Utility of the Y-STR typing systems Y-PLEX 6 and Y-PLEX 5 in forensic casework and 11 Y-STR haplotype database for three major population groups in the United States

The Y-PLEX 6 and Y-PLEX 5 systems enable analysis for 11 Y-STR loci. We present here the utility of these systems in forensic casework. A total of 188 samples, including 127 evidence samples, were analyzed using either or both of the systems. The evidence sample types included fingernail scrapings, sperm or seminal fluid, epithelial cells, blood and other tissues. The Y-STR typing systems provided useful probative results in difficult cases. A reference database for Caucasian (n = 517), African American (n = 535), and Hispanic (n = 245) population groups within the United States was generated for estimating the haplotype frequency in forensic casework. Among the individuals profiled, 311 Caucasians, 412 African Americans, and 194 Hispanics provided unique profiles in their respective population datasets. This is the first report describing the haplotype database for the set of 11 Y-STR loci recommended by the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM). Linkage analysis reveals that the frequencies from forensically important autosomal loci can be multiplied with the Y-STR haplotype frequency. The results from Y-PLEX systems have been accepted in courts in the United States.     

Teaching Negotiation with a Feminist Perspective

Negotiation teachers encourage their students to be inventive,improve agreements, and push outward on the "pareto" frontier.Likewise, teachers can improve their practice by seeking value, sometimesin other disciplines. In general, negotiation is taught through acombination of lectures with simulation exercises and debriefings. Feministpedagogy enhances this normative model of teaching negotiation. Thisarticle links the traditional method of teaching negotiation with four keyprinciples of feminist pedagogy.     

Objective and Self-Perceived Resources as Predictors of Depression Among Urban and Non-Urban Adolescent Mothers

Pregnant and parenting adolescents often cope with a lack of resources as they struggle to negotiate the tasks of motherhood and adolescence. Previous research has determined that young mothers have an increased rate of depression when compared to older mothers. In this study, self-perceived resource adequacy, education, income, age, and environment (urban vs. non-urban) were investigated as predictors of depression at approximately 14 and 36 months after birth in adolescent mothers (N=523). Self-perceived resources accounted for significant variance in depression at 14 and 36 months while controlling for education and income. However, education and income were not significant predictors while controlling for self-perceived resources. Age and environment did not predict depression. Researchers would be wise to focus on a young woman’s view of her situation, as it appears that self-perceived resources play an important role in predicting depression.Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Juniper Gardens Children’s Project, University of Kansas. She received her Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 2005. Her major research interests are adolescent parenthood, mental health, and parenting interventions.Professor at Iowa State University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1976. His major research interests are stress and coping, mental health, and adolescence.Assistant Professor at Iowa State University. She received her Ph.D. from Iowa State University in 1997. Her major research interests are assessment and program planning for children with disabilities and early literacy.     

Exchange Rate Pass-through to Import Prices,and Monetary Policy in South Africa

Abstract

Understanding how import prices adjust to exchange rates helps anticipate inflation effects and monetary policy responses. This article examines exchange rate pass-through to the monthly import price index in South Africa during 1980–2009. Short-horizon pass-through estimates are calculated using both single equation equilibrium correction models and systems (Johansen) models, controlling for both domestic and foreign costs. Average pass-through is incomplete at about 50 per cent within a year and 30 per cent in six months, and in the long-run, from the Johansen analysis including feedback effects, is about 55 per cent. There is evidence of slower pass-through under inflation targeting; pass-through is found to decline with recent exchange rate volatility and there is evidence for asymmetry, with greater pass-through occurring for small appreciations.     

School Governance in Wales

Abstract

This article focuses on the involvement of governors in the governance of schools in Wales. Set within the context of the devolved education system, school governance has gone from being on the margins of interest to centre stage. This reflects a new focus on pupil performance and outcomes and the need for pupils in Wales to be successful internationally. As new regulations come into place in Wales which demand more from governors in relation to promoting school performance and educational achievement, there is a requirement for governors to undertake particular training. Governors will have to decide whether to federate governor arrangements or not in relation to their leadership of schools. Two key themes emerge in this article. First, there is greater control and direction from the centre over governors in how they undertake their governance roles. Second, there is an expectation that governors will collaborate with each other in the governance of schools. Both of these aspects are different from existing governance arrangements and the extent to which pupil outcomes improve will be fundamental to the success of the new regulations.     

Laughing Medusa: Feminist Intellectuals at the Millennium

The role of the intellectual is traditionally gendered masculine, and women are excluded from consideration. Contemporary discussions of the 'death of the intellectual' noticeably make no reference to feminist intellectuals. On the other hand, women in academia have been reluctant to adopt the role of public intellectual as conventionally defined. There is an anxiety about the contemporary place of the intellectual, and about the necessity for the distinction made by some feminists between theory and practice, the intellectual and the activist, and where this might lead. In exploring the role of feminist intellectuals over the last two centuries, three paradigms of the feminist intellectual are proposed for consideration: Cassandra (the prophetess cursed with disbelief), for example Florence Nightingale; the feminist Messiah (the exceptional female saviour who would sacrifice herself to change women's lives), for whom the exemplar is Margaret Fuller; and the Dark Lady (the token woman in a community of men), such as de Beauvoir, Mary McCarthy and Susan Sontag. Indeed, Camille Paglia's rivalry with Sontag lends itself to being interpreted as evidence of her current desire to occupy this 'dark lady' role. In conclusion, after discussing contemporary, late twentieth-century feminism (Natasha Walter, Elizabeth Wurtzel, gurrl power, 'women behaving badly'), the role of Margaret Thatcher in changing perceptions of women's capacity for political power is proposed for celebration. Finally, there is Cixous's image of the feminist intellectual as the laughing Medusa, who turns men to stone, but turns laughter on herself.     

The power and politics of blogs

The rise of bloggers raises the vexing question of why blogs have any influence at all, given their relatively low readership and lack of central organization. We argue that to answer this question we need to focus on two key factors—the unequal distribution of readers across weblogs, and the relatively high readership of blogs among journalists and other political elites. The unequal distribution of readership, combined with internal norms and linking practices allows interesting news and opinions to rise to the “top” of the blogosphere, and thus to the attention of elite actors, whose understanding of politics may be changed by frames adopted from the blogosphere.     

Introduction: Blogs, politics and power: a special issue of Public Choice

There is good reason to believe that blogs are changing politics, but we don’t know exactly how. Nor do we know whether the normative consequences of blogs for politics are likely to be good or bad. In this special issue, we and our co-authors undertake the first sustained effort to map the empirical and normative consequences of blogs for politics. We begin by setting out basic information about blogs, and some anecdotal evidence suggesting that they are indeed politically important. We go on to identify the key empirical and normative questions that blogs raise, and discuss the dearth of relevant data in the existing literature. We conclude by summarizing how the authors of the articles gathered in this special issue help fill this gap.