Elemental analysis of soil samples for forensic purposes by inductively coupled plasma spectrometry--precision considerations

Major and trace elemental composition provides a powerful basis for forensic comparison of soils, sediments and rocks. However, it is important that the potential 'errors' associated with the procedures are fully understood and quantified, and that standard protocols are applied for sample preparation and analysis. This paper describes such a standard procedure and reports results both for instrumental measurement precision (repeatability) and overall 'method' precision (reproducibility). Results obtained both for certified reference materials and example soils show that the instrumental measurement precision (defined by the coefficient of variation, CV) for most elements is better than 2-3%. When different solutions were prepared from the same sample powder, and from different sub-sample powders prepared from the same parent sample, the CV increased to c. 5-6% for many elements. The largest variation was found in results for certified reference materials generated from 23 instrument runs over an 18 month period (mean CV=c. 11%). Some elements were more variable than others. W was found to be the most variable and the elements V, Cr, Co, Cu, Ni and Pb also showed higher than average variability. SiO2, CaO, Al2O3 and Fe2O3, Rb, Sr, La, Ce, Nd and Sm generally showed lower than average variability, and therefore provided the most reliable basis for inter-sample comparison. It is recommended that, whenever possible, samples relating to the same investigation should be analysed in the same sample run, or at least sequential runs.     

Fictions of Origin: Law,Abjection, Difference

This article seeks to offer a critique of what it terms ‘Law-as-Logos’ (the Western conceptualisation of ideal Law in terms of pure ‘Presence’) from a perspective that combines some of the insights of contemporary psychoanalytic, deconstructive and feminist theory with recent developments in critical legal studies. The essay seeks to offer a re-theorisation of law, not as ‘Logos’ but as ‘difference’. The law, it will be argued, exists only as that arbitrary point of demarcation between the space of the sacred and the space of the abject and, to re-orient psychoanalytic readings of abjection towards a Derridean understanding of differance, the law may be articulated as the ‘trace’ that makes ‘presence’ possible whilst at the same time threatening its total erasure. Law-as-difference thus becomes maddening in its capacity to establish and erase boundaries and the second part of the essay examines this phenomenon particularly in the context of the relation between law-as-difference and the textuality of a Law that requires to be ‘put into writing’. It argues, in conclusion, that a theorisation of law-as-difference raises inevitably the question of the relation of ‘woman’ to the law and it ends with a re-positioning of the figure of Antigone as a means of interrogating the relation of the ‘feminine’ within the Western symbolic economy to the scandalous impurity of law-as-difference.¹ P. Goodrich, Languages of Law: From Logics of Memory to Nomadic Masks (London: Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1990), 268     

Strengths,Limitations, and Recommendations for Instrumental Color Measurement in Forensic Soil Characterization

Color determination of soil evidence is often done by visual comparison to soil color charts. A handheld spectrophotometer was tested with representative materials for its suitability for forensic soil characterization. Instrumental colorimetry provides accurate colorimetry with ~10-fold better precision than a soil color chart. The minimum sample size for accurate color determination was between 0.02 and 0.04 mg of fine soil for the specific instrument tested. Reporting colors in the L*a*b* space permits quantification of ΔE₀₀, a measure of perceptible color difference, could enable objective quantification of small color differences and thresholds for forensic soil comparisons. A ΔE₀₀ greater than ~ 3.5 to 6 likely indicates disparate soil sources in a forensic comparison, in the absence of confounding factors like sample alteration. Despite the superior precision of instrumental colorimetry, this approach is inappropriate for samples which are mottled at an inseparable scale, attached to a substrate, or too small for instrumental measurement.     

