Survival of Atherosclerotic Calcifications in Skeletonized Material: Forensic and Pathological Implications

Atherosclerosis is a chronic inflammatory disease creating calcifying plaques in the arterial walls. Because its paleopathological diagnosis remains little studied on skeletal remains, its impact on forensic and archeological data is completely underestimated. Here, 24 skeletal remains from the Milano Cemetery Skeletal Collection have been studied to evaluate the chance of atherosclerotic calcification survival, retrieval, and identification. Through direct comparison with a known autopsy collection and literature, the identification and categorization of several types of calcifications were performed. Clothing elements such as tights or socks played a definitive role in the preservation of the calcifications; hence they are more likely to be found in forensic cases than in archeological ones. Therefore, vascular calcifications are possible to collect and identify in skeletal remains if sufficient care is given to their recovery. Consequently and as markers of the disease, such identification can provide valuable pathological information for forensic and archeological cases.     

Does Treatment Quality Matter?

Research Summary

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice has implemented a process to evaluate the treatment quality of interventions provided statewide in all long‐term residential programs. In the current study, we examine the predictive validity of this treatment quality component in the prediction of recidivism of youth (N = 2,397) who completed juvenile justice residential programs from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014. We use hierarchical linear modeling to assess the effects of treatment quality (as youth are nested within programs), controlling for demographic and criminal history factors. The results indicate that higher average treatment quality scores of interventions received within a residential program decreased the likelihood of subsequent arrest, conviction, and reincarceration, whereas the highest treatment quality score of any specific intervention provided within the program decreased the odds of reincarceration only.

Policy Implications

In this study, we confirm the importance of fidelity and implementation quality in the provision of crime prevention treatment interventions to serious, deep‐end juvenile offenders. Additionally, our results shed light on the ability of a juvenile justice agency to measure treatment quality in a substantively meaningful way with the use of limited additional resources. The services provided to keep communities safe, prevent future offending, and rehabilitate juvenile offenders must be held accountable for producing such outcomes, and one method of measuring such compliance is to evaluate the quality of the interventions with respect to staff training, fidelity adherence, evaluation, and corrective action processes.     

Feedback

The following account of a development programme in southern Mexico responds to the issues raised by John Grierson in his article entitled 'Limited liability companies and development agencies' (Development in Practice 5/1, February 1995).     

An adaptation-mitigation game: does adaptation promote participation in international environmental agreements?

International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics - This paper studies how the investment in adaptation can influence the participation in an international environmental agreement...     

Identifying Salient Stressors of Adolescence: A Systematic Review and Content Analysis

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Stressors play a defining role in youth development and, in particular, in adolescent psychological and behavioral adaptation. However, the nature of stressors...     

Diversity of Southeast Asian Capitalisms: Evolving State-Business Relations in Malaysia

ABSTRACT

Empirical gaps exist in the literature about diverse forms of capitalism. The first is thematic, involving the incomplete institutional and political account of how the state can, through a series of policies, shape the development of domestic enterprises. The second gap is regional in nature: this literature does not deal with the historical development of firms that have played a central role in industrialising Southeast Asia. One reason for this is that since most existing theories are based on Western contexts, they are theoretically ill-equipped to deal with the concepts of power and state-business nexuses when the political system is not democratic in nature. But state-business ties, where politicians in power distribute government-generated rents on a selective basis, have resulted in diverse business systems such as highly diversified conglomerates, state-owned companies and small- and medium-scale enterprises. This article deals with these theoretical and empirical gaps. To better understand the nature and implications of evolving state-business ties in Southeast Asia, this topic is examined through the lens of regulation theory. To appreciate the complexity and implications of state-business configurations on the political system and forms of enterprise development, a case study of Malaysia is provided.     

Crimes against Humanity, Reasonableness and the Law: the Simon Case in the Supreme Court of Argentina

In the Simón case, decided in June 2005, the ArgentineSupreme Court held unlawful the application of amnesties tocrimes against humanity. The Court relied heavily on the Conventionon the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimesand Crimes Against Humanity, ratified in 2003 by Argentina.In so doing, however, it ignored significant constitutionalconstraints that give priority to the right not to be judgedby an ex post facto law. The other arguments provided by theCourt also fail to respect the Argentine constitutional order.Thus, notwithstanding the laudable aim of preventing and punishingall crimes against humanity, this decision is regrettable.     

Empirical assessment of the escabinato jury system

Abstract

There are two practical applications of the jury system: the jury of lay people and the escabinato jury involving joint decision making by legal experts and lay people. Research undertaken in this field has been almost exclusively centered on the former. This work consists of an empirical study of the role of legal suggest that the loss of a jury of peers implies the dominance of the judge's opinion. The causes and consequences of this domination have been assessed.     

Social Movements,Party Organization,and Populism: Insights from the Bolivian MAS

The Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) emerged in Bolivia's Chapare region in the 1990s. Born of a rural social movement of coca growers, it spread to the cities and became the country's dominant political force as its leader, Evo Morales, was elected to the presidency in 2005. This article argues that the MAS is a hybrid organization whose electoral success has been contingent on the construction of a strong rural‐urban coalition, built on the basis of different linkages between the MAS and organized popular constituencies in rural and urban areas. Whereas the MAS's rural origins gave rise to grassroots control over the leadership, its expansion to urban areas has fostered the emergence of top‐down mobilization strategies. The analysis also reveals how much popular sectors allied with the MAS have pressured the Morales government from below and held it accountable to societal demands.     

Risk Factors for Men’s Intimate Physical Aggression in Spain

This study tests a model of physical aggression in a sample of 194 men being treated for physical or psychological aggression in the greater Madrid area of Spain. The prevalence of aggression in this sample was lower than in a US batterer sample. In the path model highlighted here, borderline personality traits and alcohol problems were identified as risk factors for physical aggression perpetration and the role of borderline traits was mediated by psychological aggression. A reciprocal relationship was found between psychological perpetration and victimization but not physical perpetration and victimization. These findings are discussed within a cross-cultural context; conceptual and treatment implications are also addressed.