Veni,vidi, vici: postcolonial studies comes of age

This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quayson's Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.     

Public Reason and the Need to Identify State-Relevant Desert

Plausible retributivist justifications for punishment assert that the commission of a moral wrong creates a pro tanto reason to punish the person who committed it. Yet there are good case-based and theoretical reasons to believe that not all moral wrongs are the proper subjects of criminal law or that they are within the proper domain of the state. This article provides these reasons, which suggest that a plausible retributivist justification for punishment must make distinctions between state-relevant and non-state-relevant moral wrongs and (consequently) state-relevant and non-state-relevant desert. The article makes the case for Rawlsian public reason as a plausible method for making these distinctions.     

Statistical analyses of 14 short tandem repeat loci in Brazilian populations from Rio de Janeiro and Mato Grosso do Sul states for forensic and identity testing purposes

This work describes the statistical features of a database for two Brazilian populations (one from the Rio de Janeiro State (southeast region), and one from the Mato Grosso do Sul State (central western region) using fourteen short tandem repeat loci (STR).     

Mutation rates at 14 STR loci in the population from Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil

Definition about mutation rates of short tandem repeats (STRs) loci used in forensic analysis are useful for the correct interpretation of resulting genetic profiles and the definition of criterions for exclusion in paternity testing. Germline mutation of 14 STR loci was studied for 54,105 parent–child allelic transfers from 2575 paternity testing cases carried out during 2000–2007 from the Pernambuco State, Northeast Brazil. The parenthood in each of these cases was highly validated (probability > 99.99%). We identified 43 mutations at 12 loci. Locus-specific mutation rate estimates varied between 2 × 10⁻⁴ and 2 × 10⁻³, and the overall mutation rate estimate was 8 × 10⁻⁴. Mutation events in the male germline were more frequent than in the female germline. The majority of the mutations could be explained by losses or gains of one repeat unit and there was no evidence for selection between insertion or deletion changes. Our data were compared with those of Portuguese and North-American populations for CSF1PO, D18S51, D21S11, D7S820, TH01, TPOX and demonstrated, despite the great difference in the size of the sample, that mutation rates of STR loci in a mixed population do not differ from that encountered in different populations.     

Analysis of DNA profiles extracted from degraded samples from archival of formalin fixed tissue included in paraffin (FFTIP) and hairs

The possibility of studying DNA extracted from archival of formalin fixed tissue included in paraffin (FFTIP) enables valuable retrospective investigations. However, according to some authors it is difficult to obtain genomic DNA of good quality, since the process of fixation often results in fragmentation of DNA. In order to evaluate the quality and quantity of DNA extracted, necropsy samples of FFTIP (spleen/lung) and hairs, with or without bulbs, were analyzed using three methods of extraction (QIAamp DNA mini, QIAamp DNA micro-kit and phenol–chloroform followed by microcon YM-30). The amount of DNA recovered was quantified by spectrophotometer. The β-actin, amelogenin gene and the profiles of STR were analyzed. Based on experimental results, a general guideline concerning the appropriate extraction method according to the tissue and the quantity of the starting material for the analysis of DNA from FFTIP and hairs could be suggested.     

The Influence of Emotional Labor and Emotional Intelligence on Job Performance: Does Ownership Type Matter? A Comparison of Public and Private Organizations in China

ABSTRACT

Given the limited knowledge about the effect of contextual factors of organizational ownership types on emotional labor, this research addresses two main questions: (1) whether emotional labor varies among organizations with different ownership types; and (2) whether emotional labor and emotional intelligence relate to job performance in different ways in public and private organizations. This paper examines the research questions with 306 self-report questionnaires from the public sector, domestic privately-owned enterprises and foreign-invested firms in China. Significant differences were found in the emotional labor reported in public and private organizations. Overall, emotional labor was found to have a significant effect on in-role performance, and emotional intelligence moderated the link between emotional labor and job performance in public organizations, but not in private organizations.     

SPECIALIZATION OF NURSING HOME CARE AND OUTCOMES1

Implications of nursing home specialization for health outcomes were examined. The formal hypothesis tested in this study was that facilities specializing in the treatment of certain kinds of residents, as reflected in a critical mass of such residents, are more likely to experience better health outcomes over time compared to facilities that do not specialize in the treatment of such residents. Activities of Daily Living (ADLs), survival, and several diagnosis‐specific outcomes were analyzed for residents. Multivariate state‐dependence and logistic regression models were estimated for residents of six diagnostic sub‐groups. Specialization was empirically defined in terms of concentration of residents with certain diagnoses within nursing facilities. Empirical results indicate that specialization has some positive effects on some outcomes. For instance, facilities specializing in the care of Alzheimer's disease patients appear to produce comparatively better outcomes with respect to restraint use and accidents. Residents with diagnoses of hypertension or ischemic heart disease in specialized facilities also fare better in terms of survival. Residents with a diagnosis of cerebrovascular disease in specialized facilities were found to experience worse outcomes with respect to most of the outcomes modeled in this study, however. Overall, specialization only appears to make a difference in the outcomes of residents with certain medical conditions for some health outcomes. Regression results also indicate that basic measures of frailty such as functional deficiencies, incontinence, and behavioral problems largely contribute to detrimental effects irrespective of the diagnostic group or the outcome considered.     

Political Aspects of The New Africa

In the following article Professor Da Silva Cunha, Under-Secretaryof State for the Overseas Territories in the Portuguese Government,one of the most brilliant jurists of the younger generationin his country, makes an analysis of Portugal's policy of integrationin her African Provinces in relation to black nationalism, Pan-Africanism,Communism and the other forces that today are asserting themselveson the African continent