The status of the extracorporeal embryo in German law (Part I).

The legislator, in the German Federal Republic, has opted for a specific legal solution in relation to the protection of the embryo. Carola Müller, in this article, describes this regulation as well as the reasons that have led to its adoption. The article finishes with an exposition of the existing social discussion in German society and the effect that the law has had.     

Managing conflicting ‘Truth Claims’ – ambiguity in the diplomat's toolkit in East-Asian Island conflict

The article is a study of managing interstate relations via ambiguity and secrecy. At the focal point of the article is the different constitutive logic of domestic politics and diplomacy in conceiving and managing social reality; with the former implying the notion of community and the latter separateness – the difference that allows for diplomatic conduct to rely on tacit agreements and ambiguity for managing contradictory ‘truth claims’, as China and Japan did in the case of the Ryukyu and later the Senkaku Islands. Such successful management is conditional on the parties' ability to control domestic narratives avoiding contradictions in their ‘truth claims’ becoming too blatant. Yet, modern technologies increasingly undermine states' capacities for this. The leaking on YouTube of the collision of a Chinese trawler with the ship of the Japanese Coast Guard in 2010 offers a perfect example. The incident aggravated the conflict and triggered intense debates on secrecy in Japan. The article concludes by arguing that once ambiguity and tacit agreements break down, leaders should turn to their public – recognize that noisy nationalist are frequently but a minority – and attempt to renegotiate ‘truth claims’ domestically to create the basis for a compromise.     

The impact of environmental interest groups in international negotiations: Do ENGOs induce stronger environmental commitments?

Although there is a substantial amount of research that studies how environmental interest groups/non-governmental organizations (ENGOs) influence international environmental negotiations, both the theoretical work and the empirical evidence were not yet able to answer comprehensively if this makes it more likely that states, in turn, commit to stronger environmental agreements. This article seeks to contribute to clarifying this. First, the authors argue that a higher degree of ENGO access to official negotiations and a larger number of ENGOs actively participating during bargaining processes can facilitate outcomes of environmental negotiations. The authors then analyze quantitative data on international environmental regimes and their members’ commitment levels from 1946 to 1998 and obtain robust support for their claims. However, the rationale on the introduced explanatory factors also implies that the impact of ENGO access on states’ commitment levels should vary conditional on the number of ENGOs actively participating. The paper finds evidence for such an interaction, although the results go against our expectations.     

Japanese “<Emphasis Type="Italic">Furītā</Emphasis>” and German “Generation Internship”: The “precarious post-materialist” as an extension to Inglehart‘s theory of value change

With a period of economic recession, rising numbers of unemployed and an increase in non-regular employment, the situation on the German and the Japanese labour market has undergone a change over the past two decades. At the beginning of the twenty-first century a generation of newcomers entered working life under changed conditions. In this paper, I will analyse whether the individual perception of worsening chances on the labour market will have an effect on the attitudes to and expectations of work prevalent amongst young entrants to the labour market drawing upon Ronald Inglehart’s theory of value change as a theoretical base. An analysis of qualitative interviews with Japanese Furītā and members of the German ‘Generation Internship’ will explore whether patterns of work values can be identified that call for an extension of Inglehart’s value concept of “materialist” versus “post-materialist”, namely suggesting the existence of a ‘precarious post-materialist’. The discussion concludes with a short analysis of quantitative data, to see whether this new value type might also be identified in a broader context.

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The status of the extracorporeal embryo in German law (part. II).

The legislator, in the German Federal Republic, has opted for a specific legal solution in relation to the protection of the embryo. Carola Müller, in this article, describes this regulation as well as the reasons that have led to its adoption. The article finishes with an exposition of the existing social discussion in German society and the effect that the law has had.     

Drug intelligence based on MDMA tablets data: 2. Physical characteristics profiling

One of the tasks of the European project entitled “Collaborative Harmonisation of Methods for Profiling of Amphetamine Type Stimulants” (CHAMP) funded by the sixth framework programme of the European Commission was to develop a harmonised methodology for MDMA profiling and the creation of a common database in a drug intelligence perspective. Part I was dedicated to the analysis of organic impurities formed during synthesis in order to investigate traffic tendencies and highlight potential links between samples, whereas this part focuses on physical characteristics of the MDMA tablets. Diameter, thickness, weight and score were demonstrated to be reliable and relevant features in this drug intelligence perspective. Distributions of samples coming from the same post-tabletting batch (post-TB) and samples coming from different post-TB were very well discriminated by using the squared Euclidean or the Manhattan distance on standardised data. Our findings demonstrated the possibility to discriminate between MDMA samples issued from different post-TB and to find out links between samples coming from a same post-TB. Furthermore, the hypothesis that most of the MDMA samples found on the international market come from the same countries was supported.     

“I’ll stop procrastinating now!” Fostering specific processes of self-regulated learning to reduce academic procrastination

ABSTRACT

Academic procrastination is considered to be a result of self-regulation failure having detrimental effects on students’ well-being and academic performance. In the present study, we developed and evaluated a group training that aimed to reduce academic procrastination. We based the training on a cyclical process model of self-regulated learning, thus, focusing on improving deficient processes of self-regulated learning among academic procrastinators (e.g., time management, dealing with distractions). The training comprised five sessions and took place once a week for 90?min in groups of no more than 10 students. Overall, 106 students completed the training. We evaluated the training using a comprehensive control group design with repeated measures (three points of measurement); the control group was trained after the intervention group’s training. The results showed that our training was successful. The trained intervention group significantly reduced academic procrastination and improved specific processes of self-regulated learning (e.g., time management, concentration), whereas the untrained control group showed no change regarding these variables. After the control group had also been trained, the control group also showed the expected favorable changes. The students rated the training overall as good and found it recommendable for procrastinating friends. Hence, fostering self-regulatory processes in our intervention was a successful attempt to support students in reducing academic procrastination. The evaluation of the training encourages us to adapt the training for different groups of procrastinators.     

Co-producing safety in the local community: A Q-methodology study on the incentives of Belgian and Dutch members of neighbourhood watch schemes

This study aims to explain citizens’ engagement in co-production activities in the domain of community safety. We use a multiple case study design by looking at neighbourhood watch schemes in Belgium and the Netherlands. We applied Q-methodology to map the opinions of citizens about their co-productive efforts, and to cluster these opinions into co-producers’ profiles. Discussing differences and similarities in profiles enables a more generalised understanding of the reasons why people co-produce. We conclude with some policy-relevant points about incentivation when local governments want to achieve an increase in citizen co-production.