Safety,Satisfaction, and Settlement in Domestic Relations Mediations: New Findings

Researchers and mediators have long been concerned about coercion, intimidation, and safety threats that could occur in mediation for cases where previous violence between the parties has occurred. Most of the research focuses on screening tools to identify parties at risk. When parties screen positive for intimate partner violence (IPV), some proceed to mediation and some do not, depending on the policies of individual mediation programs. But this misses a step: Some cases may benefit from mediation while others won't, but how can we predict whether mediation will be useful and safe in specific instances? This study uses survey data obtained from parties in domestic relations mediations to examine issues of safety, satisfaction, and settlement in the presence of various IPV behaviors.     

Analysis of ketamine and norketamine in urine by automatic solid-phase extraction (SPE) and positive ion chemical ionization-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (PCI-GC-MS)

Ketamine (KT) is widely abused for hallucination and also misused as a "date-rape" drug in recent years. An analytical method using positive ion chemical ionization-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (PCI-GC-MS) with an automatic solid-phase extraction (SPE) apparatus was studied for the determination of KT and its major metabolite, norketamine (NK), in urine. Six ketamine suspected urine samples were provided by the police. For the research of KT metabolism, KT was administered to SD rats by i.p. at a single dose of 5, 10 and 20mg/kg, respectively, and urine samples were collected 24, 48 and 72 h after administration. For the detection of KT and NK, urine samples were extracted on an automatic SPE apparatus (RapidTrace, Zymark) with mixed mode type cartridge, Drug-Clean (200 mg, Alltech). The identification of KT and NK was by PCI-GC-MS. m/z238 (M+1), 220 for KT, m/z 224 (M+1), 207 for NK and m/z307 (M+1) for Cocaine-D(3) as internal standard were extracted from the full-scan mass spectrum and the underlined ions were used for quantitation. Extracted calibration curves were linear from 50 to 1000 ng/mL for KT and NK with correlation coefficients exceeding 0.99. The limit of detection (LOD) was 25 ng/mL for KT and NK. The limit of quantitation (LOQ) was 50 ng/mL for KT and NK. The recoveries of KT and NK at three different concentrations (86, 430 and 860 ng/mL) were 53.1 to 79.7% and 45.7 to 83.0%, respectively. The intra- and inter-day run precisions (CV) for KT and NK were less than 15.0%, and the accuracies (bias) for KT and NK were also less than 15% at the three different concentration levels (86, 430 and 860 ng/mL). The analytical method was also applied to real six KT suspected urine specimens and KT administered rat urines, and the concentrations of KT and NK were determined. Dehydronorketamine (DHNK) was also confirmed in these urine samples, however the concentration of DHNK was not calculated. SPE is simple, and needs less organic solvent than liquid-liquid extraction (LLE), and PCI-GC-MS can offer both qualitative and quantitative information for urinalysis of KT in forensic analysis.     

Wife beating in South Africa: an imbalance theory of resources and power

This article develops an imbalance theory to explain physical violence against women in intimate relationships in South Africa. The theory proposes four typologies: dependence, compensation, submission, and transgression, through which imbalances in resource contribution and power distribution between spouses are hypothesized to contribute to violence. The dependence hypothesis suggests that economic dependence of the wife will lead to more violence. The compensation hypothesis argues that the husband will use force to compensate for his inability to live up to the male-provider norm. The submission hypothesis suggests that violence will increase due to the submission of women in male-dominated families. Finally, the transgression hypothesis argues that men in female-dominated families will use force to punish their wives for supposedly transgressing the gender norm of male dominance. Empirical evidence provided some support for the dependence, submission, and transgression hypotheses.     

