A case of fatal poisoning with the aconite plant: quantitative analysis in biological fluid.

In recent years recorded cases of plant poisoning have become rare, this may in part be due to the possibility of plant ingestion not being indicated at the beginning of an investigation. Aconitum napellus (aconite, Wolfsbane, Monkshood) is one of the most poisonous plants in the UK. It contains various potent alkaloids such as aconitine, isoaconitine, lycaconitine and napelline. Ingestion of Aconitum plant extracts can result in severe, potentially fatal toxic effects. This paper describes the analytical findings in a recent death in the UK. resulting from deliberate ingestion of Aconitum napellus extract. The concentrations of aconitine measured by HPLC-DAD in the post mortem femoral blood and urine were 10.8 micrograms/L and 264 micrograms/L, respectively. The aconitine concentration in the ante mortem urine was 334 micrograms/L and was estimated to be 6 micrograms/L in the ante mortem serum. Hence, accidental, suicidal or homicidal poisoning due to the ingestion of plant material remains a possibility and should be borne in mind when investigating sudden or unexplained death.     

Preliminary evaluation of the use of pharmacological treatment with convicted sexual offenders experiencing high levels of sexual preoccupation,hypersexuality and/or sexual compulsivity

The current study presents the preliminary evaluation of the impact of pharmacological treatment (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and anti-androgens) on hypersexuality, sexual preoccupation and sexual compulsivity. The participant pool comprised 64 convicted UK sexual offenders who had been voluntarily referred for pharmacological treatment to reduce their hypersexual arousal, 51 of whom agreed to take the medication (with a further five individuals on hold or under assessment at the time of data extraction). The preliminary findings were very encouraging; analysis on measures assessing sexual preoccupation, hypersexuality and sexual compulsivity indicated a significant reduction between pre- and post-medication, across both types of medication. Limitations of the current research are discussed.     

Decentralization and Development in Contemporary Uganda

Abstract

There has long been an emphasis on the importance of decentralization in providing better quality public services in the developing world. In order to assess the effectiveness of decentralization I examine here the case study of Uganda, which has seen major decentralization of power over the last quarter-century. In particular the current government has introduced a five-tiered local government structure, decentralized both fiscal and political power to local governments and introduced regular local government elections. However, initial excitement about Uganda's decentralization programme has tapered off in recent years due to a number of problems outlined here. In particular, I show that decentralization in Uganda has suffered from a lack of independence from central government control, which has led to a lack of effectiveness in the provision of high quality public goods.     

Patronage,District Creation,and Reform in Uganda

The effects of economic and political reforms on patronage in Africa remains unclear. In particular, there is much disagreement about whether structural adjustment programs and democratization have helped to make patronage less pervasive in African politics. Here, I examine the case study of Uganda, which has received much praise for its large-scale economic and political reforms since the late 1980s. However, at the same time, Uganda has also experienced a near-explosion in the number of districts (the highest level of local government), going from 39 to 80 in less than a decade. I examine a variety of potential reasons why these districts might have been created and argue, through the use of both qualitative and quantitative analysis, that district creation has functioned as a source of patronage. Specifically, I show that President Museveni’s government has created new districts as a means to compensate for other patronage resources lost through reforms and that new districts have helped him to continue to win elections. This paper thus constitutes the first rigorous demonstration that the creation of new sub-national political units can constitute a form of patronage and suggests that similar processes may be currently taking place across Africa.     

Telling the Difference: Nineteenth-Century Legal Narratives of Racial Taxonomy

"Telling the Difference" focuses on two legal opinions from the nineteenth century that carefully distinguish between those who should be racially marked as nonwhite and those who should not. In the first instance, a Michigan judge decides the appropriate "blood fraction" of African-American heritage that would prohibit a free man from voting. In the second, a New Mexico judge rules that the Native Americans of Cochiti Pueblo are not legally "Indians," and therefore not entitled to federal protection of their land. The oracle uses these examples to advance two central claims: that we must pay close attention to the narrative logic of racial identification in order to understand the powerful contradictions still at the heart of our conversations about race, and that in doing so we should consider that race has always been multiply constructed in the United States.     

Purple Pasts: Color Codification in the Ancient World

While developments in intellectual property have opened the door for trademarking color alone or color per se, it is important to observe that color codification is not a new phenomenon. This article outlines the quest to metaphorically trademark purple in antiquity and to provide it with clear "secondary meaning." It highlights how language, literature, and sumptuary law was deployed to infuse purple with the appropriate symbolism, and it links contemporary debates to some of the historic moves to sequester color.