Characteristics of Backspatter on the Firearm and Shooting Hand—An Experimental Analysis of Close‐range Gunshots

Contact and close‐range gunshot injuries can produce bloodstains on the shooting hand and weapon. In this study, backspatter was analyzed in experimental horizontal pistol shots into blood‐filled sponges. The shooting distances were set between 0 and 45 cm. With increasing shooting distance, there was a significant decrease in the degree of backspatter. Microspatter could be detected on the weapon and shooting hand up to a shooting distance of 40 cm. They were predominantly located on thumb and index finger as well as the radial dorsal aspects of the hand. Fine spray of microspatter combined with elongated droplets in the shape of exclamation marks was found at contact and 2‐cm distance shots. An angular calculation based on the shape of the bloodstains was possible up to a shooting distance of 2 cm. No bloodstains were detected beyond 45 cm.     

Book Reviews

Using a sample of full-time employees of a public sector organisation in South Korea, this study examines whether transformational leadership (TL) has a significant positive effect on affective commitment (AC) and organisational citizenship behavior (OCB), and whether AC is positively related to OCB. The study also examines whether AC mediates the effects of TL on OCB. The results of higher-order structural equation modeling indicate a positive relationship between TL and AC; no significant relationship between TL and OCB; and a significant positive relationship between AC and OCB. Thus, the results clearly demonstrate that AC fully mediates the relationship between TL and OCB. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed, and proposals for future research are made.     

Legislation, Delegation and Implementation under the Treaty of Lisbon: Typology Meets Reality

Abstract:  The Treaty of Lisbon has introduced a complex new typology of acts, distinguishing between legislative, delegated and implementing acts. This reform, the first since the Treaty of Rome, will have an impact on some of the most contested topics of EU law, touching several central questions of a constitutional nature. This article critically analyses which potential effects and consequences the reform will have. It looks, inter alia, at the aspects of the shifting relation between EU institutions, the distribution of powers between the EU and its Member States, as well as the future of rule-making and implementation structures such as comitology and agencies.     

The Development of Integrated Administration in the EU and its Consequences

Abstract:  The discussion about the transformation of forms of government and governance in Europe cannot avoid touching upon the role of administrations or administrative actors. Within the EU's multi-level system, the activities of agenda-setting, policy formulation, and implementation all involve some form of interaction between public actors from the sub-national, national, supranational, and international levels. Cooperation amongst administrations in Europe has become the backbone of the EU's unique system of government and governance. Forms of cooperation have led to an integrated administration, which has developed in an evolutionary fashion and operates in large parts beyond the formally constituted rules of the treaties. This article explores the implications of this phenomenon and argues for the need of a changed perspective.     

Municipal Amalgamations in the Low Countries: Same Problems,Different Solutions

Municipal amalgamations in Belgium took place some time ago and the local council elections of 8 October 2006 marked the thirtieth anniversary of this thorough overhaul of the local administrative landscape. The municipal amalgamations of 1976 were undoubtedly the biggest reform the local level in Belgium has ever faced. The Netherlands also underwent municipal amalgamations, but there the amalgamation process followed a different pattern, taking longer, with discussions conducted in a different way. This article examines the principal similarities and differences between these two countries with regard to municipal amalgamations. The first part of the article looks at the different scales of local government in several European countries; in the sections following, the Belgian and Dutch experience with municipal amalgamations is discussed in greater detail. In the last section an attempt is made to answer the question of why the processes in the two countries were so different.     

Risk,Precaution, Responsibility,and Equal Concern

Systemic risks are risks produced through interconnected non‐wrongful actions of individuals, in the sense that an individual's action is a negligible cause of the risk. Due to scale effects of interaction, their consequences can be serious but they are also difficult to predict and assess via a risk assessment. Since we can have good reason to engage in the interconnected activities giving rise to systemic risk, we incur a concurrent collective responsibility to ensure that the risks are fairly distributed and well regulated. James argues that fairness in this context requires taking reasonably available precautions ensuring for each risk‐bearer a favourable ratio of expected benefits over expected losses. In sections 2 and 3 we argue that such a conception of fairness applies but only on the condition that the systemic risks created are irreversible risks and that the general background conditions of justice are imperfectly fair. When risks are reversible, compensatory justice can correct for unfairness in risk imposition. Where risks are irreversible, compensatory justice necessarily fails, giving rise to a collective responsibility to regulate fairly ex ante. Additionally, where background conditions of justice are fully fair and the systemic risk is well understood, risk bearers can be said to have consented to the systemic risk. If they are not fair, we argue that the primary political obligation should lie in fixing the fairness of the backgrounds of justice. A related reason for addressing the general background conditions of fairness is that James’ account of fairness in systemic risk imposition encounters a baseline problem. If expected risks and benefits are calculated again an unfair historic background condition, systemic risk imposition would not be fully fair. Section 4 shows why differences in evidentiary uncertainty as to probability and levels of harm and effective responses require a normatively appropriate response in the form of additional precautions. We show that the evidentiary standards set for risk‐based cost‐benefit analysis have a connection with deontology because they express a postulate of equal treatment in formal terms. Systemic risks can have different possible degrees of epistemological certainty due to factors of social and natural origin, such as more available research funding or higher degrees of complexity for some systemic risks but not others. These differences have to be mitigated by taking even greater precautions in difficult‐to‐research systemic risks.     

"In my opinion, work would be in first place and family in second": young women's imagined gender-work relations in post-Soviet Lithuania

This article explores young women's orientation to work and motherhood in the post-communist context of radical socio-economic transformation in Europe. Based on a qualitative-explorative study into meanings of work and unemployment among young people in post-Soviet Lithuania, the paper introduces an empirically grounded classification of imagined gender-work arrangements. The single patterns of the classification are based on the three configurations of work and motherhood, work and partnership, and work and provision. The findings inform the reconstruction of the 'landscape' of imagined gendered adulthoods in Europe as well as the analysis of emerging gender relations under conditions of rapid social change.