The AFSP Standard - a lesson for law enforcement agencies

Compliance with the AFSP (Association of Forensic Science Providers) Standard [1] which concerns the formulation of an evaluative opinion requires consideration of the defence case. This can be problematic for forensic scientists working with or for law enforcement agencies. Among the aims of law enforcement agencies is to secure a conviction while in many jurisdictions the forensic scientist owes an overriding duty to the Court. This casework report demonstrates that early consideration of the defence case by a forensic scientist complying with the AFSP Standard may help rather than hinder the prosecution. The dichotomy as to a conflict of interest for the scientist between supporting the police/prosecutors and being scientifically objective is shown to be a false dichotomy. Compliance with the Standard ensures that science is a better servant of justice.     

A social and political profile of Canadian legislators, 1996

This research note provides an overview and an update on the social and political backgrounds of all elected Canadian legislators at the federal and provincial/territorial levels of government in 1996. For provincial/territorial legislators data are presented by electoral jurisdiction, and for all legislators by level of government and political party. Relatively few differences in social characteristics were found between the two levels although there were some variations by province, territory and party. Business, education and law are the three most prevalent occupations, although the latter has declined among legislators over time. There is little movement of members from the provincial to the federal level. The most common political experience of both groups lies in municipal governance. Over time women have increased their share of seats at both levels. Even in a polity such as Canada with high rates of legislative turnover at both federal and provincial/territorial levels and with new parties emerging, most changes in social and political experience backgrounds proceed incrementally.     

Technology policy 2000: university to industry transfer

Utilizing the knowledge, know-how, technologies developed in universities to improve the competitiveness of U.S. industry is a super-optimum technology policy solution. Transferring technologies developed at universities to industry vastly expands the resource base by providing companies with no internal research and development effort with that capability and by augmenting the R&D of companies with some level of internal effort already in place. By taking advantage of university technology transfer, all companies and policy-makers can emphasize innovation as a goal to be included in a competitive business strategy. Having universities as participants in technology transfer activities maximizes the benefits and minimizes the costs to all by providing for shared equipment, personnel, and laboratory facilities. This last fact is particularly clear when pre-competitive research is undertaken at university-based centers or consortiums which draw their members from wide groups of industry participants. Drawing on data gathered as part study of university-industry research and development (R&D) interactions, this paper examines the factors that lead to successful collaborations.     

Toward a Conceptual Framework of Emotional Relationship Marketing: An Examination of Two UK Political Parties

The purpose of this paper is to review the notion of branding and evaluate its applicability to political parties. As ideological politics is in decline, branding may provide a consistent narrative where voters feel a sense of warmth and belonging. The paper aims to build an understanding of the complexity of building a political brand where a combination of image, logo, leadership, and values can all contribute to a compelling brand narrative. It investigates how competing positive and negative messages attempt to build and distort the brand identity. A critical review of branding, relationship marketing, and political science literature articulates the conceptual development of branding and its applicability to political parties. The success or failure of negative campaigning is due to the authenticity of a political party's brand values—creating a coherent brand story—if there is no distance between the brand values articulated by the political party and the values their community perceives then this creates an “authentic” brand. However, if there is a gap this paper illustrates how negative campaigning can be used to build a “doppelgänger brand,” which undermines the credibility of the authentic political brand. The paper argues that political parties need to understand how brand stories are developed but also how they can be used to protect against negative advertising. This has implications for political marketing strategists and political parties. This paper draws together branding theory and relationship marketing and incorporates them into a framework that makes a contribution to the political marketing literature.     

A method for exposing the intraosseous portion of the carotid arteries and its application to forensic case work

A method that allows extraction of the intraosseous portion of the carotid arteries is presented, along with four cases to illustrate its application to forensic case work. The method described permits a cosmetically acceptable reconstruction.