Dominant party cohesion in comparative perspective: evidence from South Africa and Namibia

Africa's proliferation of dominant-party regimes is often regarded as an obstacle to democratization. Scholars and practitioners therefore face the task of understanding how and why constitutionally legitimate challenges to dominant party rule occur. This article asks: why do some presidential succession crises act as a catalyst to dominant party fragmentation when others do not? It argues that minority factions are more likely to defect from a dominant party when they have (1) been marginalized by the majority faction and (2) confidence in their mobilizational capacity. Factional purging is in turn traced to autocratic leadership and party under-bureaucratization, whilst high levels of factional self-confidence are linked to crises of dominance and the weakness of extant opposition parties.     

Potential Use of Bacterial Community Succession in Decaying Human Bone for Estimating Postmortem Interval,,

Bacteria are taphonomic agents of human decomposition, potentially useful for estimating postmortem interval (PMI) in late‐stage decomposition. Bone samples from 12 individuals and three soil samples were analyzed to assess the effects of decomposition and advancing time on bacterial communities. Results indicated that partially skeletonized remains maintained a presence of bacteria associated with the human gut, whereas bacterial composition of dry skeletal remains maintained a community profile similar to soil communities. Variation in the UniFrac distances was significantly greater between groups than within groups (p < 0.001) for the unweighted metric and not the weighted metric. The members of the bacterial communities were more similar within than between decomposition stages. The oligotrophic environment of bone relative to soft tissue and the physical protection of organic substrates may preclude bacterial blooms during the first years of skeletonization. Therefore, community membership (unweighted) may be better for estimating PMI from skeletonized remains than community structure (weighted).     

论专利许可与专利转让的对抗与继受

专利权人将专利许可给被许可人实施后,再将专利权向他人转让时,应当注意保护被许可人的既得利益,即从经济的角度出发使其能够继续实施专利、维持事业的延续。专利实施权的对抗制度就是在此种条件下调整被许可人与受让人之间冲突的一项法律制度。独占实施权、普通实施权等不同的实施权基于其自身特点应该有不同的制度设计。在具有对抗效力的情况下,如何保护受到此种对抗的专利受让人的利益也应该得到重视。在特定情况下将许可合同的某些条款让其继受也是维护受让人利益的一种措施。在考虑专利许可的对抗与继受问题时,需要结合具体的合同条款来分析,以期达到三方的利益平衡。     

Don't Count Your Chickens before They're Hatched: The 2013 Italian Parliamentary and Presidential Elections

The 2013 parliamentary and presidential contests were both outstanding elections, even by Italian standards. In the former case, this was because of very high volatility and the breakthrough of the 5-Star Movement (M5S), which resulted in a hung parliament and a stalemate in the formation of a new government. In the latter, for the first time in Italian history, the incumbent President of the Republic was re-elected for a second seven-year term of office. The result of these two events was Italy's first grand coalition government, led by Enrico Letta and supported by President Napolitano. While the significance of these elections is better assessed in combination with new government's capacity to achieve economic growth and restore confidence in Italian politics, the Italian party system still remains in a state of flux.