On Some Connections Between Legal Communication and Violence

The first version of this article was written and published in 1989 in Tartu in Russian.¹ As perestroika gathered strength the possibility emerged to take a fresh academic look on concepts which had been dogmatically frozen by “historical Marxism” for many years. One of those laying in the dead end was the Marxist concept of law together with its relation to violence. For a young scholar studying at Tartu University 15 years ago, there was always a possibility to try to apply some ideas and approaches drawn from Yuri Lotman’s articles and lectures. The power of his ideas and its brilliant presentation had already for years fascinated everybody dealing with problems of society and culture in Tartu. The other sources of the present analysis are the ideas about the nature of law and legal communication as they appeared in the 1920s–30s in the works of several Soviet scholars as Eugene Pashukanis and Mikhail Reisner. Both scientists were later condemned and forgotten in the Soviet Union. I also felt very comfortable with the understanding of the nature of law as “language of interaction” expressed and developed by the American lawyer and scholar Lon L. Fuller. The present article focuses only on the logic of communication based on the principle of exchange, reciprocity/contract and mechanism (code) of symbolic equalizations necessary, for achieving such reciprocity. But it is appropriate to point out that in a broader context, contract and reciprocity in society are balanced by different types of principles of human interaction. In this broader understanding, L. Fuller and Y. Lotman are close in their interpretations of cultural interaction and human communication. If we compare Fuller’s article “Two Principles of Human Association”² to Lotman’s “‘Contract’ and ‘Devotion’ as Archetypical Models of Culture”³ we see their approaches are in fact complementary.¹ Kannike, S.H., “O nekotorykh svjazjakh pravovogo obshchenija s nasilijem. Istorija I sovremennost’”, in Tartu Ülikooli Toimetised 850. Studia luridica. Historia et theoria3 (Tartu: Tartu Ülikool, 1989), 76–93² Fuller, L., “Two Principles of Human Association”, in L. Fuller, (ed), The Principles of Human Order(Durham: N.C. Duke University Press, 1981), 67–85³ Lotman, Y.M., ““Dogovor” i “vruchenie sebja” kak arhitipicheskie modeli kul’tury”, in Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 513. Trudy po russkoi I slavjanskoi filologii 332. Literaturovedenije: problemy literaturnoi tipologii I istoricheskoi preemstvennosti(Tartu, 1981), 3–16     

Cameralism and Commercial Rivalry: Nationbuilding through Economic Autarky in Seckendorff’s 1665 <Emphasis Type="Italic">Additiones</Emphasis>

Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626–1692), one of the earliest proponents of Cameralism, sought to rebuild the German states after the Thirty Years’ War through a variety of new policies, including achieving a high degree of economic autarky. Writing at a time when trade wars and ‘visible hands’ were the order of the day, Seckendorff, like many of his contemporaries, sought to develop domestic productive capacity to escape an excessive and debilitating dependency on foreign powers. His 1665 Additiones to the Teutscher Fürsten-Staat in particular, written after a visit to the economically thriving Dutch Republic, shows how his embryonic Cameralism sought to adapt the clearly observable mechanisms of economic growth in the Low Countries to the peculiarities of the German social and political context.     

Capillary electrophoresis: a new tool in forensic toxicology. Applications and prospects in hair analysis for illicit drugs

Capillary electrophoresis, the modern approach to instrumental electrophoresis, is probably the most rapidly expanding analytical technique that has appeared in recent years. In the hands of forensic toxicologists, capillary electrophoresis (CE) represents a powerful new analytical tool, which has proved suitable for the investigation of illicit drugs in seized preparations and also in complex biological matrices, among which is hair. CE can be applied according to different separation mechanisms, and among those that are toxicologically relevant are capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography, which display different selectivities. For the investigation of hair for drugs of abuse, capillary electrophoresis proved effective, providing simultaneous determinations of different drugs without derivatization, with acceptable sensitivity (typically better than 1 ng of drug per mg of hair). The possibility of carrying out determinations of the same analytes, based on different separation mechanisms (capillary zone electrophoresis and micellar electrokinetic chromatography) with the same instrumentation, simply changing the buffer composition, provides an interesting possibility of ‘internal’ confirmation of the results.     

Validated method for the simultaneous determination of Δ-THC and Δ-THC-COOH in oral fluid, urine and whole blood using solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry with electrospray ionization

