Frozen: Thawing and Its Effect on the Postmortem Microbiome in Two Pediatric Cases,

Previous postmortem microbiome studies have focused on characterizing taxa turnover during an undisturbed decomposition process. How coexisting conditions (e.g., frozen, buried, burned) affect the human microbiome at the time of discovery is less well understood. Microbiome data were collected from two pediatric cases at the Wayne County Medical Examiner in Michigan. The bodies were found frozen, hidden in a freezer for an extended time. Microbial communities were sampled from six external anatomic locations at three time points during the thawing process, prior to autopsy. The 16S rRNA V4 gene amplicon region was sequenced using high‐throughput sequencing (Illumina MiSeq). Microbial diversity increased, and there was a distinct shift in microbial community structure and abundance throughout the thawing process. Overall, these data demonstrate that the postmortem human microbiome changes during the thawing process, and have important forensic implications when bodies have been substantially altered, modified, and concealed after death.     

Mental disorder is a cause of crime: The cornerstone of forensic psychiatry

The assumption that mental disorder is a cause of crime is the foundation of forensic psychiatry, but conceptual, epistemological, and empirical analyses show that neither mental nor crime, or the causation implied, are clear-cut concepts. “Mental” denotes heterogeneous aspects of a person such as inner experiences, cognitive abilities, and behaviour patterns described in a non-physical vocabulary. In psychology and psychiatry, mental describes law-bound, caused aspects of human functioning that are predictable and generalizable. Problems defined as mental disorders are end-points of dimensional inter-individual differences rather than natural categories. Deficits in cognitive faculties, such as attention, verbal understanding, impulse control, and reality assessment, may be susceptibility factors that relate to behaviours (such as crimes) by increasing the probability (risk) for a negative behaviour or constitute causes in the sense of INUS conditions (Insufficient but Non-redundant parts of Unnecessary but Sufficient conditions). Attributing causes to complex behaviours such as crimes is not an unbiased process, and mental disorders will attract disproportionate attention when it comes to explanations of behaviours that we wish to distance ourselves from. Only by rigorous interpretation of what psychiatry actually can inform us about, using empirical analyses of quantified aggressive antisocial behaviours and their possible explanatory factors, can we gain a clearer notion of the relationship between mental disorder and crime.     

Attrition in the RAND Health Insurance Experiment: a response to Nyman

In a prior article in this journal, John Nyman argues that the effect on health care use and spending found in the RAND Health Insurance Experiment is an artifact of greater voluntary attrition in the cost-sharing plans relative to the free care plan. Specifically, he speculates that those in the cost-sharing plans, when faced with a hospitalization, withdrew. His argument is implausible because (1) families facing a hospitalization would be worse off financially by withdrawing; (2) a large number of observational studies find a similar effect of cost sharing on use; (3) those who left did not differ in their utilization prior to leaving; (4) if there had been no attrition and cost sharing did not reduce hospitalization rates, each adult in each family that withdrew would have had to have been hospitalized once each year for the duration of time they would otherwise have been in the experiment, an implausibly high rate; (5) there are benign explanations for the higher attrition in the cost-sharing plans. Finally, we obtained follow-up health-status data on the great majority of those who left prematurely. We found the health-status findings were insensitive to the inclusion of the attrition cases.     

Measuring the accuracy of facial approximations: a comparative study of resemblance rating and face array methods

The success of facial approximation is thought to depend, at least in part, upon the "accuracy" of the constructed face. However, methods of accuracy assessment are varied and this range in methods may be responsible for the disparate results reported in the literature. The aim of this study was to determine if the accuracy results of one facial approximation were comparable across two different assessment methods (resemblance ratings and simultaneous face array tests using unfamiliar assessors) and if resemblance ratings co-varied with recognition responses. True-positive recognition performance from the facial approximation was poor (21%) while resemblance scores using the same facial approximation were moderately high (3 out of 5 on a five-point scale). These results are not, therefore, consistent and indicate that either different variables are being evaluated by the methods, or the same variable is being examined but with different weight/calibration. Further resemblance ratings tests of the facial approximation to three foil faces from the face array revealed that resemblance scores were similar irrespective of which face was compared, and did not closely correspond with the degree of recognition performance. This was especially the case for isolated comparisons of single faces to the facial approximation. Collectively, these results indicate that resemblance ratings are: (i) insensitive measures of a facial approximation's accuracy; and (ii) inconsistent with results of unfamiliar simultaneous face-array recognition results. These data suggest that familiar and unfamiliar recognition tests should be given increased weight in contrast to current resemblance rating tests.     

