They Sell Skulls Online?! A Review of Internet Sales of Human Skulls on eBay and the Laws in Place to Restrict Sales

Internet sales of human remains occur despite the existence of laws prohibiting such action in most jurisdictions. The most popular public platform for online sales, eBay, allows users to postskeletal material for sale, largely anonymously and without much fear of legal repercussions. This survey of skeletal sales was conducted 10 years after the first article published about online human remains sales. A review of current laws reveals that, while many states have laws that restrict any sale of human remains, those laws have questionable deterrent effect. Assessing the skeletal material posted for sale provides law enforcement agencies with a necessary starting point to curtail the sale of human remains through enforcement of existing laws. Ultimately, the goal is to stem the commodification of such items and to recover skeletal material, especially that which may be of archaeological or forensic significance, and provide the proper final disposition for such material.     

Frisky business: race,gender and police activity during traffic stops

European Journal of Law and Economics - Since the United States Supreme Court laid the foundation for “stop-and-frisk” activity by police departments, a substantial amount of research...     

New Labour in Perspective: A Comment on Rubinstein

In a recent issue of this journal, David Rubinstein (2000) questioned Stephen Driver and Luke Martell's characterisation of New Labour as a fundamental break with the past. Rubinstein notes important continuities between 'Old' Labour governments and the current Blair government, and correctly challenges Driver and Martell's simple 'old'/'new' portrayal. However, he underestimates the extent to which contextual changes impact upon a left-of-centre government's ability to achieve its aims.     

Survival and Accountability: An Analysis of the Empirical Support for "Selectorate Theory"

This study re-examines the empirical support for one of the most influential explanations of leadership tenure, "selectorate theory," by testing for consistency across key regime categories. The argument made herein is that if the measures are good, the consistency of their relationships should not be limited to particular nominal regime categories, and they should capture the implications of the theory differentiating it from competing theories. Current measures of selectorate theory concepts are wanting on both fronts. I find that the measure used for winning coalition size is correlated with the destabilization of leaders in democracies and the stabilization of leaders in nondemocracies. I also find that the measure of selectorate size exhibits two behaviors inconsistent with the theory: larger selectorates are only stabilizing after the leader has already been in office for an extended period of time; and the effect is only substantial for differentiating between types of military regimes. These findings have five implications: (1) they cast serious doubt on the utility of current measures of selectorate theory; (2) they raise conceptual questions about the treatment of political regimes as vectors or categories; (3) they define substantive, not just statistical, issues that future measures will need to address; (4) they give baselines for re-analysis of the effect of these measures on other implications of interest; and (5) they provide an interesting comment on the comparative politics literature on hybrid regimes and the effect of parliamentary institutions in nondemocratic regimes.     

The evolving discipline of public affairs

• Approaching the tenth anniversary of this Journal of Public Affairs, as the editorial team we offer this extended literature review as our reflection on the evolution and development of public affairs, both as an academic discipline and a professional practice. It is a necessarily personal and subjective contribution, highlighting the issues and areas which we believe represent significant continuing debates. The article considers how public affairs is, and should be, defined; examines the range of activities which theorists and practitioners understand as falling within the scope of corporate public affairs; analyses the relationship between public affairs and corporate political activity as different though complementary fields; discusses the importance of the public issues life cycle and the issues management models; and calls upon the public affairs community to defend the position of public affairs as the fundamental bridge between the organisation, society and government, in the face of challenges from other organisational functions.

Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pictures at an exhibition revisited: reflections on a typology of images used in the construction of corporate social responsibility and sustainability in non‐financial corporate reporting

• Strategic corporate and public affairs communication about Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has emerged as a major component of corporate efforts to interact with their stakeholders and society at large. Non‐financial reporting, and CSR reporting in particular, is now seen as an essential corporate communication process by most members of a company's stakeholder community. This growth in CSR reporting has been driven by the need to increase corporate transparency and accountability concerning social and environmental issues. Arguably, the European Union is the most progressive region in adopting CSR reporting. Almost all of Europe's top 100 companies report on social and environmental performance, whilst figures for the USA and the rest of the world are much lower. The latest Accountability Rating concludes that ‘Europe leads, America lags’ after measuring companies' social and environmental impacts.
• The authors argue that visual communication is as important as words and numbers in creating meaning and assess UK and German Companies' non‐financial performance. Utilizing a range of research methods including content analysis and semiotic interpretation the authors propose a typology of images used in non‐financial reporting. This typology and associated conceptual development can used to more accurately define and interpret CSR and sustainability.

Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A Preliminary Investigation into the Accuracy of 3D Modeling and 3D Printing in Forensic Anthropology Evidence Reconstruction,

There is currently no published empirical evidence‐base demonstrating 3D printing to be an accurate and reliable tool in forensic anthropology, despite 3D printed replicas being exhibited as demonstrative evidence in court. In this study, human bones (n = 3) scanned using computed tomography were reconstructed as virtual 3D models (n = 6), and 3D printed using six commercially available printers, with osteometric data recorded at each stage. Virtual models and 3D prints were on average accurate to the source bones, with mean differences from ?0.4 to 1.2 mm (?0.4% to 12.0%). Interobserver differences ranged from ?5.1 to 0.7 mm (?5.3% to 0.7%). Reconstruction and modeling parameters influenced accuracy, and prints produced using selective laser sintering (SLS) were most consistently accurate. This preliminary investigation into virtual modeling and 3D printer capability provides a novel insight into the accuracy of 3D printing osteological samples and begins to establish an evidence‐base for validating 3D printed bones as demonstrative evidence.