Is Toxoplasma gondii a potential risk for traffic accidents in Turkey?

In Turkey, traffic accidents are the major causes of mortality and morbidity. According to the statistics made by Turkish Security Headquarters in the year 2000, 7500 people are killed in the traffic accidents every year. Drivers are mostly blamed for the traffic accidents. Tired, weary, sleepy and absentminded driving are common reasons for traffic accidents due to many reasons. Among these reasons mental and reflex conditions of drivers are significant. Toxoplasmosis is one of the most common zoonoses throughout the world. In immunocomponent adults, toxoplasmosis has no clinical signs or symptoms and infection in such people can only be detected by serological examinations. This kind of latent or dormant toxoplasmosis can be located in neural or muscular tissues and cause prolonged reaction times of the muscles. Extended reaction times also lead to deceleration of the reflexes which could be a major cause of the traffic accidents. By the light of this situation, the incidence of Toxoplasma gondii is investigated among the population who were involved in a traffic accident while driving. A total of 185 people (100 men and 85 women), aged between 21 and 40 years, living in Izmir and Manisa cities, were enrolled in the study group (SG) during a period of 6 months time. Their informed consents were taken initially and the laboratory tests of all these individuals related to blood alcohol levels after the accidents were found negative. The control group (CG) were also consisted 185 people (95 men and 90 women), residents of the same region, in same age group. The people in CG had no clinical signs or symptoms concerning toxoplasmosis. All collected sera were examined using a commercial IgG and IgM ELISA kit. According to the results of serological tests of the SG, 45 (24.32%) sera were IgG positive, six (3.24%) were IgM positive and 10 (5.40%) were both IgG and IgM positive. On the other hand in CG, 12 (6.48%) people found IgG positive, one (0.54%) found IgM positive and three (1.62%) found both IgG and IgM positive. This data was considered as statistically significant by Yates corrected chi2-test. (p < 0.05). In conclusion, there is an increased risk for traffic accidents for drivers owing to these high seroprevalence of latent toxoplasmosis. Prospective studies are still necessary on this subject but latent toxoplasmosis of drivers should be taken into account while developing strategies to prevent traffic accidents in Turkey.     

Homicides with postmortal emasculation of the victim

Among criminal offences with mutilation of the genitals the number of cases with isolated removal of the testicles is small. This paper describes two homicides with postmortal emasculation of the victim from the autopsy material of the Berlin Institute of Legal Medicine (Humboldt University). In both of them no further mutilation had been committed. Yet the perpetrator's motivation was different in the two cases. In one case the cut-off testicles had been concealed in the victim's mouth, an act never described anywhere before. Obviously the offender wanted to mislead the police in their investigations. In the second case the motivation was of a homosexual nature and was thus comparable to previously described cases.     

Fatal blunt trauma of the larynx in a child

We report an autopsy case of an 11-year-old girl who suffered mechanical asphyxia from falling off the metal bars in the playground. This autopsy case is interesting because of the atypical trauma and lesions. To our knowledge there has been no similiar published case reports in the forensic literature. The young age of the victim, the setting and the pattern of the injuries are rare in a fall at playground by a child.     

Arbeiterbewegung von rechts? Motive und Grenzen einer imaginären Revolte

The article examines populist and völkisch orientations of unionized workers, some of them active members of workers’ councils. It empirically shows how, in respondents’ everyday consciousness, protest motifs are intermingled with an ethnicized view of the social question. Völkisch populism can be interpreted as a Polanyi-type movement that is motivated by problems generated by post-growth capitalism, presenting itself as a venture to give back power to the people. Its revolt remains an imaginary one, though, for, ultimately in accordance with existing power relations, it aims at reconstructing an irretrievable past. Our empirical results keep a distance from monocausal explanations, though call to mind issues of class that have long been neglected. As workers perceive the current distribution of wealth as unjust, yet don’t believe in any possibility for change, they are spontaneously inclined to redefine existing top-down conflicts into inclusion-exclusion types. Professional right-wing populists take up and aggravate this tendency of exclusive solidarity and thereby pose a serious challenge for the unions as well as for democratic civil societies.     

