Incidence and Correlates of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder in Australian Victims of Domestic Violence

In recent years, evidence has emerged of the significant incidence of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among victims of domestic violence. The present study examined incidence and correlates of PTSD in 100 female victims of domestic violence resident in women's shelters in Adelaide, South Australia. Forty-five women were found to meet all diagnostic criteria for PTSD. Women meeting PTSD diagnostic criteria reported having experienced higher levels of violence and were more likely to report having a spouse with an alcohol problem and having believed they would be killed by their spouse than women who did not meet criteria. Diagnosis of PTSD was also associated with higher levels of anxiety and depression.     

Forensic Analysis of Explosives Using Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS)—Part 1: Instrument Validation of the DELTAplusXP IRMS for Bulk Nitrogen Isotope Ratio Measurements

Abstract: A significant amount of research has been conducted into the use of stable isotopes to assist in determining the origin of various materials. The research conducted in the forensic field shows the potential of isotope ratio mass spectrometry (IRMS) to provide a level of discrimination not achievable utilizing traditional forensic techniques. Despite the research there have been few, if any, publications addressing the validation and measurement uncertainty of the technique for forensic applications. This study, the first in a planned series, presents validation data for the measurement of bulk nitrogen isotope ratios in ammonium nitrate (AN) using the DELTA^plusXP (Thermo Finnigan) IRMS instrument equipped with a ConFlo III interface and FlashEA? 1112 elemental analyzer (EA). Appropriate laboratory standards, analytical methods and correction calculations were developed and evaluated. A validation protocol was developed in line with the guidelines provided by the National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia (NATA). Performance characteristics including: accuracy, precision/repeatability, reproducibility/ruggedness, robustness, linear range, and measurement uncertainty were evaluated for the measurement of nitrogen isotope ratios in AN. AN (99.5%) and ammonium thiocyanate (99.99+%) were determined to be the most suitable laboratory standards and were calibrated against international standards (certified reference materials). All performance characteristics were within an acceptable range when potential uncertainties, including the manufacturer’s uncertainty of the technique and standards, were taken into account. The experiments described in this article could be used as a model for validation of other instruments for similar purposes. Later studies in this series will address the more general issue of demonstrating that the IRMS technique is scientifically sound and fit‐for‐purpose in the forensic explosives analysis field.     

Spontaneous acute subdural hematoma complicating arachnoid cyst

The overwhelming majority of cases of acute subdural hematoma in the forensic setting occur as a result of head trauma. We report a case of sudden unexpected death in a middle-aged woman with a history of arachnoid cyst who had sudden spontaneous onset of severe headache that was rapidly followed by collapse and death. A postmortem multiple-slice computed tomographic scan showed a large acute subdural hematoma associated with hemorrhage into an arachnoid cyst. Subdural hemorrhage is an uncommon but well-described complication of an arachnoid cyst.     

Should the Media Be More or Less Powerful in Politics? Individual and Contextual Explanations for Politicians and Journalists

The normative question regarding whether the media should have more or less impact on politics, as viewed by politicians and journalists, is important assuming that norms about media influences can influence behaviors. The present study is the first that combines individual and structural factors that explain political actors’ and journalists’ normative views on the media’s influence on politics. Based on a conceptualization of political communication cultures, representative micro-level survey data from more than 600 political actors and journalists within 52 German cities were combined with macro-level indicators for the political and media competition in each city. Multilevel analyses show that interactions between the actors’ characteristics and their competitive working conditions help explain their normative evaluations of the media’s influence on politics. However, individual characteristics such as actors’ role conceptions influence normative views more so than media and political competition do.     

From ‘trial and error’ to major reform: The politics of Medicare demonstration projects

Facing fragmented institutions and partisan polarization, officials in the United States often attempt to engineer policy change without assembling new legislative majorities. To this end, they have increasingly employed demonstration projects, policy innovations undertaken by administrative agencies designed to test alternative approaches to implementation or service delivery on a limited segment of the target population and for a limited period of time. Despite the increasing importance of demonstration projects, they are an undertheorized source of policy change. In this article, we conceptualize demonstration projects as part of a class of experimental institutions that, while incremental in scope, have the potential to ‘scale up’ into more substantial reforms. Data from three Medicare demonstrations suggest that policy change is more likely when programmes generate strong support constituencies; minimize administrative and infrastructural costs; are undertaken in contexts with few veto points; and align with the time horizons of elected officials.     

Commentary: Food regime for thought

This essay engages with Henry Bernstein's critical survey of food regime analysis, focusing on the claim that my interpretation of the food regime takes a misguided ‘peasant turn’. I argue Henry's representation loses sight of my reformulation of the ‘agrarian question’, as more than analysis of the uneven process by which capital subordinates landed property, and therefore of the class fate of the peasantry, as such. Rather it is about social and ecological fate on a global scale, involving questions of ecosystem survival, precarious labor circuits, urban slum proliferation, privatization of states, financialization, intellectual (property) rights, climate change mitigation and so on. Significantly, global recognition of these connections to processes of agro-industrialization and enclosure was informed by a ‘peasant’ mobilization that would be unthinkable within the terms of the classical agrarian question. Peasant organizations catalyzed challenge to the neoliberal food order institutionalized in the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime, in a time of massive dispossession. Politicizing neoliberal ‘food security’ as an agribusiness project, the ‘food sovereignty’ counter-movement used a politics of strategic essentialism to unmask the undemocratic and impoverishing architecture of the ‘free trade’ regime privileging corporate rights over state and citizen rights. In effect, this counter-movement performed a food regime analysis from within, importantly reaching beyond a peasant project. This essay revisits the comparative-historical method by which the food regime trajectory can be understood, as a contradictory set of interacting forces and relations that complicate and shape and reshape its politics, and yet allow identification of emergent possibilities.     

Modes of UK Executive–Legislative Relations Revisited

Anthony King's 1976 article ‘Modes of executive–legislative relations: Great Britain, France and West Germany’ is a classic in legislative studies. It argued that it is simplistic to analyse relations between ‘the executive’ and ‘the legislature’ in parliamentary systems, because parliaments are complex organisations comprised of competing actors. Instead, we must consider the various ‘modes’ through which these actors can interact to challenge the executive. As King pointed out, the classic view of the British Parliament was of a dominant ‘opposition mode’ and yet, in fact, the most important relationship was the ‘intraparty mode’: between the government and its own backbenchers. Other options, such as the ‘non‐party mode’ or ‘cross‐party mode’ were considered weak in Britain. This article revisits King's modes in the light of changes at Westminster during the intervening forty years. Developments such as the establishment of the select committee system and a more confident and party‐balanced House of Lords require significant changes to his conclusions. But his central insights, encouraging readers to focus on the multiple relationships inside legislatures, including those within political parties, remain fundamentally important.