Vom strategischen Nutzen des Wissens für die Politikberatung

In recent years, the field of political consulting and policy advice has gained growing attention and, thus, has been subject of important debates regarding its key concepts and theoretical foundations. This paper sets out to defend the authors' original thesis which has been challenged in the course of these debates. We argue that, along with classical oneway modes of consultation, a new way of interaction between political decision makers and consultants has emerged. The knowledge deriving from these cooperative discourses is not merely an external source for the preparation and legitimation of political decisions. It is integral part of the policy process and may unfold its potential as long as it meets the standards of epistemic and political robustness.     

Postmodern Cinema and Hollywood Culture in an Age of Corporate Colonization

Postmodern cinema has emerged in the 1980s and 1990s as a powerfully creative force in Hollywood filmmaking, reflecting and helping to shape the historic convergence of media culture, technology, and consumerism. It corresponds to the post-Fordist, globalized phase of capitalist development typified by increasing class polarization, social atomization, urban chaos and violence, ecological crisis, and mass depoliticization. Departing from the modernist cultural tradition grounded in the Enlightenment, norms of industrial society, and faith in historical progress, postmodern cinema is characterized by disjointed narratives, a dark view of the human condition, images of chaos and random violence, death of the hero, emphasis on technique over content, and dystopic views of the future. While postmodern directors such as Woody Allen, Oliver Stone, Robert Altman, Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, Mike Figgis, and John Waters produce films that are often highly original and even subversive, their departure from conventional Hollywood formulas and motifs that define the studio system - their pronounced cultural radicalism - is rarely associated with any sort of political radicalism even where a harsh social critique might be visible. Postmodern cinema helps reproduce the very popular mood of anxiety, uncertainty, fear, and cynicism that it mirrors in the general society.     

Mining and Local Corruption in Africa

We investigate whether mining affects local corruption in Africa. Several cross‐country analyses report that natural resources have adverse effects on political institutions by increasing corruption, whereas other country‐level studies show no evidence of such “political resource curses.” These studies face well‐known endogeneity and other methodological issues, and employing micro‐level data would allow for drawing stronger inferences. Hence, we connect 92,762 Afrobarometer survey respondents to spatial data on 496 industrial mines. Using a difference‐in‐differences strategy, we find that mining increases bribe payments, and this result is robust to using alternative models. Mines are initially located in less corrupt areas, but mining areas turn more corrupt after mines open. When exploring mechanisms, we find that local economic activity relates differently to corruption in mining and non‐mining areas, suggesting that mining income incentivizes and enables local officials already present to require more bribes.     

Lack of European Identity and the Failure of the Eurozone

Since late 2007, the Eurozone has been embroiled in a crisis that has seen GDP per capita stagnate, public debt soar, and unemployment reach record levels. This article argues that the Eurozone crisis will inevitably force fundamental changes in the structure of the EU. The only way to make the Eurozone work is through deeper fiscal integration of Eurozone economies. Yet wholesale fiscal integration cannot be achieved in the near term, due to the fact that EU citizens continue to identify more with their own nationalities than with Europe as a whole. The Eurozone economies of southern Europe will, therefore, continue to flounder, leading to further anti‐EU sentiment. Anti‐EU sentiment may eventually increase up to the point where one or all of these countries leave the Eurozone or the EU altogether. These propositions are supported with arguments from economic theory, and are bolstered by evidence from surveys and opinion polls.