The state and the stray dogs in late Ottoman Istanbul: from unruly subjects to servile friends

The present article situates the systemic efforts to annihilate stray dogs within the wider picture of Ottoman modernizing reforms in the nineteenth century. The period under investigation witnessed an increasing desire on the part of the modern Ottoman state to control and reform disenfranchised human and animal groups, which were believed to jeopardize public order, security and hygiene. These groups – beggars, orphans and the unemployed – were identified as actors irreconcilable with the modern image that the reforming bureaucracy and modernizing elites sought to project. In the face of increasing challenges from European powers, they were the epitome of underdevelopment and backwardness. Ottoman elites and official authorities therefore proposed and implemented institutional measures in the form of forced labor, reformatories or deportation to reform the conditions of these groups, segregate them from the greater public and discipline them. In the modern period, along with the proposals that called for the removal of dogs, modernizing intellectuals and professionals proposed alternative plans to render non-human animals beneficial to human needs and the modern state's expectations.     

The French foreign policy U-turn in the Arab Spring – the case of Tunisia

As for many, the Arab uprisings of 2010–11 came as a surprise for France. After initial inactivity, followed by last minute support of the Tunisian regime, President Sarkozy took a U-turn by spearheading the military intervention in Libya and both Sarkozy and his successor Hollande announced a re-launch in the Franco-Tunisian relations. Starting from the assumption that France’s drastic foreign policy changes cannot be sufficiently explained by presidential change, we draw upon social-constructivist discourse-bound identity theory and provide a model for discursive legitimations of foreign policy changes. When the “permissive consensus” between the three discursive formations of the French foreign policy identity breaks up, drastic foreign policy turns may occur. By analysing the French policy actions and rhetoric towards Tunisia between 2007 and 2015, we show, however, that the sudden change tends to be rather ephemeral and that French foreign policy seems to be gradually returning to its pre-revolution approach.     

Epidemiologic and phenomenologic aspects of suicide caused by leaping from a high bridge

Since the fascinating K?hlbrand Bridge within the harbour of Hamburg (520 m long, 53 m high) was put into operation in the year 1974, 56 persons (47 males, 9 females, aged between 20 and 82 years) committed suicide by jumping from the bridge up to 1997. These suicides could not be prevented although video supervision of the bridge has been arranged and a police station is not far away. The suicides took place without any predictable frequency concerning time and season. However, after reports of spectacular cases within the media there was a tendency of suicidents to prefer the same manner of suicide, for instance in the year 1994. In recent time, a considerable number of suicidents did not jump from the very top of the bridge down into the water but hit to the ground after jumping from the access ramps. The special aim of this retrospective study included an analysis of the injury pattern (autopsy rate only 47%!) and special phenomenological and reconstructive aspects of the suicides.     

A: Reviews: general

TWO INDIAN TRAVELLERS: EAST AFRICA 1902–1906. Edited by Cynthia Salvadori with Judy Aldrick. Mombasa, Friends of Fort Jesus, 1997. x + 242 pp. K. Shs 900.00 (pb).

THE HERITAGE OF OMAN; A CELEBRATION IN PHOTOGRAPHS. By Pauline Sheldon (with photographs by Ozzie Newcombe). Reading, Garnet Publishing Limited, 1995. 160 pp. £30.00

COMRADES AND ENEMIES. ARAB AND JEWISH WORKERS IN PALESTINE, 1906–1948. By Zachary Lockman. Berkeley and Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1996. xvi + 440 pp., one map. £48.00 (cloth), £19.95 (pb).

PAN‐TURKISM. FROM IRREDENTISM TO COOPERATION. By Jacob M. Landau. London, Hurst, 1995. 275 pp. £14.95.

THE HORN OF AFRICA: POLITICS AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. By Peter Woodward. (International Library of African Studies, 6.) London, I. B. Tauris, 1996. ix + 226 pp., one map. £39.50.

POLITICS AND ISLAM IN CONTEMPORARY SUDAN. By Abdel Salam Sidahmed. Richmond, Curzon Press, 1997. xiv + 249 pp., £40.00

SYRIA AND IRAN: MIDDLE POWERS IN A PENETRATED REGIONAL SYSTEM. By Anoushiravan Ehteshami and Raymond A. Hinnebusch. London and New York, Routledge, 1997. ix + 238 pp., £40.00

WARS, INTERNAL CONFLICTS AND POLITICAL ORDER: A JEWISH DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST. (SUNY series in Israel Studies) By Gad Barzilai. New York, SUNY Press, 1996. 301 pp.

