Difficulties in forensic medical evaluation of some forms of craniocerebral injury

Conclusions of 41 repeated expert evaluations of craniocerebral injuries within the framework of criminal and civil cases investigation are analyzed. Some aspects of clinical and forensic medical diagnosis of lethal and nonlethal injuries to the head, evaluation of the quality of medical care, and qualification of the severity of harm to health are discussed. Causes of typical expert errors and approaches to their prevention are shown.     

Psycho-semantic Spheres of the Personality Among Correctional Facility Employees

In this study, we describe the theoretical and methodological bases of research of psycho-semantic spheres of the psyche of correctional facility employees (CFE’S). We define psycho-semantic spheres of the personality of CFE’S represented by the most important components forming a self-image “I,” an image of work/activity, a group of affective components and groups of components concerning destructive motives. We describe specific structures, contents and relations of the psycho-semantic spheres of the personality of CFE’S in the optimized and mismatched states, which could predict behavior of CFE’S in the different correctional emergency situations.     

Polymorphism of LDLR, GYPA, HBGG, D7S8, GC, HLA-DQA1, Ig-JH, D17S30, ApoB and D1S80 loci in northwestern Russians

Allele frequencies for polymarker, HLA-DQA1, Ig-JH, D17S30, ApoB and D1S80 loci and population genetic parameters were obtained from a sample of 501 unrelated individuals born in the northwestern Federal Region of Russia.     

Geostrategic Interest and Democracy Promotion: Evidence from Post-Soviet Space

To become successful, the American policy of promoting democracy abroad needs to be scaled down and decoupled from geopolitics. In the post-Soviet world, the democracy–geopolitics doublespeak breeds cynicism and achieves mixed results at best. Particularly discouraging are the outcomes of democracy promotion in the so-called cleft countries, straddled by a cultural divide. In Ukraine, American foreign policy achieved some success at the price of intensifying inter-regional antagonisms, which subsequently compromised and offset the progress that had been achieved in democratic forms of governance. In Belarus, democracy promotion failed altogether because inter-regional antagonisms in that country are too modest and are therefore difficult to leverage.     

Agrarian transformation in the Russian breadbasket: contemporary trends as manifest in Stavropol'

A team of US and Russian geographers combines field observations with satellite imagery in an examination of how major trends in Russian agriculture are manifest in one of Russia's most productive agricultural regions: Stavropol' Kray. A nationwide pattern of agricultural consolidation during the 1990s (featuring rural depopulation and a reduction in cultivated area and herd sizes upon the termination of Soviet-era subsidization levels) has had decidedly different outcomes in different parts of the vast Russian countryside. This paper – using Stavropol' as a surrogate for regions which by physical attributes, location, and human capital are best positioned to support agricultural activity – identifies a number of developments that may signal a new growth trajectory for agriculture in Russia: evolving specialization of former socialized farms in response to market conditions (in Stavropol' involving the shrinkage of animal husbandry and the release of surplus labor); increased levels of absentee (corporate) ownership of farmland in the more favorable locations; decoupling of the economic fate of large farms (success) from local municipal budgets (deficiency); and the expansion of non-Russian ethnic communities in the countryside, with attendant land use changes.