美国统一商法典简介

<正> 美国统一商法典是普通法法系中一部具有美国特色的商法典。法典采用了制定法的形式,同时保留适用普通法、衡平法。商事法作为法典的补充,法律渊源主要是制定法和判例法的混合。在结构体例上,划分为总则和各章。总则指导各章,但只涉及动产交易,即无规定公司、合伙,也不专列海商。破产,在适用对象上,法典不但适用于以商人为一方的交易,而且适用于一般消费者交易。法典的基本特征是:民商合一,自成一格,周全详尽,灵活实用,较好地兼顾了历史和现实的关系,又为未来的发展留下余地。许多规定反映了当代商业和交易的最新要求,是国际上承认的准则。     

Mozambican refugee resettlement: survival strategies of involuntary migrants in South Africa

Five cases of individual Mozambique refugees who settled in the Rhulani settlement in the Gazankulu homeland of South Africa during the Mozambique civil war reveal that successful resettlement at war's end is dependent on living conditions in the home versus the refugee camps for Rhulani refugees. The case studies were selected from open ended interviews with about 48 individuals. Push factors are identified as follows: autonomy in refugee camps, level of support for refugees returning, the process of refugee settlement in camps and the level of socioeconomic development among exiled refugees, and the perception of refugees of safe political conditions in areas of origin. Pull factors are identified as level of cohesion in the refugee community, ethnic ties with the host community, and long length of stay and greater acculturation. The General Peace Agreement in 1992 and collaborative planning resulted in Rhulani refugee resettlement in areas of origin and refugees' return to Rhulani. The Mozambique resettlement areas were not viable settlements with access to productive activities and services but land and infrastructure ravaged by war. The Rhulani settlement included about 3000 refugees who lived across the road from the village of Lillydale (Nkwinyamahembe) in Mhala district. Most refugees came from the Magude province of Mozambique (Mapulanguene, Macaene, Chikwembu, and Savele villages). The case studies provide information about the nature of the involuntary migration, the stresses and adjustment strategies of refugees, and the physical and sociopolitical context of the process of settlement and resettlement. The case studies profile some of the refugees' experiences. This refugee population is unique in receiving little relief activity and by the role of the homeland government in restricting gainful employment, owning livestock, and use of only a 22 square meter plot of land. The case studies include a spokesperson for the refugees in the camp, an older man who had been a labor migrant in the South African mines, a woman whose husband had been a labor migrant, a 9-year-old child traveling with two sisters and his maternal grandfather, and a 55 year old former labor migrant and long-term Rhulani refugee resident.     

An American Perestroika in Dutch Cities? Urban Policy in the Netherlands at the End of a Millennium

This paper discusses the implications of the recent adoption of interactive forms of governance in Dutch urban policy. Advocates of this new approach claim that interactive governance will have positive effects for (1) the quality of urban democracy and urban governability and (2) for the solution of the information problems inherent in coping with (wicked) urban problems. On the basis of an extensive evaluation of the implementation of the new policies in four of the 25 Dutch municipalities involved, these claims are critically assessed.     

Preliminary evidence for an automatic link between sex and power among men who molest children

Understanding critical motivational processes of sexual offenders may ultimately provide important clues to more effective treatments. Implicit, automatic cognitive processes have received minimal attention; however, a lexical decision experiment revealed automatic links between the concepts of power and sex among participants who self-reported attraction to sexual aggression. The current study replicates this experiment with a group of male child molesters and forensic and analogue controls. Subliminally presented sex words elicited a facilitation effect for power words among child molesters only; that is, sex to power associations were evident, as well as a trend for the reverse. These results provide preliminary evidence for an automatic sex-power association in child molesters and may point to a crucial pathological link in the cognitive schemata of sex offenders. As well, the current study suggests that paradigms from cognitive psychology may contribute to multimodal (risk) assessment of sexual offenders.     

Large-scale in-vivo Caucasian facial soft tissue thickness database for craniofacial reconstruction

A large-scale study of facial soft tissue depths of Caucasian adults was conducted. Over a 2-years period, 967 Caucasian subjects of both sexes, varying age and varying body mass index (BMI) were studied. A user-friendly and mobile ultrasound-based system was used to measure, in about 20min per subject, the soft tissue thickness at 52 facial landmarks including most of the landmarks used in previous studies. This system was previously validated on repeatability and accuracy [S. De Greef, P. Claes, W. Mollemans, M. Loubele, D. Vandermeulen, P. Suetens, G. Willems, Semi-automated ultrasound facial soft tissue depth registration: method and validation. J. Forensic Sci. 50 (2005)]. The data of 510 women and 457 men were analyzed in order to update facial soft tissue depth charts of the contemporary Caucasian adult. Tables with the average thickness values for each landmark as well as the standard deviation and range, tabulated according to gender, age and BMI are reported. In addition, for each landmark and for both sexes separately, a multiple linear regression of thickness versus age and BMI is calculated. The lateral asymmetry of the face was analysed on an initial subset of 588 subjects showing negligible differences and thus warranting the unilateral measurements of the remaining subjects. The new dataset was statistically compared to three datasets for the Caucasian adults: the traditional datasets of Rhine and Moore [J.S. Rhine, C.E. Moore, Tables of facial tissue thickness of American Caucasoids in forensic anthropology. Maxwell Museum Technical series 1 (1984)] and Helmer [R. Helmer, Sch?delidentifizierung durch elektronische bildmischung, Kriminalistik Verlag GmbH, Heidelberg, 1984] together with the most recent in vivo study by Manhein et al. [M.H. Manhein, G.A. Listi, R.E. Barsley, R. Musselman, N.E. Barrow, D.H. Ubelbaker, In vivo facial tissue depth measurements for children and adults. J. Forensic Sci. 45 (2000) 48-60]. The large-scale database presented in this paper offers a denser sampling of the facial soft tissue depths of a more representative subset of the actual Caucasian population over the different age and body posture subcategories. This database can be used as an updated chart for manual and computer-based craniofacial approximation and allows more refined analyses of the possible factors affecting facial soft tissue depth.