Economic incentives for the self-regulation of the release of price-sensitive information

Companies, as primary disseminators of information, and financial institutions, as major recipients, have economic incentives to self-regulate the transmission and usage of price-sensitive information. These include increased (lost) reputation costs and adverse share price penalties arising from poor management of information disclosure. The economic motivation for self-regulation is seen as conceptually linked to but distinct from legislative changes. Self-regulation has the strong support of economic efficiency arguments, whereas recent additional new legislative changes do not. This article examines a major corporate and institutional response to the new regulatory climate—to internalize part of the regulatory process during their regular relationship communications. Relationships between the case companies and institutions already exist for transaction purposes. They are used as a convenient and low-cost means to pursue self-regulation and to avoid errors of price-sensitive information release. This self-regulatory process is illustrated using case material. It is clear from the response pattern presented that the development of a self-regulatory framework by the parties has been an iterative one. The corporate and institutional systems that have been evolving seem to be significantly influenced by the regulatory trends. The regulatory changes appear to have played a role in increasing market costs incurred by those companies with poor stock market communication practices. The article ends by arguing that new proposals to change in the formal regulatory system should recognize that further legislation is unlikely to improve the poor prosecution record. Nevertheless, legislative changes can combine with and buttress the self-regulation process to create an effective regulatory system.     

The European Community and South Africa: Economic Reality or Political Rhetoric?

This article examines the economic and political relationship between the European Community (EC) and the Republic of South Africa (RSA). From the economic perspective, the Community's objective of securing economic independence for the region, trends in EC-RSA trade and the arguments pertaining to mineral dependency are discussed. From the political perspective, Community statements on apartheid are compared with its foreign policy record. In particular, the Code of Conduct for European firms operating in the Republic is analysed within the framework of European Political Cooperation (EPC). The achievements, failures, future role and alternatives to the Code are considered and the limitations imposed by EPC in realizing a collective foreign policy are recognized.     

Establishing forensic search methodologies and geophysical surveying for the detection of clandestine graves in coastal beach environments

A 2010 UK police search for a clandestine burial highlighted the need for more information and quantitative data to aid coastal beach searches. This study aimed to address this by establishing relevant forensic search methodologies to aid the search for clandestine coastal burial sites, using the North West English coastline as a search area. A set of parameters were established, including criteria such as tidal range, proximity to vehicular access points and distance from inhabited areas, which may inform forensic searches by prioritising likely locations of clandestine burials. Three prioritised coastal locations were subsequently identified: (1) coastal dunes at Formby, (2) coastal dunes and (3) beach foreshore at Southport, all sites part of the Liverpool City Region in the United Kingdom. At all locations, simulated clandestine graves were hand-dug by spades into which a naked adult-sized, metal-jointed fiberglass mannequin was buried at 0.5 m below ground level. Trial geophysical surveys were then undertaken with the aim of identifying the optimal geophysical instrumentation and technique to deploy in such environments. GPR data showed 450 MHz frequency antennae to be optimal, with significantly poor data obtained from the foreshore area due to saline seawater. Electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility surveys were successful in coastal environments in target detection (albeit not in non-vegetated sand dunes), with resistivity fixed-offset configurations deemed optimal. The latter survey successes may be due to the recent disturbed 'grave' rather than the target, which itself is of interest in terms of identifying the most recent clandestine burials.     

Mitochondrial DNA regions HVI and HVII population data.

Data from 1393 unrelated individuals have been compiled from eight population groups: African Americans, Africans (Sierra Leone), U.S. Caucasians, Austrians, French, Hispanics, Japanese, and Asian Americans. The majority of the mtDNA sequences were observed only once within each population group (i.e., ranging from a low of 60.3% (35/58) of the Asian American sequences to a high of 85.3% (93/109) of the French sequences). Genetic diversity ranged from 0.990 in the African sample to 0.998 in African Americans. Random match probability ranged from 2.50% in the Asian American sample to 0.52% in U.S. Caucasians. The average number of nucleotide differences between individuals in a database is greatest for the African American and African samples (14.1 and 13.1, respectively), and the least variable are the Caucasians (ranging from 7.2 to 8.4). Substitutions are the predominate polymorphism, and at least 92% of the substitutions are transitions. The most prevalent transversions are As substituted for Cs and Cs substituted for As. For most population groups these transversions occurred predominately in the HVI region; however, the African, African American, and Hispanic samples also demonstrated a large portion of their C to A and A to C transversions in the HVII region (at sites 186 and/or 189). Most insertions occur in the HVII region at sites 309.1 and 315.1, within a stretch of C's. Insertions of an additional C are common in all population groups. The sequence data were converted to SSO mtDNA types and compared with population data on Caucasians, Africans, Asians, Japanese, and Mexicans described by Stoneking et al. [M. Stoneking, D. Hedgecock, R.G. Higuchi, L. Vigilant, H.A. Erlich, Population variation of human mtDNA control region sequences detected by enzymatic amplification and sequence-specific oligonucleotide probes, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 48 (1991) 370-382] using an R x C contingency table test. Differences between major population groups (i.e., between African, Caucasian, and Asian) are quite evident, and similar ethnic population groups carried similar SSO polymorphism frequencies. There were only a few SSO types that showed significant differences between subpopulation groups. The SSO data alone can not be used to describe the population genetics with complete sequence data. However, the results of the SSO comparisons are similar to other analyses, and differences in sequence data in regions HVI and HVII are greater between major population groups than between subgroups.     

