation of Postmortem Cerebrospinal Fluid S100B Protein and Serotonin Levels: Comparison of Suicidal Versus Nonsuicidal Deaths in Konya,Turkey

Although suicide is a preventable public health problem, objective assays for suicide risk are limited. In this study, it was aimed to determine levels of S100B protein and serotonin as a marker for risk of suicide. S100B protein and serotonin levels were investigated with ELISA method in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in medicolegal autopsy cases, including those of suicide cases (n = 32) and nonsuicide cases (n = 56). The CSF S100B levels were higher (9.3 ± 2.9 ng/mL vs. 5.4 ± 2.0 ng/mL), and serotonin levels were lower (10.4 ± 4.9 ng/mL vs. 19.0 ± 5.7 ng/mL) in suicide group than nonsuicide group (p < 0.05). There was no correlation between S100B protein and serotonin levels with gender, age groups, postmortem interval, and cause of death. It is concluded that both S100B protein and serotonin in CSF may be useful for determination of suicide risk.     

WHAT SHOULD AN IDEAL E-ADMINISTRATION MODEL COMPRISE？

The dominance of computer and information technologies in the second half of the 20th century has begun to transform the conventional forms of concepts and relations in law and public administration. This transformation has beeome a trigger and an indispensable decisive factor of an ongoing change which has deep impacts on the social order. In this context, the conventional relations between citizens and administration have appeared in new forms with the emergence of the Internet and other information technologies. In administrative law, this innovation, mostly referred to as e- administration, results in changes in administration and administrative activities and applications. This change gives the signals of a start that will have deep impacts and transform both public administration and administrative law. The factors that influence the emergence and success of e-administration are the level of development, financial capability, level of infrastructure, national legislation and public support in a country. The recent global crisis has led to a decrease of acceleration in e-State applications. In international literature, Fang suggests a list of requirements for e-State and hence for e-administration. An expanded version of this list can be accepted as the ＂ideal＂ for the time being. Ten characteristics required for the good practice of e-administration are as follows：     

Consumption,savings and investment by social class in Bangladesh: Does the rural sector support the Urban sector?

This article employs input‐output analysis and information from a social accounting matrix and the concept of net savings to examine savings, consumption and investment behaviour by various social classes in Bangladesh in urban and rural areas. Considerable differences between social classes can be identified in all three respects. A majority of the social classes in the rural sector does not appear to generate enough savings to sustain its consumption whereas the urban social classes do. There seems to be little difference in consumption pattern of the rural rich and the urban rich. There is considerable urban‐rural difference in the import intensities of consumption. The findings of this study based on the Hazari model do not establish the existence of urban bias but the problem seems to be one of ‘rich‐bias’ rather than urban‐bias per se. However, the Hazari model cannot capture all possible sources of urban bias and circumstantial evidence indicates concentration of advantages in the urban areas.     

Opposition politics in Malawi: hopeful signs amid the warnings

Across Africa, governments are either peacefully and legitimately ousted, or forced to share power, through the ballot box. In Malawi, the emergence of many political parties since the advent of a multiparty dispensation in 1993 signalled the flourishing of pluralism and opposition politics. However, in the May 2009 elections, the Malawi Congress Party and the United Democratic Front, which constituted the opposition, were largely rejected by the electorate in favour of President Bingu Mutharika's Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), credited for his sound economic policies emulated internationally. The reduced presence in parliament of parties outside of the Democratic Progressive Party coalition is troubling. This development has stimulated debate on the opposition's role and ability to defend democratic governance, and the challenges facing it. On the other hand, the DPP's landslide victory has to some degree demonstrated that it is possible to ‘de-regionalise’ and ‘de-ethinicise’ the configuration and alignment of political interests and forces, confirming for other African countries that the analysis of African politics need not be oversimplified into ethnic and cultural terms as is often the case. This paper contends that democratic governance is promoted by a credible opposition that effectively acts as an alternative government. Therefore, there is need for addressing the major factors that militate against its operations to enable it play its rightful role in Malawi's emerging democracy.     

