The epidemiology of female rape victims who seek immediate medical care: temporal trends in the incidence of sexual assault and acquaintance rape

Women who seek medical care following sexual assault are usually evaluated and treated in an emergency department (ED). Therefore, EDs can be an important source of sexual assault surveillance data. The authors compared the incidence of sexual assault presenting for emergency care in a single county during July to November of 1974 and 1991. Participants included all female sexual assault victims aged 14 and older who presented for ED evaluation. Treating physicians prospectively collected data using standardized forms. The z statistic was used to compare sexual assault incidence. There was a 60% increase in the incidence of sexual assault victims presenting for emergency care in 1991 compared to 1974, primarily due to an increase in the incidence of women presenting to the ED after rapes by known assailants. In contrast, the annual incidence of reported stranger assaults was similar in the two study years.     

Inequality, privacy, and mental health

The state's mental health power is standardly understood in terms of the state's power to intervene with persons or populations to address mental health problems. This article advances a more expansive view of the state's mental health power, one which seeks to capture those exercises of state power that do not directly concern mental health but that nevertheless can have a profound effect on mental well-being. The article considers two features of contemporary American society that implicate the state in conditions that undermine, or threaten to undermine, mental health. The first concerns the impact of poverty and inequality on mental health. The second concerns the threat to the self posed by measures that would significantly erode privacy. The article argues that a greater commitment to liberal principles of equality and tolerance is crucial to overcoming the perils for mental health that poverty and losses of privacy generate.     

Stable hydrogen isotope analysis as a method to identify illegally trapped songbirds

We measured stable hydrogen isotope ratios in the primary feathers of two subspecies of goldfinches, confiscated by the Police and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) on suspicion that they had been illegally taken from the wild. We found significant differences in the delta2H values of the two subspecies indicating that they were sourced from different geographical regions. Our results correlated with isotopic precipitation maps and with the known distribution of the two subspecies of goldfinch. We believe that this technique could be used by law enforcement agencies to determine the origin of birds in cases where the species or subspecies involved are geographically distinct.     

Identifying Successor Corporations Liable under CERCLA and Pursuing Insurance Coverage for That Liability

The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) imposes liability well beyond general corporate successor rules. A company can allocate liability to other Potentially Responsible Parties as more culpable, taking advantage of CERCLA's joint and several liability. Often a source of recovery must be teased from a complex corporate history somehow connected to the site. This article examines the basis for attributing environmental liability to entities within a corporate history, before addressing how even a bankrupt or dissolved target may still have insurance that can be tapped. Similarly, CERCLA's strict liability enables recovery from insurance with some connection to either the target's or the company's corporate history, notwithstanding insurers' non-assignment arguments.     

Food distribution's socio-economic relationships and public policy: Mexico City's municipal public markets

Traditional food supply systems, like municipal public markets (MPM), are in crisis. Nevertheless, MPMs continue to demonstrate importance in the lives of the cities. In this article we discuss the case of Mexico City and the importance of the public markets for its neighbourhoods. We present the results of two research projects, completed in Mexico City at two different historical times and interpreted longitudinally. The results demonstrate the importance of socio-economic relationships for MPM's survival and potential. The article concludes with public policy recommendations to permit conservation, given the MPM's importance for the city's social cohesion.     

Knowing the past to understand the present - issues in the contracting for cloud based services

This article builds on our previous introductory article to cloud computing ([2009] 25 CLSR 270-274) and seeks to explain how cloud computing has evolved. We then discuss how this evolution impacts on key contractual and legal considerations and how the treatment of these considerations might differ from their treatment in traditional IT supply agreements.     

The influence of gender on ability to simulate handwritten signatures: a study of Arabic writers

This study investigates whether a writer's gender can be determined from an inspection of simulated signatures written in the Arabic alphabet or Arabic abjad. It is generally believed that the penmanship of female writers is superior to male writers. There is also reason to expect that superiority in writing skill might contribute to success in simulating the signatures of other writers. Simulated signatures produced by a large population of male (414) and female (312) Arabic writers were graded, and the results were statistically analyzed. Women were found to have a marginal advantage simulating all elements of the signatures, but there was no statistically significant difference between the genders on any of the elements examined.     

The Unfairness of Risk-Based Possession Offences

This is a study of possession offences, with the focus on those intended to penalise the risk of a serious harm. Offences of this kind are examined in the light of basic doctrines of the criminal law, and in the light of the proper limits of endangerment offences. They are found wanting in both respects, and are also found to pose particular sentencing problems. The conclusion is that many risk-based possession offences are unfair, save those that require proof of a further intent or those aimed at a failure properly to safeguard a dangerous object.