Peasant farming in Russia

Russia started its decollectivisation effort in earnest after the abortive 1991 coup attempt. A legislative foundation has been laid and over one‐quarter million peasant farms have been created, many through the act of exiting a collective by a farm worker, taking his or her land and asset shares along. Yet significant obstacles remain in the path of both continued peasant farm creation and the viability of those already functioning.     

Sovereignty in the South China sea

Abstract

In January 1974, when fighting broke out between Saigon forces and Chinese in the oil-promising South China Sea, the American establishment news media tended to assume that the Chinese, being communists, must have been the aggressors. Those reporters who were quickly able to attune themselves to the official State Department line, however, refrained from making any judgment regarding the merits of the controversy. And well they might have, for the assertions of America's client regime regarding the various archipelagoes are at best dubious. Official U.S. Government maps designate the islets by their Chinese (not Vietnamese) names, and neither Hanoi nor the Provisional Revolutionary Government has stated any claims in the region.     

Marriage,work, and social reproduction in one area of southern Europe at the end of the 18th century: Lorca (1797)

In this article, the process of social reproduction has been analyzed in Lorca, a municipality in the western Mediterranean region of Murcia (Spain) at the end of the 18th century. An exhaustive subset of the data from the local Godoy's census (1797) was used consisting of 29,875 individuals living in a total of 7566 households. This population was distributed between the town, the Huerta (the Murcian irrigated market garden community), and the countryside. Results confirmed, on the one hand, that a direct relationship existed between higher social status and size of household, with a higher number of older children in the households of land-owning farmers than of tenant farmers or day workers. More children in higher status households indicate that children left home later, and therefore inheritance problems rose, which influenced social reproduction within these groups. Spatially, a clear division can be found between the countryside with more male work-hands and a higher index of male activity and the Huerta with a certain female dominance.     

Chester I. Barnard's reflections on his nine weeks in the United States treasury department

This essay seeks to identify relevant issues regarding the relationship between organizational change strategies aimed at improving the delivery of public services to low income clientale in human service agencies. ^{* *}A human service is defined as a form of assistance given to a client by a public agency; such assistance i s ameliorative in nature and is intended to provide for a social welfare need that cannot otherwise be met. ^*A human service is defined as a form of assistance given to a client by a public agency; such assistance i s ameliorative in nature and is intended to provide for a social welfare need that cannot otherwise be met.$ef: The strategies discussed in this

essay are: organizational development (OD), transorganizational development, reorganization and decentralization. The discussion is mainly theoretical, derived only in part from the literature and from actual experiences. The focus i s on detemining (logically, not empirically) the consequences of applying different types of organization change strategies as means for improving the delivery of human services. A major assumption i s that each of the strategies would incur somewhat different costs and produce different benefits with varying operational constraints.     

Correspondence

The origins of the Anglo-American intelligence relationship are usually dated to the early years of the Second World War. This article suggests that the First World War interaction between the intelligence staffs of the British and American Expeditionary Forces was a significant precursor to the emergence of the later relationship. Using primarily American archival sources, the article reveals an intimacy that emerged in the summer of 1917 and continued, to a lesser extent, until the armistice. The emergence of this close relationship is attributed to a common language, independent-minded intelligence leaders, and an element of chance.     

The sociopathic police personality: Is it a product of the “Rotten Apple” or the “Rotten Barrel?”

The “Rotten Apple” theory states that deviant police officers are those who psychological testing fails to screen out. This concept is favored by police administrators because it offers a quick and easy solution to police deviant behavior. However, there is a growing body of literature that suggests that it is the stressful occupation that is policing that is the fertile soil from which police deviant behavior springs otherwise known as the “Rotten Barrel” theory. This article shall explore police deviant behavior from the perspective that it is the “Rotten Barrel” that leads to police deviant behavior.     

传统民事审判方式的弊端及改革构想

传统民事审判方式的弊端表现在：法官包揽调查，当事人基本上不负举证责任；开庭审判走过场，基本上是先定后审；庭审采取纠问式，当事人被动应答，较少主动行为，合议庭合而不议，审而不判，作用不显；当事人的处分权受到较大限制。在改革中，应强调当事人举证责任，完善举证制度；强调公开审判，充分发挥庭审功能；强化合议庭和独任审判页的职责，实现“审”与“判”的统一；加强法院自身的改革。     

Tackling Ill-Treatment in Places of Detention: The Work of the Council of Europe’s “Torture Committee”

The article examines the working methods and effectiveness of the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the CPT) which, since 1990, has been carrying out visits to places of detention. It also examines the impact the Committee has had upon European standards and expectations, and, in particular, upon the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, and raises certain issues in respect of the establishment of the United Nation’s Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the Committee against Torture. This article draws upon material to be published in The Treatment of Prisoners: European Standards (Council of Europe Press: 2006).     

Direct comparison of post-28-cycle PCR purification and modified capillary electrophoresis methods with the 34-cycle “low copy number” (LCN) method for analysis of trace forensic DNA samples

The investigation of samples with low amounts of template DNA remains at the forefront of forensic DNA research and technology as it becomes increasingly important to gain DNA profile information from exceedingly trace levels of DNA. Previous studies have demonstrated that it is possible to obtain short tandem repeat (STR) profiles from <100 pg of template DNA by increasing the number of amplification cycles from 28 to 34, a modification often referred to as “low copy number” or LCN analysis. In this study, we have optimised post-PCR purification techniques applied after only 28 cycles of PCR, as well as using modified capillary electrophoresis injection conditions and have investigated the progressive application of these enhanced approaches. This paper reviews the characteristics of the profiles obtained by these methods compared with those obtained on the same samples after 34-cycle PCR. We observed comparable sensitivity to 34-cycle PCR in terms of the number of profiles with evidence of DNA and the number of allelic peaks per profile and we noted improved peak height and area magnitude with some sample types. Certain parameters reported to be adversely affected in 34-cycle LCN investigations, such as non-donor allele peaks and increased stutter peak ratio, were reduced by this approach. There are a number of advantages for trace samples in progressing from the standard 28-cycle process to the post-PCR processing method as compared to 34-cycle PCR method, including reduced sample consumption, reduced number of PCR amplifications required, and a staged approach to sample processing and profile interpretation.