Hypoglycemic brain damage

Hypoglycemia was long considered to kill neurons by depriving them of glucose. We now know that hypoglycemia kills neurons actively from without, rather than by starvation from within. Hypoglycemia only causes neuronal death when the EEG becomes flat. This usually occurs after glucose levels have fallen below 1 mM (18 mg/dl) for some period, depending on body glycogen reserves. At the time that abrupt brain energy failure occurs, the excitatory amino acid aspartate is massively released into the limited brain extracellular space and floods the excitatory amino acid receptors located on neuronal dendrites. Calcium fluxes occur and membrane breaks in the cell lead rapidly to neuronal necrosis. Significant neuronal necrosis occurs after 30 min of electrocerebral silence. Other neurochemical changes include energy depletion to roughly 25% of control, phospholipase and other enzyme activation, tissue alkalosis and a tendency for all cellular redox systems to shift towards oxidation. The neurochemistry of hypoglycemia thus differs markedly from ischemia. Hypoglycemia often differs from ischemia in its neuropathologic distribution, a phenomenon applicable in forensic practice. The border-zone distribution of global ischemia is not seen, necrosis of the dentate gyrus of the hippocampus can occur and a predilection for the superficial layers of the cortex is sometimes seen. Cerebellum and brainstem are universally spared in hypoglycemic brain damage. Hypoglycemia constitutes a unique metabolic brain insult.     

Extraction of human nuclear DNA from feces samples using the QIAamp DNA Stool Mini Kit

The use of a QIAamp DNA Stool Mini Kit (QIAGEN) for extracting human nuclear DNA from feces samples is reported. This method employs a stool lysis buffer and a unique matrix (InhibitEX tablet) to remove PCR inhibitory substances specific to feces samples. DNA extracted from various amounts of stool and from stool samples exposed to different environmental impacts was successfully amplified and typed using the Profiler Plus Amplification Kit and ABI PRISM 310 Genetic Analyser.     

Twenty years of homicide and robbery in Chicago: The impact of the city's changing racial and age composition

Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) arrest and offense data for Chicago for 1960 to 1980 and population data from the 1960, 1970, and 1980 censuses are used to assess the extent to which demographic changes help explain trends in the city's homicide and robbery arrests. The results indicate that a changing racial composition contributed to changes in the age composition of Chicago's population as well as to changes in the homicide rate. Age-specific analysis by race and gender suggests that as much as 24% of the total increase in homicide arrests and 45% of the increase in robbery arrests (from 1962 to 1980) can be attributed to an increase in the number of nonwhite men in the population. Increasedrates of arrest of nonwhite men appear to account for large parts of the increases in homicide and robbery arrests, with increased rates for white men and nonwhite women also accounting for some of these increases. The paper closes with a discussion of the issues raised by these trends for Chicago and other urban areas.Revision of a paper presented at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Cincinnati.     

Dispositional Sensitivity to Befallen Injustice

Dispositional Sensitivity to Befallen Injustice (SBI) is proposed as a new construct. A self-report questionnaire with four types of indicators (frequency, intensity of anger, intrusiveness of thoughts, punitivity) was developed for measuring SBI. Using structural equation modeling and the general rationale of multitrait-multimethod analysis, the convergent and discriminant validity of this questionnaire was investigated vis-à-vis measures for Trait Anger, Anger In, Anger Out, and Frustration Tolerance as related constructs. Additionally, a meaningful pattern of correlations was obtained between SBI and Life Satisfaction, Centrality of Justice, Interpersonal Trust, and Need for Control. Finally, self-reported sensitivity to befallen injustice was found to predict cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to unjust treatment in laboratory and natural settings several weeks later.     

Beware of the possibility of fingerprinting techniques transferring DNA

Fingerprinting brushes have the potential to collect and transfer DNA during powdering. Squirrel-hair fingerprint brushes exposed to specific sets of saliva stains and brushes used in routine casework were tested for their ability to collect and transfer DNA containing material using standard DNA extraction procedures and AmpFlSTR Profiler Plus amplification and typing procedures. The tests found that the risk of transferring DNA during powdering and having a detrimental impact on the analysis increases if the examiner powders over either biological stains (such as blood or saliva) or very fresh prints and uses more sensitive PCR amplification and typing procedures. We advocate caution when powdering prints from which DNA may also be collected and provide options for consideration to limit the risk of transferred DNA contamination while fingerprinting.     

Staff growth in international organizations: A principal-agent problem? An empirical analysis

The analysis covers 27 international organizations in the years 1950–2001. From the first to the last year, staff increased at a compound average rate of 3.2% per annum, while the number of member states rose by only 2.5%. The pooled analysis of 817 observations (including task proxies and organization dummies) reveals that (i) the elasticity of staff to membership is much larger than unity (1.36), (ii) United Nations organizations have significantly more staff, (iii) international organizations in the United States and Switzerland have significantly less staff, (iv) heterogeneity in terms of per capita income limits the size of an international organization and that (v) its staff is larger if its membership comprises many industrial or (former) communist countries. In a reduced sample, the financing share of the largest contributor in combination with the party or programmatic orientation of its government has a significantly negative effect on staff because the size of the largest financing share determines the incentive to monitor. U.S. exit from an international organization reduces its staff significantly. Most of these results depend on the condition that the non-stationary component of staff size is not taken account of by time dummies or trends.     

