Religion,ethnicity and citizenship: demands for territorial self-determination in southern Kaduna,Nigeria

This article analyses the ‘politics of scale’ of how identity is linked to territory in the quest for self-determination by actors on the Christian side of the ethno-religious conflict in Kaduna State, Nigeria. Ethnic and political relations are framed with reference to scale, such as ‘the local’ and ‘the regional’, in ways that support claims for territorial control on an ethnic and religious basis. The experience of lack of access to the state is seen to be grounded in community identities. Furthermore, the state relates to citizens through religious and neo-customary authorities as a way to localise authority. This is connected to an idea that neo-customary institutions represent ‘the local’. It is argued in this article that these institutions are just as entangled in various constructions of scale as the state.     

Volatile Emission of Decomposing Pig Carcasses (Sus scrofa domesticus L.) as an Indicator for the Postmortem Interval

This study aimed at correlating selected carcass borne volatile organic compounds (VOCs) with the postmortem interval (PMI). Selected volatiles should 1st be reliably emitted during vertebrate decay, 2nd be emitted at high concentrations, and 3rd show a reproducible quantitative dynamic during the decaying process. Four pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus L.) were placed in a deciduous forest in different seasons and volatiles emitted during the decaying process were sampled. Seventeen compounds were identified and quantified by GC-MS. Electrophysiological experiments on the antenna of female Calliphora vicina and additional data of Dermestes maculans were used as an evolutionary tuned information filter to evaluate the 1st criterion. The relative quantitative emission of hexanal, nonanal, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl trisulfide, 1-butanol, and phenol were correlated with the PMI, and the observed stages of decay and the limitations of this model were discussed.     

An attempt to incorporate fairness into an economic model of tort law

This paper incorporates fairness into a simple economic model of tort law and discusses the difficulties of doing so. People are assumed to adhere to either the negligence or the strict norm and to incur a cost if liability is not imposed in accordance with their norm. The optimal standard of negligence is determined in a trade-off between fairness and efficiency. Conditions are derived under which preferences for fairness do not affect the optimal negligence standard. The modeling difficulties concern the ad hoc nature of the fairness norms. They are argued to be inherent to the subject.     

On the enforcement of specific performance in Civil Law countries

Proponents of specific performance as a remedy for breach of contract have found support in the alleged use of the remedy in Civil Law countries. However, we provide evidence that specific performance is in fact a rare remedy in Denmark, Germany and France, and under CISG, when performance requires actions to be undertaken, and we relate this to costs of enforcement. We argue that it is administratively costly to run a system of enforcement that renders specific performance attractive to the aggrieved party, and that the Civil Law countries have (like Common Law countries) chosen not to incur these costs of enforcement. This is especially clear in the case of Denmark, where specific performance of actions has been abandoned as a legal remedy.At the normative level, we argue that enforcement costs provides an additional rationale, over and above the rationales of the theory of efficient breach, for damages and against specific performance as the general remedy.     

Predictors of length of stay in forensic psychiatry: The influence of perceived risk of violence

This study describes the prevalence of adverse events and length of stay in forensic psychiatric patients with and without a restriction order. Detailed clinical and administrative information from medical records and written court decisions was gathered retrospectively from admission until discharge for a Swedish population-based, consecutive cohort of forensic psychiatric patients (n = 125). The median length of stay for the whole cohort was 951 days, but patients with a restriction order stayed in hospital almost five times as long as patients without. Restriction orders were related to convictions for violent crime, but not for any other differences in demographic or clinical variables. The majority of the patients (60%) were involved in adverse events (violence, threats, substance abuse, or absconding) at some time during their treatment. Patients with restriction orders were overrepresented in violent and threat events. Previous contact with child and adolescence psychiatric services, current violent index crime, psychotic disorders, a history of substance, and absconding during treatment predicted longer length of stay. Being a parent, high current Global Assessment of Functioning scores, and mood disorders were all significantly related to earlier discharge. In a stepwise Cox regression analysis current violent index crime and absconding remained risk factors for a longer hospital stay, while a diagnosis of mood disorder was significantly related to a shorter length of stay.     

Microsatellite stability in human post-mortem tissues

Human identification and forensic criminal casework may involve DNA profiling of decomposed material. Somatic microsatellite (STR) instability may lead to false exclusions and theoretically to false inclusions, both in criminal cases and in human identification. Hence, the somatic and postmortal stability of the actual sequences is crucial to the reliability of such analyses. Somatic STR stability in human tissues has been documented in small series only and the effect of postmortal tissue decomposition on microsatellite stability remains to be elucidated. On this basis, we have systematically searched for somatic STR mutations in 26 deceased humans without signs of decomposition at autopsy and 25 autopsy cases with obvious signs of postmortal decomposition. A blood sample and six tissue samples were collected from each case.Seven STRs were chosen for study, the tetranucleotides HUMVWA31/A, HUMTH01, HUMF13A1, and HUMFES/FPS, and the hyperpolymorphic markers HUMAPOAI1, D11S554 and HUMACTBP2. Denaturing gel electrophoresis was performed on an ABD Prism 377 gene sequencer with Genescan 672 software (Applied Biosystems, Inc.).The bone DNA profile of each case was chosen as the standard DNA profile. All cases gave profiles from additional tissues. By intraindividual comparison of DNA profiles in the cases without signs of degradation we find that the short repetitive sequences under study are stable, that is without evidence of somatic mutations. The cases with varying degree of decomposition display postmortal microsatellite stability, we detect no somatic mutations or other possible postmortal changes that could lead to between-organ non-matches.In conclusion, PCR-based STR analyses are suitable in human identification and forensic casework dealing with different tissues, even when the substrate is heavily decomposed.