Comparative electron-microscopic investigation of postmortem human heart muscle biopsy

Based on Harvard criteria findings, comparative morphological investigation on postmortem heart muscle biopsy following coronary insufficiency after sudden cardiac death have been reported. The subendothelial layer of the left ventricular wall has revealed a severe interstitial edema, various types of actin-myosin filamental destruction, mitochondrial damage, and disseminated muscle fiber necrosis. One of the first alterations observed was the change in transmembrane calcium and intracellular calcium metabolism. A decrease in succinic dehydrogenase and cytochrome oxidase activity was discovered early.     

Ceremonial regionalism,institutions and integration in the Americas

Latin America's recent integrationist proposals have been presented as part of a new commitment to increasing living standards and international competitiveness. However, the frustrating results of integration in the past three decades should caution us against placing excessive emphasis on the technical aspects of trade. The author argues that important lessons can be learned from previous attempts to promote integration in this region while neglecting the political dimensions of integration. Inadequate organizational forms, weak institutional arrangements ruled by technocratic elites, may be more helpful as ceremonial devices in the legitimation of those elites than in advancing the substance of the integration project. Verónica Montecinos is assistant professor of sociology at The Pennsylvania State University, McKeesport Campus. She has researched the consequences of economic reforms on women as well as the growing involvement of professional economists in government and party politics. Her book on the economic bureaucracy in Chile is forthcoming.     

Perspective and procedural justice: Attorney and litigant evaluations of court procedures

A comparison of the procedural justice judgments of attorneys and those of lay people judging the same procedures offers an opportunity to generate new information on what factors affect judgments of fairness. In a survey of reactions to conventional and innovative procedures in a United States district court, attorneys and lay people involved in tort and contract cases were asked to judge the overall fairness of court procedures and the fairness of specific procedures used in arbitration hearings. The respondents were also asked for their judgments concerning the favorability of the procedure's outcome, the opportunity to have the case heard and decided by an impartial third party, and their side's control over what happened in the case, all of which are factors found in previous studies to affect procedural fairness judgments. The results showed that, while attorneys gave higher overall fairness ratings than did litigants, the difference was not affected by the procedure assigned to the case. In addition, attorneys and litigants appeared to use the same standards to evaluate the fairness of procedures, although they disagreed about where the procedures they experienced fell on these dimensions. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.     

Genetic profile of a multi-ethnic population from Guiné-Bissau (west African coast) using the new PowerPlex 16 System kit

Allele and haplotype frequencies of 15 chromosome STR loci included in the kit PowerPlex16 System from Promega, were determined in a sample of unrelated males from Guiné-Bissau, a country from the west African coast. All individuals were subjected to an interview in order to make sure that their ancestors belonged to the same ethnic group. This way we intended to look for possible inter-ethnic differences. PowerPlex 16 includes STRs not studied before in any multi-ethnic population. The kit includes two new allele markers (Penta D and Penta E), which are very useful either in forensics or population genetic studies. The Guinean population presents significant differences when compared with other African populations.     

Public procurement as a means to achieving social gains – progress and challenges in European legislation and standards for accessible information and communication technology

This article explores the European Commission goal of improving the quality and level of accessibility in mainstream information and communication technology (ICT) goods and services available in Member States through the use of public procurement legislation and performance standards. Over the past two decades, the Commission has encouraged Member States to adopt common requirements for accessibility and to strengthen efforts to use these requirements in public procurement. In the absence of significant improvements in the level of accessibility over this time, the Commission has more recently committed to bringing forward legislative proposals to harmonize the accessibility requirements used by Member States. A new procurement directive package contains stronger obligations on public bodies to include accessibility as mandatory requirements in Technical Specifications. In parallel to this, a standardization mandate by the Commission to the European Standards Organizations (ESOs) concluded in March 2014 with the publication of the first European standard on ICT accessibility. In light of these developments, this article analyses the trajectory of European policy in the field of accessibility over the last two decades, and the interplay between European public procurement, standardization and law. It examines how far these developments have succeeded in bringing into being a public procurement eco-system that will nudge the market in Europe to producing affordable and accessible ICT products and services for persons with disabilities.