Biomechanics of knife stab attacks

In the past it has been assumed that the fingerprints of women tend to have "fine" epidermal ridge detail while men have "coarse" ridge detail. Past studies have examined this hypothesis but have not clearly demonstrated if observed differences are statistically significant. The goal of this study is to determine if women have significantly higher ridge density, hence finer epidermal ridge detail, than men by counting ridges that occur within a well defined space. If significant gender differences do exist then the likelihood of inferring gender from given ridge densities will be explored. This study focused on 400 randomly picked ten-print cards representing 400 subjects. The demographic composition of this sample population represents 100 Caucasian males, 100 African American males, 100 Caucasian females and 100 African American females all within the age range of 18-67. Results show that women tend to have a significantly higher ridge density than men and that this trend is upheld in subjects of both Caucasian and African American descent (F = 81.96, P < 0.001). Application of Bayes' theorem suggests that a given fingerprint possessing a ridge density of 11 ridges/25 mm2 or less is most likely to be of male origin. Likewise a fingerprint having a ridge density of 12 ridges/25 mm2 or greater is most likely to be of female origin, regardless of race.     

Ethnic Law and Minority Rights in China: Progress and Constraints

Western discourse on human rights in China typically assumes that China's minority rights law must be a sham because China is an authoritarian state. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, China has articulated an "ethnic law" that elaborates rights and preferences that minorities value. At the same time, People's Republic of China ethnic law is inadequate to grant the idealized range of minority rights claimed by the Chinese state, and some rights are being eroded by the marketization of China's political economy. The most notable weaknesses in the ethnic law system include the failure to enlarge the scope of ethnic regional autonomy, a lack of preferential policies sufficient to offset the growth of the economic gap between Han and minority areas, and an inadequate program for overcoming antiminority bias. While an emerging minority elite is a stabilizing factor in minority‐state relations, additional measures to expand minority rights are required, some of which are suggested by the policies of other Asian states.     

Pathways to work for low‐income workers: The effect of work in the temporary help industry

This paper provides new evidence to inform the policy debate about the effect of a newly important industry—the temporary help industry—on the labor market outcomes of low‐income workers and those workers who are at risk of being on public assistance. The core issue of whether temporary help work harms the long‐term prospects of disadvantaged individuals depends critically on the alternatives available to the worker. Temporary employment results in labor market outcomes that are better than not working at all. For example, while nonemployed public assistance recipients have only a 35 percent chance of being employed a year later, those who were in temporary employment have almost twice the likelihood of being employed in the same period. These findings, if correct, would support the use of temporary agencies by welfare programs. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Political Institutions, Public Policy and Economic Growth

The argument of the Rise and Decline of Nulions (RADON) opens up a new area of important social science research: to understand the social and political setting of economic growth. The paper tests the argument that institutionalization leads fo the decline of nafions slowing down the rate of economic growth. Employing several indicators on economic growth and controlling for a number of factors the finding with regard to the OECD-nations is that the Olson emphasis on institutionalization is confirmed.     

Reviews

Archie Brown, The Gorbachev Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, £19.99.

Terry Cox, From Perestroika to Privatisation: The Politics of Property Change in Russian Society 1985–1991. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, vi + 158 pp., £30.00.

Maxim Boyko, Andrei Shleifer & Robert Vishny, Privatizing Russia. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, ix + 165 pp., £15.95.

Iver B. Neumann, Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations. London: Routledge, 1996, xviii + 253 pp., £13.99.

James P. Nichol, Diplomacy in the Former Soviet Republics. Westport, CT, London: Praeger, 1995, xii + 244 pp., £49.50.

Randall W. Stone, Satellites and Commissars: Strategy and Conflict in the Politics of Soviet‐Bloc Trade. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996, xviii + 283 pp., $39.50.

Adrian Hyde‐Price, The International Politics of East Central Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996, xviii + 300 pp., £45.00 h/b, £14.99 p/b.

John Dornberg, Central and Eastern Europe. Phoenix: The Oryx Press, 1995, x 4‐ 238 pp., £21.95.

Robert B. Pynsent (ed.), The Literature of Nationalism: Essays on East European Identity. London: University of London, 1996, viii + 282 pp.

Iliana Zloch‐Christy (ed.), Bulgaria in a Time of Change: Economic and Political Dimensions. Aldershot: Avebury, 1996, xi + 221 pp., £35.00.

