Party Power: Approaches in a Field of Unfilled Classics*

Much current research into the working of liberal democracy tends to emphasise and concentrate on the corporate channel of influence. The linkage to centres of power provided by political parties has not received sufficient attention. There is a need for more research into the operation of parties as linkages between grass root activists and national elite politics. Studying party democracy is to study internal distribution of power, and the article turns to the debate on community power studies for guidelines on how to approach empirical research on intra-party democracy.     

What similes in Sāṃkhya do: a comparison of the similes in the Sāṃkhya texts in the Mahābhārata, the Sāṃkhyakārikā and the Sāṃkhyasūtra

In Sāṃkhya similes are an important means to communicate basic philosophical teachings. In the texts similes are frequently used, especially in the Sāṃkhya passages in the Mahābhārata, in the Sāṃkhyakārikā and in the Sāṃkhyasūtra. This paper compares the similes in these three texts and analyses changes in the philosophy as revealed in the similes. A comparison of the similes of Sāṃkhya texts produced over more than one thousand years reveals changes in the emphasis in this philosophical system. The purpose of the similes in the Sāṃkhya passages of the Mahābhārata is to produce an intuitive understanding of the separateness of puruṣa and prakṛti. The similes are designed to lead the listener to understand this basic dualism. In the Sāṃkhyakārikā the most difficult issues are the relationship between prakṛti and puruṣa and the idea of prakṛti working for the salvation of puruṣa. One whole chapter of the Sāṃkhyasūtra is devoted to similes.     

Injuries due to deliberate violence in areas of Denmark. IV. Alcohol intoxication in victims of violence. The Copenhagen Study Group

A material of 1316 victims of deliberate violence was collected prospectively during a one year period in three Danish emergency wards covering a provincial/rural area and two metropolitan areas. The frequency of alcohol intoxication was determined. Forty-one percent of the patients were intoxicated. The highest frequency was found in male victims, in the provincial/rural area, in restaurants or their vicinity, in the age group 35-49, during evenings and nights and in May. It is difficult to indicate specific preventive measures. However, a more restrictive attitude is suggested with regard to serving alcohol to intoxicated persons in restaurants.     

Diffusion of treatment interventions: exploration of ‘secondary’ treatment diffusion

Abstract

The present report presents outcome results from a randomized controlled effect study on extended Aggression Replacement Training (ART). In a pre–post design, a 30-hour ART intervention was found to significantly reduce behavioral problems and increase social skills. The control group did not demonstrate comparable changes, but still indicated improvement. Such control-group improvement may be caused by improper treatment and control group implementation (diffusion of treatment) and/or ‘secondary’ diffusion caused by participants in the treatment group affecting control group subjects by demonstrating changed behavior. Both mechanisms were explored, and it is concluded that the improvement observed in the control group was due to such ‘secondary diffusion’. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Old and very old adults as witnesses: event memory and metamemory

Older people constitute an important category of eyewitnesses. Episodic memory performance in older persons is poorer than in younger adults, but little research has been made on older persons’ metacognitive judgments. Since more persons of advanced age will likely be called upon as witnesses in coming years, it is critical to characterize this population’s metacognitive abilities. We compared event memory metacognition in old adults (66-year-old, n = 74) to very old adults (87 or 90 years old, n = 55). Participants were tested on their memory of a film, using questions with two answer alternatives and the confidence in their answer. As expected, the very old group had a lower accuracy rate than the old group (d = 0.59). The very old group, however, monitored this impairment, since their over-/underconfidence and calibration did not differ from the old group but they displayed a poorer ability to separate correct from incorrect answers (discrimination ability). Possibly, the very old group was able to monitor the level of their over-/underconfidence because they applied general self-knowledge about their memory skills. In contrast, the discrimination of correct from incorrect answers may be more dependent on ability to attend to the features of each retrieved memory.     

When an Alibi Is Not Enough: Judgments of Evidence Needed to Lay Charges in a Burglary Case

Laypersons were asked to assume the role of investigators to explore judgments of what evidence is needed to make an arrest in a criminal investigation when an alibi witness is present. Participants were sensitive to the relationship between the alibi witness and the suspect and were more likely to believe an alibi provided by someone unrelated to the suspect, as evidenced by requests for more physical evidence against the suspect than when the alibi corroborator was a family member. In addition, when presented with contradictory evidence, the age of the alibi witness became an important consideration. Age alone did not impact perceptions of evidence adequacy; however, when an (adult) eyewitness provided testimony that contradicted a child alibi witness, participants demonstrated partiality towards believing the child as evidenced by (a) more requests for physical evidence to be convinced the child was wrong and to arrest the suspect and (b) higher ratings of alibi witness credibility. This effect was not seen when the eyewitness’s testimony contradicted an alibi provided by an adult. The results provide insight for investigators and legal counsel regarding the influence of varying types of alibi witness evidence.     

Aquatic fatalities--a systematic retrospective analysis

In a retrospective analysis of the autopsy material (n = 5,767) of the Institute of Legal Medicine of the Hanover Medical School covering the period of 1998-2007, all aquatic fatalities were evaluated, categorized and systematically compared under epidemiological and forensic criteria. The total of 156 cases of death by drowning (2.7 % of all autopsies) included 38 bathtub drownings and 28 deaths in the water for which no pathological anatomical cause of death could be reliably demonstrated. A control group (n = 221) was investigated for the presence of aqueous liquid in the sphenoid sinuses and compared with the findings of the drowning cases without signs of putrefaction. About 16 % of the control cases had fluid in the sphenoid sinuses compared with 57.6 % in the drowning group. Most of the drowning victims were men (60.9 %), whereas in the group of bathtub drownings the majority were women. More than half of the drowning cases (n = 89) could be classified as accidents. The individual groups showed a different incidence of findings associated with drowning.     

“It all happened so slowly” – On controlling function creep in forensic DNA databases

Forensic DNA databases are implemented worldwide and used increasingly. Part of this increasing usage is arguably a matter of function creep. Function creep refers to changes in, and especially additions to, the use of a technology. In this article we explore the notion of function creep as we discuss why and how it has taken place on forensic DNA databases. We also consider what future function creep it is possible to envisage. As even security enhancing technologies may contribute to insecurities, what safeguards should be in place to render function creep governable? We use the Norwegian DNA database, expanded considerably as recently as September 2008, as our primary case for discussion. Additionally we use examples from the English and Welsh DNA database which, considered world leading, may be an indication of where other DNA databases are heading. The article isn't data-driven but draws on a wide spectrum of data: governmental documents, public and Parliamentary debates, and interviews.