The Impact of Accrual-Based Public Accounting Harmonization on EU Macroeconomic Surveillance and Governments’ Policy Decision-Making

This article sheds more light on the possible advantages (and the critical aspects) of introducing accruals accounting for governments in the context of European macroeconomic surveillance. This would add more balance to the discussion about accrual accounting, which tends to focus on the resource costs involved. The research it describes would, inter alia, show the impact on sensitive policy areas using a statistical analysis from EU countries’ official Government Finance Statistics. It also draws some conclusions on a suggested roadmap for public accounting in the European context.     

woman’s reappearance: rethinking the archive in contemporary art—feminist perspectives

Recent debates in the field of contemporary art have underlined the political importance of creative reworkings of the past, especially for those subjects that have been traditionally marginalised. A feminist perspective has been nevertheless quite absent from such debates. This article addresses feminist uses of archival documents in the visual arts through the analysis of three works produced in the past two decades: The Fae Richard’s Photo Archive (1997) by Zoe Leonard and Cheryl Dunye, Some Chance Operations (1998) by Renée Green and Queen of the Artists’ Studios (2004–2007) by Andrea Geyer. These works share an interest for women’s histories and representations by composing a series of documents (both factual and fictive) into complex narratives where history and subjectivity intersect.     

Faith,Folie à Famille,and Mummification: A Brief Review of the Literature and a Rare Case Report

Folie à deux is a rare clinical syndrome characterized by the transference of delusional ideas from one person to one or more other people in close association with the primary affected patient. Mummification indicates the preservation of the corpse of a person for a variable period of time. A brief review of the literature in this field is presented, and an exceptional case is described, characterized by the association of both these rare phenomena. The case is an example of folie à fammille which developed out of a condition of extreme religiousness and seclusion of an entire family. The shared psychosis led to the horrible death of some of the family members, while the last surviving member of the family lived for more than a year and a half with their mummified remains. The Judge commissioned a forensic psychiatry assessment to verify the survivor's ability to bear witness. The development of the psychiatric syndrome and its consequences are extensively discussed.     

Case report of a fatal intoxication by citalopram

Citalopram is an antidepressant drug within the group of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI). It is widely prescribed both in Europe and in United States, and it has always been considered a "safe" drug as pure intoxication with lethal outcome is rare, and most cases of overdose, even with high doses of citalopram ingested, are reported to have an uneventful course.We report the case of a young woman found dead at home. She had been prescribed citalopram by her family doctor 3 weeks before her death for a depressive syndrome. Police found in her house 3 empty blister packages of 28 citalopram tablets (20 mg) and 2 bottles of citalopram oral solution (4%, 15 mL each). The autopsy findings were unremarkable. Nasal swabs, blood from femoral vein, urine, bile and tissue samples were collected for toxicologic investigation. Citalopram separation was performed by solid/liquid method, using Bond-Elute columns. The extracts were analyzed by GLC and GC/MS methods. The toxicologic analysis showed high levels of citalopram in all the examined fluids and tissue samples (blood concentration: 11.60 mg/L). No other drugs and alcohol were detected. Our data confirm that if no other drug is involved, fatal complications occur only after ingestion of very high doses. However, there is no predefined "toxic dose," and the conditions under which the overdose occurs can be very important. We report the exact concentrations of the citalopram in the organs, and wethink that this can be useful in the cases where the blood samples were not available (ie, carbonized or decomposed body).     

Decisional Capacity to Consent to Clinical Research Involving Placebo in Psychiatric Patients

Evidence from a few studies indicates the existence of several issues related to psychiatric patients' decisional capacity to give informed consent to clinical research. Clinicians often face difficulties in acquiring valid informed consent in clinical practice and even more so in drug trials. Participants often fail to fully understand or retain information regarding the actual implications of research protocols. The Brief Assessment for Consent to Clinical Research (BACO) was developed to investigate capacity to consent to clinical trials and further compare patients with schizophrenia and healthy comparisons' decisional capacity. A method to avoid possible confounding effects of choosing a treatment regarding a current disease was applied. The study groups were administered the BACO and the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Clinical Research. Psychiatric patients performed poorer in comprehending, appreciating, and reasoning abilities, than their healthy counterparts. Impaired cognitive functioning and psychiatric symptoms severity were associated with reduced capacity to consent.     

Giuseppina Ciuffreda,a Concrete Utopian

The following paper describes the life and thought of Giuseppina Ciuffreda, long-time journalist for il manifesto, as well as her contributions to the development of left environmental thinking and movements. She has approached all these themes from a gender point of view, well beyond all schemes and ideologies that infest politics. She has been a protagonist and a precursor to the transition from an old anthropocentric world to a biocentric future.     

Toxicological Analysis of Opiates from Alternative Matrices Collected from an Exhumed Body

In this case study, the body of a 45‐year‐old man was exhumed after 1 year at the request of the public prosecutor to assess whether the death was caused by drug consumption. Toxicological analyses were performed on several matrices, including liver, kidney, and the alternative matrices hair and teeth. The systematic toxicological analysis (STA), which consisted of basic and acid liquid/liquid extraction and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC‐MS) analysis, showed the presence of opiates in each of the matrices analyzed. Subsequently, to confirm and quantify the presence of opioids, samples of each of the matrices were subjected to solid‐phase extraction and specific GC‐MS analysis. The case presented demonstrates the possibility of drug detection in an exhumed body that has been buried for 1 year, despite the problems of quantitative interpretation of the data, and that toxicological results could be useful along with other forensic evidence.