Practical applications of genotypic surveys for forensic STR testing

Legitimate genotype frequency estimation for multiallelic loci relies on component allele frequencies, as population surveys represent only a fraction of possible DNA profiles. Multilocus genotypes from two ethnic human populations, African American (n=195) and U.S. Caucasian (n=200), were compiled at 13 STR loci that are used worldwide in forensic investigation (D3S1358, vWA, FGA, D16S539, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, and D7S820). Sex-specific AmpFlSTR multiplexes provided stringent PCR-based STR typing specifically optimized for multicolor fluorescence detection. Heterozygosity at each STR locus ranged from 0.57 to 0.89 and encompassed from seven (TH01) to twenty-one (D21S11) alleles. Homozygosity tests, tests based on the distinct numbers of observed homozygous and heterozygous classes, log likelihood ratio tests, and exact tests assessed that the degree of divergence from theoretical Hardy-Weinberg proportions for all 13 STRs does not have practical consequence in genotype frequency estimation. Departures from linkage equilibrium, between loci, that imposed significance to forensic calculations were not indicated by observed variance of the number of heterozygous loci or Karlin interclass correlation tests. For forensic casework, reliable multilocus profile estimates may be obtained from the product of component genotype frequencies, each calculated through application of the Hardy-Weinberg equation to population database allele frequency estimates reported here. The average probability that two randomly selected, unrelated individuals possess an identical thirteen-locus DNA profile was one in 1.8x10(15) African Americans and one in 3.8x10(14) U.S. Caucasians.     

African American Adolescents' Perceptions of Family Interactions: Kinship Support,Parent–Child Relationships,and Teen Adjustment

This study examined perceived kinship support and parenting practices for 158 African American adolescents in the 9th and 10th grades. Kinship support showed direct associations with teen outcomes that, for work orientation and school orientation, were partially mediated by parenting practices. With a few exceptions, kinship support was positively associated with youth adjustment for teens from single-parent and 2-parent homes, teens with college educated and less educated parents, and for girls and boys. Both kinship support and maternal warmth predicted self-reliance, work orientation, and school orientation. Kinship support was the primary predictor of ethnic identity.     

Administrative Error Control: The Role of Value-Based HR Practices,I-Deals,and Organizational Politics

Value-based HR practices, which cultivate public values in public employees, may activate employee’s upward negotiations with the employer to go beyond administrative norms and constraints. The primary research aim is to assess the role of value-based HR practices in fostering idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) among public employees, which in turn contribute to the effectiveness of administrative error control. The research also investigates whether organizational politics undermines the momentum of i-deals in public employees. The source of data for the research includes the responses from public employees and their direct supervisors from People’s Committees of Wards—the grassroots level of government—in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The data were then analyzed using structural equation modeling. Through the research findings, the effect chain from value-based HR practices through i-deals to administrative error control was confirmed. The negative effect of organizational politics on i-deals was also grounded in the data analysis.     

VIETNAM-US PARTNERSHIP: PILLARS AND PROSPECTS

This essay analyses the foundations and future of the Vietnam-US partnership. It shows that Vietnam and the United States have sought to broaden and deepen the bilateral relations in three main areas: (i) trade and investment relations, (ii) political and security relations, and (iii) people-to-people cooperation. These areas continue to be the pillars for Vietnam and the United States to build up their ties. Given China's growing assertiveness in the South China Sea and the United States rebalance to the Asia-Pacific, Vietnam and the United States will become closer and will work together to add strategic values to their partnership.     

Project 0395A.ĐC | Performing disorientation

The end of the Vietnam/American War lead to one of the largest exoduses of the latter part of the twentieth century: more than 3 million people escaped from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos over the course of two decades starting in 1975, many by boat and an estimated 1 million died at sea. How do you witness and retell stories of violence in the aftermath of war and dispossession at sea in the context of U.S. empire and Vietnamese socialist revolution? Project 0395A.?C, a multi-media installation by Vietnamese artist, Ly Hoang Ly, intentionally structures and choreographs disorientation to grapple with the condition of being dispossessed at sea, as the Vietnamese refugee is suspended at sea and entangled in histories of French colonialism and caught at the crux of U.S. imperial war and Vietnamese socialist revolution. I argue that disorientation is a performative experience and method that performs an act of refusal to break voyeuristic modes of consuming histories of violence and reorients the body to another theory of Vietnamese refugee subjectivity. I analyze how Ly creates a performative installation and performs with water as the core aesthetic material used to frame, dialogue, and re-narrate a story of Vietnamese refugee subjectivity.     

La bureautique et la bureaucratie: le cas d'un organisme du secteur public québécois

Sommaire: Les gouvernements se fient de plus en plus aux technologies de l'information afin de rendre plus efficaces leurs prises de décision et l'offre de services publics. Cette situation souligne bien la pertinence d'un examen des effets de l'introduction de l'informatique dans un univers bureaucratique. Plusieurs auteurs affirment que la technologie peut rendre l'administration publique moins bureaucratique à travers une décentralisation des décisions, étant donné qu'elle favoriserait une communication plus directe entre les employés, faciliterait un accès plus immédiat aux informations et permettrait une production plus autonome et plus valorisée. Toutefois, les résultats d'une enquête portant sur les effets de la bureautique concernant le fonctionnement des usagers-opérateurs dans un organisme du gouvernement du Québec, montrent que l'insistance des organisations publiques à utiliser la bureautique comme moyen d'augmenter la productivité et l'efficacité de leurs services, pourrait renforcer leur caractère bureaucratique. Abstract: Governments are increasingly relying on information technology in order to increase the effectiveness of decision-making and the delivery of public services. This emphasizes the relevance of examining the effects of introducing computers within the bureaucratic environment. Several authors state that technology can make public administration less bureaucratic by decentralizing decision-making, since it promotes more direct communications between employees, facilitates more immediate access to information, and permits more independent, empowered production. However, the results of an investigation into the impact of office computerization on the functioning of user-operators within a Quebec government organization show that the insistence of public organizations on using computerization as a means for raising the productivity and efficiency of their services could in fact strengthen their bureaucratic nature.     

法律供给特点的经济学分析

法律是一种稀缺的社会资源 ,要做到对法律的有效运作 ,就必须通过市场机制对这种资源合理配置。作为制度规范的法律供给拥有供给者与需求者效用函数的基本一致性、具体法律供给者获得效用的“自利性”、“法律供给的不确定性、法律供给的天然垄断性 ,主体的非市场性、法律供给的强制性等五大特点。通过经济学对其进行分析 ,得出有效结论以供各方参考