A Preliminary Examination of Differential Decomposition Patterns in Mass Graves

Five pairs of mass graves, each containing carcasses of 21 rabbits, were used to examine differential decomposition at four locations within the burial: surface, deep, mid‐outer, and core. Every 100 accumulated degree days (ADD), a pair of graves was exhumed, and total body score (TBS) and internal carcass temperature of each rabbit were recorded. Decomposition did not differ for core‐ and deep‐positioned carcasses (p = 0.13); differences were significant (p < 0.001) for all other location comparisons. Decomposition occurred fastest in shallow carcasses, followed by mid‐outer carcasses; deep and core carcasses decomposed slowest and at rates not significantly different from one another. Adipocere formation was minimal and confined to deep carcasses. Carcass location within the mass grave significantly influenced internal carcass temperature (p < 0.001); a mean internal temperature difference of ca. 1°C existed between deep and shallow carcasses (30 cm apart). Effects of mass compactness and oxygenation require further investigation.     

“The ladder of the law has no top and no bottom”: How therapeutic jurisprudence can give life to international human rights

In the past two decades, therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) has become one of the most important theoretical approaches to the law. But, there has, as of yet, been puzzlingly little written about the relationship between TJ and international human rights law. To be sure, there has been some preliminary and exploratory work on the relationship between TJ and international law in general, but virtually nothing on its relationship to international human rights law in a mental disability law context. This paper seeks to focus on this lack of consideration, to speculate as to why that might be, and to offer some suggestions as to how to infuse some new vitality and vigor into this important area of law and social policy.     

Do bone elasticity and postmortem interval affect forensic fractographic analyses?

Forensic fractographic features of bone reliably establish crack propagation in perimortem injuries. We investigated if similar fracture surface features characterize postmortem fractures. Experimentally induced peri- and postmortem fractures were used to assess if fractographic features vary as bone elasticity decreases during the postmortem interval (PMI). Thirty-seven unembalmed, defleshed human femoral shafts from males and females aged 33–81 years were fractured at varying PMIs with a drop test frame using a three-point bending setup and recorded with a high-speed camera. Vital statistics, cause of death, PMI length, temperature, humidity, collagen percentage, water loss, fracture energy, and fractography scores were recorded for each sample. Results showed that fractographic features associated with perimortem fractures were expressed in PMIs up to 40,600 accumulated degree hours (ADH), or 60 warm weather days. Hackle was the most consistently expressed feature, occurring in all fractures regardless of ADH. The most variable characteristics were wake features (78.4%) and arrest ridges (70.3%). Collagen percentage did not correlate strongly with ADH (r = −0.04, p = 0.81); however, there was a strong significant correlation between ADH and water loss (r = 0.74, p < 0.001). Multinomial logistic regression showed no association between fractographic feature expression and ADH or collagen percentage. In conclusion, forensic fractographic features reliably determine initiation and directionality of crack propagation in experimentally induced PMIs up to 40,600 ADH, demonstrating the utility of this method into the recent postmortem interval. This expression of reliable fractographic features throughout the early PMI intimates these characteristics may not be useful standalone features for discerning peri- versus postmortem fractures.     

Personal budgets in adult social care: the fact and the fiction of the Care Act 2014

ABSTRACT

Personal budgets have been heavily promoted in government policy in England as a means of increasing the personalisation of public services, particularly in the field of adult social care. The Care Act 2014 for the first time creates a statutory requirement for personal budgets to be allocated to all individuals using state funded social care. This article examines how a particular rhetoric has developed in social care policy around personal budgets, which draws freely on the language of the disabled people’s movement and suggests that grassroots ideas are the central purpose for the introduction of personal budgets into policy. It considers whether the promises made in policy are embedded in the 2014 Act and finds that there is a mismatch between claims in social care policy on the one hand and the model of personal budgets created by the 2014 Act on the other. It concludes that the policy rhetoric around personal budgets directly appropriates the language and ideas of the disabled people’s movement while promoting a wholly distinct agenda of public sector marketisation.     

