Sudden death due to unsuspected coronary vasculitis.

Coronary artery vasculitis is a well-recognized complication of polyarteritis nodosa and is occasionally seen in other forms of systemic vasculitis. However, involvement of the major epicardial coronary arteries leading to myocardial infarction and death is uncommon. Isolated coronary arteritis is even more rare. We report three cases of sudden death due to myocardial ischemia associated with arteritis of the major coronary arteries. All three decedents were previously healthy young to middle-aged men who had died suddenly after complaints of chest pain and shortness of breath. The autopsy findings and differential diagnoses are presented. Such cases are of particular interest to the medical examiner because of the sudden, unexpected nature of the deaths. An approach to the correct diagnosis is discussed.     

Minimizing culpability increases commission errors in a mock crime paradigm

Purpose. Empirical studies have demonstrated that feigning amnesia undermines memory for a mock crime. Not much is known about the effects of other culpability‐reducing strategies on memory. The present study investigated what strategies participants use when they are instructed to minimize culpability and if these strategies undermine memory to a similar extent as claiming amnesia. Methods. Participants performed a mock crime. Next, they were either instructed to minimize culpability for this mock crime in a simulated interrogation or asked to respond honestly. One week later, memory for the mock crime was tested. Results. None of the participants claimed amnesia when trying to minimize culpability. Conversely, all participants fabricated an alternative account of their role in the crime. Compared with responding honestly on both tests, fabricating an alternative story on the first test undermined memory for the mock crime in terms of commission errors. Correct recall was unaffected. It appeared that this effect was related to story length: the longer the fabricated story, the more the commission errors when telling the truth 1 week later. Conclusions. Fabricating an alternative story (i.e. lying) did not compromise correct recall, but induced more commission errors. The findings are discussed in terms of possible underlying mechanisms.     

Federalism Revised: The Promise and Challenge of the No Child Left Behind Act

Federalism in education has undergone significant changes since the Winter Commission. During the early 1990s, federal policy makers faced the challenge of organizational fragmentation and policy incoherence in public education. In the last 15 years, the intergovernmental system has evolved from one that is predominantly compliance‐driven to one that is performance based, as suggested by the congressional adoption of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001. While the former is often characterized by images of “picket fence” federalism and administrative silos, the latter remains very much a work in progress, with the promise of raising academic proficiency. This paper first examines the paradigm shift and then considers emerging politics in intergovernmental relations. The author explores the ways in which state and local policy makers are altering the rules governing education service provision in response to performance‐based federal expectations.     

Problem Drinking, Jealousy, and Anger Control: Variables Predicting Physical Aggression Against a Partner

Alcohol use and intimate partner violence (IPV) are significantly related, but only a subset of individuals who drink are aggressive and relatively little is known about what moderates this relationship in community samples. Two risk factors, anger control and jealousy, were hypothesized to moderate the relationship between IPV and problem drinking in a sample of 453 community couples. A significant three-way interaction indicated that men with jealousy problems, but not anger control problems, were most likely to show the strongest association between problem drinking and IPV. In accord with the multiple threshold model of IPV, specific combinations of risk factors appeared to represent different thresholds in which problem drinking influenced the likelihood of IPV.     

Experimental design for acquiring relevant data to address the issue of comparing consecutively manufactured tools and firearms

The comparison of consecutively manufactured tools and firearms has provided much, but not all, of the basis for the profession of firearm and toolmark examination. The authors accept the fundamental soundness of this approach but appeal to the experimental community to close two minor gaps in the experimental procedure. We suggest that “blinding” and attention to appropriateness of other experimental conditions that would consolidate the foundations of our profession. We do not suggest that previous work is unsound.     

"A brilliant ball of fire." The sabotage of United Airlines Flight 629

Among the known causes of aircraft disasters, sabotage is perhaps the most terrifying and difficult to comprehend. Bombs have been exploded in at least 34 commercial aircraft, with the resultant loss of more than 300 lives. Motives for these acts include profit, the deaths of certain persons, and politics. On November 1, 1955, United Airlines Flight 629, bound to Denver-Portland, exploded and burned in flight near Longmont, Colorado, a few minutes after takeoff, with the loss of all 44 on board. Investigation revealed that the plane had been destroyed by the explosion of a bomb that had been placed in the rear luggage hold in Denver. Twelve days after the disaster, John Gilbert Graham, the son of one of the female passengers, was arrested and charged with murder. He reportedly admitted placing a time bomb on board the aircraft, apparently in order to collect $37,500.00 in life insurance that he had taken on his mother's life. Though he soon recanted, he was convicted of murder and was executed. The potential for additional such crimes remains.     

FORENSIC ECONOMICS: AN INTRODUCTION WITH SPECIAL EMPHASIS ON PRICE FIXING

This paper aims at explaining accepted methods of forensic analysisand how forensic economics is used in the context of competition-lawenforcement. Illustrations are drawn from ancient and modernantitrust cases involving price-fixing allegations. The statedgoal of antitrust laws of most nations is deterrence. Optimaldeterrence requires that cartel penalties be based on multiplesof economic injuries. Yet, antitrust authorities are typicallyreluctant to calculate fines on the basis of damages becauseof perceived analytical challenges or because the fact-finderslack needed economic education. However, reasonable estimatesof damages can often be quickly prepared using simpler methodsthan econometric modeling. More often than not, alternativeestimates of cartel overcharges tend to be mutually supportive.The reluctance of antitrust authorities to base fines on damagesseems to indicate an abundance of caution.     

Decolonising Europe? The Colonial Boomerang

The hidden secret at the core of Michael Haneke's remarkable film of that name is Georges Laurent's denunciation of a young Algerian boy who found refuge on his relatives’ farm after his own parents had perished in the infamous 1961 Paris massacre. In a bizarre return of the repressed, the memory of this betrayal invades and destroys his affluent bourgeois existence forty years later. In this article, I attempt to link this return to the “colonial boomerang” of the suburban revolts of 2005 (and 2007) and the “official” occlusion of past crimes against humanity most clearly shown in the case of Maurice Papon, in which the betrayal of France's Jews and the massacre of Algerian demonstrators merge on the grounds of the Veld'Hiv.