A fully validated, sensitive and specific method for the extraction and quantification of Δ⁹-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and 11-nor-9-carboxy-Δ⁹-THC (THC-COOH) and for the detection of 11-hydroxy-Δ⁹-THC (11-OH THC) in oral fluid, urine and whole blood is presented. Solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography–mass spectrometry (LC–MS) technique were used, with electrospray ionization. Three ions were monitored for THC and THC-COOH and two for 11-OH THC. The compounds were quantified by selected ion recording of m/z 315.31, 329.18 and 343.16 for THC, 11-OH THC and THC-COOH, respectively, and m/z 318.27 and 346.26 for the deuterated internal standards, THC-d₃ and THC-COOH-d₃, respectively. The method proved to be precise for THC and THC-COOH both in terms of intra-day and inter-day analysis, with intra-day coefficients of variation (CV) less than 6.3, 6.6 and 6.5% for THC in saliva, urine and blood, respectively, and 6.8 and 7.7% for THC-COOH in urine and blood, respectively. Day-to-day CVs were less than 3.5, 4.9 and 11.3% for THC in saliva, urine and blood, respectively, and 6.2 and 6.4% for THC-COOH in urine and blood, respectively. Limits of detection (LOD) were 2 ng/mL for THC in oral fluid and 0.5 ng/mL for THC and THC-COOH and 20 ng/mL for 11-OH THC, in urine and blood. Calibration curves showed a linear relationship for THC and THC-COOH in all samples (r² > 0.999) within the range investigated.The procedure presented here has high specificity, selectivity and sensitivity. It can be regarded as an alternative method to GC–MS for the confirmation of positive immunoassay test results, and can be used as a suitable analytical tool for the quantification of THC and THC-COOH in oral fluid, urine and/or blood samples.     

A fast ultrasound-assisted extraction procedure for trace elements determination in hair samples by ICP-MS for forensic analysis

An ultrasound-assisted extraction method is proposed for the determination of trace elements in hair samples by inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) for forensic investigation. Prior to analysis, 25 mg of hair samples were accurately weighed into (15 mL) conical tubes. Then, 2 mL of 20% HNO₃ is added to the samples, sonicated at 2 min (50 W, 100% amplitude), and then further diluted to 10 mL with Milli-Q water. Resulted diluted slurries are centrifuged and the analytes are directly determined in the supernatant. Calibrations against aqueous solutions were carried out with rhodium as internal standard. The method was successfully applied for the extraction of Al, As, Ba, Be, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Mn, Pb, Tl, U, V and Zn with a method detection limit (3 s, n = 20) of 0.1, 0.4, 0.2, 0.09, 0.08, 0.04, 0.1, 2.9, 1.0, 0.9, 0.04, 0.05, 0.1 and 4.2 ng/g, respectively. Method accuracy is traceable to Certified Reference Materials (CRMs) 85 and 86 human hair from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Additional validation data are provided based on the analysis of hair samples from the trace elements intercomparison program operated by the Institut National de Sante’ Publique du Quebec, Canada. The proposed method is very simple and can be applied for forensic purposes with the elimination of sample digestion step prior to analysis. Then, a considerable improvement in the sample throughput is archived with the use of the proposed method.     

Michel Foucault: Regimes of Punishment and the Question of Liberty

‘Sex abuse’ has recently become an object of knowledge of the human sciences and thereby, juridical punishment. While not diminishing the problem of sexual violence, this paper explains the intensification of the sexual abuse discourse as contingent upon an incitement to talk about it in a ‘confessional society’. The paper argues that notions such as ‘normality’, ‘deviance’ and therefore (ab)use, are produced by power and are, consequently, contestable. It examines the ways that under the current punitive disciplinary rationality, there is an imperative of continuous production of knowledge that incites the sex abuse discourse. In a liberal society, failure to determine such knowledge is a threat to liberty and thereby, liberalism itself.     

Legal Practice and Modes of Dying: Bruno Latour,Technology and the Critical Legal Instance

