Potential Use in Forensics of a Novel Hybrid Gelatin—Dynamic Impact Assessment

Ballistic gelatin as simulant of the human body and organs is a support in forensics. After having obtained very good results for a new gelatin‐based composite in terms of physicochemical and rheological properties, this study focused on this material's mechanical behavior during stabbing and shooting versus bovine and porcine organs and standard ballistic gelatin. The hybrid gelatin has a predominantly elastic behavior at 23°C, whereas the elastic modulus becomes practically constant in the 10–0.1 Hz frequency range. In terms of stabbing behavior, the small variations obtained between porcine organs and surrogate are below 5%, the perforation indicating a good similarity. From the ballistic test results using 10 × 28T rubber balls, it has been seen that the hybrid ballistic gelatin conducts to more reliable and reproducible values of perforation/penetration versus standard gelatin, making from it a real candidate for use in forensic tests.     

Risk Factor Models for Adolescent Verbal and Physical Aggression Toward Fathers

Using a French-Canadian population-based longitudinal data set, we examine the impact of socioeconomic factors (paternal education and family structure); inherent individual factors (child gender and developmental trajectories of physical aggression from early to later childhood, problematic substance use), family environment (concurrent parent-child involvement, parental problematic substance use), and prospective and concurrent parenting process variables (mean parental supervision at puberty, concurrent punishment practices) as predictors of adolescent-directed aggression against fathers (in the last 6 months). A childhood behavioral pattern characterized by physical aggression showed the highest risk of adolescent-directed verbal and physical aggression toward fathers, regardless of sex. In terms of parental practices, verbal (and not corporal) punishment in the last 6 months significantly predicted aggression toward fathers. A childhood life-course of violence is likely to culminate in aggression toward fathers during adolescence. Beyond this risk, it seems that harsh verbal punishment by parents builds up the odds of child-directed aggression against fathers.     

Caretaker Governments in Czech Politics: What to Do about a Government Crisis

Czech politics suffers from a low durability of most of its governments, and frequent government crises. One of the products of this situation has been the phenomenon of caretaker governments. This article analyses why political elites have resorted to this solution, and discusses how this has reflected an older Czech tradition. Two cases of such governments are analysed in detail. The To?ovský government was characterised by the ability of the Czech president to advance his agenda through this government at a time when the party elites were divided. The Fischer government was characterised by the considerably higher role of parties that shaped and limited the agenda of the cabinet, and the president played a more static role.     

Parental-leave policy for male lawyers in Helsinki and Montreal: cultural and professional barriers to male lawyers’ use of paternity and parental leaves

Family policies in Finland and French Canada (Québec) include fathers’ rights to paternity and parental leaves, which have resulted in more fathers using parental leave. Yet this policy has a limited outreach to male-dominated professions, including the legal profession. In this article, we examine attitudes to paternity and parental leaves among male lawyers and the motives behind their decisions to use or not use them. We approach the issue from the perspective of the legal profession’s professional ethos, which impacts lawyers’ attitudes and practices regarding work-life balance. In our analysis, we draw on 20 Finnish and 18 Quebecois interviews with current and former male lawyers from private law practices in two urban civil-law contexts: Helsinki, Finland and Montreal, Canada. The findings indicate that, in traditionally male-dominated professions, it is not enough to provide men with a statutory right to paternity and parental leave. There is also a need for organisational solutions and peer encouragement in the work environment so that men feel comfortable taking leave.     

The Case of the Hypocritical

This paper analyzes the idea of critique as an idea, in relation to the problematic fiction of legal foundations. In doing so, it refers to the work of Giorgio Agamben and Jean-Luc Nancy. In particular, Jean-Luc Nancy’s concept of the lapsus of right (jus) is explored in relation to the fiction of a Law of law and the notion of the Right to have rights. The paper argues for the conception of an immanent critique of law that seeks to have done with foundational judgments as primary to critique. To have done with judgment as primary is crucial as judgment is the way in which philosophies of law have attempted to establish their own justification while claiming that such a ground or justification comes from an external source. Instead, what is to be reconceived and in a preliminary way is that critique and its concepts are intimate to their problems and vice versa. I wish to thank each of the participants to this issue for their effort and their kind collaboration and V. Kelley for her invaluable assistance in the final editing process. I thank C. Douzinas for introducing me to the work of Jean-Luc Nancy and P. Fitzpatrick and S. Motha for sharing their paths of reading. Especial thanks to A.␣Schütz, E. Loizidou, N. Moore, J.á. Bellido Anon and A. Bottomley for discussions on disagreement. Gratitude is owed to J.-L. Nancy for inspiring thoughts and writings and for the sweetness in response to my suggestion that there are no antidotes to the poisons we write. This is for the wonderful Elene.     

Correlates of Behavioral Outcomes in Sexually Abused Children

The present study attempted to identify individual and contextual factors associated with outcomes in a group of 63 latency-aged children disclosing sexual abuse (SA). Children reporting SA were found to display greater internalizing and externalizing behavioral difficulties as well as more sexualized behaviors relative to same-age non-abused peers. Mothers also reported these children as less socially competent than their peers. Family contextual factors appeared to be associated with behavioral difficulties and made a unique contribution to the prediction of externalizing and sexualized behaviors. Of the personal variables, avoidance coping was found to be linked to poorer outcomes. In examining possible factors linked to ‘resilient’ outcomes in a 6-month time-frame, family conflict and avoidance coping were found to be associated to clinical status in children reporting SA.     

The Knowledge-Based Economy: Conceptual Framework or Buzzword?

In the last two decades, concepts have appeared that have influenced and even defined entire science and technology policies in Western countries: high technology, national system of innovation, information economy, knowledge-based economy, and the new economy. In all these policy developments, the OECD, acting as a think tank for its member countries, has been an important promoter of these concepts, turning them into buzzwords. This article looks at the concept of knowledge-based economy in order to explore the crucial role of the OECD in its dissemination and, above all, the role statistics have played in shaping policy discourses.     

Deliberative Democracy and Liberal Rights

Many liberals cannot help distrusting deliberative democracy theory. In their view, the theory offers no sufficient guarantee that the outcomes of democratic deliberation will be respectful of individual interests generating what they conceive as basic moral rights. The purpose of this text is to provide one argument showing that liberal rights are sufficiently protected within deliberative democracy theory. The argument does not rest on the idea of moral rights or material justice. It rests on the conditions of legitimate law deliberative democracy theory presupposes, namely, the conditions that make concrete the idea of legitimacy as "actual public justification."