OIL AND ISLAM, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES. By Oystein Noreng. (The PETRO Research Series in Petroleum Economics and Politics, Research Council of Norway.) Chichester, John Wiley, 1997. 342 pp.

DER WEG DER ALEVITEN (BEKTASCHITEN): MENSCHENLIEBER, TOLERANZ, FRIEDEN UND FREUNDSCHAFT. By Ali Duran Gülçiçk. Cologne, Ethnographica Anatolica, 1996. 229 pp. 15DM.

THE DECLINE OF EASTERN CHRISTIANITY UNDER ISLAM, FROM JIHAD TO DHIMMITUDE. By Bat Ye'or. London, Associated University Presses, 1996. 522 pp., illustrations.

ISLAM AND HUMAN IDEOLOGY. By Samih Atef El‐Zein. Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by Elsayed M. H. Omran. Preparation and Presentation by Nabih Sidani and Issam Ghandour. London, Kegan Paul International, 1996. xxv + 375 pp. £45.

ISLAMIC LEGAL INTERPRETATION: MUFTIS AND THEIR FATWAS. Edited by M. K. Masud, B. Messick and D. Powers. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1996. 431 pp.

SUHRAWARDI AND THE SCHOOL OF ILLUMINATION. By Mehdi Amin Razavi. (Curzon Sufi Series.) Richmond, Curzon Press, 1997. 192 pp., £35 (hb), £14.99 (pb).

RUZBIHAN BAQLI: MYSTICISM AND THE RHETORIC OF SAINTHOOD IN PERSIAN SUFISM. By Carl W. Ernst. Richmond, Curzon Press, 1996. xxvi + 181 pp., two charts, two appendices, indexes and glossary. £12.99 (pb).

ARABISCHE PRIVATBRIEFE DES 9. BIS 15. JAHRHUNDERTS AUS DER ÖSTERREICHISCHEN NATIONALBIBLIOTHEK IN WIEN. By Werner Diem. (Documenta Arabica Antiqua 2.) Wiesbaden Harrassowitz, 1996. 288 pp. (Textband), 52 plates (Tafelband). 178 DM.

ARABISCHE AMTLICHE BRIEFE DES 10. BIS 16. JAHRHUNDERTS AUS DER ÖSTERREICHISCHEN NATIONALBIBLIOTHEK IN WIEN. By Werner Diem. (Documenta Arabica Antiqua 3.) Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz, 1996. 411 pp. (Textband), 80 plates (Tafelband). 192 DM.

99 BEEKASHI‐WITZE/BEKTA?? FIKRASI: Deutsch‐Türkisch. By Ali Duran Gülçiçek and Rüdiger Benninghaus. Cologne, Ethnographica Anatolica, 1996. 212 pp.     

A Small Yes for Presidentialism: The Turkish Constitutional Referendum of April 2017

Following four elections in three years, on 16 April 2017 Turkish voters once again went to the polls - this time under the emergency law established after the failed coup attempt of July 2016 - to vote on constitutional amendments aimed at replacing the existing parliamentary system with an executive presidency. This article reviews the content of the proposed constitutional amendments, analyses the campaign including the strategies employed by the main political actors in the ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ camps and the resource advantages enjoyed by the ruling party, assesses the electoral performance of both sides through a summary of results from provincial areas and geographical regions, and considers how Turkish politics are likely to take shape under the new system.     

Between Occupation and Politics: Legislative Professionalization in the Swiss Cantons

In this article, we consider the question of how professionalized the cantonal parliamentarians are and which factors are related to this professionalization. By definition, Swiss parliamentarians exert an occupation in parallel to their mandate. We argue that parliamentarians who spend more time for their mandate have more resources to do so and, more importantly, intend to pursue a political career. In doing so, we analyze data gathered from a survey that was conducted among all Swiss cantonal parliaments in 2014. Our multi‐level analysis shows that parliamentarians who run for office at the national level spend significantly more time for their parliamentary mandate than their colleagues. This effect decreases with the parliamentarians’ age. This finding could be relevant in order to understand the career paths of Swiss parliamentarians. In addition, the study contributes to the discussion of the future development of the militia system in Switzerland.