Some conditions maximizing eyewitness accuracy: A learning/memory analogy

Jurors continue to rely heavily on eyewitness testimony despite numerous demonstrations that it is often inaccurate. As part of the effort to provide jurors with good estimates of the accuracy of any specific testimony, a study was designed to test the proposal that eyewitness accuracy is governed by the same variables and in the same way as is retention of much simpler material in classical learning and memory paradigms. Prior exposure to the criminal (trials), arousal value of the incident (drive), and delay between prior exposure and incident, and between incident and test (inner-trial intervals) all affected eyewitness accuracy in the expected manner. Correct recognitions of the criminal in a line-up ranged from 14 percent to 86 percent, depending on the particular conditions under which the incident was observed.     

The political economy of Chinese environmental protection: Lessons of the Mao and Deng years

Despite the very different policies, structures and rhetoric associated with the Mao and Deng years, environmental outcomes for China were depressingly similar. Neither the political economy of command under Mao Zedong nor the more market-based political economy under Deng Xiaoping adequately came to terms with the problems of environmental pollution and degradation, to the extent that many observers, both inside and outside China, argue that the current state of the natural environment-the legacy of those years-is so parlous as to threaten future material advance. This article compares and contrasts environmental protection under the two regimes, draws out lessons for the current administration of China, and specifically argues that while the market-based reforms begun under Deng Xiaoping have delivered fast rates of economic growth, it is important to recognise that recent well-meaning policies to encourage environmental protection are put at a discount unless the threats to the environment of increasing market liberalisation are faced.     

Coombs’ Bastard Child: The Troubled Life of CDEP

In the mid 1970s HC Coombs was a major promoter of the idea behind the CDEP scheme: that rather than pay lots of Aboriginal people in remote areas unemployment benefits it would be more constructive for them to be employed part‐time by local Indigenous organisations to undertake socially useful tasks. From this simple idea was born one of the most significant and, in time, one of the largest Indigenous‐specific programs Australia has seen, the Community Development Employment Projects scheme. The birth was not easy and neither has been the subsequent life of what I have called, with great licence, Coombs’ bastard child.     

Beyond the Gaze and Well Beyond Wolfenden: The Practices and Rationalities of Regulating and Policing Sex Work in the Digital Age

Drawing on the largest study of the United Kingdom online market in sexual labour to date, this article examines the legal and regulatory consequences as aspects of sex work increasingly take place within an online environment. Our research shows that while governmental policy has not kept abreast of these changes, the application of current laws (which have, since the 1950s, focused on public nuisance and, more recently, trafficking and modern slavery) are pernicious to sex workers and unsuited to recognizing and responding to the abuses and exploitation in online markets in sexual labour. These injustices are likely to be exacerbated if policies and policing do not better align with the realities of these markets in the twenty‐first century. This demands a more nuanced regulatory approach which recognizes that people may engage in sex work of their own volition, but which also addresses conditions of labour and criminal exploitation.     

Laser microdissection separation of pure spermatozoa from epithelial cells for short tandem repeat analysis

Short tandem repeat (STR) analysis is a valuable tool in identifying the source of biological stains, particularly from the investigation of sexual assault crimes. Difficulties in analysis arise primarily in the interpretation of mixed genotypes when cell separation of the sexual assailant's sperm from the victim's cells is incomplete. The forensic community continues to seek improvements in cell separation methods from mixtures for DNA typing. The feasibility of applying laser microdissection (LMD) technology to precisely separate sexual assault cell mixtures by visual inspection coupled with laser dissection was assessed through three experiments. First, various histological stains were evaluated for use with LMD and DNA analysis. Second, different DNA isolation methods were evaluated on LMD-collected cells. Finally, STR analysis was performed on LMD-separated sperm cells from mixtures of semen and female buccal epithelial cells. The results indicated (a) hematoxylin/eosin staining performed best in its ability to differentiate sperm and epithelial cells while exhibiting the least negative effect on further downstream analysis; (b) both QIAamp and Lyse-N-Go methods were useful for recovery of DNA from LMD-collected sperm cells; and (c) LMD separation provided clear STR profiles of the male donor with the absence of any additional alleles from the female donor. This report describes an efficient, low-manipulation LMD method for the efficient separation of spermatozoa from two-donor sperm/epithelial cell mixtures.     

Organic Agriculture in China: do property rights matter?

Since the early 1990s, the Chinese government has been promoting organic agriculture as an alternative to the ‘conventional’ agriculture practised in the Chinese countryside. The latter uses increasingly large amounts of chemical fertilisers and pesticides and, as a result, threatens the environmental sustainability of the rural economy. Though absolute numbers of organic farmers remain small, there has been a dramatic increase in their rate of growth since 1995, aided and abetted by the work of the Chinese Organic Food Development Centre (OFDC) in Nanjing established in that year. In 2002, the OFDC gained full international accreditation and recognition, allowing Chinese organic products certified by it to be sold in lucrative markets throughout the world.

At the same time, there is a vigorous debate going on inside China regarding changes in property rights over land, with many scholars advocating full privatisation. This paper, through case study research, contributes to this debate in the context of the extension of organic farming in China. It examines current land rights arrangements in nine organic villages in different parts of the Chinese countryside to investigate whether they are conducive to organic agriculture expansion or hostile to it. On the basis of this research, it argues that the extant ‘partially privatised common property regime’ associated with the Household Responsibility System, when combined with appropriate collective arrangements amongst farmers, can be a satisfactory basis for the adoption of organic agriculture, particularly amongst China's poorest farmers. As a result, it concludes that the Chinese government should encourage those collective arrangements rather than risk new forms of instability as well as environmental unsustainability through wholesale land privatisation.     

The effect of electoral rules on voting behavior: the electoral college and shift voting

The Electoral College has a measurable effect on the propensity of the rational voter to vote for the candidate he most prefers. The ‘slippage’ between the individual's articulated preference ordering and his actual vote is analyzed (using 1968 data) with respect to the strategic position of the voter in his state. The direction of the findings support the theoretically-derived propositions. Nevertheless, the low overall incidence of shifts and the reluctance of voters to shift from nationally-viable candidates demonstrates the overwhelming influence of the national electoral environment.