The evolution of nationhood in twentieth century Europe: lessons from the Northern Adriatic borderlands

This article is a short introduction for a special edition on Italian nationhood. The articles that comprise the special edition are the following: From a cosmopolitan to a fascist land: Adriatic irredentism in motion; Erecting fascism: nation, identity, and space in Trieste in the first half of the twentieth century; Building Italianità in northern Adriatic: The case of population from Pola.     

Savoring semiotics: food in intercultural communication

Food is both a relevant source of signification and an effective form of communication, based on a limited – although very wide – variety of edible substances, practices, beliefs, and norms that form a network of interconnected systems. These systems and their uses in social practice, constituting a specific semiosphere, are challenged when their users travel and are confronted with unfamiliar foodways in terms of ingredients, cooking techniques, flavorings, preparations, utensils, meal structure, table manners, distribution of the meals during the day, and social dynamics. When different culinary semiospheres interact, food-related experiences reveal the cultural character of gastronomic competences, forcing individuals to engage with otherness through embodied communication.     

Electoral Institutions and Distributive Policies in Parliamentary Systems: An Application to State Aid Measures in EU Countries

Electoral institutions should systematically affect the propensity of a country to rely and spend on distributive measures. Supporting evidence is however still rare because of the difficulty in finding comparable cross-national data, the employment of dummy variables to account for the electoral systems, and the failure to recognise the interacting effects of different electoral rules on policy outcomes. Employing national data on state aid expenditure and a number of measures across European Union countries, the article provides evidence that legislators elected in higher magnitude districts spend less. More interestingly, it shows the interlocking policy effects of electoral institutions. Where high district magnitude is combined with ballot control, party-based voting and pooling, these rules conjunctly dampen politicians’ incentives to cultivate a personal vote and lead to lower spending on, and use of, distributive measures. Where high district magnitude is not combined with these rules, results are inconclusive. With one exception though, if leaders do not have control over the ballot rank, higher magnitude increases reliance on distributive measures. Results are robust to several alternative political-economy explanations of fiscal policy outcomes.     

The Reform of the Local Administration in Spain in Terms of Population

Spanish Local Corporations are playing an increasingly important role in the provision of public services without reducing their function of consolidation and structuring of the current sociopolitical system. This reality implies an increase in their need of financial funds without new compensation resources. Also, there is a certain tendency to loose population in many counties along with a greater organic and territorial dispersion that accelerates their financial weakening. This makes necessary to find management alternatives ensuring the appropriate provision of local public services and thus the Local Corporation reform becomes an alternative. In this context, the present paper approaches the analysis and the results based upon a territorial balance criterion on the population and its distribution, aiming ultimately to design an indicator able to measure the need of the Spanish local government structure according to its population and the size of its municipalities. This indicator might measure the regional impact to any variation both in the distribution of its population and in the number of municipalities.     

The sampling of ignitable liquids on suspects’ hands

In arson cases, the collection and detection of traces of ignitable liquids on a suspect's hands can provide information to a forensic investigation. Police forces currently lack a simple, robust, efficient and reliable solution to perform this type of swabbing.In this article, we describe a study undertaken to develop a procedure for the collection of ignitable liquid residues on the hands of arson suspects. Sixteen different collection supports were considered and their applicability for the collection of gasoline traces present on hands and their subsequent analysis in a laboratory was evaluated. Background contamination, consisting of volatiles emanating from the collection supports, and collection efficiencies of the different sampling materials were assessed by passive headspace extraction with an activated charcoal strip (DFLEX device) followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis. After statistical treatment of the results, non-powdered latex gloves were retained as the most suitable method of sampling.On the basis of the obtained results, a prototype sampling kit was designed and tested. This kit is made of a three compartment multilayer bag enclosed in a sealed metal can and containing three pairs of non-powdered latex gloves: one to be worn by the sampler, one consisting of a blank sample and the last one to be worn by the person suspected to have been in contact with ignitable liquids. The design of the kit was developed to be efficient in preventing external and cross-contaminations.     

Cannabis and driving: Results from a general population survey

The role of illicit drugs on driving, and particularly of cannabis and driving, is the object of increasing awareness. While there is increasing evidence of their effect on psychomotor performance and increased risk of involvement in traffic accidents, limited information is available concerning factors that can predict the likelihood of driving under the influence of cannabis. The present study aims to determine the past year prevalence of driving under the influence of cannabis, and of being a passenger in a vehicle driven by a person under the influence of cannabis, as well as to examine the correlations with a broad range of potential risk factors. A total of 2500 people, aged between 14 and 70 and living in Castille and Leon (Spain), were surveyed in 2004 with regard to their consumption of alcohol and illicit drugs. Among those who reported cannabis use in the previous year, further assessment was carried out. 15.7% of those surveyed reported cannabis consumption in the previous 12 months, of whom 9.7% reported driving a vehicle under the influence of cannabis during this period, on average eight times. One out of five (19.9%) reported being a passenger in a vehicle driven by a person under the influence of cannabis, on average five times in the previous 12 months. The predictors of driving under the influence of cannabis were the population size of community, the number of drugs consumed, reference to cannabis-related problems and to being a passenger in a vehicle driven by a person under the influence of alcohol. The data show that cannabis consumption and driving is common, and requires more attention from policy makers.     

Suicidal or Homicidal Sharp Force Injuries? A Review and Critical Analysis of the Heterogeneity in the Forensic Literature

The differential diagnosis between self-inflicted and nonself-inflicted, suicidal and homicidal, injuries is difficult or impossible in many cases and, above all, cannot be made on the basis of information obtained solely from the autopsy or the medicolegal clinical examination. The purpose of this study is to analyze the literature on suicidal and homicidal sharp force injuries and identify the relevant parameters that may help differentiate between suicidal and homicidal deaths. To achieve this goal, a review of 595 potentially relevant articles was performed. After excluding the nonrelevant papers by screening the titles, all abstracts were reviewed, and articles meeting the inclusion criteria underwent a full-text review. The following parameters were compiled into a table: number of cases, localization of the injuries, and number of injuries. The data were statistically analyzed and compared with those available in the forensic literature. On the basis of the heterogeneity of data revealed by the present review, a simple and short checklist of the parameters that should be included when reporting suicides and homicides by sharp force has been proposed.     

Drugs and alcohol consumption amongst Spanish drivers.

We have analysed patterns of alcohol and regular drug consumption by Spanish drivers. Six hundred and seventy five properly completed questionnaires were received from drivers attending three medical traffic centres in Valladolid (Spain) for medical examination prior to obtaining or renewing their driving licence in 1990. Among those surveyed, 24% were 'daily' drinkers and 56.7% were 'weekly' drinkers, the majority (55.5%) being 'light' drinkers (1-39 g/day of pure alcohol). Of those surveyed 28.9% took drugs. The most commonly consumed drugs were analgesics (6.5%), anti-allergic drugs (5.2%) and oral contraceptives (4.6%). Of those drivers taking drugs 28.2% were 'daily' drinkers and 53.8% were 'weekly' drinkers. The study indicates widespread consumption of alcohol and drugs by Spanish drivers.