On National Courts, European Law and Constitutions: Dialogue and Conflict

Books reviewed in this article:
A.-M. Slaughter, A. Stone Sweet, J.H.H. Weiler (eds), Legal Change in Its Social Context     

What I think I see: reflections on the foundations of social policy*

‘I wouldn't like to be sure my vision is true, but I am quite sure that there is something for us to see, aren't you?’ Plato's Republic: Socrates to Glaucon     

Compliance with Food Safety Laws in Germany: Food Businesses in Berlin

In this article we explore how variables associated both with material temptations (economic incentives that foster rule breaking) and nonmaterial behavioral determinants (protective factors that shield people from rule breaking) are linked to compliance with food laws. The object of the study is to examine food businesses in the ready‐to‐eat industry in three districts of the German capital, Berlin. We collected data on compliance behavior and its potential drivers via an anonymous postal survey in 2014. Accounting for the data structure, we used a generalized ordered logit regression to model the relationship between the presumed behavioral drivers and compliance. One crucial finding is that a feeling of embarrassment if relevant others were to learn about noncompliance is positively related to compliance. The same holds for the internalized approval of food laws and their enforcement (acceptance of rules).     

Sudden Death Due to Coronary Arteritis

We report the case of a middle‐aged man, without medical history, who suddenly died at his workplace. The autopsy highlighted a pathological heart macroscopically, with multiple small white areas on the left myocardium. Coronary dissection revealed a pseudotumoural fibromyxoid aspect within the anterior interventricular artery (AIVA) and the left main coronary trunk, including reduction in their diameter with tight stenosis. Microscopic examination of these arteries showed fibroinflammatory wall destruction. In the left myocardium, there were multiple focal ischemic areas at different stages of recovery. Our case is an illustration of primary ischemic heart disease due to coronary arteritis, with a pseudotumoural presentation, which was revealed by sudden death. We discuss the cause of death and the etiological diagnosis preceding coronary arteritis.     

Correction to: (Sex) Crime and Punishment in the #MeToo Era: How the Public Views Rape

Political Behavior - The original version of this article mistakenly listed “the Foundations of Human Behavior Initiative at Harvard University” in Acknowledgements section. The proper...     

A Talmudic constrained voting majority rule

Public Choice - Talmudic Law requires a minimal supermajority (13 out of 23) for conviction, but at the same time, provides that a unanimous conviction leads to a mistrial. We derive the necessary...     

Reconstruction of the sitting position in automobiles by microtrace analysis

Three car accidents are described in which microtrace analysis was of special significance in the clarification of the seating positions. In all three cases the occupants were under the influence of alcohol. In each case the accident occurred at night and without witnesses. The pattern of injuries in two cases was non-specific. In the first case, no fiber traces were visible to the naked eye; in the other two the fibers were recognizable to the naked eye after close examination. In all three cases, the seating position was ascertained by means of fiber trace analysis.     

Sudden, unexpected death due to fourth ventricular subependymoma

A case of sudden, unexpected death due to fourth ventricular subependymoma (subependymal glomerate astrocytoma) in a 60-year-old man is presented. Sudden, unexpected death due to uncomplicated subependymoma has not been previously described.     

Metric Sex Determination of the Human Coxal Bone on a Virtual Sample using Decision Trees

Decision trees provide an alternative to multivariate discriminant analysis, which is still the most commonly used in anthropometric studies. Our study analyzed the metric characterization of a recent virtual sample of 113 coxal bones using decision trees for sex determination. From 17 osteometric type I landmarks, a dataset was built with five classic distances traditionally reported in the literature and six new distances selected using the two-step ratio method. A ten-fold cross-validation was performed, and a decision tree was established on two subsamples (training and test sets). The decision tree established on the training set included three nodes and its application to the test set correctly classified 92% of individuals. This percentage was similar to the data of the literature. The usefulness of decision trees has been demonstrated in numerous fields. They have been already used in sex determination, body mass prediction, and ancestry estimation. This study shows another use of decision trees enabling simple and accurate sex determination.