The use of linear dichroism in forensic fibre examinations — Part 6. Validation and practical aspects of MSP-PPL

This paper summarizes the results of previous work on the microscopic observation of linear dichroism found in dyed fibres (polyesters, polyamides, wool, silk, cotton, viscose, acrylics and acetates) and in pigmented fibres as well as the measurements on these fibre classes using microspectrophotometry with plane polarized light (MSP-PPL). The validation of this method is discussed and a practical tool is proposed for comparing fibre traces with control fibres. The limitations and strengths of this method are also revised.     

Issue yield,campaign communication,and electoral performance: a six-country comparative analysis

Abstract

This article develops and tests a model that explains election outcomes on the basis of party strategy. It employs a new comparative dataset linking representative mass surveys from six European countries with Twitter analysis of campaign activity. The expectation is that parties whose issue agendas exploit electoral opportunities while avoiding risks will be rewarded at the polls. These risks and opportunities are modelled using issue yield, a general framework summarising public support, electoral alignments, and party credibility. Empirically, the article traces a three-step process: (1) the configuration of electoral risks and opportunities (which is captured through public opinion surveys) guides party communication (measured with Twitter data), and to the degree that (2) parties design their campaigns strategically (identified through issue yield), this in turn (3) improves their electoral performance (measured using official statistics). The analysis explains some of the most salient election outcomes of recent years.     

Is the Chinese ‘entrepreneurial welfare state’ an industrial policy in disguise?

Abstract

What has driven China, a developing country that has only recently saved itself from nationwide poverty, to increase its investment in social welfare so rapidly and extensively in the past decade? Drawing on extensive field research in a prefecture-level district in southwest China between 2014 and 2017, the authors argue in this article that local governments in China provide welfare housing programmes as a veil for developmentalist industrial policies aimed at industrial upgrading and the improvement of dynamic efficiency. The article demonstrates the unique incentive structure behind the local Chinese governments’ role as the front-line investor in social welfare benefits, and how the local state has cunningly used the façade of welfare provision to (1) divert the earmarked budget to implement development-oriented industrial policy; and (2) fake a discursive congruence between the heavily interventionist local practice and the overall neoliberal central-level policy discourse that features deregulation, small government and a laissez-faire developmental pathway. Exploring this set of strategic dynamics underlining the manoeuvres of the Chinese welfare operation helps us understand the variability of welfare state forms and trajectories of developmental strategy in the Global South.     

Gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric analysis of buflomedil hydrochloride in biological samples after acute intoxication.

Two cases of acute intoxication of buflomedil hydrochloride are reported. The analysis of this compound was performed by an Extrelut extraction followed by a gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric determination. Analytical parameters of linearity, reproducibility and specificity were satisfactory.     

文化性的缺失—论课程的文化锁定现象

课程起源于化传承的需要，传递、复制、再生产社会化是学校课程唯一不变的使命。在课程发展中形成了特定的化锁定现象。它造成了课程应具有的自的化品性及其所必然引发的内在的、独立的价值标准与宗旨的消解。课程成了现实社会主流化的“代言人”。它具有诠释、粉饰及原样传递的职责，却无反思、批判、创新的品质。学校教育的工具品性、灌输与训练机制、教育教学理论的学术品质等，都是课程化锁定现象所造成的化性缺失的必然结果。揭示课程化性缺失的病理表征，是使课程由化的工具存在转变为化的主体存在的重要前题。     

The use of isoelectric focusing to identify rhinoceros keratins.

Keratins represent the principal structural proteins of hair. They are also found in horn, nail, claw, hoof, and feather. Hair and nail samples from human and canine sources and hair samples from mule deer, white tail deer, cat, moose, elk, antelope, caribou, raccoon, and goat were studied. Parrot and goose feathers were also analyzed. Keratins are polymorphic, and species differences are known to exist. Proteinaceous extracts of deer and antelope antlers and bovine and rhinoceros horn were prepared by solubilizing 10 mg of horn sample in 200 microL of a solution containing 12M urea, 74mM Trizma base, and 78mM dithiothreitol (DTT). Extraction took place over a 48-h period. A 25-microL aliquot of extract was removed and incubated with 5 microL of 0.1 M DTT for 10 min at 25 degrees C. Keratins were then separated by isoelectric focusing (IEF) on 5.2% polyacrylamide gels for 3 h and visualized using silver staining. At least 20 bands could be observed for each species studied. However, band patterns differed in the position of each band, in the number of bands, and in band coloration resulting from the silver staining process. Horn from two species of rhinoceros was examined. For both specimens, most bands occurred in the pH range of 4 to 5. Although similar patterns for both species were observed, they differed sufficiently to differentiate one from the other. As might be expected, the closer two species are related phylogenetically, the greater the similarity in the IEF pattern produced from their solubilized keratin.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

A discriminant function analysis of deciduous teeth to determine sex

Studies of deciduous teeth have concluded that crown size differences in these teeth between males and females are not reliable sex discriminators, in contrast to such differences in permanent teeth. This study measured the mesiodistal and faciolingual crown diameters of all deciduous teeth, as well as those of the permanent first molars, of 162 children from the Burlington Orthodontic Growth Study, conducted earlier in Burlington, Ontario, Canada. All 40 deciduous tooth diameters (20 mesiolingual and 20 faciolingual) were significantly different between the sexes, as were the permanent tooth diameters. Using three to five measurements of deciduous teeth, discriminant analyses of several samplings of these children produced discriminant functions in which 76 to 90% of the holdout samples were correctly classified by sex. Combinations of deciduous and permanent measurements were used to classify 83 to 85% of the holdout samples correctly. When compared with published data on other sample populations, the Burlington group is the most dimorphic for deciduous teeth and is within the range of permanent tooth dimorphisms of other populations. The level of classification accuracy, when using discriminant analysis of the deciduous teeth, can approach the accuracy levels of analysis using the permanent teeth.     

Is informalization equalizing? Evidence from Kinshasa (DRC)

As a consequence of a concatenation of external and internal events, the economy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has informalized to an unprecedented level over the last few decades. A comparison of budget surveys carried out in 1975 and 2004 respectively allows us to ascertain the effect of this process on income inequality and poverty in Kinshasa. We find that the extent of inequality in the capital city of the DRC has remained largely unchanged, which strongly suggests that informalization has been a viable survival strategy for those at the lower-income end of society. Unexpectedly, whereas distinctions such as gender and age lost much of their profiling power in the period considered, other cleavages such as education and geography, which may be assumed to be much more intimately related to the formal sector, continued to play an important role in structuring inequality in Kinshasa’s deeply informalized economy.