Post-feeding larval behaviour in the blowfly, Calliphora vicina: effects on post-mortem interval estimates

Using the rate of development of blowflies colonising a corpse, accumulated degree hours (ADH), or days (ADD), is an established method used by forensic entomologists to estimate the post-mortem interval (PMI). Derived from laboratory experiments, their application to field situations needs care. This study examines the effect of the post-feeding larval dispersal time on the ADH and therefore the PMI estimate. Post-feeding dispersal in blowfly larvae is typically very short in the laboratory but may extend for hours or days in the field, whilst the larvae try to find a suitable pupariation site. Increases in total ADH (to adult eclosion), due to time spent dispersing, are not simply equal to the dispersal time. The pupal period is increased by approximately 2 times the length of the dispersal period. In practice, this can introduce over-estimation errors in the PMI estimate of between 1 and 2 days if the total ADH calculations do not consider the possibility of an extended larval dispersal period.     

European national news

The regular article tracking developments at the national level in key European countries in the area of IT and communications – co-ordinated by Herbert Smith 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 compliment 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.     

Trouble with Ken: new labour's negative campaign in the selection and election process for London mayor

This paper examines the London mayoral selection and election process and discusses New Labour's negative campaign against the candidacy of Ken Livingstone. It discusses the objectives which lay behind the adoption of this new constitutional system of a directly elected mayor and traces New Labour's problems in getting their chosen candidate elected. It traces the Blair leadership's difficulties in choosing a viable candidate, the methods employed to manipulate the selection process and the stunts and dirty tricks used to undermine Living‐ stone's mayoral challenge. It places these problems in the context of media coverage of such a negative and divisive campaign. The paper concludes by outlining some wider implications for New Labour's future campaigning and suggests that voters now have a more tarnished image of New Labour as a result of this campaign. Copyright © 2001 Henry Stewart Publications     

Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Pastor’s Wife: A Reassessment

Abstract

The Pastor’s Wife (1914) may seem at first reading simply another depiction of a woman struggling for liberation in the decades following the work of Thomas Hardy and Henrik Ibsen, being the story of how Ingeborg Bullivant escapes from an English patriarchal home, only to find herself trapped in another one in Germany. The novel, however, marks a turning point in Elizabeth von Arnim’s career; it is a novel that looks back to previous themes while anticipating those to come. It demonstrates, with comedy and bitterness, themes of alienation and exile; satirizes German codes and class; and provides a lyrical Romantic vision of the natural world. It also presents the married woman as a prisoner in a way that anticipates Vera (1921). The novel can also stand alone as an underrated classic that plays an important part in the history of English literature. Published at the beginning of high modernism, it shows, unlike the work of some canonized writers of the time, a fusion of realism and modernism. This essay argues that the novel is a proto-feminist work that is radical in its portrayal of women’s experience and influenced by literary naturalism in its childbirth scenes, but pessimistic about possibilities for change. The essay shows how the novel is modernist in its depiction of the alienated experience of the city; uses nineteenth-century realism in its narrative structure and comedy; and yet is forward-looking in its use of endings. A book that begins as a comedy but ends as a tragedy, The Pastor’s Wife deserves equal recognition with the work of H. G. Wells and E. M. Forster, writers with whom von Arnim was connected and by whom she was influenced.     

Legislative Capacity and Credit Risk

Legislatures differ in their institutional capacity to draft and enact policy. While strong legislatures can increase the congruence of policy outcomes to the electorate's preferences, they can also inject uncertainty into markets with their ability to alter the political economic landscape. We argue that this uncertainty will manifest in a state's ability to borrow and hypothesize a negative relationship between legislative capacity and creditworthiness. Using ratings of general obligation bonds issued by the American states over nearly two decades and data on the institutional capacity of state legislative assemblies, we find support for the claim that having a legislature that is better equipped to affect policy change increases credit risk evaluations. The results we present broaden our understanding of the importance of legislative institutions, the determinants of credit risk, and the economic implications of democratic responsiveness.     

FROM THE INSIDE OUT: CALLING ON STATES TO PROVIDE MEDICALLY NECESSARY CARE TO TRANSGENDER YOUTH IN FOSTER CARE

It is well known that transgender youth in foster care often face egregious discrimination and victimization based on their gender identities. Unfortunately, transgender youth in foster care have also been deprived of transgender-specific medical care that is vital to their health and well-being. This Note advocates that child welfare agencies adopt legislation that will demonstrate their commitment to fulfilling their constitutional duty to provide medically necessary care to transgender youth in their custody. This Note examines recent case law on the topic and addresses counterarguments to the proposal, including risks associated with treatment, high cost, and the stigma of gender identity disorder. Ultimately, this Note concludes that adopting the proposed legislation is a necessary step toward securing health care rights for transgender foster care youth.     

The progress of the betting in a baseball game: A comment

In their article in the current issue of this journal, Sauer et al. compare the evolution of prices of in-game betting markets of baseball games to an empirical model of scoring based on the probability of various game events occurring. The authors correctly suggest this in-game betting market provides an opportunity to examine the efficiency of gambling markets, as the value of the security being examined can be known with a greater degree of precision than the fundamental value of securities being traded in general financial markets. While we appreciate the progress that has occurred, we believe that with some fairly simple changes, the authors may be able to improve the precision of their model to the point where a more powerful commentary on potential market efficiency could be developed. We offer suggestions on more precisely matching of the two sources of data, timing of the events, and dealing with games in which there is a clear pre-game favorite. We close with suggestions for extensions.     

Subcontracting,facilitating and qualities of regional power: the UK’s partial pivot to Asia

Asia Europe Journal - This article explores the UK’s foreign policy “pivot” to Asia, a decade after its tentative beginnings. This pivot is understood to be Britain’s...     

Public servants or police soldiers? An analysis of opinions on the militarization of policing from police executives,law enforcement,and members of the 114th congress U.S. house of representatives

Despite the dramatic rise in use of militarized weapons, equipment, and tactics by police departments across the nation, no study has examined the opinions of those responsible for designing, funding, and implementing police militarization in the United States. Therefore this study collected and analyzed opinion data from 465 key stakeholders from the 114th Congress U.S. House of Representatives, law enforcement executives, and local police officers regarding police militarization. Results suggest that while most practitioners and policymakers favor police militarization, Congress and law enforcement differ in support of critical issues such as oversight of military procurement programs, use of surplus military weapons and vehicles, and overall support for the militarization of policing in the United States.     

Comparing the effects of weathering and microbial degradation on gasoline using principal components analysis

Ignitable liquid residues recovered from a fire scene will often show signs of weathering as a result of exposure to the heat of the fire. In addition, when the substrate is rich in organic matter, both weathering and microbial degradation may be observed. In this study, 20 μL aliquots of fresh gasoline samples were intentionally weathered and also subjected to microbial degradation in potting soil. These samples were then analyzed using a passive adsorption-elution recovery method and gas chromatography/mass spectrometry. Peak areas from compounds of interest were normalized and autoscaled and then subjected to principal components analysis. This analysis showed that while lower boiling compounds are subject to weathering, a different set of compounds are subject to microbial degradation. Of the compounds studied, heptane, octane, toluene, and ethylbenzene were the most vulnerable to both weathering and microbial degradation. In contrast, 1,3,5-trimethylbenzene and 2-ethyltoluene were the most resistant to both phenomena.