U.S. responses to the Tiananmen and Kwangju incidents: American relations with China and Korea

This article focuses upon American relations with China and Korea through a comparative exploration of U.S. responses to the 1989 Tiananmen and 1980 Kwangju incidents. The thesis contends that U.S. policy towards both countries was founded primarily upon security and economic interests and was often obscured by a lack of understanding of these nations’ internal affairs, history, and culture. Although these factors exist in U.S. relations with the two countries, the United States places greater importance upon China than Korea, a situation that does not necessarily benefit Americans.     

Use of radiographic atlases in a mass fatality

In May and June of 1996, a forensic anthropology team from the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory at the University of Florida identified 9 of 10 juveniles from the crash of ValuJet 592. The team relied primarily on a radiographic atlas developed and used by clinical practitioners to determine skeletal age. Postmortem radiographs of the juvenile victims were compared with radiographic standards to determine skeletal age. Skeletal age was then compared to a passenger list indicating the sex, weight, height, and chronological age of each individual. Tentative identifications based on the atlas method were organized into an exclusion matrix. Final identifications were based on this assessment in conjunction with other anthropological data such as appearance and fusion of ossification centers and estimation of stature.     

State prison expansion: An explanatory model

This article, through development of an explanatory model called the process model, attempts to account for differences among states in levels of prison expansion. The model recognizes the importance of the tie between prisoner population and prison growth but considers additional factors which mediate this relationship. Given increases in prisoner populations, the model posits that the extent of prison construction is determined by three broad classes of factors: accelarators, which increase the probability of construction, and buffers and inhibitors, which decrease the probability. First, the rudiments of the process model are sketched and the accelerator, buffer, and inhibitor variables are described. Next, the process model is developed more fully through an examination of prison expansion in ten example states. Finally, the implications of the model are explored.