The transformation of the postal services of Trinidad and Tobago

This study examines the change management aspect of the corporatisation of the Trinidad and Tobago Post Office. Interviews were conducted with key actors and the major unclassified documents were examined. An analysis of the sequence of events revealed a model of change management, but there is no evidence that the actors in the process explicitly developed it. Its competent application may explain the low level of opposition to the corporatisation of the Post Office and its success to this point. It is suggested that the model may be used to guide researchers and administrators in the future. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Victims and Offenders in Two Crime Statistics Programs: A Comparison of the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) and the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS)

The National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) overcomes a basiclimitation of the traditional summary Uniform Crime Reporting program (UCR)by collecting victim information. Using this new victim information tocompare National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) and NIBRS results, wefind some similarities as well as some differences in the characteristics ofvictims and offenders suggested by the two programs. Similarities appear inthe proportions of men and women involved as victims and offenders forrobbery and assault. Comparisons are more difficult and the proportions lesssimilar for property offenses. Nevertheless, the results suggest that whenthe NIBRS is fully developed, it will be an important source of informationon the characteristics of both victims and offenders. Even before theredesigned program is fully implemented, one of the most important featuresof NIBRS reports will be their ability to provide local area victimizationinformation. In addition, the NIBRS will provide much more information onarrests and the characteristic of offenders than any existing program.     

Using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to Test Estimates of Arrestee and Offender Characteristics

National-Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS) information for 1993 iscompared with two other sets of homicide data to assess the acuracy ofprocedures for estimating age-, sex-, and race-specific arrest counts fromtraditional Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data. The simultaneous age, race, andsex characteristics of offenders provided in the NIBRS arrest and offender segmentsare compared with estimates of the same characteristics derived from summaryUCR arrest data. The results suggest that using UCR marginal totals toestimate arrest counts by race and sex produces reasonably accurateestimates of the number of black and nonblack male arrests for murder andother offenses. Estimates of arrests of females by race and sex are lessaccurate, probably because of the relatively small number of arrests ofwomen and girls. Estimating male arrest counts for specific age groups alsoproduces reasonably accurate estimates. The results suggest that previousresearch employing such estimates may have been misleading in the estimatesof female arrests by race but accurate in the estimates of male arrests byrace. Although the use of summary UCR-based estimates in futurecross-sectional research will become increasingly unnecessary as the NIBRSreplaces the current UCR program, time series research designs on arrest andcrime trends will continue to require estimates.     

Reviews

E. H. Carr, The Russian Revolution from Lenin to Stalin, 1917–1929. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1979. x + 200 pp. £6.95.

Paul Dukes, October and the World: Perspectives on the Russian Revolution. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1979. viii + 224 pp. £10.00 and £4.95.

Graeme J. Gill, Peasants and Government in the Russian Revolution. (The London School of Economics and Political Science) London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1979. xiv + 233 pp. £12.00.

John L. H. Keep, The Debate on Soviet Power: Minutes of the All‐Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, Second Convocation, October 1917‐January 1918. (British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data) Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979. xiv + 465 pp. £15.00.

Robert Service, The Bolshevik Party in Revolution: A Study in Organisational Change, 1917–1923. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press, Ltd., 1979. 246 pp. £12.00.

Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge, London, New York and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1979. xvii + 406 pp. £19.50 and £5.50.

Marc Ferro, October 1917: a social history of the Russian Revolution. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980. xiv + 345 pp. £13.50.

Arcadius Kahan and Blair A. Ruble (eds.), Industrial Labor in the U.S.S.R. (Pergamon policy studies), New York and Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1979. xv+ 421 pp. $9.95

Murray Yanowitch (ed.), Soviet Work Attitudes—The issue of Participation in Management, Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1979. xiv+ 133 pp. £12.00.

Nicholas Lampert, The Technical Intelligentsia and the Soviet State. A Study of Soviet Managers and Technicians 1928–1935. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press Ltd, 1979. x + 191 pp. £12.00.

Neils Erik Rosenfeldt, Knowledge and Power: The Role of Stalin's Secret Chancellery in the Soviet System of Government. Copenhagen University, Institute of Slavonic Studies, no. 5. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1978. 219 pp. 80 D. kr., paper.

Ljubo Sirc, The Yugoslav Economy Under Self‐Management. London: The Macmillan Press, 1979. xx + 270 pp. Index. £15.00.

Marshall I. Goldman, The Enigma of Soviet Petroleum—Half Empty or Half Full. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1980. 214 pp. £10.95.

Jonathan P. Stern, Soviet Natural Gas Development to 1990. London: D. C. Heath, 1980. xiii + 190 pp. £13.50.

Jozef M. van Brabant, Socialist Economic Integration: Aspects of Contemporary Economic Problems in Eastern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. xiii + 362 pp. £15.00.

David E. Albright (ed.), Africa and International Communism. London and Basingstoke: Macmillan in association with Indiana University Press, 1980. viii + 277 pp. £12.50 and £4.95.

Michael J. Deane, Strategic Defense In Soviet Strategy. Coral Gables, Fla: Advanced International Studies Institute, University of Miami, 1980. 119 pp.

David W. Paul, The Cultural Limits of Revolutionary Politics: Change and Continuity in Socialist Czechoslovakia. Boulder: East European Quarterly, 1979. x + 361 pp. $23.10.

Christian Rakovsky, Selected Writings on Opposition in the USSR, 1923–30 (edited with an introduction by Gus Fagan). London: Allison & Busby, 1980. 185 pp. £13.95 (cloth), £4.95 (paper).

Alan W. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars, Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1978. xii + 264 pp. $14.95.