Chemical enhancement of footwear impressions in blood on fabric – Part 1: Protein stains

A range of protein stains were utilised for the enhancement of footwear impressions on a variety of fabric types of different colours with blood as a contaminant. A semi-automated stamping device was used to deliver test impressions at a set force to minimise the variability between impressions; multiple impressions were produced and enhanced by each reagent to determine the repeatability of the enhancement. Results indicated that while most protein stains used in this study successfully enhanced impressions in blood on light coloured fabrics, background staining caused interference on natural fabrics. Enhancement on dark coloured fabrics was only achieved using fluorescent protein stains, as non-fluorescent protein stains provided poor contrast.A further comparison was performed with commercially available protein staining solutions and solutions prepared within the laboratory from the appropriate chemicals. Both solutions performed equally well, though it is recommended to use freshly prepared solutions whenever possible.     

Chemical enhancement of footwear impressions in blood deposited on fabric — Evaluating the use of alginate casting materials followed by chemical enhancement

Most footwear marks made in blood on a surface such as fabric tend to be enhanced in situ rather than physically recovered using a lifting technique prior to enhancement. This work reports on the use of an alginate material to recover the impressed footwear marks made in blood and deposited on a range of fabric types and colours. The lifted marks were then enhanced using acid black 1 and leuco crystal violet with excellent results.This presents a new method for the lifting and recovery of blood impressions in situ from crime scene followed by subsequent mark enhancement of the lifted impression.     

Further Validation of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) Trial 1 Performance Validity Index: Examination of False Positives and Convergent Validity

Assessment of performance validity is an essential part of a neuropsychological evaluation, with the inclusion of two or more performance validity tests (PVTs) becoming routine practice. Considering the time to administer multiple tests, there has been some support for use of the Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM) Trial 1 (T1) as an independent, “one and done” PVT. Notably, cutoffs for TOMM T1 need further validation, with an emphasis on minimizing false-positive classifications among those with bona fide cognitive impairment. In a clinically referred sample of 127 veterans, this study examined the role of cognitive impairment in TOMM performance and the utility of a TOMM T1 as an independent PVT. Examinees were administered the TOMM and three additional PVTs as part of a comprehensive neuropsychological battery. Sixty-eight percent of examinees were classified valid (35% of valid examinees were cognitively impaired). TOMM T1?≤?40 had excellent observed sensitivity (83%) and specificity (93%) overall, with minimal false-positive classification. TOMM T1 was also significantly correlated and concordant with other memory-based PVTs. Given score ranges and failure rates for TOMM T1?≤?40 among those with neurological/neurocognitive conditions, scores in the 37–40 range may merit administration of additional TOMM trials to maximize accuracy in identifying valid-cognitively impaired versus noncredible performance. Otherwise, an abbreviated TOMM administration (i.e., only T1) using a cutoff of ≤?40—in conjunction with one or more additional PVTs—may be sufficient for detecting noncredible/invalid test performance in the absence of known or suspected neurological/neurocognitive disorders.     

Political Ideology,Public Policy and Human Development in India: Explaining the Gap Between Gujarat and Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Four decades ago the Indian states of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu had identical scores on the human development index. Both states have since experienced similar rates of economic growth and Gujarat has received more foreign investment, but Tamil Nadu has witnessed much stronger advances in human development. What explains this divergence? Through comparative historical, statistical and public policy analysis and interviews, we conclude that the implementation of government policies as a manifestation of political ideology and the quality of public administration have played a defining role in explaining Gujarat’s more lopsided and Tamil Nadu’s more balanced human development trajectories. Our findings suggest that a more egalitarian ideology and higher quality of public administration have been crucial to Tamil Nadu’s success in simultaneously improving human and economic development.     

Transforming Fair Use Online: The Ninth Circuit's Productive-Use Analysis of Visual Search Engines

Courts have increasingly looked to the concept of “transformative use” to determine whether the use of a copyrighted work is protected under the fair use doctrine. Judge Pierre Leval's definition of transformative use, adopted by the Supreme Court of the United States in its 1994 opinion in Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc., requires that a transformative use must (1) be socially beneficial, (2) be used in a different way or purpose from the original, and (3) add value to the original by using it as raw material to create something new. This article examines the fair use analysis undertaken by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in two recent cases involving visual search engines and concludes that the court's test of transformative use ignored the language and the meaning of the Campbell definition and instead equated a finding of a different purpose with a finding of a transformative use. This departure from traditional transformative use analysis, if generally adopted by the court, would represent a significant and potentially troubling doctrinal shift in fair use analysis.     

