Reviews

Andrei Kuznetsov, Foreign Investment in Contemporary Russia: Managing Capital Entry. New York: St Martin's Press Inc, 1994. xiv + 188 pp., £45.00

Leslie Dienes, Istvan Dobozi & Marian Radetzki, Energy and Economic Reform in the Former Soviet Union: Implications for Production, Consumption and Exports. London: Macmillan, 1994, xiv + 246 pp., £45.00

Hilary Pilkington, Russia's Youth and its Culture. A Nation's Constructors and Constructed. London: Routledge, 1994, xiv + 358 pp., £40.00 h/b., £12.99 p/b.

Peter Gatrell, Government, Industry and Rearmament in Russia, 1900–1914: the Last Argument of Tsarism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, xx + 399 pp., £55.00 h/b., £19.95 p/b.

Margot Light (ed.), Troubled Friendships: Moscow's Third World Ventures. London: British Academic Press, 1993, vii + 225 pp., £39.50.

Dale F. Eickelman (ed.), Russia's Muslim Frontiers: New Directions in Cross‐cultural Analysis. Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1993, ix + 225 pp.

Ljubo Sirc, Criticism of Self‐Management Still Relevant? London: Centre for Research into Communist Economies, 1994, 134 pp., £7.50.

Du?an Pokorný, Efficiency and Justice in the Industrial World: Volume 1. The Failure of the Soviet Experiment. New York, London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, 297 pp., £53.00.

Linda J. Cook, The Soviet Social Contract and Why it Failed. Welfare Policy and Workers’ Politics from Brezhnev to Yeltsin. Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1994, xiii + 272 pp., £35.95/$53.95.

Henryk Kierzkowski, Marek Okolski & Stanislaw Wellisz (eds), Stabilization and Structural Adjustment in Poland. London: Routledge, 1993, xi + 314 pp., £45.00.

Stephen Whitefield (ed.) The New Institutional Architecture of Eastern Europe. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, ix + 204 pp., £40.00     

中印油气外交:“新大角逐”、“互利互赢”或“独立平行”

近年来,19世纪的口号"大角逐"在国际能源领域再次抬头。但是,西方学者往往选择少数案例来证明油价上升的主要原因是中国与印度的竞争,以及油田的买卖。本文通过对中印竞争、合作与独立购买案例的实证调研,认为双方的竞争与合作案例的数量不仅少,而且两类交易的数量相当,相比之下,平行独立的中印能源外交案例最多。中印两国能源公司都基本遵照市场规律与游戏规则,而且多数能源行动并不属于过时的份额油"大角逐"。     

The Identification of Ingested Dandelion Juice in Gastric Contents of a Deceased Person by Direct Sequencing and GC–MS Methods*

Abstract: DNA and chemical analysis of gastric contents of a deceased person were handled in this work. The body of the victim was discovered in his car, submerged in a lake. We were asked to determine whether or not the gastric contents of the victim harbored drugs and dandelion material. It was suspected that the victim had been murdered by poisoning with an excess amount of sleeping medication (doxylamine), which had been homogenized with dandelion. The concentrations of 11.4 and 27.5 mg/kg of doxylamine detected from spleen and liver of the victim were far higher than the assumed therapeutic concentration. Via gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis and direct sequencing analysis of plant genetic markers such as intergenic transcribed spacer, 18S ribosomal RNA (rRNA), rbcL and trnLF, it was confirmed that the gastric contents of the victim contained taraxasterol, which is one of the marker compounds for dandelion and contained dandelion species‐specific rbcL and trnL‐trnF IGS (trnLF) sequences. The initial PCR of the genomic DNA isolated from the gastric contents showed insufficient quantity, and the second PCR, of which the template was a portion of the initial PCR products, exhibited a sufficient quantity for direct sequencing. rbcL and trnLF located in the cpDNA resulted in the successful determination of dandelion DNA in a decedent’s stomach contents. GC–MS identifies the actual presence of a taraxasterol at 28.4 min. Raw dandelion was assumed to be used as a masking vehicle for excess sleeping drug (doxylamine).     

DNA Typing for the Identification of Old Skeletal Remains from Korean War Victims*

Abstract: The identification of missing casualties of the Korean War (1950–1953) has been performed using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) profiles, but recent advances in DNA extraction techniques and approaches using smaller amplicons have significantly increased the possibility of obtaining DNA profiles from highly degraded skeletal remains. Therefore, 21 skeletal remains of Korean War victims and 24 samples from biological relatives of the supposed victims were selected based on circumstantial evidence and/or mtDNA‐matching results and were analyzed to confirm the alleged relationship. Cumulative likelihood ratios were obtained from autosomal short tandem repeat, Y‐chromosomal STR, and mtDNA‐genotyping results, and mainly confirmed the alleged relationship with values over 10⁵. The present analysis emphasizes the value of mini‐ and Y‐STR systems as well as an efficient DNA extraction method in DNA testing for the identification of old skeletal remains.     

Determination of amphetamine-type stimulants,ketamine and metabolites in fingernails by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry

A gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) method was developed and validated for the simultaneous qualification and quantification of methamphetamine (MA), amphetamine (AP), 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine (MDMA), 3,4-methylenedioxy-N-amphetamine (MDA), ketamine (KET) and norketamine (NKT) in fingernails. Fingernail samples (20 mg) were washed with distilled water and methanol, digested with 1.0 M sodium hydroxide at 95 °C for 30 min, and then extracted with ethyl acetate. Extract solutions were evaporated to dryness, derivatized using heptafluorobutyric anhydride (HFBA) at 60 °C for 30 min, and analyzed by GC–MS. The linear ranges were 0.1–20.0 ng/mg for AP, MDMA and NKT, 0.2–20.0 ng/mg for MA and MDA, and 0.4–20.0 ng/mg for KET, with the coefficients of determination (r² ≥ 0.9989). The intra- and inter-day precisions were within 7.1% and 10.6%, respectively. The intra- and inter-day accuracies were ?10.9% to 0.8% and ?4.3% to 4.5%, respectively. The limits of detections (LODs) and the limits of quantifications (LOQs) for each analyte were lower than 0.094 ng/mg and 0.314 ng/mg, respectively. The recoveries were in the range of 72.3–94.9%. The average fingernail growth rates of two subjects for three years and six subjects for two months were 3.12 mm/month and 3.16 mm/month, respectively. The method proved to be suitable also for the simultaneous detection and quantification of MA, MDMA, KET and their metabolites in fingernails.