Reconstruction of ripped-up documents using fragment stack analysis procedures

Reconstruction of ripped-up documents can be a very time-consuming task for forensic experts. Currently, this task is often carried out using various homespun or loosely defined procedures. Under the main assumption that a (partially) ordered set of fragments can be recovered, we propose and discuss a more formal analysis methodology for this type of reconstruction problem. We discuss several complications that can occur in real-life problems and illustrate the efficiency of the proposed methods. Although several avenues for further research remain, we show that the proposed approach offers both a better understanding of the problem, as well as important strategies for devising very fast manual and semi-automatic fragment reassembly procedures.     

城市、社团和法律--从中世纪城市兴起看西方近代宪政制度

本文考察西方中世纪中晚期城市、社团及其城市法律制度。城市共同体的兴起促进了西欧范围的市场贸易活动的广泛复兴,并对中世纪欧洲封建地方体制给予了有力冲击;同时,城市共同体作为社团组织的独特发展形式,形成特有的城市等级会议制度,动摇和破坏封建社会的内部关系并为新社会结构的形成奠定了基础。这是导致历史上早期宪政观念产生的最为关键的因素。由于城市共同体自身的缺陷,统一市场的变革要求被民族国家所替代。     

De-canting ‘Trafficking in Human Beings’, Re-centring the State

Contemporary liberal states are eager to combat ‘human trafficking’, which state actors describe as ‘the scourge of modern slavery’ and a violation of human rights. The same states are also depriving migrants of their freedom on an unprecedented scale through immigration detention, forcibly moving them across borders through deportation, and sustaining a flourishing industry in the prevention and control of human movement. This is not a paradox. The ambition to eradicate ‘slavery’, as much as the desire to severely restrict freedom of movement, reflects a concern to preserve and extend state powers, in particular its monopoly on violence and on the control of mobility.     

Sacred groves,sacrifice zones and soy production: globalization,intensification and neo-nature in South America

Soy has become one of the world's most important agroindustrial commodities – serving as the nexus for the production of food, animal feed, fuel and hundreds of industrial products – and South America has become its leading production region. The soy boom on this continent entangles transnational capital and commodity flows with social relations deeply embedded in contested ecologies. In this introduction to the collection, we first describe the ‘neo-nature’ of the soy complex and the political economy of the sector in South America, including the new corporate actors and financial mechanisms that produced some of the world's largest agricultural production companies. We then discuss key environmental debates surrounding soy agribusiness in South America, challenging especially the common arguments that agroindustrial intensification ‘spares land’ for conservation while increasing production to ‘feed the world’. We demonstrate that these arguments hinge on limited data from a peculiar portion of the southern Amazon fringe, and obfuscate through neo-Malthusian concerns multiple other political and ecological problems associated with the sector. Thus, discussions of soy production become intertwined with broader debates about agrarian development, industrialization and modernization. Finally, we briefly outline the contributions in this volume, and identify limitations and fruitful directions for further research.     

Fostering political leadership for the demographic dividend in Africa: relevant cultural values

A foremost challenge to the realisation of the accelerated economic growth of the demographic dividend in Africa remains the commitment of the region’s political leadership to creating the enabling contexts to maximise the potential of its youthful population. This viewpoint considers three critical African cultural mores – the reverence-for-posterity norm; leader-as-community-proxy culture; and the elder tradition – that offer unique levers for fostering political leadership for the demographic dividend in Africa. Strategies for successfully tapping these cultural traditions require further research.     

Exploring Identity Dynamics from a Combined Social Exchange and Social Identity Perspective

The aim of this article is to explore identity dynamics of unit and department leaders in a healthcare setting using both social identity and social exchange theories. In particular, we developed a mediational moderated model in which supervisor trust indirectly influences identification with a subordinate level (i.e., the clinical unit) through its effect on identification with a superordinate level (i.e., the organization as a whole). Furthermore, we predicted and found that this relation is moderated by organizational tenure, contract breach, and the clinical-manager's role (heads of clinical units vs. chairs of departments). We tested our hypotheses with doctors of a large public hospital in northern Italy. A total of 370 doctors completed questionnaires measuring organizational and unit identification, supervisor trust, and contract breach. Results supported our hypotheses: supervisor trust was related to unit identification through its effect on organizational identification. As expected, this relation was stronger for more tenured department chairs, and for those doctors who perceived less contract breach.