Exploratory spatial analysis of crimes against property in Turkey

Turkey, a rapidly developing country, is a junction point between Asia and Europe in terms of its social and economic structure. Turkey is both the most advanced economy in the Turkish-speaking world and the largest economy in the Muslim world. In the last few years, with the development of Turkey’s economic and social structure, the level of criminality in the country has attracted attention. Consequently, we aimed to explore potential spatial associations of crimes against property rates across the 81 provinces of Turkey (NUTS3) from 1997 to 2009. Geographical information systems and explorative methods of spatial data analysis were employed in the analyses of crime rates. Since crime is a phenomenon that arises from the interaction between social, economic, psychological circumstances and, especially, geographical factors, this study attempts to rectify the possible deficiencies of traditional statistical analyses of geography. Because of the very different population sizes in each province, comparing the volume of crimes makes a major impact on the stability of the crime rates; therefore in this study an empirical Bayes smoothing method was used to interpret the crime rates correctly. Global spatial autocorrelation indices were used to test the spatial dependence of the distribution of the crime rates. Besides the excess risk rates, local spatial autocorrelation methods were used to detect and interpret the clustering of crime rates. In order to model the crime rates, a set of socioeconomic parameters (migration rates by province, gross national product according to purchasing power parity by province, registered number of touristic facilities and number of rooms by province, electricity consumption statistics, provincial unemployment rates and urbanisation index values were handled with geographically weighted regression. According to the results, criminal activities were non-random in terms of time and space. Property crime, except for smuggling, is densely clustered in the west and south-west of Turkey. The present study demonstrates the utility of spatial analysis and geographically weighted regression to detect some important geographical dimensions and crucial geographical aspects of property crimes in Turkey.     

Civil commitment in Turkey: reflections on a bill drafted by psychiatrists

Involuntary hospitalization of the mentally ill has been an issue that still remains outside the judicial system in Turkey. Despite the new Turkish Civil Code, which includes several articles relevant to involuntary psychiatric hospital admissions, there still appears to be a need for a comprehensive mental health law to address specific issues concerning civil commitment of the mentally ill. As a result of the lack of specific statutory regulation, an insufficient number of psychiatric hospital beds and limited appreciation of the safety risks involved in untreated mental illness, involuntary hospitalization remains an underutilized option by psychiatrists and the courts alike. In response to its concerned members, the Psychiatric Association of Turkey has appointed a task force to draft a proposed mental health law, entitled the "Psychiatric Patients' Bill of Rights." Although the draft suggests a model with emphasis on the right to psychiatric treatment, it also recommends close judicial oversight to prevent potential abuses of discretion by the system. However, this might present logistic problems in a country with already overburdened courts. Authors discuss the highlights of the draft within the context of Turkey's current cultural, social and judicial structure, and compare it to similar laws of other countries.     

Does Power Corrupt? An Empirical Study of Power,Accountability, and Performance Triangle in Public Administration

Foundational work in public administration has considered the relationship between administrative power, accountability, and performance in public organizations. Even with the vast literature addressing power, accountability, and performance, scholars are still theorizing on how they influence one another. This study proposes and empirically tests a theoretical model of the relationships between each of these three constructs. Data are analyzed from an original survey of a national sample of US local government public administrators—city managers. Using structural equation modeling, results show that there are positive relationships between power and accountability, power and performance, and accountability and performance. The article discusses theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

Depolitization of Bureaucracy: The Case of Central and Eastern European Countries

Political parties worldwide seek to work with bureaucrats who are close to their programs, willing to cooperate, and concerted. On the other hand, there is a huge body of literature which argues that bureaucracy should be separate from politics and that it has to consist of public servants who are technically knowledgeable, expert, and also politically neutral. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe suffered from highly politicized public administrations under one-party regimes, and have struggled to separate their bureaucracies from politics since early 1990s. In view of the relation between politics and bureaucracy from the perspective of (de)politization, this paper looks into the changes that Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) have gone through after the institutionalization of multi-party regimes and tries to provide some generalizations.