Few who have ever observed the workings of a legal office would have witnessed a lawyer engaged in file management. Of course, lawyers, together with their clients, will construct the narrative that makes up the file, but the lawyer will not store it, nor see that it is properly labeled, nor ensure that its contents are in place, nor dust it, nor, finally, remove it for disposal at the end of whatever time is deemed sufficient for it to perform all of its functions. At a time when lawyers are being criticized for their levels of client care this paper explores the opportunities that the handling of the legal file affords for the development of an ethic of care that can then be transposed more broadly across legal practice. The essence of the argument is that the legal file is (as much as the client) a proper object of care, and that the care of the file – its maintenance and management – is an appropriate objective for lawyers, and necessary for the development of a legal profession that is truly ‘client-centered’. The argument is developed in three parts, and is largely informed by Bruno Latour’s works on being and technology as developed in We Have Never Been Modern, Aramis or the Love of Technology, and particularly, in an essay, published in 2002, entitled ‘Technology and Morality: The Ends of the Means’. The first part explores how the handling of the legal file exposes those engaged in this activity to legal histories, legal philosophies and legal ethics. The second part explores the content or nature of the obligation of care owed toward the file by the keeper of the file. It argues that the legal file represents human passions quelled or suppressed by legal conflict, and that ‘technical action’, falling broadly under the rubric of maintenance and handling, are ways in which care is expressed when the object of care is supine, dead or passing. The concluding part advances the care of technology as a means of preventing technological domination, or, in the terms of legal practice, the care of the file as a means of deflecting the development of a file culture.     

The challenge of identification following the tragedy of the Solar Temple (Cheiry/Salvan, Switzerland)

On October 5, 1994, 48 members of the Sect of the Solar Temple were found dead at two different locations in Switzerland: 23 victims in Cheiry and 25 victims in Salvan. Our Institute was commissioned to solve the forensic problems presented by this tragedy. Our goals were to establish the time of death, determine its causes, help elucidate the surrounding circumstances and identify the victims. This work presented us with the following challenges

• this catastrophe was of an ‘open’ type: there were no lists of ‘passengers’;

• the victims were of five different nationalities and many had just arrived in Switzerland to participate in this event;

• family ties were very complex within the group;

• half of the victims were burned and sometimes charred;

• the exceptionally intense media coverage of the story put a lot of pressure on the investigators and our Institute.

In spite of these difficulties, all the victims were positively identified within 1 month. In the present report, we describe the steps realized to progress in our work. A special section describes our relationship with the journalists and their invaluable help in our investigations. The importance of being prepared for such an event is discussed.     

Families, Foreignness, Migration

Introducing the special issue on ‘Families, Foreignness and Migration. Now and Then’, this essay starts from the observation that in Western Europe migrating with or without one's family in the last century was increasingly shaped by state policies. As a result, migrants' identities and family experiences not only depended, and still depend, on their cultural backgrounds but also on very time-specific politics of foreignness and citizenship. The essay's main argument is that comparing and deconstructing perceptions, policies and practices of ‘family’ and migration help to overcome the limited attention given to age and kin in the study of gender and migration. From an overview of contributions to this interdisciplinary issue, it is clear that deconstructing ‘family’ in migration studies should be developed further along three axes: child migration, the multi-level analysis of family and migration, including societies of origin and migrant organizations, and the comparison of ‘visible’ and ‘invisible’ migrants, which contributes to uncovering the relationship between foreignness, gender and age.     

Proficiency testing (external quality assessment) of drug detection in oral fluid

Eighteen external quality assessment (proficiency testing) samples were prepared from client specimens collected with the Intercept^® oral fluid collection device and by spiking drug-free oral fluid. Samples were circulated in pairs at quarterly intervals to 13 UK and USA based laboratories for analysis by a panel of OraSure micro-plate Intercept^® enzyme immunoassay kits and hyphenated mass spectrophotometric techniques. During the survey, there was a single case of non-specificity in a false report for methadone. The major errors were of lack of sensitivity relative to the concentration thresholds specified for the immunoassays. The sensitivity for overall ‘present’/‘not found’ reports calculated as true positives/(true positives + false negatives) were for the amfetamine specific assay 50%, methyl-amfetamines 93%, barbiturates 64%, cannabinoids 73%, cocaine and metabolites 100%, benzodiazepines 69%, methadone 95%, opiates 79% (opiates excluding oxycodone 93%), phencyclidine 93% and human gamma-globulin 97%. A small number of the sensitivity errors were attributable to errors in chromatographic confirmation techniques.     

ECJ provides further guidance on the ambit of database right

Following on from the European Court of Justice's ruling on database right in the Directmedia case, the Court has looked in more detail at the protection afforded by database right, and provided further clarification of the meaning of ‘extraction’ and ‘substantial’, particularly in relation to modular databases comprised of several sections. The ECJ's ruling is positive for database owners for the most part, bolstering its previous broad interpretation of the acts of ‘extraction’ that can infringe and considering in more detail other points touched on in the Directmedia, British Horseracing Board and Fixtures Marketing cases. This article discusses the outcome and implications of the ruling.     

