Spontaneous rupture of the urinary bladder

The report presents the case of a 33-year-old man under the primary assumption of homicide in which the court-ordered autopsy revealed death as a result of bleeding due to a spontaneous rupture of the urinary bladder. The article gives a short summary of the pathomorphological findings and their respective causes, for example the typical location of the rupture at the posterior wall and roof of the bladder and the common concomitant drunkenness. Furthermore, obligatory forensic investigations--beside the autopsy--are mentioned and discussed.     

Business Associate Agreements Inventory

This Business Associate Agreement Inventory is a checklist for use by covered entities who use or disclose individually identifiable health information with or to their Business Associates. The checklist is designed to assist the covered entities to review their contracts with each respective Business Associate and determine whether the contracts contain all of the provisions required by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act regulations. The regulations addressed in the checklist include the Transactions and Code Sets Standards (effective October 16, 2000), the proposed Security Standards, and the final Privacy Regulations (published December 28, 2000).     

Remunicipalization in German cities: contesting neo-liberalism and reimagining urban governance?

After two decades of widespread privatization, German municipalities have started to re-purchase privatized companies. At the same time, social movements are campaigning for remunicipalization, promoting it as a means of achieving greater urban democracy, though these objectives are often divergent from those of municipalities concerned with reasserting local state autonomy. With reference to Berlin, the paper discusses how remunicipalization campaigns might contribute to post-neo-liberal urban governance. It presents a preliminary frame for developing progressive remunicipalization movements centred on three elements of contestation: rejection of neo-liberalism; connection to other and broader struggles; and commoning as an alternative form of urban governance.     

Measuring the Ambivalence of Religion: Introducing the Religion and Conflict in Developing Countries (RCDC) Dataset

Despite ample anecdotal evidence, previous research on violent conflict has found little evidence that religion is an important factor in organized violence. Quantitative work in this area has been largely confined to the interreligious character of conflict and measures of religious diversity, and has strongly neglected the peace aspect of religion. The Religion and Conflict in Developing Countries (RCDC) dataset helps to fill this gap with innovative and fine-grained data for 130 developing countries between 1990 and 2010. RCDC includes four types of religious violence (assaults on religious targets, attacks by religious actors, clashes between religious communities, and clashes with the state). In addition, RCDC contains data on interreligious networks and peace initiatives. This article demonstrates the usefulness of RCDC by applying our data to a preliminary analysis. The results indicate that interreligious networks are a reaction to identity overlaps and previous interreligious conflict.     

Regulating for media pluralism and the pitfalls of standortpolitik: the reregulation of German broadcasting ownership rules

Germany has witnessed a veritable television boom over the last ten years. However, the plethora of new private channels masks an underlying duopoly, a concentration of media power that has not been prevented by an elaborate system of regulation. This article maps these developments, particularly the Lander competition for investment, the structural power of the media industry, and the emergence of a media policy ‘Grand Coalition’ between SPD North Rhine‐Westphalia and CSU Bavaria. It assesses the Federal Constitutional Court's role and highlights the public broadcasters’ crucial function to act as a pluralistic counterbalance in the dual public/private broadcasting system.     

Heidegger's Political Philosophy and the Theory of the Liberal State

The paper explores Martin Heidegger's political philosophy and its relation to the theory and ethical foundations of the liberal state. It first reconstructs the key doctrines of Heidegger's philosophy formulated in Being and Time. It then turns to Heidegger's later philosophy after the famous turning and investigates its relation to the fundamental ontology of Heidegger's earlier years. In a third step, Heidegger's much discussed Nazism and its link - by some commentators fervently defended and by others passionately denied — to his philosophy is the focus of attention. The findings about Heidegger's philosophy are then critically assessed: firstly as to their philosophical merits concerning fundamental questions of epistemology, ontology or philosophical anthropology and secondly as to their relations to the ethical and theoretical foundations of the liberal state. As a result some proposals are made as to whether or not it is justified to regard Heidegger's work as part of the darker legacies of European thought. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.