Do Belgian parties undermine the democratic chain of delegation?

The Belgian party-archy violates the ideal-type chain of parliamentary delegation in many ways, insofar as political parties play a predominant role at each stage. They channel the delegation of power from voters to MPs, from Parliament to the cabinet, from the collective cabinet to individual ministers, and from ministers to their civil servants. Hence, they can be considered the effective principals in the polity, and many actors of the parliamentary chain of delegation, such as MPs, ministers, and civil servants have been reduced to mere party agents. The extreme fragmentation of the Belgian party system in combination with its increasing need for multilevel coordination have further enhanced the position of political parties in the Belgian polity. Yet, at the same time (since the early 1990s), Belgium has also witnessed a gradual decline in the informal system of partitocratic delegation and clientelistic excesses, thereby giving back part of their autonomy to some formal agents, such as the cabinet, top civil servants and some MPs. Still, one can wonder whether these corrections are sufficient to counter the strong outburst of public dissatisfaction with the way parties have run the country in past decades.     

A Higher Form of Intelligence: Hugh Trevor-Roper and Wartime British Secret Service

Throughout his distinguished career, the historian Hugh Trevor-Roper was known in many incarnations and guises: the ‘sleuth of Oxford’; Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford; the Spectator's Mercurius Oxoniensis; Baron Dacre of Glanton; and Master of Peterhouse College. In addition, he was to gain wider notoriety in the early 1980s as the man who helped authenticate the forged Hitler Diaries. Nevertheless, his wartime embodiment as a British intelligence officer is one facet of his personal history that has never before been addressed by scholars in any great depth. Using previously unpublished material from Trevor-Roper's memoirs and personal papers, as well as excerpts from the Guy Liddell Diaries, this article aims to highlight the fact that, contrary to the impression engendered by F.H. Hinsley's dry and depersonalized multi-volume official history, British Intelligence in the Second World War, Major H.R. Trevor-Roper, and many other intelligence officers like him, not only had a ‘good war’, but a rich and colourful one. If historians are to escape the late Sir Maurice Oldfield's indictment of that official history, namely, that it was written ‘by a committee, about committees, for a committee’, they might do worse than begin to reappraise the role of the individual in the context of Britain's intelligence effort during 1939–45. The late Lord Dacre, so this article argues, is one such individual requiring further study.     

Interdisciplinary,cross-sector collaboration in the US Intelligence Community: lessons learned from past and present efforts

ABSTRACT

How does one design and sustain interdisciplinary, cross-sector collaboration to improve intelligence results for twenty-first century security threats? This paper will analyse five past and present initiatives designed to create interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral collaboration within different agencies of the US Intelligence Community (IC). We will discuss key features of each effort, their successes and challenges, identify common themes and, propose which collaborative model might be most advantageous for a particular type of project based on project constraints. In so doing, we provide direction for IC leaders seeking to improve academia–industry–intelligence partnerships for future planning on intelligence-funded collaborations.     

Analytic Outreach for Intelligence: Insights from a Workshop on Emerging Biotechnology Threats

This article describes a new effort to engage in analytic outreach between academic scholars and intelligence analysts on the issue of emerging biotechnology threats to US national security. The context of this outreach was a September 2012 meeting in London to explore possibilities for enhanced analytic outreach in relation to emerging biotechnology threats, supported by the UK Genomics Policy and Research Forum. This meeting consisted of a mix of current and former intelligence practitioners and policy officials, and social science and scientific experts, from both the UK and the US. As will be described below, this unique pairing of experts and subjects revealed new insights into how to improve intelligence assessments on biotechnology and bioweapons threats. It also revealed continuing challenges in reforming assessments within existing intelligence work routines.     

Exclusion through citizenship: civic deliberation and its limits in the Peruvian blogosphere

Research on the exclusionary nature of citizenship has concentrated on the state as the agent who defines the limits of citizenship, framing it as a legal status. Exclusionary discourses and practices resulting from everyday notions of ‘good citizenship’ have received less attention. A stronger focus on these can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between citizenship and exclusion by highlighting exclusion through citizenship. In other words, it emphasises the ways in which practices and discourses of ‘good citizenship’ simultaneously produce its limits, consisting of practices and discourses which are considered ‘not civic’. In this sense, exclusion happens because of, rather than in spite of, citizenship. The article examines notions of civic deliberation among Peruvian bloggers, arguing that these included clear limits, which, if violated, allowed for exclusion.