The end of the affair? Germany's relationship with France

French–German resistance to the US war against Iraq marked a high point in the two countries' political alignment. It was followed by French proposals for even closer integration. Yet French and German policies and priorities differ in a number of fields. Prominent among these is the EU, where Germany has long worked for a reduction in EU spending and a redistribution of votes among the member countries. After reaching a compromise on these issues, co-operation with France on foreign and security policy has grown particularly close. This has affected Germany's relations with Central and Eastern Europe and with the US, areas where Germany traditionally pursued policies different from France. At the end of the second period of the Red–Green government, Germany's national interests have been redefined as a result of the relationship with France.     

Psychopathy,intelligence, and impulsivity in German violent offenders

Previous studies have reported numerous correlations between psychopathy and various personality traits, behavioural tendencies or clinical characteristics. The present study examined in greater depth the relationships between the components of psychopathy as measured by the Psychopathy Checklist—Revised (PCL-R) and intelligence as well as impulsivity. A total of ninety male violent offenders were recruited from a prison and a forensic–psychiatric hospital in Germany. All of the subjects were assessed using the PCL-R, the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11), and a short version of the German Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WIP). As expected, a canonical correlation analysis showed a negative association between spatial intelligence and the Factor 2 subtotal on the PCL-R (reckless lifestyle/antisociality). In addition, our results agreed with the assumption of an association between impulsivity and the subtotal for PCL-R Factor 2. The positive relationship between verbal intelligence and the subtotal for Factor 1 of the PCL-R (insincere, manipulative conduct/affective deficits) vanished after controlling for educational level. The results indicate that there is a relationship between the spatial components of intelligence and the concept of psychopathy as described by Hare. This result supports the spatial impairment aetiological model of antisocial behaviour.     

Party Organizational Elites in Norwegian Politics: Representativeness and Party Democracy*

The question raised is why ‘secondary’ representativeness of political elites, i.e. the degree of similarity in socio-demographic background between elite and electorate, is considered important in debates on democratic polities. Three answers are considered: to improve long-term ‘primary’ representtativity. i.e. the representation of public opinions; to build systemic legitimacy: and to encourage the participation of low-mobilized groups. From this perspective new data on the party organizational elites in Norway are presented: The party elites are socially skewed in terms of present position. but fairly broad based in terms of parental background. They reflect the traditional cleavage structures of Norwegian politics, even though the high shares of women and public employees indicate potentially emerging cleavage structures. Particularly the women in party positions are disproportionately recruited from the lower ranks of the public job market.     

Investigating Investigators: How Presentation Order Influences Participant–Investigators’ Interpretations of Eyewitness Identification and Alibi Evidence

Presentation order of ID and Alibi evidence was manipulated for undergraduate participants who conducted a simulated police investigation. Experiment 1 found a recency effect when an eyewitness rejected the investigator’s suspect. Experiment 2 also examined order effects, exploring how participant–investigators evaluated alibi information in addition to eyewitness ID information. When investigators saw the witness identify the suspect but also received a strong alibi for that suspect a recency effect occurred, such that whichever piece of information occurred at the end of the procedure had the strongest impact on investigators. Thus, type of evidence and evidence order both had a dramatic influence on participant–investigators’ decisions.     

Injuries due to deliberate violence in areas of Denmark. I. The extent of violence

As part of a transcultural investigation of violent behavior in Denmark and South America an analysis was made during a one year period of the incidents involving deliberate violence as registered at 3 Danish emergency wards, and at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen. In the three emergency wards a total of 1316 victims of deliberate violence were observed corresponding to a rate of about 3.3/1000 per year in a provincial/rural district, the catchment region of Holbaek County Hospital, 5.5/1000 per year in a mainly middle income area of the metropolis Copenhagen, the catchment region of Frederiksberg Hospital, and 7.6/1000 per year in a mainly low income area of Copenhagen, the catchment region of the Rigshospital. The highest risk, 28/1000 per year, was found for young men between 15 and 19 years of age living in the low income area of Copenhagen. The risk was low for people greater than or equal to 60 years of age in all three areas investigated, ranging from 0 (men) to 1.3/1000 per year (women). Skilled and unskilled workers were greatly over represented as victims of violence, considering their share of the background population. Seventy percent of the victims were men. At least 44% of the men and 32% of the women were alcohol intoxicated when arriving in the emergency ward. The incidents took place in restaurants or in the vicinity of restaurants for 30% of the male and 11% of female victims respectively, while 45% of the women had been subject to deliberate violence at home. The rate of fatal cases of deliberate violence in the Eastern part of Denmark, the catchment area for the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Copenhagen, was found to be 0.02/1000 per year. The risk of becoming a victim of deliberate violence has not increased during the last 4 years comparing with similar investigations from other parts of Denmark. However, the rate of homicide seems to have increased, and so has the severity of the injuries caused by deliberate violence. The pattern of deliberate violence appears to be associated with socio-economic and cultural factors, and to be closely linked with alcohol intoxication.     

Simultaneous analysis of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid, gamma-butyrolactone, and 1,4-butanediol by micellar electrokinetic chromatography

A micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) method was optimised for simultaneous analysis of gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB), gamma-butyrolactone (GBL), and 1,4-butanediol (BD). Best conditions for separation and baseline stability were achieved using a carrier electrolyte comprising 30.0mM sodium barbital and 150.0mM sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) at pH 10.2. Calibration functions were linear, giving correlation coefficients (r(2)) >0.998 for the three target compounds. Limits of detection (LOD) defined as three times the noise, were 5.1mg/l, 0.34 and 0.25g/l for GHB, GBL and BD, respectively. The repeatability of migration times and peak areas, expressed as the R.S.D. (n = 9) was better than 0.41 and 3.05%, respectively. Some casework samples were analysed using the optimised conditions.     

Development of a harmonised method for the profiling of amphetamines VI: Evaluation of methods for comparison of amphetamine

Amphetamine samples were analysed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), and the peak areas of 33 target compounds were transformed by applying various pretreatment techniques. The objective was to optimise the ability of a number of distance metrics to establish links between samples of amphetamine originating from the same batch (henceforth referred to as linked distances). Furthermore, partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) was used to evaluate the effects of various pretreatment methods on separation of amphetamine batches synthesised by the Leuckart reaction, reductive amination of benzyl methyl ketone, and the nitrostyrene route. The most efficient way to pretreat GC-MS data varied for the different distance metrics, although best results were obtained when data were normalised to the sum of peak areas, and either the fourth root or a logarithm was applied to the normalised data. When pretreating normalised data by fourth root transformation, Pearson correlation was the distance metric that was most successful at finding linked samples. Normalisation and the use of fourth root also represented the best method of pretreating data when employing PLS-DA to separate samples synthesised by different routes. To achieve a faster and more user-friendly procedure for evaluating chromatograms, experiments were performed in which the number of target compounds used to compare samples was reduced. The effect of each compound that was removed was studied by applying PLS-DA and by using Pearson correlation to calculate linked distances as well as unlinked distances (between samples from different batches of amphetamine). Considering both links between samples from the same batch and separation of samples synthesised by different routes, the best results were obtained with the data set comprising 26 compounds. Finally, it was found that the profiling method developed in this work was superior to an existing technique with respect to separating linked and unlinked distances.     

How do different sources of policy analysis affect policy preferences? Experimental evidence from the United States

Policy Sciences - Analysis of policy options is often unavailable or only available from non-governmental research organizations (“think tanks”) that may have explicit or implicit...