Caregiving and quality of life

ABSTRACT

The increase in life expectancy for adults with learning disabilities has extended the caring role for their parents. This study examined the experiences of older parents who provide long-term care for their adult children with learning disabilities and how they conceptualise their quality of life. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews with 27 older parent carers from four London boroughs and were analysed using framework technique. Findings indicate that most parents appraised their quality of life positively and reported benefits, despite the challenges they had to negotiate daily. The benefits from caregiving, more so in later life, were: a connected family from shared caregiving; a sense of belonging; purposeful living; a reciprocal relationship with their adult children; and personal transformations from providing care that improved their quality of life. The challenges that participants regularly encountered were: multiple losses (sleep, career, identity and friends); the added stress of the government’s Personalisation Agenda of caring services; struggles for access to services; searching for a diagnosis; worry about future care and fear of abuse when carers are unable to continue in their role; unhelpful attitudes of health and social care professionals; and a lack of empathy from friends as well as the public towards people with learning disabilities. Caregiving and quality of life are inextricably linked and the difficulties that parents experienced were mainly associated with socio-structural barriers, rather than their children’s disabilities. Importantly, the findings inform the practice of social workers and others who support this unique group of carers by providing new insights into how caring impacts on quality of life over time and how best these parents’ needs can be met. This study makes a specific contribution to understanding the lived realities of older carers and extends current conceptualisations of caregiving and quality of life among older people.     

Financial Development,Entrepreneurship and Urban-rural Inequality

Based on the panel data of prefecture-level city over 2000—2012, this article shows that financial development can reduce urban-rural inequality through entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the above relationship is related to the degree of marketization. Among the three major regions of China, it is the most remarkable in the east area where degree of marketization is the highest, the least remarkable in the western area where degree of marketization is the lowest.     

ICF脑卒中核心分类组合功能的图形建模研究

目的依据《国际功能、残疾和健康分类(ICF)》脑卒中核心组合,探讨脑卒中相关功能类目之间的关系,绘制ICF脑卒中核心分类组合的功能地形图,为脑卒中的伤残评定提供科学理论依据。方法收集106例脑卒中被鉴定人样本,采用"最小的绝对缩减和变量选择算子",研究脑卒中ICF核心组合功能的59项类目变量之间的条件依存关系,并用图形建模分析类目之间的内在联系,绘制功能地形图。结果 59项类目之间的相互联系构成了功能地形图,b340、b735、b175和b152因关联性较高而居于地形图的中心位置。结论脑卒中功能地形图可以揭示ICF功能类目之间复杂的关系结构及关联程度。可以为应用ICF进行脑卒中的伤残评定提供科学理论依据。     

A comparison of seclusion rates between intellectual disability and non-intellectual disability services: the effect of gender and diagnosis

Introduction: The use of seclusion as a means of managing the extreme behaviours forensic patients in secure settings is a controversial yet often common practice, despite there being little evidence that seclusion as a practice has any significant therapeutic value for the patient. The aim of this study was to explore the use of seclusion and whether this differs as a function of gender and diagnosis across secure services. Method: This study collated data from 11 medium and low secure hospitals that admit male and female patients, with some services providing services for patients with intellectual disability (with or without co-morbid disorders), and others for patients with mental illness and/or personality disorder only. Results: Both gender and diagnosis were associated with differential seclusion rates. Seclusions were three times longer for patients in the non-ID compared to the ID service. Male seclusions (for any diagnosis) were around twice as long as those in female services. Female ID patients spent significantly less time in seclusion compared to other groups. Female ID was associated with two to three times the number of seclusion events per patient compared to other groups. No statistically significant association between the type of service and the reason for a patient being secluded. Conclusions: A range of organisational factors that determine the use and duration of seclusion are cited and merit further exploration. High rates of psychiatric co-morbidity and the complexity of patients admitted to services may also mediate risk and use of seclusion. The study supports the use of early intervention techniques and the adoption of positive behaviour support.     

我国外贸依存度的结构性特征

外贸依存度高已经成为我国发展对外经济面临的一个突出问题。总体上看,我国外贸依存特征为外贸依存地区、国家集中,外贸依存东高西低,一般贸易外贸依存度上升、但加工贸易依存度依然偏高,附加值低的劳动密集型产品的外贸依存度高,对资源的进口依赖度高,对高技术装备和核心技术的进口依赖高等。研究我国外贸依存度的这些结构性特征,要有针对性地采取应对措施。     

论国家行政侵权赔偿的额度

行政赔偿的标准直接影响行政赔偿的额度 ,而额度的高低决定了对受害人的救济程度。我国在国家行政侵权赔偿中采用的低标准 ,致使在侵犯人身自由权、侵犯生命健康权、侵犯财产权的赔偿额度方面均有不妥当和不公平之处。因此 ,只有改变赔偿标准、提高赔偿额度 ,才能使受害者得到应有的法律救济