Traditionalization,or the making of a reputation: women,weddings and expenditure in Tajikistan

ABSTRACT

This article aims to show how traditionalization is enforced by women in Tajikistan in the realm of marriage, focusing on the economic dimension of life cycle rituals: ritual expenditure and gift-giving. It shows that from women’s points of view, performing ceremonial competition may itself be a resource to recover their reputation, for example when a matrimonial rupture has harmed it. Focusing on single mothers, it demonstrates how practices of traditionalization performed by women can be directed at addressing gender constraints and stereotypes, such as the normative relation between marriage and femininity, and how they may also secure women’s separate sphere of competence and relative financial autonomy.     

Bermuda Triangle: the supply of services (implied terms) act 2003 and the competing theories of exemption clauses

Patton and Cook v Bank of Bermuda is a judgment that undermines the legal certainty which should have been brought about by the implementation of the Supply of Services (Implied Terms) Act 2003, and raises questions of broad importance for all contracts governed by Bermuda law – particularly as the decision has not been overturned in the years since, and remains the only authority to engage directly with the effect of section 6 of the 2003 Act; arguably its most important provision. The key issue that will be explored in this paper is whether the distinction drawn in Patton between contracting out of a duty of reasonable skill and care, and contracting out of liability for breach of that duty is, as a matter of contract law theory and jurisprudence, valid and meaningful, or whether it is a distinction without a difference.     

Chineseness and Chinese Indonesian Business Practices: A Generational and Discursive Enquiry

This paper discusses the role and meaning of Chineseness in business conduct among different generations of Chinese Indonesian entrepreneurs active in small and medium sized enterprises. This issue is raised in order to inspire the ongoing debate concerning the characteristics of ethnic Chinese business practices in Southeast Asia, and to offer a way out of the culturalist – criticalist impasse by addressing topics that are often neglected: the voice of those concerned, the business practices of Chinese Indonesian entrepreneurs in the SME sector, and generational differences.     

Face recognition as a function of distance and illumination: A practical tool for use in the courtroom

Abstract

This paper describes a practical courtroom tool that provides insight in face recognition accuracy as a function of distance and illumination. Subjects were shown 3/4 target portraits with an exposition time of 12 seconds, immediately followed by a target-absent or target-present lineup of six full-face portraits. Subjects were asked to identify the target. Seven distances (3 to 40 meter) and nine illumination levels (0.3 to 3000 lux) were used which resulted in a 7?9 matrix, with in the cells a hit score and a false alarm score. From these rough data several other measures were derived, like d-prime, diagnostic value and some idealised scores. The scores represent the upper margins of recognition accuracy with the memory component reduced to a minimum. The results clearly indicate a systematic increase of recognition performance with decreasing distance and increasing illumination. The end result is a practical rule of thumb, the Rule of Fifteen: Even in ideal conditions the desired diagnostic value of 15 is reached at not more than 15 meters, not less than 15 lux.     

Methodology for estimating endocranial capacity in a modern European population

Various methods have been published in the literature to estimate endocranial capacity. These are based on mathematical equations using measurements made directly on the skull or indirectly from X-rays, by filling the skull with various materials, by endocasts both physical and virtual (using 3D CT-scan reconstructions). Each method has its advantages, limits and drawbacks. A useful method is one that is simple, time-efficient, cheap, and reproducible. For this study we estimated endocranial capacity by filling the skull with calibrated glass beads. We used a thorough protocol of tamping to ensure results reproducibility. Intra- and inter-observer trials showed no significant differences. The method was applied to 130 recent French (West European) skulls (65 males and 65 females). Sexual dimorphism was studied using logistic regression functions, discriminant analysis, and neural network. The best results were obtained using the neural network, built with two hidden nodes in the hidden layer and one output node, and trained with a steepest descent algorithm. Our tests show that there is obvious sexual dimorphism (p < 10(-5)) of the weight of the skulls (623.44 ± 106.83 g in males; 548.07 ± 94.57 in females), the weight of the glass beads used to fill the skulls (2379.83 ± 228.92 g in males; 2095.95 ± 145.49 in females), and endocranial capacity (1676.47 cm(3) ± 161.26 in males; 1476.48 ± 102.49 in females), but overlapping between sexes is quite significant. The average ECC in male (1676.5 cm(3)) and in female (1476.5 cm(3)) subjects is higher than those previously published, which deserves some discussion.     

Show Me the Money: Child Welfare Cost Savings of a Family Drug Court

Family drug courts are programs that serve the complex needs of families involved with the child welfare system due to parental substance abuse. This article summarizes the results of outcomes and selected costs of a system‐wide reform located in Baltimore, Maryland. Results from this study found that parents served by the program entered treatment faster, stayed in treatment longer, and completed treatment more often than non‐served parents. Children in program families spent less time in foster care and were more likely to be reunified with their biological parents. These outcomes resulted in cost savings, including reduced foster care expenditures.