觊觎、憎恶和望尘莫及?——1984至2009年俄罗斯平面媒体文本中的美国霸权形象和俄罗斯自我形象

本文选取了1984年、1994年、2004年和2009年中的共计20周的时间段来研究俄罗斯两家主要日报《消息报》和《共青团真理报》中美国形象的演变。对于俄罗斯来说,这一时间跨度是巨大的:从20世纪80年代表面的稳定霸权到90年代苏联解体后的混乱,再到21世纪初期初步回归大国地位。本文在讲述美国形象演变的同时也描绘了俄罗斯自我形象的发展历程。在20世纪80年代,呈现的美国形象是摩尼教的,而在90年代,阐述的美国形象是最为友善的。2004年和2009年的案例反映了一个自信的俄罗斯重返世界舞台的事实。美国再次屡受指责,但仍然和以前一样是俄罗斯衡量自身的标准。     

Capital punishment in Poland: The debate continues

Throughout its modern history, Poland has not escaped controversies surrounding the use of the death penalty. Tracing the historical development of laws dealing with the issue demonstrates an evolution influenced by various legal, political, social, philosophical, and international factors, leading up to the current absence of the penalty from the Polish legal system. The debate in society revolves around some stereotypical views held by different social groups. One of the biggest challenges is how to reconcile those views with empirical evidence, especially on issues like the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The authors describe the death penalty debate in Poland from these perspectives and take a retentionist position with regard to some selected crimes. As long as there are individuals willing to take other people's lives in a premeditated and deliberate manner demonstrating callous contempt for another person's existence, death remains the only punishment satisfying a sense of social justice and upholding the value of human life.     

Technology use and availability in entrepreneurship: informal economy as moderator of institutions in emerging economies

This paper investigates the contextual influences of institutions on the use of latest available technologies by early stage entrepreneurs in emerging economies. Hypotheses are developed and then tested using multi-level modeling techniques on a dataset covering entrepreneurs in 20 emerging economies. We utilized 10,431 individual-level responses from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor survey from 2002 to 2008 and complemented it with data on country-level institutions such as the size of a country’s informal economy, intellectual property rights (IPR) regimes obtained from the Index of Economic Freedom and inward foreign direct investment (FDI) from the World Bank Group. Results on the direct effects suggest that levels of FDI negatively influences the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs in emerging economies, while the moderation effects of informal economy suggest that as its size increases (1) the negative effects IPR on the use of latest technology by entrepreneurs strengthens, and (2) the negative effects of FDI on the use of latest technology strengthens. These findings support the overall proposition that the size of a country’s informal economy is an important moderator of institutional influences on technology use by entrepreneurs in emerging economies. More generally, the study proposes that institutions may not have the same effects on entrepreneurs in emerging economies that might be expected in developed countries, suggesting that future research should take the level of socio-economic development of a country into account when theorizing the role of institutions.     

A case of decapitation in Canosa, South Italy (5th-6th century A.D.)

The authors present the case of an adult male (20-25 years) with a stature of 175 cm and a body mass of 68 kg, showing many wounds caused by both stabbing and cutting weapons. The subject was found in a tomb in the archeological area on the hill of San Pietro (Canosa, Bari), where there is a Paleo-Christian site dating back to the 6th-7th century a.d. The skeleton shows clear signs of decapitation, due not to an execution but to a fight during a battle.     

Correlations Among the HLA-DQB1 Alleles and Suicidal Behavior

Suicide is a worldwide health problem with multiple causes, including genetic factors. The major histocompatibility complex (MHC) is represented by an assembly of gene encoding the human leukocyte antigen (HLA). The purpose of our study was to determine associations between the HLA profiles and predisposition for suicidal behavior. We harvested blood samples from persons with history of suicidal attempts (case group) and persons never exhibiting such behavior (control group). The DNA was extracted and amplified via polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to determine the HLA-DQB1 profiles. Statistical data processing was performed with the Epi Info program. We found that the presence of the HLA-DQB1*02 allele increases the risk of suicidal behavior, while HLA-DQB1*05 alleviates such risk. The genotype that presented the most increased risk for suicidal behavior was found to be HLA-DQB1*02/HLA-DQB1*03. Our study has demonstrated the presence of several associations between HLA profiles and suicidal behavior.     

Quo Vadis Judicial Reforms? The Quest for Judicial Independence in Central and Eastern Europe

This article examines judicial reforms in the new member states of the EU in a comparative perspective. It explores the interactions between domestic and European actors in the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria and explains why the EU has had a differential impact on the way the principle of judicial independence has been implemented nationally. The differential impact of the EU is explained by considering both the nature of EU conditionality and the relationship between the judiciary and the political actors at the domestic level. The comparison reveals that the power of the EU is greater when tensions at the domestic level between judicial and political actors increase.     

Allele frequencies data and statistic parameters for 13 STR loci in a population of the Brazilian Amazon Region

Allele frequencies for 13 short tandem repeat (D3S1358, vWA, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, TH01, TPOX, D16S539, CSF1PO, D8S1179 and FGA) loci were determined in a sample of 325 unrelated individuals from the population of the Amazon of Belém, Brazil. These loci are the most commonly used in forensic and paternity testing. The forensic parameters investigated presented high values. The power of discrimination and the probability of exclusion for these 13 STRs are 99.999999999992% and 99.9998%, respectively. In conclusion, these 13 markers are suitable for forensic analysis and paternity tests of the Amazonian population.