Comparison of results for quantitative determination of morphine by radioimmunoassay, enzyme immunoassay, and spectrofluorometry.

The quantitative results (accuracy and precision) for determination of opiates by radioimmunoassay (RIA), enzyme immunoassay (EMIT), and spectrofluorometry on split samples are compared. A variety of physiological samples were studied, including random urine from a methadone maintenance clinic and postmortem urine, blood, bile, brain, and lung tissue from heroin-induced or heroin-related deaths. The opiate concentrations detected by the two immunoassay methods were in good agreement with each other in the absence of interfering substances which are believed to react with the antimorphine antibodies. The immunoassay results were in agreement within the relative standard deviation with the fluorometry results in 55% of the urine samples and 80% of the blood samples. The immunological methods are superior to fluorometry for quantitation of morphine in urine samples due to quenching interferences in fluorometry from urine. They were comparable to fluorometry for quantitation of morphine in blood samples.     

Country Women and the Colour Bar: Grassroots Activism and the Country Women's Association

Country Women and the Colour Bar: Grassroots Activism and the Country Women's Association. By Jennifer Jones (Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press, 2015), pp. v + 229. AU$39.95 (pb).     

The Double Delegitimatisation of Julia Gillard: Gender,the Media,and Australian Political Culture

This article explores Australian media coverage of Julia Gillard's leadership. It employs a comparative discourse analysis of the gendered nature of media reporting on her sexism and misogyny speech and eventual demise. The article places these gendered framings within two contexts: that of the more general gendered expectations of the double bind facing all women leaders; and the more specific challenge to Australia's women leaders, posed by exclusivist national identity narratives. These narratives — of mateship, the ANZAC myth, and various apparently ideal‐type masculinities — serve to further disassociate Australian women from positions of national leadership. Together, we argue that the twin constraints of gender expectations and exclusivist national identity narratives amounted to a double delegitimisation of Julia Gillard's leadership, on the basis of her being a woman leader, generally, and an Australian woman leader, specifically.     

Effects of Decomposition on Gunshot Wound Characteristics: Under Cold Temperatures with No Insect Activity

Abstract:  Information on gunshot wound characteristics has been well documented; however, there is little documented information on the effects of decomposition or environmental conditions on gunshot wound characteristics. This study was conducted in order to determine if decomposition would obscure or alter the physical surface characteristics of gunshot wounds when exposed to a low temperature environment. The study was conducted from November 2005 to January 2006 in Nova Scotia, Canada in forested and exposed environments, with air temperatures between −10°C and +10°C. Pigs were used as human models and were shot six times each at three different ranges (contact, 2.5 cm, and 1.5 m). Gunshot wound characteristics persisted until the wounds were covered with ice and snow, after which changes were observed. The changes were recognized as being unique to the different ranges of gunshots and it was concluded that changes due to decomposition under the conditions tested would not affect the collection and interpretation of gunshot wound evidence.     

History’s Challenge to Criminal Law Theory

After briefly sketching an historical account of criminal law that emphasizes its longstanding reach into social, commercial and personal life outside the core areas of criminal offenses, this paper explores why criminal law theory has never succeeded in limiting the content of criminal codes to offenses that fit the criteria of dominant theories, particularly versions of the harm principle. Early American writers on criminal law endorsed no such limiting principles to criminal law, and early American criminal law consequently was substantively broad. But even with the rise of theories in the mid-nineteenth century that sought to limit criminal law’s reach, codified offenses continued to widely and deeply regulate social life and exceed the limits of those normative arguments. This essay suggests that this practical failure of criminal law theory occurred because it was never adopted by an institutional actor that could limit offense definitions in accord with normative commitments. Legislatures are institutionally unsuited to having their policy actions limited by principled arguments, and courts passed on the opportunity to incorporate a limiting principle for criminal law once they began, in the Lochner era, actively regulating legislative decisions through Constitutional law. The one avenue through which criminal law theory has had some success in affecting criminal codes is through the influence of specialized bodies that influence legislation, especially the American Law Institute advocacy of the Model Penal Code. But the institutional structure of American criminal law policymaking permits an unusually small role for such specialized bodies, and without such an institutional mechanism, criminal law theory is likely to continue to have little effect on actual criminal codes.