A cause célèbre: the so-called "ballpoint murder"

Transorbital intracranial injuries are uncommon but classic ophthalmologic traumas. This report describes a case of a woman who was found dead. Postmortem examination revealed a Bic ballpoint which had penetrated her head through her right eye. Detective forces believed a murder to be the most likely cause; however, medical expert consultants indicated that a tragic accident was more likely. The case and the results of crossbow test-firing on human cadavers are presented.     

Social capital in microfinance: Case studies in the Philippines

The present study examines how formation of social capital in themicrofinance sector is affected by enlarging the political or economicresources of the informal groups of poor households and microfinanceinstitutions (MFIs) that contribute to social cohesion. In particular, thischapter attempts to show how the regulatory and supervisory framework as wellas the financial innovations of microfinance institutions have affected poorhouseholds capacity for cooperation and mutual support in their fightagainst poverty.     

The first algorithm for linear programming: An analysis of Kantorovich's method

An analysis is given of Kantorovich's method of resolving multipliers. It is shown that the method is equivalent to a parametric method but that it is also equivalent with the simplex method with a special rule for the choice of the new basic variable.     

Policy Voting in Senate Elections: The Case of Abortion

Questions about whether voters rely on their policy preferences when casting ballots have been present since scholars first began examining the determinants of voting behavior. This paper seeks to contribute to research in this area by analyzing abortion policy voting in Senate elections. Specifically, I investigate how the effects of national party position divergence, candidate position divergence, and voter information and salience moderate the relationship between abortion policy preferences and vote choice. The results suggest that the national parties' divergence on abortion does not directly strengthen the connection between abortion policy preferences and ballot decisions. Instead, candidate contrast appears to be the key. And, well informed and motivated voters are especially responsive. Taken together, the findings illuminate the nature of abortion policy voting and also inform the burgeoning scholarship on campaign effects, the role of information, and issue publics in American politics.     

Die Ordnung des Konsenses

For some time now, the welfare state crisis has been at the centre of the academic and political debate. But not only the analysis of crisis is omnipresent, the solution seems to be a matter of course, as well. Reasonable and united actors, who initiate the so-called “necessary” reforms are in great demand. Competitive corporatist co-operation of trade unions, employer organisations and governments, which emerged in several European countries since the late 1980s, are considered successful examples of a consensus-based crisis management. The most popular example is the Dutch Polder model that became world famous as a consensus model by the mid-1990s. However, in spite of its popularity, consensus has neither been formalized as an analytical concept nor has its creation been thoroughly scrutinized. In fact the question remains unanswered as to how and under what conditions it could happen that different and initially antagonistic actors started to regard the same solution of the stated crisis as the only conceivable option. Referring to the Dutch case and starting out from an interpretative perspective based on the Governmentality approach of Michel Foucault and the Symbolic Institutionalism of Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, the article raises the question why supply-sided strategies came to be seen as necessary and sensible and how power relations are embedded in the process of consensus creation.     

Lying Behavior, Family Functioning and Adjustment in Early Adolescence

Communication between children and parents has been the subject of several studies, examining the effects of, for example, disclosure and secrecy on adolescents’ social relationships and adjustment. Less attention has paid to adolescent deception. We developed and tested a new instrument on lying behavior in a sample of 671 parent-adolescent couples. Analyses on the psychometric properties showed that this instrument had one principal component, and high internal consistency, item-total correlations and inter-item correlations. Lying was moderately associated with other indicators of parent-child communication, the quality of the parent-child relationship, and with parenting practices. In addition, frequent lying was moderately related to behavioral problems and emotional problems.full professor at the Radboud University Nijmegen. He received his Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Maastricht. His major research interest is the study of social influence processes, personality characteristics and development of smoking, drinking and drug use in adolescents and young adults.Associate Professor at the Free University of Amsterdam. She received her Ph.D. in 1998 from the University of Louvain, at Louvain-la-Neuve. Her major research interests are interpersonal relationships, social prediction, secrecy and disclosure, and affective forecasting for self and others.working as a developmental psychologist. She received her MA in 2001 from the University of Leiden.