Global Cities,International Relations and the Fabrication of the World

The global city presents one available model for understanding urbanisation and associated hierarchies of power. In International Relations (IR), the global city is treated as a unit in a new type of international system, an increasingly important actor in world politics, or a site through which global processes operate. This article forwards an alternative perspective. It treats the global city as a dispositif of power. While the global city captures the fact that power and wealth are spatially concentrated in today’s urbanising world politics, the concept also has a world-making capacity. The article analyses this capacity in two contexts. Firstly, it presents a genealogy of the voyage of the global cities concept from critical academic scholarship to a buzzword of city elites and business consultants. Secondly, it performs a governmental analysis of global city reports and indexes. Finally, the article suggests that conceptualising the global city as a dispositif enables the important task of imagining alternative ways of framing the meaning of urbanisation in world politics.     

Methodological development: structured outcome assessment and community risk monitoring (SORM)

This paper describes an effort to develop a clinical tool for the continuous monitoring of risk for violence in forensic mental health clients who have left their institutions and who are dwelling in the community on a conditional release basis. The model is called Structured Outcome Assessment and Community Risk Monitoring (SORM). The SORM consists of 30 dynamic factors and each factor in SORM is assessed in two ways: The current absence, presence or partial och intermittent presence of the factors, which is an actuarial (systematized and 'objective') assessment. Secondly, the risk effect, i.e. whether the presence/absence of factors currently increases, decreases or is perceived as unrelated to violence risk, is a clinical (or impressionistic) assessment. Thus, the factors considered via the SORM can be coded as risk factors or protective factors (or as factors unimportant to risk of violence) depending on circumstances that apply in the individual case. Further, the SORM has a built-in module for gathering idiographical information about risk-affecting contextual factors. The use of the SORM and its potential as a risk monitoring instrument is illustrated via preliminary data and case vignettes from an ongoing multicenter project. In this research project, patients leaving any of the 9 participating forensic hospitals in Sweden is assessed at release on a variety of static background factors, and the SORM is then administered every 30 days for 2 years.     

Arts Organizations and Branding: Creating a New Joint Brand for Three Arts Organizations

This article investigates brand architecture by analyzing stakeholder perceptions of brand images when a new joint brand is created for the existing brands of three arts organizations. The theoretical framework is based on previous literature on brand architecture and brand image. The empirical study is based on a quantitative, 418-respondent survey among stakeholders of these three arts organizations. The study makes two major theoretical contributions. First, the results show that the new joint brand can be endorsed by the existing sub-brands, contrary to brand-architecture literature. Second, even in the case of a new brand, stakeholders perceive the functional attributes as important.     

A report of the 2002–2008 paternity testing workshops of the English speaking working group of the International Society for Forensic Genetics

The English Speaking Working Group (ESWG) of the International Society for Forensic Genetics (ISFG) offers an annual Paternity Testing Workshop open to all members of the group. Blood samples, a questionnaire and a paper challenge are sent to the participants. Here, we present the results of the 2002–2008 Paternity Testing Workshops with the objective to evaluate the uniformity of DNA-profiling and conclusions of the participating laboratories as well as to clarify tendencies in typing strategies and biostatistical evaluations of the laboratories. The numbers of participating laboratories increased from 46 in 2002 to 68 in 2008. The results showed an increasing degree of concordance concerning methods and DNA systems used and a high degree of uniformity in typing results with discrepancies in 0.1 and 0.3 % of all submitted PCR-based results. The paper challenges showed uniformity in the calculation of the weight of evidence for simple cases with straight-forward genetic constellations. However, a high degree of variation existed in complex scenarios with rare genetic constellations such as genetic inconsistencies/possible silent alleles, rare alleles and haplotypes.     

The Better Practice Program Funding Formula: A Neo-liberal Approach to Funding General Practice

A decade after the introduction of Medicare, various pressures had emerged in the financing of general practice. The National Health Strategy suggested these could be addressed by supplementing the Medicare benefits program with other payment systems. The Commonwealth government introduced the better practice program (BPP) in late 1994. Through the BPP, the Commonwealth makes payments to general practices calculated according to a formula. Using Medicare claims data, the formula takes into account practice size, patient loyalty to the practice and practice location. The BPP formula is oriented to the free choice of doctor by patients, and free choice of practice location by doctors. It is the exercise of these freedoms that, through the operation of the formula, determines the size of BPP payments. This arrangement is an example of a distinctively neo-liberal mode of government.