An agenda for post-troubles policing in Northern Ireland — The South African precedent

Conclusion These proposals represent part of a much larger agenda for policing reform. Critically, it is now time in Northern Ireland, as it was in South Africa, for all sides to start “thinking the unthinkable” if the peace process is to gain momentum. In that process of creating an agenda, opinions will be sought from many quarters. South Africa, in certain limited ways, provides a model of how irreconcilable views about the nature of policing a divided society, can be given serious considerations, of a more peaceful society is to be created. But there is one other crucial lesson from South Africa. Police reform cannot be imposed from above, or according to the dictates of outside experts. It must be based on serious, continuing consultation between all parties — local communities, political parties, the central state, and the police service itself. The South African example demonstrates that existing hostile interests do not have to learn to love one another in making progress in police reform. There is a common interest which surmounts political opposition — local people need the security which an effective, non-partisan police service can provide. minuscule levels.     

Apport de l'immunoelectrophorese pour l'expertise des taches de sang en medecine legale

Conclusive evidence was obtained in this study that immunoelectrophoresis could be used in the identification of blood-stains in two particular cases: for diagnosis or approach to diagnosis of the age of a blood-stain, and for diagnosis of the human origin of a blood-stain that had been treated with petroleum products.Although many aspects should be investigated in more detail, it is certain that this method can be employed in combination with other methods.     

THE POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT INACCURACIES IN MERGER SIMULATION MODELS

This paper considers the role that merger simulation modelsshould play in European merger control. The use of these models,as off-the-shelf instruments to assess the economic effectsof mergers, has become increasingly widespread in recent years.However, contrary to some claims, merger simulation models donot allow investigators to avoid much of the competitive effectsanalysis relating to the relevant economic market, nor do theynecessarily provide more precision to merger control. Withoutunderstanding the limitations of such models and the circumstancesunder which they can and should be usefully applied, they maynot just be useless, but dangerous in the sense of providingpossibly spurious results with spurious claimed accuracy. Thispaper argues that any merger simulation models used should be"bespoke" models, rather than off-the-shelf models, but cautionsthat even bespoke models will frequently not be as useful asis often claimed. This is not to deny that there are occasionswhen well-constructed bespoke models are genuinely useful anddo offer genuine improvements in merger control.     

Public Administration Scholarship and the Politics of Coproducing Academic–Practitioner Research

Developing greater cooperation between researchers and practitioners is a long‐standing concern in social science. Academics and practitioners working together to coproduce research offers a number of potential gains for public administration scholarship, but it also raises some dilemmas. The benefits include bringing local knowledge to bear on the field, making better informed policy, and putting research to better use. However, coproduction of research also involves managing ambiguous loyalties, reconciling different interests, and negotiating competing goals. The authors reflect on their experience of coproducing a research project in the United Kingdom and discuss the challenges that coproducers of research confront. They situate the discussion within a consideration of traditions of public administration scholarship and debates about the role of the academy to understand better the politics of their joint practice. Thinking about the politics of coproduction is timely and enables the authors to become more attuned to the benefits and constraints of this mode of research..     

Evidence of mephedrone chronic abuse through hair analysis using GC/MS

Mephedrone is a synthetic derivative of cathinone which is becoming more common on the recreational drug market. Several intoxications following mephedrone abuse have been reported though published papers have focused essentially on analytical approaches for biological fluids and only one has involved a hair sample. After the development and validation of a new method, the first series of positive results for mephedrone in hair specimens is reported here. After decontamination of the hair strand in methylene chloride, hair segments were cut into small pieces with scissors, weighed and incubated overnight in Soerensen buffer pH 7.0 in the presence of deuterated 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) at 40°C. The incubation medium was extracted using ethyl acetate after alkalinisation with 1N sodium hydroxide (NaOH). Before injection, the dry extract was derivatized using a mixture of heptafluorobutyric anhydride/ethyl acetate (100:50, v/v), evaporated and dissolved in ethyl acetate (25μl). After introduction of 1μl of the extract onto a splitless injector, chromatographic separation was achieved on a HP 6890 gas chromatograph equipped with a 5-MS capillary column. Detection was achieved in single ion monitoring mode (m/z 254-119-210 for mephedrone, m/z 258-213 for MDMA-d5) using a 5973 MSD operating in electron impact mode. Sixty-seven hair specimens were tested for mephedrone. Thirteen of them were found positive for mephedrone with concentrations ranging from 0.2 to 313.2ng/mg with a mean concentration of 26.8ng/mg. It was difficult to compare our findings due to a lack of reference data, nevertheless mephedrone seems well incorporated into hair (concentrations in the ng/mg range) like other stimulant drugs such as amphetamines or cocaine. The aim of this work was to develop a specific and accurate method for mephedrone analysis in hair specimens and its application to a large number of samples (n=67). The developed analytical method appears sensitive enough to reveal occasional to regular use of mephedrone.     

Identity-Lineup Location Influences Target Selection: Evidence from Eye Movements

Eyewitnesses often have to recognize the perpetrators of an observed crime from identity lineups. In the construction of these lineups, a decision must be made concerning where a suspect should be placed, but whether location in a lineup affects the identification of a perpetrator has received little attention. This study explored this problem with a face-matching task, in which observers decided if pairs of faces depict the same person or two different people (Experiment 1), and with a lineup task in which the presence of a target had to be detected in an identity parade of five faces (Experiment 2). In addition, this study also explored if high accuracy is related to a perceptual pop-out effect, whereby the target is detected rapidly among the lineup. In both experiments, observers?? eye movements revealed that location determines the order in which people were viewed, whereby faces on the left side were consistently viewed first. This location effect was reflected also in observers?? responses, so that a foil face on the left side of a lineup display was more likely to be misidentified as the target. However, identification accuracy was not related to a pop-out effect. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Academic entrepreneurship,technology transfer and society: where next?

I outline a synthesis of micro and macro levels that attempts to provide a broader conceptualization of academic entrepreneurship and an appreciation of the contextual heterogeneity of academic entrepreneurship and the implications for how it occurs. The micro-level concerns how firms orchestrate their resources and capabilities, specifically knowing where resources come from and how to accumulate, bundle and configure them to generate sustainable returns. At the macro level, I analyse four different dimensions of context: temporal, institutional, social and spatial. Consequently, I argue that there is a need for a reconciliation of utilitarian and education-for-education’s sake perspectives on the role of universities.