Reform Trends in Criminal Justice: Spain, France and England & Wales

These remarks begin by expressing a very respectful dissent from other speakers who have referred to different “systems” of criminal justice.This paper argues, on the contrary, that there are three great global methodologies of criminal justice which have become progressively integrated within different systems. First, is the adversarial method developed in the eighteenth century, which is strongly associated with due process, rights, and law. Second, is the inquisitorial method, which is much older and somewhat authoritarian, and which is based upon scientific and forensic inquiry in a very bureaucratic setting. The third method is popular participation in justice, which is characterized by pragmatism and common sense, and is currently represented in the jury system, but through other forms of popular participation as well. This essay argues that these methodologies have historically inter-penetrated each other to such an extent that it is no longer possible for one to talk about distinct “systems.” This article concentrates on only one of these: adversariality. Although these remarks look specifically at Spain, France, and England, these countries are part of a worldwide movement towards adversariality. Since the Second World War we have seen adversariality sweeping across Western Europe, Latin America, the former Soviet Union, and into the international tribunals. This movement has been described as a transformation similar to the reception of Roman Law in the jus commune period; a transformation of such enormous importance that it is one of the most important cultural changes of our generation

Analysis of discrete dependent variable models with spatial correlation

In this paper we consider ML estimation for a broad class of parameter-driven models for discrete dependent variables with spatial correlation. Under this class of models, which includes spatial discrete choice models, spatial Tobit models and spatial count data models, the dependent variable is driven by a latent stochastic state variable which is specified as a linear spatial regression model. The likelihood is a high-dimensional integral whose dimension depends on the sample size. For its evaluation we propose to use efficient importance sampling (EIS). The specific spatial EIS implementation we develop exploits the sparsity of the precision (or covariance) matrix of the errors in the reduced-form state equation typically encountered in spatial settings, which keeps numerically accurate EIS likelihood evaluation computationally feasible even for large sample sizes. The proposed ML approach based upon spatial EIS is illustrated with estimation of a spatial probit for US presidential voting decisions and spatial count data models (Poisson and Negbin) for firm location choices

Making International Criminal Procedure Work: From Theory to Practice

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Linear Forms in Logarithms and Integer Points on Genus-two Curves

We consider a linear form with algebraic coefficients, evaluated at points on the analytic Jacobian of a genus-two curve whose projective coordinates are algebraic. Previous results on the existence of a lower bound of a particular shape are made explicit. We study various properties of Jacobians of genus-two curves, paying particular attention to their embeddings into projective space, and give a method which can be used to find provably all integer points on a genus-two curve. We apply this method to one particular curve by way of example

Elemental Abundances of Nearby Galaxies through High Signal-to-Noise XMM-Newton Observations of ULXs

(abridged) In this paper, we examined XMM Newton EPIC spectra of 14 ultra-luminous X-ray sources (ULXs)in addition to the XMM RGS spectra of two sources (Holmberg II X-1 and Holmberg IX X-1). We determined oxygen and iron abundances of the host galaxy's interstellar medium (ISM) using K-shell (O) and L-shell (Fe) X-ray photo-ionization edges towards these ULXs. We found that the oxygen abundances closely matched recent solar abundances for all of our sources, implying that ULXs live in similar local environments despite the wide range of galaxy host properties. Also, we compare the X-ray hydrogen column densities (n_H) for 8 ULX sources with column densities obtained from radio H I observations. The X-ray model n_H values are in good agreement with the H I n_H values, implying that the hydrogen absorption towards the ULXs is not local to the source (with the exception of the source M81 XMM1). In order to obtain the column density and abundance values, we fit the X-ray spectra of the ULXs with a combined power law and one of several accretion disk models. We tested the abundances obtained from the XSPEC models bbody, diskbb, grad, and diskpn along with a power law, finding that the abundances were independent of the thermal model used. We comment on the physical implications of these different model fits. We also note that very deep observations allow a breaking of the degeneracy noted by Stobbart et al. (2006) favoring a high mass solution for the absorbed grad + power law model.Comment: 18 pages, accepted to Ap

XMM-Newton Archival Study of the ULX Population in Nearby Galaxies

We present the results of an archival XMM-Newton study of the bright X-ray point sources (L_X > 10^38 erg/s) in 32 nearby galaxies. From our list of approximately 100 point sources, we attempt to determine if there is a low-state counterpart to the Ultraluminous X-ray (ULX) population, searching for a soft-hard state dichotomy similar to that known for Galactic X-ray binaries and testing the specific predictions of the IMBH hypothesis. To this end, we searched for "low-state" objects, which we defined as objects within our sample which had a spectrum well fit by a simple absorbed power law, and "high-state" objects, which we defined as objects better fit by a combined blackbody and a power law. Assuming that ``low-state'' objects accrete at approximately 10% of the Eddington luminosity (Done & Gierlinski 2003) and that "high-state" objects accrete near the Eddington luminosity we further divided our sample of sources into low and high state ULX sources. We classify 16 sources as low-state ULXs and 26 objects as high-state ULXs. As in Galactic black hole systems, the spectral indices, Gamma, of the low-state objects, as well as the luminosities, tend to be lower than those of the high-state objects. The observed range of blackbody temperatures for the high state is 0.1-1 keV, with the most luminous systems tending toward the lowest temperatures. We therefore divide our high-state ULXs into candidate IMBHs (with blackbody temperatures of approximately 0.1 keV) and candidate stellar mass BHs (with blackbody temperatures of approximately 1.0 keV). A subset of the candidate stellar mass BHs have spectra that are well-fit by a Comptonization model, a property similar of Galactic BHs radiating in the "very-high" state near the Eddington limit.Comment: 54 pages, submitted to ApJ (March 2005), accepted (May 2006); changes to organization of pape

The criminal cases review commission: legal aid and legal representatives. Final report

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Effect of the economic recession on pharmaceutical policy and medicine sales in eight European countries

Abstract Objective: To identify pharmaceutical policy changes during the economic recession in eight European countries and to determine whether policy measures resulted in lower sales of, and less expenditure on, pharmaceuticals. Methods: Information on pharmaceutical policy changes between 2008 and 2011 in eight European countries was obtained from publications and pharmaceutical policy databases. Data on the volume and value of the quarterly sales of products between 2006 and 2011 in the 10 highest-selling therapeutic classes in each country were obtained from a pharmaceutical market research database. We compared these indicators in economically stable countries; Austria, Estonia and Finland, to those in economically less stable countries, Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia and Spain. Findings: Economically stable countries implemented two to seven policy changes each, whereas less stable countries implemented 10 to 22 each. Of the 88 policy changes identified, 33 occurred in 2010 and 40 in 2011. They involved changing out-of-pocket payments for patients in 16 cases, price mark-up schemes in 13 and price cuts in 11. Sales volumes increased moderately in all countries except Greece and Portugal, which experienced slight declines after 2009. Sales values decreased in both groups of countries, but fell more in less stable countries. Conclusion: Less economically stable countries implemented more pharmaceutical policy changes during the recession than economically stable countries. Unexpectedly, pharmaceutical sales volumes increased in almost all countries, whereas sales values declined, especially in less stable countries