Should rules be simple?

The principal argument of the paper is that in an incomplete information setting, where the private sector lacks information of government objectives and has to learn about the policy rule by direct observation and estimation, simple ‘sub-optimal’ rules may outperform the more complicated rule which is optimal under complete information. This result is demonstrated by simulations using an overlapping contract rational expectations model. The paper thus provides some formal reasoning to support arguments for simplicity associated with credibility and the need for the private sector to be able to monitor policy.     

Postmortem stability of barbiturates in blood and tissues

The stability of five commonly prescribed barbiturates and thiopental in blood and liver at room temperature and at 4 degrees C was studied. Gas chromatography was used for oxybarbiturate analysis while liquid chromatography was used to quantitate thiopental. In blood and liver, greater than 75% of the drugs were detected at the end of the two- to three-month period. These changes were not considered significant; therefore, barbiturates appear to be stable in blood and liver under the conditions of these experiments.     

A fatality involving metaxalone

A case is presented of a 54-year-old white female found dead in a secured apartment. Postmortem toxicologic analysis of the heart blood identified acetaminophen (97 mg/L), citalopram (0.4 mg/L), gabapentin (24 mg/L) and metaxalone (21 mg/L). The metaxalone concentration is within the range of previously reported fatalities involving metaxalone. The medical examiner ruled that the cause of death was metaxalone and gabapentin intoxication and the manner of death was suicide.     

Palliative pain therapy at the end of life and forensic medicine issues.

An 83-year-old woman with a history of Alzheimer's disease and breast cancer died at home while receiving palliative pain therapy with oral morphine from her family for metastatic breast cancer. Allegations of mistreatment were made, and this case was ultimately referred to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of Maryland. An autopsy failed to identify any injuries or residual cancer, leaving no anatomic explanation for the pain that had been presumed to be metastatic breast carcinoma involving bone. The blood free morphine concentration was 5,200 ng/ml, and the total morphine concentration was 15,000 ng/ml. This case demonstrates the challenges and difficulties in forensic medicine when faced with the interpretation of toxicologic results at the end of life.     

“I've always suffered from sirens'’: The cinema vamp and Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood

The most important source for Robin Vote, the heroine of Djuna Barnes’ modernist novel, Nightwood (1936), is the vamp, whose heyday in the middle teens was also the period of Barnes’ highest productivity as a newspaper journalist. The vamp, as full‐grown femme fatale and “wild child,” appeared first in her early feature articles, later in short plays, stories, and poems. These and her stylish pen and ink sketches of vamps established her reputation as a “specialist.” She was one of the first to note that “vamping” was a habit of mind as well as a mode of fashion. Barnes’ interest in both manifestations of the vamp craze powered her conception of Robin Vote, a vamp malgré lui.