Identifying with the Nation: Spain's Left-Wing Citizens in an Age of Crisis

This study analyses the extent, sense, and strategies employed by sympathisers with Spanish state-wide left-wing parties to ‘reconstruct’ their affective ties with the Spanish nation after the ‘monopolisation of patriotism’ by Franco's regime. Such an undertaking is further complicated within the context of economic crisis and intensified peripheral nationalism found in Catalonia and the Basque Country. This article applies qualitative analysis to the discourse of left-wing participants from 11 focus groups held in March 2012 amidst the economic (and political) crisis. As expected, this context of crisis favoured the emergence of explicit discourse on the Spanish nation, providing an opportunity to gain a better understanding of its nature. Findings show that welfare nationalism and social patriotism define the kind of attachment developed by the interviewees towards Spain better than the concept of constitutional patriotism, or any kind of ethnic-cultural feeling of belonging.     

The European Union and Latin America: ‘Transformative power Europe’ versus the realities of economic interests

Relations between the European Union (EU) and regional subgroups in Latin America (Mercosur, the Andean Community and Central America) are clear examples of ‘pure interregionalism’ and provide evidence of the EU's active promotion of regional integration. Within the context of these cases, this article explores what type of international power the EU wields, how interregionalism is embedded in that power, and how it is deployed. Combining strands of literature on EU–Latin American relations, interregionalism, EU external policy and power provides a framework within which interregionalism can be understood as an important normative and practical tool for the EU's external power projection. Drawing on official documentation and interviews with key individuals, the paper highlights the EU's articulation of power in interregional relations and reflects upon its mixed success. It concludes that, while imperial qualities and aspirations can be observed in the EU's penchant for interregionalism, the transformative power of the EU remains limited.     

Nondestructive Methods for Recovery of Biological Material from Human Teeth for DNA Extraction

The extraction of DNA from human skeletal remains applied to forensic, and evolutionary studies do not exclude risks, which are to be evaluated when working with unique specimens that could be damaged or even destroyed. In the present study were evaluated several nondestructive methods for recovering DNA instead of the most currently used pulverization method. Three different procedures to access inside the dental pieces (occlusal perforation, cervical perforation, and cervical cut) have been compared with the aim of recovering as many cell remains as possible to carry out a DNA extraction. Given the DNA quantitation results, a method was proposed that consists of a cervical cut to facilitate the access to the pulp cavity and a subsequent filing of the root canals down to the apex of the dental root. This methodology allows the recovery of both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA, with the minimum deterioration for the dental pieces.     

Animal Scavenging and Scattering and the Implications for Documenting the Deaths of Undocumented Border Crossers in the Sonoran Desert,

Since 1998, over 5500 people have died while attempting to cross the U.S.–Mexico border without authorization. These deaths have primarily occured in the Arizona desert. Despite the high volume of deaths, little experimental work has been conducted on Sonoran Desert taphonomy. In this study, pig carcasses were used as proxies for human remains and placed in different depositional contexts (i.e., direct sunlight and shade) that replicate typical sites of migrant death. Decomposition was documented through daily site visits, motion-sensitive cameras and GIS mapping, while skeletal preservation was investigated through the collection of the remains and subsequent faunal analysis. Our results suggest that vultures and domestic dogs are underappreciated members of the Sonoran scavenging guild and may disperse skeletal remains and migrant possessions over 25 m from the site of death. The impact of scavengers and the desert environment on the decomposition process has significant implications for estimating death rates and identifying human remains along the Arizona/Mexico border.     

Differences in Handwritings of Schizophrenia Patients and Examination of the Change after Treatment

The aim of this study was to analyze the differences between the handwritings of schizophrenia patients and healthy subjects in addition to the changes that occurred in schizophrenia patients' handwriting in response to the treatment. The test subjects were 29 schizophrenia patients and 29 healthy individuals with the same age, gender, and dominant hand. The changes in the handwritings were examined according to 14 different parameters. On the day of admittance, the percentage of extra letters was 16.7%, and after 7–10 days of hospitalization, it rose to 33.3%. The percentage of skipped words decreased from 29.2% to 16.7% after 7–10 days of hospitalization, and to 10% after 3 weeks. The letters written by schizophrenia patients are significantly larger in height and width compared to the control group. The schizophrenia patients showed a higher incidence of crossed-out letters, adding extra words, missing punctuation as well as missing words.     

The Application of Flow Cytometry as a Rapid and Sensitive Screening Method to Detect Contamination of Vitreous Humor Samples and Avoid Miscalculation of the Postmortem Interval

Research into maximizing the speed, precision, and reliability of estimating the postmortem interval (PMI) has been a recurring object of investigation and methodologies based on the vitreous humor (VH) have provided good results. However, contamination from causes not readily apparent, such as blood, can occur, and thus lead not only to an erroneous estimation of PMI, but also interfere with the correct identification of other substances in the VH. We have developed a flow cytometry method which quantifies blood contamination and is able to detect erythrocytes in 1:750,000 dilution of contaminated VH which affects the results of hypoxanthine. It is an improvement on the previous more complex mass spectrometry method, being faster, more sensitive, and readily available. As such, it could be proposed for the rapid screening of appropriate samples by detecting and eliminating blood contaminated samples from PMI estimation.