Forensic dental training in Australia

To facilitate in the identification of victims of a major disaster a trained dental manpower reserve is required. In the state of New South Wales, Australia, an annual three-day training course has been designed to familiarize dentists from both the public and private sectors with identification techniques. The course is aimed to preserve the flexibility of personnel so that they can be utilized in a variety of roles rather than rigidly structuring the make up of a team. It is envisaged though, that in a mass disaster situation teams would be specialized into dental autopsy, antemortem or comparison roles.     

Mass spectrometry as an aid in the detection and identification of piperidyl benzilates and related glycolates.

On the basis of the data presented above the following conclusions may be drawn. 1. The molecular ion peaks of most of the compounds examined are relatively weak but usually easily discernible to permit molecular weight determination. 2. The mass spectra of benzilate esters exhibit a relatively intense peak at m/e 183, and monitoring of this ion can serve as a means for preliminary screening for the presence of this type of a system. 3. Related esters exhibit a similar type of fragmentation resulting in a fragment ion analogous to m/e 183 but shifted by the appropriate number of mass units according to the substituents present. 4. Cleavage of the piperidine ring-ester oxygen bond in 3 and 4-substituted isomers is followed by selective losses of hydrogen radicals to produce ions of type e, f, and g as indicated above. It is significant that in a related piperidine ring system (methylphenidate) substituted in the 2 position, the same type of cleavage results in no further hydrogen losses [16] because of charge stabilization from the ring nitrogen (ion j, Fig. 17) [17]. In other words, the tendency to form a conjugated ion following initial bond cleavage can serve as a means for identifying the position of substitution on the ring and for distinguishing positional isomers.     

Consistency in policy thinking

This study examines consistency in opinion on a variety of important state and national policy questions. The data come from a two-wave panel study of adult Floridians conducted in 1981 and 1982. Wide variations in consistency of opinion over the 1-year period are found. Salience has an important impact on consistency, with respondents who find an issue salient almost always exhibiting more consistent opinions, but salience cannot explain the variations in consistency across issues. The level of government on which the issue is focused (national or state) has no bearing on consistency. Most important, the particular nature of the issue itself, especially how central it is to the individual and how long it has occupied the political agenda (maturity), affects consistency of opinion. Centrality and maturity both contribute to issue attitude consistency and even can compensate for one another. Both highly central new issues and remote old issues can produce consistent attitudes, but deficiences in centrality seem to override issue maturity. These findings illustrate the value of looking beyond opinion distributions to the meaning of the survey response. With information on consistency and its sources, the public opinion analyst can interpret polling results intelligently, and the study of public opinion can become more objective and scientific.