Rethinking the one-stop-shop mechanism: Legal certainty and legitimate expectation

This paper aims to contribute to the discussion concerning the one-stop-shop mechanism proposed in the General Data Protection Regulation (hereinafter “GDPR”). The choice of regulation as the instrument to legislate on data protection is already an unmistakable indication that unification and simplification (together with respect of data subjects' interests) shall be the guide for every legal discussion on the matter. The one-stop-shop mechanism (hereinafter “OSS”) clearly reflects the unification and simplification which the reform aims for. We believe that OSS is logically connected with the idea of one Data Protection Authority (hereinafter “DPA”) with an exclusive jurisdiction and that this can only mean that, given one controller, no other DPA can be a competent authority.² In other words, OSS implies a single and comprehensive competent authority of a given controller. In our analysis we argue that such architecture: a) works well with the “consistency mechanism”; b) provides guarantees to data subjects for a clear allocation of powers (legal certainty); and c) is not at odds with the complaint lodging procedure. Our position on fundamental questions is as follows. What is the perimeter of competence of the DPA in charge? We believe that it should have enforcement power on every issue of the controller, including issuing the fines. How to reconcile such dominant role of one DPA with the principle of co-operation among DPAs? We do not consider co-operation at odds with the rule that decisions are taken by just one single authority. Finally, we share some suggestions on how to make the jurisdiction allocation mechanism (the main establishment criterion) more straightforward.     

Allele frequencies of nine STR loci—D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS and vWA—in the population from Alagoas, northeastern Brazil

The polymorphism of nine STR loci has been studied in a sample of 598 individuals from the population of Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil. Determination of the allele frequencies as well as of several commonly used statistics in forensic and paternity testing were defined. The most polymorphic loci were TH01 and D7S317. The exact test demonstrated that the nine loci analyzed in the population have no deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (P>0.05).     

Family Structure and Problem Behavior of Adolescents and Young Adults: A Growth-Curve Study

In the present longitudinal 3-wave study of 1274 adolescents and young adults, aged 12–24 at the 1st wave, it is examined whether youngsters from intact versus postdivorce families show long-term differences in internalizing and externalizing problems. Furthermore, possible differences in the development of this problem behavior between offspring from intact and postdivorce families are examined, i.e., possible differences in growth curves of internalizing and externalizing problems are investigated. Longitudinal multilevel analyses reveal long-term differences in internalizing and externalizing problems according to family structure. Adolescents and young adults growing up in postdivorce families display more internalizing and externalizing problem behavior than youngsters of intact families. The development of these 2 types of problem behavior does not differ by gender or family structure. That is, the shape of the growth curves of internalizing and externalizing problem behavior is similar for boys and girls and also for youngsters from intact and postdivorce families. Inge VanderValk is a Postdoc Researcher at the Department of Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She received her Ph.D. in 2004 from Utrecht University. Her major research interests include associations between adolescent adjustment and parental marital quality and parental divorce. Ed Spruijt is an Associate Professor at the University of Utrecht. He received his Ph.D. in 1983 from Utrecht University. His major research interests are the consequences of parental divorce and visitation arrangements on children. Martijn de Goede is an associate Professor at Utrecht University, Department of Methodology and Statistics. He received his Ph.D. in 1988 from Utrecht University. His major research interests are occupational and relational life courses of youngsters. Cora Maas is an Assistent Professor at Utrecht University, Department of Methodology and Statistics. She received her PH.D. in 1992 in Utrecht from Utrecht University. Her major interests are: multilevel analysis (theory and applications). Wim Meeus is full Professor of Adolescent Development at Utrecht University. He received his Ph.D. in 1984 from Utrecht University. His major research interests are personality, identity, and relationships in adolescence.     

An American Perestroika in Dutch Cities? Urban Policy in the Netherlands at the End of a Millennium

This paper discusses the implications of the recent adoption of interactive forms of governance in Dutch urban policy. Advocates of this new approach claim that interactive governance will have positive effects for (1) the quality of urban democracy and urban governability and (2) for the solution of the information problems inherent in coping with (wicked) urban problems. On the basis of an extensive evaluation of the implementation of the new policies in four of the 25 Dutch municipalities involved, these claims are critically assessed.     

Provisional Court Protection in Administrative Disputes in Europe: The Constitutional Status of Interim Measures Deriving from the Right to Effective Court Protection. A Comparative Approach

Abstract: Interim protection in remedies against the public administration has proved to be one of the key issues in today's justice. In effect, the slowness of judicial proceedings means that final judicial decisions cannot guarantee the rights and interests of the litigants any more, because those decisions arrive too late. Thus, effective judicial protection is at stake. On the other hand, public administrations have traditionally disposed of privileges, one of the most important of them being the so‐called executive character of administrative acts. The national debate on the equilibrium between both principles—effective judicial protection and the executive character of administrative acts—needs to be exported to the Community law context. Community law should therefore learn from national experiences, as other legal orders, such as the Spanish one, have done, turning to comparative law in order to improve their own model of interim protection.     

New Nonlinear Approaches for the Adjustment and Updating of a SAM

Many structural relationships should be taken into account in any reasonable adjustment and updating process. These structural relationships are mainly represented by ratios of different types, such as technical coefficients or the proportion of the cell value in relation to its row or column total. We believe that in many cases (either because of lack of information or when the time elapsed for the estimation of a social accounting matrix is not long enough to allow for any significant structural change) the updating process should try to minimize the rela- tive deviation of the new coefficients from the initial ones in a homogeneous way. This homogeneity would mean that the magnitude of this relative deviation is similar among the elements of each row or column, therefore avoiding the concentration of the changes in particular cells of the SAM. In this work, we propose some new adjustment criteria in order to obtain a more homogeneous relative adjustment of the structural coefficients. These criteria combine the adjustment method proposed by Matuszewski et al. (1964) with other deviation functions. Each of the adjustment criteria proposed leads to a nonlinear optimization problem which is reformulated as a linear program. We test the usefulness of this proposal by comparing its results with the ones obtained by more standard approaches and we are able to show that these approaches tend to produce a less homogeneous pattern of coefficient adjustment, under certain circumstances, than the ones we put forward.     

Nondestructive Methods for Recovery of Biological Material from Human Teeth for DNA Extraction

The extraction of DNA from human skeletal remains applied to forensic, and evolutionary studies do not exclude risks, which are to be evaluated when working with unique specimens that could be damaged or even destroyed. In the present study were evaluated several nondestructive methods for recovering DNA instead of the most currently used pulverization method. Three different procedures to access inside the dental pieces (occlusal perforation, cervical perforation, and cervical cut) have been compared with the aim of recovering as many cell remains as possible to carry out a DNA extraction. Given the DNA quantitation results, a method was proposed that consists of a cervical cut to facilitate the access to the pulp cavity and a subsequent filing of the root canals down to the apex of the dental root. This methodology allows the recovery of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, with the minimum deterioration for the dental pieces.