Smoking trials with mercury contaminated cigarettes. Studies of attempted poisoning]

In the context with an attempted poisoning it was investigated, to which extent an intoxication can be caused by smoking cigarettes, which contain elementary mercury. With a smoking apparatus the effect of the amount (9 mg to 1.4 g) and of the distribution of the Hg within the cigarette on its concentration in the mainstream and sidestream smoke as well as in the ash and the filter was analytically determined. It follows from these experiments, that at a good distribution almost independently of the amount involved only up to 2 mg Hg per cigarette are inhalated with the mainstream smoke, whereas up to 97% are found in the sidestream smoke. In the ash and the filter only small amounts are detected. By comparison with cases described in literature it is shown, that a poisoning by such cigarettes is possible only after frequent smoking or by passive smoking via the sidestream smoke in small and badly aerated rooms.     

Dutch youth in transition to adulthood: Differential changes in their political and sociocultural values since the 1970s

In past decades, the postadolescents (i.e., the young who have not yet entered the labor market or established stable partnership bonds, but have already left the parental home, and as a consequence, are not acknowledged as genuine adults in a social sense) were well known for their relatively libertarian sociopolitical value orientations. The main question in this research is, do contemporary postadolescents still foster these relatively libertarian orientations, despite their experiences with the socioeconomic decline and worsening labor-market prospects in the first half of the 1980s? Analyses of Dutch data revealed, that until the 1980s, postadolescents were more libertarian and more postmaterialistic than their young adult peers who had already entered the labor market and engaged in stable partnership bonds. The difference in postmaterialism, however, appeared not to be resistant to the recent socioeconomic stagnation.     

Citizenship and social justice

Discussions on the problems of the welfare state are increasingly framed in terms of citizenship rather than social justice. The popularity of the concept of citizenship raises the question of its implications for social justice theory and research. In this article it is argued that whereas the dominant approach in social justice is essentially individualistic, the concept of citizenship focuses rather on individuals as members of a societal community, from which both rights and obligations are derived. This focus on communal membership suggests three important topics for social justice theory and research: (i) the need to distinguish between a civic and a justice motive for human behavior, (ii) the need to specify the frame of reference respondents should use when they make their justice judgments, and (iii) the need to recognize the fact that justice judgments may result from both adhering to criteria of justice and considering the consequences of their application.     

Dispositional Sensitivity to Befallen Injustice

Dispositional Sensitivity to Befallen Injustice (SBI) is proposed as a new construct. A self-report questionnaire with four types of indicators (frequency, intensity of anger, intrusiveness of thoughts, punitivity) was developed for measuring SBI. Using structural equation modeling and the general rationale of multitrait-multimethod analysis, the convergent and discriminant validity of this questionnaire was investigated vis-à-vis measures for Trait Anger, Anger In, Anger Out, and Frustration Tolerance as related constructs. Additionally, a meaningful pattern of correlations was obtained between SBI and Life Satisfaction, Centrality of Justice, Interpersonal Trust, and Need for Control. Finally, self-reported sensitivity to befallen injustice was found to predict cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to unjust treatment in laboratory and natural settings several weeks later.     

Reviews

William A. Clark, Crime and Punishment in Soviet Officialdom. Combating Corruption in the Political Elite, 1965–1990. London: M. E. Sharpe, 1993, xi + 242 pp., $49.95 h/b, $16.50 p/b

Leslie Holmes, The End of Communist Power. Anti‐Corruption Campaigns and Legitimation Crisis. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993, xx + 358 pp., £45.00 h/b, £13.95 p/b.

Rachel Walker, Six Years that Shook the World: Perestroika—the Impossible Project. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1993, viii + 312 pp., £35.00 h/b, £9.99 p/b.

Stephen R. Graubard (ed.), Exit From Communism. New Brunswick, NJ, and London: Transaction Publishers, 1993, 292 pp., $19.95.

Sergei V. Chugrov, Rossiya i Zapad: Metamorfozy Vospriyatiya. Moscow: Nauka, 1993.

Zoltan D. Barany, Soldiers and Politics in Eastern Europe, 1945–90. London: Macmillan, 1993, xi + 243 pp., £40.00.

Paul Hockenos, Free to Hate. The Rise of the Right in Post‐communist Eastern Europe. London: Routledge, 1993, x + 332 pp., £17.99.

Ben Eklof (ed), School and Society in Tsarist and Soviet Russia. New York: St Martin's Press, and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993, xii + 254 pp., illustrations, index, £45.00.

Timothy Edward O'Connor, The Engineer of Revolution. L. B. Krasin and the Bolsheviks, 1870–1926. Oxford: Westview, 1992, xix + 322 pp., £36.95.     

Presupposition under cross-examination

Conclusion Facts do not carry their own guarantee of acceptability or criterion of truth around with them and they are relevant to judicial proceedings only as extrajudicial antecedents of an overall narrative version and explanation of events. Apart from the story being told, there are two main factors in the verification of the story: the demeanour of individual witnesses, and the plausibility or consistency of the whole narrative as presented to the Court. Lawyers speak of the quality of evidence: evidence may be of good or bad quality in the sense of standing up to scrutiny and being convincing, or otherwise.Presupposition is one form of indirectness, a method of verifying facts and credibility by making it a little easier for witnesses to give one answer rather than another so that, if they then reject the easier and choose the more difficult, some additional weight may be attached to the answer chosen. It thus elicits a better quality evidence, in the sense of being more likely to convince, more plausible, more persuasive or more coherent. In allowing counsel to present his story, while formally asking questions and thereby respecting the rules of evidence which require witness participation in the story-telling, it seems to test new information somewhat more efficiently than old, by relying more directly on witnesses' perception of what is actually being asked so as to accept or reject it. It is also one method by which evidence may be checked against a witness's earlier testimony or that of another witness in a manner that does not alert him to the immediate or entire purpose of the questioning, thus adding some extra credibility to his evidence if he seems to be in full control of a coherent and consistent (part of the) story.Presupposition, then, has three basic uses in Courtroom questioning: it can help to tell the story, it can introduce new items of information and it can help to test witness credibility. In each case it makes a legitimate, effective and perfectably respectable contribution to the judicial process.     

Italian population data for D1S1656, D3S1358, D8S1132, D10S2325, VWA, FES/FPS, and F13A01.

Allele frequencies for seven STRs loci were obtained from a sample of 215 unrelated healthy Italian individuals.