Pension Reform and the Fiscal Policy Stance

The increased budget deficit caused by the privatization of a public pension plan does not imply a relaxation of the stance of fiscal policy. The reform's impact on the fiscal stance and national saving depends primarily on its effect on the sum of explicit and implicit public debt and on the postreform payroll tax and private system contribution rates. Its impact also depends on the difference between the rate of interest on implicit and that on explicit public debt, among other influences. Pension privatization, if not offset by fiscal consolidation, can loosen the fiscal stance in some circumstances.     

PowerPlex 16 HS: Internal validation of a new tool for genetic analysis of forensic and parentage testing

Forensic human identification requires powerful and efficient tools to obtain useful results in a minimum timeframe. In this study several forensic and parentage samples that could not be analyzed with others kits were studied using the recently available PowerPlex^® 16 HS kit (Promega). DNA was extracted using four different methods, depending upon the particular sample, and the PCR products were run on an ABI 3130XL Sequencer. The resultant DNA profiles were analyzed using Gene Mapper ID v 3.2 Analysis Software (ABI). Of 30 samples processed with the PowerPlex^® 16 HS system, genetic analysis was successful in 18 (60%). The results obtained show that the PowerPlex^® 16 HS is a valuable tool for forensic identification and parentage testing that is particularly useful for difficult samples that have not yielded adequate results with other methods.     

From the State of Nature to Evolution in John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill's familiar ideas, such as the harm principle, the emphasis on the liberty of thought and discussion, and the extension of politics into the family and education, are all linked to a developmental and open–ended view of nature. To ground this perception of nature, Mill makes use of contemporary notions of evolution. For Mill, nature encompasses human civilisation and its higher products such as morality and justice. However, Mill recognises no benevolent guiding hand in the physical world, which the idea of evolution enables him to understand as self–propelled. Destruction and pain are part of the overall developmental movement, so that human lives always stand the danger of being crushed by nature. To minimise such risks, humans should use the distinctive features of their species, such as reason and morality, thus continuing nature while transforming it.