Petitioning in early seventeenth-century Scotland, 1625–51

ABSTRACT

In contrast to recent work on England and other parts of Europe, research on petitioning in early modern Scotland is still in its early stages, notably in respect of its political significance in a comparative context. This article investigates supplicatory activity in Scotland during a crucial period in which the petition came under intense scrutiny. The 1630s saw a determined attempt by King Charles I’s Scottish government to clamp down on the use of supplications to express criticism of royal policy; assertive, but carefully controlled, petitioning was one part of a resistance strategy that resulted in the downfall of the king’s regime. When a new government came to power in 1638 headed by the Covenanters, petitioning activity came to be seen as a potential challenge to their authority. Petitioning does not appear to have invoked ‘opinion’ in 1640s Scotland as has been claimed for England; the printed petition remained a rarity in Scotland. Nevertheless constitutional reform, combined with the wartime conditions of the 1640s, generated more recourse to petitioning, and the government recognized opportunities to enhance its claims to legitimate rule. A preliminary investigation of everyday petitions to the government during the 1640s shows how the narratives constructed by supplicants often sought to endorse its values and ideals, but that this type of petitioning was also used by supplicants to critique the government’s policies and hold it to its own rhetoric.     

A note on the optimality of (even more) incomplete strict liability

This paper starts from the premise that liability is incomplete and establishes that firms may nevertheless invest excessively in care. This may justify a (further) reduction in the level of liability from a social standpoint, thereby arguing against seeking to approach full compensation as close as possible. In our framework, firms are liable under product liability, but also invest in care to prevent consumers’ switching to competitors. Affecting the partition of consumers by means of care-taking is not desirable from a social standpoint. Consequently, it may be optimal to reduce liability below a given level of incomplete compensation in order to adjust firms’ care incentives.     

“祖立克”轮舟山海域油污事故所引发的船东与保赔协会在英国法院的诉讼——对伊制裁与保赔责任

对伊制裁将航运服务列为限制活动对租约和保赔保险等航运活动产生了诸多影响。分析英国高等法院审理的the“ZOORIK”轮保赔责任案中的争议焦点，法院认为英国财政部签发的批准证书允许汽船互保协会可以为伊朗航运继续提供保险责任保障，保险性质没有发生变化；同时《对伊朗金融限制令》和批准证书并不能够使汽船互保协会向伊朗航运进行的保险赔偿支付变得非法，不能导致保赔保险合同因受挫而终止。     

广东地区外国人涉毒犯罪特点及对策探讨

近年来外国人涉毒犯罪案件不断增多,毒品犯罪案件已成为外国人在广东省境内犯罪主要的类型,呈现出犯罪主体有组织化、犯罪手段多样化、利用物流快递渠道贩毒、案件处理过程复杂等特点。广东警方整合各方资源,通过加强国际刑事司法合作、完善日常管理和重点管控模式、依法将在粤外国人的非正式组织纳入政府管理、建立快递业的禁毒“大查控”体系等措施有效地遏制了在粤外国人涉毒犯罪的增长态势。     

Twelve-locus Y-STR haplotypes in the Flemish population

POPULATION: One hundred and thirteen unrelated Flemish men from Belgium.     

Human genomic DNA quantitation system, H-Quant: development and validation for use in forensic casework

The human DNA quantification (H-Quant) system, developed for use in human identification, enables quantitation of human genomic DNA in biological samples. The assay is based on real-time amplification of AluYb8 insertions in hominoid primates. The relatively high copy number of subfamily-specific Alu repeats in the human genome enables quantification of very small amounts of human DNA. The oligonucleotide primers present in H-Quant are specific for human DNA and closely related great apes. During the real-time PCR, the SYBR Green I dye binds to the DNA that is synthesized by the human-specific AluYb8 oligonucleotide primers. The fluorescence of the bound SYBR Green I dye is measured at the end of each PCR cycle. The cycle at which the fluorescence crosses the chosen threshold correlates to the quantity of amplifiable DNA in that sample. The minimal sensitivity of the H-Quant system is 7.6 pg/microL of human DNA. The amplicon generated in the H-Quant assay is 216 bp, which is within the same range of the common amplifiable short tandem repeat (STR) amplicons. This size amplicon enables quantitation of amplifiable DNA as opposed to a quantitation of degraded or nonamplifiable DNA of smaller sizes. Development and validation studies were performed on the 7500 real-time PCR system following the Quality Assurance Standards for Forensic DNA Testing Laboratories.