Allele frequencies of nine STR loci—D16S539, D7S820, D13S317, CSF1PO, TPOX, TH01, F13A01, FESFPS and vWA—in the population from Alagoas, northeastern Brazil

The polymorphism of nine STR loci has been studied in a sample of 598 individuals from the population of Alagoas, Northeastern Brazil. Determination of the allele frequencies as well as of several commonly used statistics in forensic and paternity testing were defined. The most polymorphic loci were TH01 and D7S317. The exact test demonstrated that the nine loci analyzed in the population have no deviation from Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium (P>0.05).     

A New Paradigm

<正>The"Four Comprehensives"aim at putting China on track to achieve its economic and social development targets.In an effort to avoid a hard landing from the economy,China should face the current downward pressure on its growth by boosting effectivedemand and progressively switching to a new growth model.At the opening of the annual National People’s Congress(NPC)in March,Chinese Premier Li Keqiang announced that the of-     

Covenant of Mayors: Reasons for Being an Environmentally and Energy Friendly Municipality

The Covenant of Mayors (CM) is the mainstream European movement involving local authorities who voluntarily commit to increase energy efficiency and the use of renewable energy sources within their territories with the aim of reducing CO₂ emissions and meet the European Union objectives by 2020. One country that has a greater number of signatories of this agreement is Spain. This article analyzes which factors influence the decision of Spanish local authorities to join the ever‐growing movement. An empirical model is formulated to describe the behavior of Spanish local governments, this being a binary choice model which is a function of various political, economic, and technical factors. Among the prominent factors that influence this decision are population, availability of renewable energy, fiscal and environmental stress, citizens’ political preference, the contagion effect of neighboring municipalities, the existence of covenant coordinators, and finally, economic motivations.     

Suicide to harass others: clues from mythology to understanding suicide bombing attacks

Suicide by revenge, the Samsonic suicide, and the suicide by devotio, all described in classical mythology and also reported in the ethnographic literature, belong to the same class of suicidal behaviors as kamikaze suicide and the suicide bombing attack: suicide to harass and burden others or suicide with a hostile intent. The lack of a social dimension to share in a positive manner may lead an individual to integrate him/herself in another social structure, e.g., a military organization, which allows the individual to express his/her desires and personal identity only by destroying others and themselves. The dynamics of these forms of suicide are also likely to work in other displays of life-threatening behavior, such as family annihilation, mass murder, and spree killing. A more thorough investigation of the dynamics operating in suicide bombing attacks could, therefore, contribute to preventative strategies against violence at large.     

An evaluation of matching unknown writing inks with the United States International Ink Library

Utilizing a database of standards for forensic casework is a valuable resource. Undoubtedly, as more standards (and corresponding information about the specimens) are collected, there is a greater certainty of identification when a questioned and a known item cannot be distinguished after a series of analyses. The United States Secret Service and the Internal Revenue Service National Forensic Laboratory jointly maintain the largest known forensic collection of writing inks in the world, which is comprised of over 8500 ink standards collected worldwide, dating back to the 1920s. This study was conducted to evaluate the reliability of matching arbitrarily purchased pens with known inks from a database. One hundred pens were randomly obtained from a variety of sources and their respective ink compositions were compared with standards. Eighty-five of the inks were determined to be suitable for comparison utilizing optical examinations and thin-layer chromatography. Three of the inks did not match any of the specimens on record; one of these inks was similar to an ink from an identical brand of pen that was in the database, but had a modified formulation.     

Pink teeth in a series of bodies recovered from a single shipwreck

Pink teeth have most often been observed in victims of drowning but have also been reported in subjects who died suddenly and unnaturally. There is general agreement that there is no obvious connection between the occurrence of pink teeth and the cause of death, but the condition of the surroundings (especially humidity) must certainly play an important role in the development of the pink-tooth phenomenon. The frequency and distribution of postmortem pink coloration of the teeth have been studied among a representative sample of 52 cadavers. All the bodies were victims of a single shipwreck that occurred on March 13, 1997, in the middle of the Otranto Canal (Mediterranean Sea). The bodies were recovered from the seawater after approximately 7 months. A distinct pink coloration of the teeth was found in only 18 cadavers (13 females and 5 males) of ages ranging between 13 and 60 years. The phenomenon was more pronounced in younger individuals due to age-related changes of the root canal, less penetrable by the pigment responsible for the postmortem pink staining. By histochemical methods and autofluorescence, hemoglobin and its derivatives have been identified as the most likely pigments responsible for this postmortem process that can be considered analogous to postmortem lividity. These data are consistent with previous reports on pink teeth, indicating that the diffusion of the blood in the pulp into the dentinal tubules causes the red discoloration of the teeth. Based on the results, the pigmentation is more prominent on the teeth with single roots rather than in the posterior teeth with multiple roots.