Population genetics of 15 AmpflSTR Identifiler loci in Macedonians and Macedonian Romani (Gypsy)

Allele frequencies of 15 AmpFlSTR Identifiler STR loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818 and FGA) were analysed in a sample of 100 unrelated autochthonous Macedonian and 102 Macedonian Romani individuals, representing different ethnic groups residing within the same country of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. The interpopulation comparisons between Macedonians and Macedonian Romani with four south eastern European populations, Kosovo Albanians, Serbians from Vojvodina Province, western Romanians and northern Greeks were performed as well as comparison between Macedonian Romani and Assam population from Asia (India). Reported data point that Macedonian Romani, as an example of an endogamous population of Asian (Indian) origin, show significant allelic differences when compared to neighbouring south eastern European populations.     

Public opinion on media presence in the courthouse

Very little attention has been devoted to the public's opinion of media coverage of court cases despite extensive research on pretrial publicity (PTP). Following a provincial judgment to restrict media access in Quebec courthouses, a preliminary unpublished study found that the public was largely in support of these restrictions. The present study sought to expand on this finding in a more widely generalizable sample. Subjects were recruited from continuing education classes and completed a questionnaire that assessed their support for restricting journalists in courthouses. Nearly 80% of the 243 participants supported media restrictions. Although participants in the four experimental conditions and one of the control groups were largely in favor of the restrictions, one control group was opposed to the restrictions. The results suggest that the public prefers that journalists have restricted access to courtroom participants, resonating research on PTP and the Supreme Court's decision on the case.     

Encounters with panaceas: reading flyers and posters on ‘traditional’ healing in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District

Informed largely by the Critical Discourse Analysis framework, this article analyses flyers and posters that advertise traditional/alternative healing distributed and posted respectively in and around Johannesburg's Central Business District. Paying close attention to text and context, the paper analyses the advertising of medicines and practices referred to as traditional/alternative. The advertising, which employs modern media and advertising techniques, is as complex as the multiplicity of religious, secular and corporeal interventions offered by the healers. The ubiquitous presence of flyers and the continued pasting of posters onto city structures, despite warnings by the city of Johannesburg, are an expression of resistance to city authorities. The paper posits that what may appear to be downright charlatanism by the advertisers might in fact be a viable alternative to biomedicine, especially in Johannesburg's context of high in-migration with its attendant plethora of social and health problems. Thus the healing services that the healers advertise pose a challenge to allopathic medicine, suggesting that illness needs to be understood in a broad sense.     

Non-custodial Dispositions and the Politics of Sentencing

In 2012, the Government of Victoria, Australia, introduced a new form of non-custodial disposition known as the “community correction order” (“CCO”). In 2014, the Victorian Court of Appeal was asked to provide guidance to sentencing courts so that CCOs could fulfil their potential as an alternative to imprisonment. The Court’s guideline judgment concluded that the advent of the CCO had the potential to transform sentencing in Victoria but that this would depend upon the community being properly informed about the capacity of a CCO to operate punitively, as well as to promote rehabilitation. This did not occur, however, and there was strident criticism of the judgment as authorising inadequate punishment of serious offences. Although sentencing courts have utilised the CCO appropriately in the light of the judgment, the Government recently legislated to restrict its availability.     

‘My object is to be of service to you’: Carl Ackerman and the Wilson administration during World War I

The press was outraged in the 1970s when investigations exposed the CIA’s use of American journalists as undercover informants during the Cold War. This was treated as a shocking break in the traditional line between journalism and government. A study of journalist Carl W. Ackerman’s activities in the Great War, however, reveals such cooperation had precedents. While reporting oversees, Ackerman, later dean of Columbia Journalism School, worked behind the scenes with officials to shape and promote the Wilson administration’s foreign policy. This paper is a first step to understanding that pervasive, close relationships between journalists and government were well established at the beginning of the twentieth century.     

Co-producing a post-trafficking agenda: collaborating on transforming citizenship in Nepal

This article discusses how a new agenda on post-trafficking is gaining momentum through academic and activist anti-trafficking collaborations focused on co-producing knowledge with women who have returned from trafficking situations. Co-production of this nature is important as the issues raised by post-trafficking scenarios are largely ignored in anti-trafficking strategies, and the stigmatisation and poverty which women in these circumstances encounter means they rarely have a voice in policy-making. Drawing on research in Nepal, we present four types of co-produced data around transforming citizenship post-trafficking, and reflect on the strategies for generating and using them for advocacy purposes.     

Mitochondrial DNA control region population data from Macedonia

Mitochondrial DNA sequences of the entire control region were analyzed in 200 unrelated individuals from Macedonia. A total of 163 different haplotypes were found as determined by 177 polymorphic sites. The probability of a random match was calculated as 1:121 (0.83%). The basic phylogenetic structure of the Macedonian population as derived from its haplogroup distribution is in agreement with other West-Eurasian populations. Upon publication, the population data are going to be available in the EMPOP database (www.empop.org) [W. Parson, A. Dür, EMPOP—a forensic mtDNA database, FSI:Genetics 1 (2) (2007) 88–92; W. Parson, A. Brandstätter, A. Alonso, N. Brandt, B. Brinkmann, A. Carracedo, et al., The EDNAP mitochondrial DNA population database (EMPOP) collaborative exercises: organisation, results and perspectives, Forensic Sci. Int. 139 (2–3) (2004) 215–226.].     

The impact of race on the adjudication of sexual assault and other violent crimes

This study assessed whether sexual assault offenders were differently adjudicated from other violent felons and to what extent any differences in adjudication decisions were explained by the defendant's race. Five court decisions were analyzed using a weighted sample of 41,151 cases adjudicated between 1990 and 1996 that were representative of cases in the seventy-five most populous United States counties. The results did not support the hypothesis that sexual assault cases were given, on average, more leniency than less serious violent offenses, however, various adjudication decisions for the four violent offenses were moderated by the defendant's race. Interaction models showed minorities were treated more punitively compared to Whites when they were charged with an assault, robbery, or murder, but they were treated more leniently when they were charged with a sexual assault. Explanatory models that accounted for the differential processing of minorities that were disproportionately lenient or punitive, depending on the crime, are discussed.     

Modelling peruvian debt rescheduling in the 1980s

International debt rescheduling has continued to be a crucial issue in the international political economy. This article develops a political-economic model to examine debt rescheduling between private banks and debtors. The model provides a means of developing bargaining games by allowing the analyst to deduce game payoffs based on actors' “individual situations” as defined by their overall capabilities, their debt-specific resources, and their coalitional stability. Based on these games, it predicts the likely bargaining outcomes in terms of the degree to which banks will make lending concessions and the degree to which debtors will agree to adjust their economies. The model is operationalized based on written sources and interviews and then applied to four periods of rescheduling between the banks and Peru from 1982 to 1990. It proves successful in predicting bargaining outcomes in these cases, and we argue that it should prove helpful in investigating other debt bargaining episodes. Vinod K. Aggarwal is associate professor of political science and affiliated professor in the Haas School of Business at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author ofLiberal Protectionism: The International Politics of Organized Textile Trade (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press),International Debt Threat (Berkeley: Institute for International Studies), and articles on the politics of trade and finance. His forthcoming book is entitledDebt Games: Strategic Interaction in International Debt Rescheduling Maxwell A. Cameron is assistant professor at the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University. He is the author ofDemocracy and Authoritarianism in Peru: Political Coalitions and Social Change (New York: St. Martin's Press, forthcoming), as well as a number of articles on Peruvian politics. He recently coeditedThe Political Economy of North American Free Trade (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993) with Ricardo Grinspun.