Grzegorz Wec?awowicz, Contemporary Poland: Space and Society. London: UCL Press, 1996, 208 pp., £40.00 h/b., £14.95 p/b.

Maria Drohobycky (ed.), Crimea. Dynamics, Challenges and Prospects. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 1995, xix + 250 pp., £34.50 h/b., £15.95 p/b.

Helen Fodor (ed.), Belarus and Moldova. Country Studies. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division, Library of Congress, 1995, xxvi + 254 pp.

Kevin P. O'Prey, A Farewell to Arms? Russia's Struggles with Defense Conversion. New York: Twentieth Century Fund Press, 1995, vii + 143 pp., $9.95.

Alison Hilton, Russian Folk Art. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995, xxiv + 356 pp., £31.50.

George F. Kennan, At a Century's Ending: Reflections, 1982–1995. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1996, 351 pp., US$27.50, £19.95.

Martin McCauley, The Khrushchev Era 1953–1964. London: Longman, 1995, 99 pp., £5.99.

Martin McCauley, The Origins of the Cold War, 1941–1949. 2nd edn. London: Longman, 1995, xii + 153 pp., £5.99.

Geoffrey Swain, The Origins of the Russian Civil War. Essex: Longman, 1996, xiv + 296 pp., £13.99.

Peter B. Maggs, The Mandelstam and “Der Nister” Files: An Introduction to Stalin‐era Prison and Labor Camp Records. New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996, 184 pp., $52.95 h/b.     

The Effect of Family Structure and Family Functioning on Adolescents' Perceptions of Intimate Time Spent with Parents,Siblings, and Peers

In previous research, family structure variables have been operationalized as family size, birth order, sibling spacing, and sibling density. These structure variables have been linked to parental strictness, reasonableness, and supportiveness [J. S. Kidwell (1981), Number of Siblings, Sibling Spacing, and Birth Order: Their Effects on Perceived Parent–Adolescent Relationships, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 43, pp. 315–333]. Other research has drawn attention to the link between the amount of time adolescents spend with parents and peers and the influence of family relations variables—intensity, duration, and frequency of conflicts. [R. Montemayor (1982), The Relationship Between Parent–Adolescent Conflict and the Amount of Time Adolescents Spend Alone and with Parents and Peers, Child Development, Vol. 53, pp. 1512–1519]. More recent research has related family structure (family size, sibling spacing, and gender) effects to the amount of time adolescents spend with parents, a measure of relationship quality, and a set of measures of discipline [R. A. Richardson et al. (1986), Parent–Child Relationships in Early Adolescence: Effects of Family Structure, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 48, pp. 805–811]. To date, the questions asked by researchers have not simultaneously explored whether it is the family relations or the family structure variables that contribute most powerfully to the amount of time that female and male adolescents spend with family members and peers. In this research adolescents were asked to report the amount of time they spend with their mother, father, siblings, and peers, and to respond to a questionnaire that has three factors that define family functioning: Parenting Style (democratic decision making), Intimacy, and Conflict [P. Noller et al. (1992), Parent and Adolescent Perceptions of Family Functioning: A Comparison of Clinic and Nonclinic Family, Journal of Adolescence, Vol. 15, pp. 101–115]. The analyses revealed that complex and interpretable family structure and family functioning factors differentially influence whether males and females spend time with family members and peers.     

The role of credible commitments in state finance

Margaret Levi's Of Rule and Revenue raises a host of important problems in the theory of the state. It provides an important step in the development of a theory that combines economic and political institutions into the same framework, potentially allowing scholars to address important issues such as the divergent economic paths taken by various states. It will therefore be an important book, and warrants attention. This approach holds much promise for the development of a theory of institutional development of the state from the middle ages onward.I have tried to sketch some additional directions for the theory to develop, pointing toward the answer of questions not directly faced by Levi — or for that matter, by much of the public choice literature: How do we explain the evolution of a predatory state into one with explicit limits on its powers? How do we explain the rise of representative institutions? Answering these questions often requires looking beyond the individual state to its international context. Competition among states, especially in the form of war, plays a key role here, and has two consequences. First, a major consequence of large-scale wars was fiscal stress. At such times, even a preditory state might agree to exchange limitations on its own powers for revenue. Second, the brief discussion of early modern Europe suggests that states with limited government might have had a financial advantage over those which were not so limited. The latter played a major role in the successful Dutch revolt against Spain and in the English defeat of France.