韩国的法学教育及律师资格考试改革

韩国最近开设的法科大学院和即将实施的新的律师选拔、培养制度是韩国法律界的一大革新。在大陆法系色彩强烈的韩国法律体系里,能否成功地建立起美国式的法学院制度和律师选拔制度备受关注。尤其是韩国的法学教育以及司法改革制度,是在没有充分的协商和准备的基础上出台的,从一开始就存在很多争议,因此需要设计相应的补充方案。     

Policy Design and Achieving Social Outcomes: A Comparative Analysis of Social Enterprise Policy

This article compares American, British, and Korean social enterprise policies to explore how government policy design shapes social enterprises and how “social benefit” and “public value” are defined. A social enterprise is defined as the legally structured organizational pursuit of blending social purpose and economic profit through business activities, and examples from each country are presented. Applying Bozeman's publicness theory, the authors demonstrate the wide range of roles that governments play in shaping social enterprises' ownership, funding, and control across the three countries using regulations, subsidies, and procurement policies. These roles may affect the impact of social enterprises in society. The case studies show that the U.S. approach to social enterprise policy is heavily market oriented, while the United Kingdom is in the middle of the market-to-publicness continuum, and South Korea is much closer to the publicness (government-dominated) end of the continuum.     

The North Korean factor in the improvement of Japanese intelligence capability

Abstract

Since the early 1990s, human rights have been a contentious issue for relations between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the European Union (EU), especially in the Asia–Europe Meeting (ASEM). It is an issue that has constantly led to tensions in interregional cooperation. However, the ASEAN–EU dialogue on human rights has, in fact, had a significant impact on regional dynamics by stimulating the process of regional identity formation, especially in Southeast Asia. The core mechanism through which this development takes place is that of interaction, the process in which the two regional groupings engage while negotiating human rights policy. It can be argued, therefore, that interregional and intraregional human rights interactions are mutually dependent. ASEAN's rather confrontational mode of interaction with the European Union in relation to human rights has served as a catalyst for the dynamic growth of a collective definition of self in ASEAN. It has led to an ‘essentialization’ of ASEAN's idea of self as opposed to a common other, something which has undermined the possibility of maintaining an interregional dialogue that is not confrontational. However, it has also contributed to the development of a regional space for communicating about human rights and has thus played a central role in the gradual transformation of ASEAN's collective identity formation.     

North Korea's hegemonic rule and its collapse

Ideological leadership through the Party was at the core of the North Korean leaders’ hegemonic rule over the people, which resulted in the great popularity of Kim Il-sung. Marketisation in the wake of the economic crisis, however, significantly impaired the mechanism for rule by consent, especially by triggering the influx of outside information and undermining the Party's ideological education activities. The economic crisis led the state to adjust the mechanism of consent and coercion in such a way that the state's control over society could be restored by relying more on rule by force, which was demonstrated by the much stricter penal system, bloody purges and, most of all, military-first politics. This, nonetheless, was a temporary measure because, in Guha's terms, ‘dominance without hegemony’ would not be durable in the long term. The regime can sustain itself in the long-term only through the reinstatement of the consent mechanism, which disintegrated owing to the marketisation. However, as the marketisation, being beneficial to those who have power as well as ordinary people, is irreversible in North Korea today, the reestablishment of hegemonic rule would not be attainable.     

Employee Satisfaction in Agencies with Merit-Based Pay: Differential Effects for Three Measures

While many studies have sought to understand the association between merit-based pay and organizational performance, few have assessed the psychological well-being of employees in agencies with such incentive schemes. We show that employees in agencies with merit-based pay are less satisfied with their organization than are those working in agencies that do not implement the incentive systems. We also show that this negative effect is larger in the case of organizational satisfaction than for pay satisfaction or employee satisfaction with the job itself.     

习近平主席访韩和韩中关系的新里程碑

2014年7月3日习近平主席对韩国进行了国事访问。通过这次在东北亚安全环境急剧变化的情况下进行的访韩,韩中两国建立了"成熟的"战略合作伙伴关系。在这次访韩中,习主席首次提出了韩中关系的"四个坚持"原则。以此为基础,为了在外交和安全领域中实现韩中关系的实质性成熟,双方决定将各种战略对话和高层会谈机制化;在经济领域中决定年内尽早完成韩中自由贸易协定谈判,建立包括金融在内的高度经济合作框架。此外,在加强两国未来青年领导人的交流和搞活公共外交合作等人文交流方面也取得了重大成果。另外,在外交安全领域也给我们留下了韩国和中国为了追求共同利益需要进一步加强相互理解的课题。尤其是从韩国和中国的外交均处于发展之中,以及朝鲜半岛问题正在中美关系和东北亚国际关系这个更大的框架内运作这一点出发,两国都需要发展更加灵活、更为积极的韩中关系。