Fatal venlafaxine overdose with acinar zone 3 liver cell necrosis

We present a case of fatal venlafaxine overdose in a 34-year-old male with a history of depression and previous suicide attempts. He presented unwell, and his condition deteriorated with the development of rhabdomyocytolysis and renal failure. Although treatment was provided, this was unsuccessful, and he died within a day of his admission. A postmortem examination was performed, and the findings included an acinar zone 3 pattern of liver cell necrosis and a very high level of serum venlafaxine in the deceased. No other elevated drug levels were detected. From this case, it is clear that venlafaxine overdose was the primary cause of a fatal acinar zone 3 pattern of liver cell necrosis. As far as we are aware, this is the first reported case of fatal acinar zone 3 liver necrosis caused by venlafaxine overdose alone.     

Gerrymandering Roll Calls in Congress, 1879–2000

We argue that the standard toolbox used in electoral studies to assess the bias and responsiveness of electoral systems can also be used to assess the bias and responsiveness of legislative systems. We consider which items in the toolbox are the most appropriate for use in the legislative setting, then apply them to estimate levels of bias in the U.S. House from 1879 to 2000. Our results indicate a systematic bias in favor of the majority party over this period, with the strongest bias arising during the period of "czar rule" (51st–60th Congresses, 1889–1910) and during the post-packing era (87th–106th Congresses, 1961–2000). This finding is consistent with the majority party possessing a significant advantage, either in "buying" vote options, in setting the agenda, or both.     

Workplace Relations: Friendship Patterns and Consequences (According to Managers)

This article examines orientations toward workplace friendship. Based on a survey of senior managers in cities with populations over 50,000, it addresses the following questions: Do senior managers promote, condone, or discourage workplace friendship? What risks and benefits of workplace friendships do these managers perceive? What policies and strategies that affect workplace friendship are found in organizations? How do these organizational efforts affect perceptions of employee performance? This article finds that, despite the risks, orientations in favor of workplace friendships are widespread, and many jurisdictions engage in efforts to promote them.     

Universals and Particulars: the Case of Liberal Cultural Nationalism

Recent work in liberal political theory has rejected cosmopolitanism to incorporate the empirical agenda of nationalism and multiculturalism. In this article three issues facing cultural national liberalism are first extracted from Rawls's Political Liberalism : the range of reasonable cultural identities under liberalism; the substantive ethical bases of the state; and the possibility of principles of cultural self-respect. I then examine three works which address these problems, Will Kymlicka's Multicultural Citizenship , David Miller's On Nationality , and Charles Taylor's 'The Politics of Recognition'. Kymlicka provides principles of cultural self-respect but is caught between conceptualising culture in universalist and particularist terms. Miller's liberal national state rests on shared meanings, but this serves to complicate the introduction of universal moral ideas. Taylor presents authenticity as an alternative self-understanding to liberal autonomy, but I argue against the notion of cultural authenticity.     

Is East Asia under-represented in the International Monetary Fund?

East Asian countries perceive that their individual and collectivepositions in the world political economy are not fairly representedin existing international institutions, which have yet to fullyadjust to the region's rapid economic ascent over the last severaldecades. This problem seems especially acute in the InternationalMonetary Fund (IMF), wherein each country's participation inthe organization's weighted voting scheme is supposed to reflectthe following logic: relative weight in world economy sizeof quotas number of votes. Are Asian countries' IMF quotasincommensurate with their relative economic weight and, if so,by what margin? And if Asian countries are indeed under-representedin the IMF, which other country, group of countries or regionis correspondingly over-represented? This paper examines thesequestions from several perspectives. It first discusses thepurpose of quotas and how they are determined. It then turnsto the question of whether Asian perceptions concerning under-representationare empirically corroborated. The first data analysis sectioncompares current quotas to relative measures of economic weightin the world economy. The following section compares four quotavalues: past quotas, current quotas, calculated quotas and quotascalculated using the method of the IMF's external quota reviewboard. In short, the data demonstrate that Asia does have astrong claim for a greater share of IMF quotas. We concludewith a brief consideration of possible alternatives to the IMF'scurrent use of quota to determine voting weights, and arguethat the problem of Asian under-representation will probablynot be corrected unless the IMF's quota-determination processis overhauled.