A Brief Introduction to Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff (1626–1692)

Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff is widely regarded as the ‘founder’ of early economics in Germany, of Cameralism. Having survived the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War and the resulting economic, political, and moral breakdown of society, Seckendorff conceived of a holistic science of public administration fit to reconstruct the more than 300 independent German principalities recognized by the Peace of Westphalia. The science he envisioned was both theoretical and practical, covering all the needs of a small principality. The same union of active and contemplative characterizes Seckendorff’s own life, as he devoted himself both to administrating the Court of Gotha and the University of Halle, both to write an “owner’s handbook” to small principalities and one of the most celebrated defenses of Lutheranism. This introduction will explore how these many facets came together in the figure of Seckendorff, what his main influences were, and how the historical context helped shape his writings.     

Identification of a disinterred grave by molecular and stable isotope analysis

Confirmation of a potential disinterred grave was sought by GC and GC/MS analyses of lipid extracts of whole soils and white particulate matter. Fatty acid profiles and concentrations determined for three of the soils correlated with the deposition of a large amount of exogenous organic matter, most likely adipocere and/or decomposed body fat. Determination of C_16:0 and C_18:0 fatty acid δ¹³C values by GC/C/IRMS revealed the input to be isotopically distinct from common British domesticated animals, plotting closely to values determined for adipose fat obtained from of a murder victim. By considering the difference between δ¹³C values (Δ¹³C_18:0–16:0) a potential isotopic proxy for identifying the source of adipocere (human) and adipose tissue was proposed.     

Introduction: Structure or strategy? Essays on family, demography, and labor from the Dutch N.W. Posthumus Institute

The concept of ‘family strategies’ has yielded much valuable research when used in the classic ‘quantitative’ and ‘anthropological’ approaches to the history of family life. Its continued use as a research concept requires, however, that significantly more attention be paid to the relationships between families as social units and their individual members, to the great variety of families and households, and to the different motives that guided families in charging strategies. These questions are brought to the forefront when the history of the family is investigated cross-culturally and comparatively, as the articles of this Special Issue, written by researchers of the Dutch N. W. Posthumus Institute, seek to do.     

Doing family: Responses to the constructions of ‘the migrant family’ across Europe

This paper draws on how constructions of ‘the migrant family’ in political discourse influence migrants' and their families' lives. In specific national contexts, ‘the migrant family’ is determined according to the national and European debates and expressed by their respective rules and regulations. By ‘doing family’, migrants and their families develop strategies in order to fit these requirements of living a certain family life. Fulfilling specific norms and perceptions which are not necessarily required for the majority of society is a precondition to succeed. Who is and who is not part of the family, who holds responsibility — such aspects have to be proved and repeatedly reproduced by migrants and their families. This not only affects their position in society, but also has strong implications on their lives as a couple and family, since it requires the continuous adaptation and reconstructions of their everyday reality.     

Colonialism and the health transition: Aboriginal Australians and poor whites compared, Victoria, 1850–1985

This paper presents the results of the first two longitudinal historical cradle-to-grave datasets constructed in Australia: the Aboriginal population of the state of Victoria, reconstituted backwards using genealogical research and vital registrations, 1835–1930; and an impoverished European population born at the Melbourne Lying-In Hospital, 1857–1900 and traced until 1985. It investigates the hypothesis that the health transition in indigenous people was different from that of the dominant non-indigenous population. Both of these studied sub-populations were highly stressed, resulting in high infant mortality and persistent tuberculosis mortality. The Aboriginal population suffered the additional burdens of racism and social exclusion, even though after the passage of the 1886 ‘Half-Castes Act’, the majority of Aboriginal Victorians were legally ‘white’. The impact of that legislation and the systematic exclusion of Aboriginal Victorians from federal entitlements in the twentieth century sent the Aboriginal health transition into reverse. The contrasting fates of poor whites and ‘unofficial blacks’ during the health transition demonstrate the health burdens of inequality and racial discrimination, and reveal that ‘the gap’ in life expectancy between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians is a historical product of long-term government policy and exclusion from citizenship and its entitlements.