Income distribution and socioeconomic mobility: A framework for analysis and planning

This paper analyses income distribution and socioeconomic mobility within a framework that: (1) incorporates a dynamic as well as a static view of equity, (2) includes the distribution of income by households or individuals and also by socioeconomic classes, and (3) explicitly includes the translation from the distribution by socioeconomic groups into the overall size distribution. The dynamic analysis makes use of a mobility matrix which is similar to the transition matrix in dynamic Markov analysis. A representative mobility matrix is presented which includes ten socioeconomic groups. Four categories of mobility are identified: (1) rural‐urban migration, (2) movements within the urban labour market, (3) movement through the educational system, and (4) capital formation and asset redistribution. Some numerical examples are given analysing development strategies combining high or low socioeconomic mobility with equalising or unequalising growth.     

Literary feature reviews

Taking stock of dead people: Argentina's reflections on the ‘Dirty War’ years

A State of Fear: Memories of Argentina's Nightmare. Andrew Graham‐Yooll, London: Eland. 1986. 180pp. £9.95hb/£4.95pb

Requiem for a Woman's Soul. Omar Rivabella, London: Penguin. 1986. 116pp. £2.95pb

The Duke: Memories and Antimemories of a Participant in the Repression. Enrique Medina, London: Zed. 1985. 120pp. £8.95hb/£3.95pb

The Shadow by the Door. Gerardo Di Masso, London: Zed. 1986. 96pp. £8.95hb/£3.95pb

The Long Night of Frncisco Sanctis. Humberto Costantini, London: Fontana. 1985. 184pp. £3.50pb

Caribbean contrasts

Frangipani House. Beryl Gilroy, 1986. 111pp. £3.50pb

Apata: The Story of a Reluctant Criminal. Harold A Bascom, 1986. 279pp. £3.95pb

Beka Lamb. Zee Edgell, 1986. 171pp. £3.50pb

The Wine of Astonishment. Earl Lovelace, 1986. 146pp. £3.50pb

The Lights on the Hill. Garth St Omer, 1986. 119pp. £3.50pb

London: Heinemann Educational Books (Caribbean Writers Series)     

‘Something older than law itself’: Sir Henry Maine,Niebuhr, and ‘the path not chosen’

This article re-evaluates the intellectual context of Maine's historical jurisprudence by emphasising the importance of his classical background. Maine's time at Cambridge coincided with the rise of ‘progressive classical scholarship’, especially the study of ancient history in its social, economic and institutional setting. By exploring the links between Maine's work and that of the ancient historian Barthold Georg Niebuhr, the article argues that an understanding of Maine's classical provenance enriches the appreciation of his work, especially its literary, interdisciplinary and educational challenge to the common law mind. Maine emerges on this account as a Victorian ‘neo-humanist’ whose later neglect is symptomatic of the more general separation of nineteenth-century English jurisprudence from mainstream European thought.     

The lecturer,the law student and the transmission of legal culture

Abstract

This paper presents a critique of recent work on the culture of the law school and its inhabitants. It examines two questions raised particularly by the work of Professor Fiona Cownie¹, one about staff and the other about students. Cownie detects a shift to greater eclecticism in the general intellectual climate of the legal academy and this paper questions whether this new stance is intellectually coherent. The second issue considered is the extent to which certain features of legal academic culture; its theoretical stances, the skills and values taught, persist and have an enduring effect on law students after they have left the academy and moved to the world of work.     

Integrated DNA and Fingerprint Analyses in the Identification of 60‐Year‐Old Mummified Human Remains Discovered in an Alaskan Glacier

Abstract: This report describes the identification of a merchant mariner who perished in 1948 when Northwest Airlines Flight 4422, a DC‐4 carrying 24 seamen and six crew members crashed into Mount Sanford, Alaska. Fifty‐one years later, a human forearm and hand were found close by the wreckage of the plane, prompting identification efforts using DNA and fingerprints. There were significant challenges to both the fingerprint and DNA analyses. The hand was badly desiccated, making fingerprint friction‐ridge detail almost invisible and the remains had been embalmed upon discovery, making DNA amplification difficult. We present the results of an interdisciplinary approach that successfully addressed these challenges and ultimately led to the identification of the remains. These efforts relied on efficient fingerprint rejuvenation and imaging techniques that improved print resolution, as well as new DNA extraction techniques optimized for aggressively embalmed remains.     

Detection of Brodifacoum and other Rodenticides in Drug Mixtures using Thermal Desorption Direct Analysis in Real Time Mass Spectrometry (TD‐DART‐MS)

In recent months, there has been increased reporting of seized drug and toxicology cases containing rodenticides, the active ingredient in rat poisons. Seeing as rodenticides are not scheduled substances, they are not commonly screened for in seized drug analysis. This work investigates the use of TD‐DART‐MS for the simultaneous detection of rodenticides and drugs. Six rodenticides were evaluated, an optimal method was established, and limits of detection in the tens of nanograms were calculated. Additional studies highlight that detection at less than 1% by weight in mixtures with AB‐FUBINACA, cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamine was possible. This work presents an optimized method for detection of these compounds, allowing for the simultaneous detection of drugs and rodenticides, providing drug chemists with a tool for rapid identification of these compounds for forensic or public health purposes.     

European national news

This article tracks developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications and provides a concise alerting service of important national developments. It is co-ordinated by Herbert Smith Freehills LLP and contributed to by firms across Europe. This column provides a concise alerting service of important national developments in key European countries. Part of its purpose is to complement the Journal's feature articles and briefing notes by keeping readers abreast of what is currently happening ``on the ground'' at a national level in implementing EU level legislation and international conventions and treaties. Where an item of European National News is of particular significance, CLSR may also cover it in more detail in the current or a subsequent edition.