Postmortem tissue distribution of olanzapine and citalopram in a drug intoxication

A 40-year-old white male was found dead in bed in a group home for mentally ill adults. The decedent had been diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic. An autopsy was performed at the Office of the Cuyahoga County Coroner in Cleveland, Ohio. Toxicological testing detected olanzapine and citalopram in post mortem specimens. Multiple fluids and tissues were assayed by liquid-liquid extraction followed by gas chromatography with nitrogen phosphorus detection, and qualitative confirmation by electron impact gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Drug concentrations [olanzapine: citalopram; mg/L or mg/Kg] determined in this case are the highest reported to date involving these drugs- 1.38:3.35 heart blood, 1.11:1.65 femoral blood, 60.24:32.43 urine, 6.47:10:71 liver, and 38.36:49.16 lung, respectively. Drug concentrations in tissues were found to be the highest in lung for both drugs and lowest in the heart. Citalopram but not olanzapine was detected in bone. The cause of death was ruled acute intoxication by the combined effects of olanzapine and citalopram and the manner, accident.     

Comprehensive evaluation: a holistic approach to evaluating domestic violence offender programmes

This article argues that the focus on behavioural outcomes in evaluations of domestic violence offender programmes has been too narrow, and that a more holistic approach incorporating investigation of the psychological characteristics of offenders and treatment characteristics may be required to determine what works, for whom, and under what circumstances. To this end, one interpretation of a comprehensive evaluation framework is outlined. The article hypothesises the insights to be gained by assessing the contribution of several potential mediating variables of the treatment process in the evaluation of these programmes. These variables are the heterogeneity of treatment targets in the target population; motivation to change; programme integrity variables; and therapeutic factors. The article concludes that only by implementing theoretically informed, multifaceted evaluations will we move closer to understanding the process of successful rehabilitation.     

Things Can Only Get Better? Changing Views of the Past,Present and Future in the Former Soviet Union

Previous research has reported substantial levels of nostalgia for the Soviet era among citizens of some of the independent republics that emerged from its collapse. We report new analyses from eight former Soviet republics, and from two surveys, in 2001 and 2010, comparing attitudes to government in the Soviet period and at the time of the surveys, as well as expectations for the future. Everywhere, views of the past have become less positive and those of the present more positive. However, both the views in each survey and the change between each of them vary among countries and socio-demographic groups.     

Civic Education,Political Discussion,and the Social Transmission of Democratic Knowledge and Values in a New Democracy: Kenya 2002

How does civic education affect the development of democratic political culture in new democracies? Using a unique three‐wave panel data set from Kenya spanning the transitional democratic election of 2002, we posit a two‐step process of the social transmission of democratic knowledge, norms, and values. Civic education first affected the knowledge, values, and participatory inclinations of individuals directly exposed to the Kenyan National Civic Education Programme (NCEP). These individuals became opinion leaders, communicating these new orientations to others within their social networks. Individuals who discussed others’ civic education experiences then showed significant growth in democratic knowledge and values, in many instances more than individuals with direct exposure to the program. We find further evidence of a “compensation effect,” such that the impact of civic education and post‐civic education discussion was greater among Kenyans with less education and with lower levels of social integration.     

‘Too Many’

The statement that Australia has ‘too many abortions’ often circulates with intensity in times of increased worry over the vulnerability of white demographic and sociocultural dominance in Australia. Contrasting two such periods—the 1970s (with 1979 as the apex point) and the mid-2000s (2002–2008)—this article will show that, in times of national crisis, debates over abortion can become a site where politicians, journalists and other influential social commentators displace and assuage anxieties regarding the size and constitution of Australia's future population. The statement that Australia has ‘too many abortions’ carries the imperative for white women to reproduce the nation. This demand is made perceptible through a history of maternal citizenship for white women, which reverberates in the present, and the articulation of the desire to eradicate abortion (amongst white women) alongside other key biopolitical technologies—the disavowal of Indigenous sovereignty and the exclusion of non-white immigrants from the nation. The figure of the aborting woman thus stands alongside other bodies perceived as threats to white sociocultural hegemony in Australia and one of its key institutions—the white, hetero-family. In the 1970s, such figures included the communist, the divorcee and the (non-white) immigrant, and in the 2000s, the lesbian mother, the single mother and the boatperson. The association of aborting women with other threats to the security of white sociocultural hegemony in Australia produces her as an object of fear for the nation, re-affirming the goal of white reproduction as a national duty and social good.