A mixed DNA profile controversy revisited

Semaan et al. (J Forensic Res, 2020, 11, 453) discuss a mock case “where eight different individuals [P₁ through P₈] could not be excluded in a mixed DNA analysis. Even though … expert DNA mixture analysis software was used.” Two of these are the true donors. The LRs reported are incorrect due to the incorrect entry of propositions into LRmix Studio. This forced the software to account for most of the alleles as drop-in, resulting in LRs 60–70 orders of magnitude larger than expected. P₁, P₂, P₄, P₅, and P₈ can be manually excluded using peak heights. This has relevance when using LRmix which does not use peak heights. We extend the work using the same two reference genotypes who were the true contributors as Semaan et al. (J Forensic Res, 2020, 11, 453). We simulate three two-donor mixtures with peak heights using these two genotypes and analyze using STRmix?. For the simulated 1:1 mixture, one of the non-donors’ LRs supported him being a contributor when no conditioning was used. When considered in combination with any other potential donors (i.e., with conditioning), this non-donor was correctly eliminated. For the 3:1 mixture, all results correctly supported that the non-donors were not contributors. The low-template 4:1 mixture LRs with no conditioning showed support for all eight profiles as donors. However, the results from pair-wise conditioning showed that only the two ground truth donors had LRs supporting that they were contributors to the mixture. We recommend the use of peak heights and conditioning profiles, as this allows better sensitivity and specificity even when the persons share many alleles.     

Inclusivity in Online Platforms: Recruitment Strategies for Improving Participation of Diverse Sociodemographic Groups

Governments are increasingly implementing smart and digital approaches to promoting citizen participation. However, whether online participation platforms are tools that improve inclusivity in citizen participation remains underexplored. To address this gap, this article focuses on the role of recruitment messages and their effect on participation in an online participation platform by gender and age. A field experiment with a neighborhood census sample (N = 6,066) shows that online participation dips for younger and older citizens and is equal among women and men. For the age groups between 60 and 75, differences in the control and intervention recruitment messages significantly impacted participation. These findings can help public managers tailor recruitment strategies to facilitate inclusive participation and represent a first step toward learning what types of messages are effective for whom.     

Indigenismo and the Avant‐garde: Jorge Sanjinés' Early Films and the National Project

Jorge Sanjinés' 1960s films Revolución and Ukamau challenge the class and ethnic hierarchies of Bolivian society by casting the proletarian and indigenous masses as revolutionary liberators. The new national imaginary they evoke is tightly bound to the experimental cinematic techniques they employ, since their rejection of rationalist, realist aesthetics signals a partial undermining of the linear time of the modern nation. Ukamau both recalls and resists previous Bolivian indigenismo, which sought to co‐opt the Indian into a national mestizo consciousness. Its exoticist portrayal of the Indian ultimately limits its political effectiveness, but textual and contextual analyses show subversive Indian agency leaking through.     

Parent-adolescent congruence on decision-making and its relation to adolescent adjustment

Much attention has been paid to the nature of parent-adolescent relationships, with a frequent conclusion being that it is a time of marked disagreement between parents and their adolescents. However, other literature suggests that this time is not inherently conflictual. The purpose of this study was to examine agreement and disagreement between mothers, fathers, and adolescents on specific issues. Then, adolescent adjustment was assessed, and the degree to which it was a function of congruence with parents was examined. A modified version of the Issues Checklist was used to measure intrafamily agreement; the Revised Behavior Problem Checklist and the Harter Scale of Child's Actual Competence were completed by adolescents' social studies teachers to assess adolescent functioning. Relative to their parents, adolescents reported that they should make more decisions alone, while both mothers and fathers reported that decisions should be made jointly among all family members. Only father-adolescent congruence was found consistently to be related to adolescent functioning. Possible explanations for the present results and relevant issues pertaining to family agreement are discussed.     

Independent instances of "souvenir" Asian skulls from the Tampa Bay area

In the summer of 1984, police in Pinellas County, Florida, confiscated six identically colored imported Asian skulls (in a shipping case) from a private citizen. In May 1988, in nearby Hillsborough County, police confiscated a very similar skull from another private citizen, who allegedly had found it in an abandoned house. Aside from slight color differences between the six found in Pinellas County and the one found in Hillsborough County, the skulls are virtually identical in their osteological characteristics and condition and in the vital statistics derived from each. Each skull is as clean and dry as those typically sold by commercial scientific supply outlets in the United States. Each is edentulous (primarily premortem), between approximately 20 and 60 years of age at death, and morphologically Asian. Five of the seven are morphologically male, one is morphologically female, and one is a mosaic with respect to gender-related features. Police, medical examiners, coroners, and forensic anthropologists should be aware of such "souvenir" specimens, in the event that they encounter similar skulls. Discriminant function analyses for race and sex yield considerably conflicting results, which underscores the need for using extreme caution when interpreting forensic science estimates based on such techniques.     

‘Women are trouble,did you know that Fergus?’: Neil Jordan's <Emphasis Type="Italic">The Crying Game</Emphasis>

The subject of this article is Neil Jordan's film The Crying Game. Released in 1992, it was widely received as a film that challenged stereotypes in relation to both the IRA and questions of race, sexuality and desire. This article calls into question such a radical reading by analysing the way in which Jude the IRA woman is represented. Through a feminist deconstruction, the article proposes that the character of Jude can be seen to represent both national and international anxieties concerning contemporary masculine and feminine subject positions. The article plots this by investigating how the film deals with the specifics of gender and Irish nationalism. It then moves on to consider how these specifics can be seen to articulate international postmodern concerns about contemporary gender identities.