An American proficiency testing program

In 1975 the Forensic Sciences Foundation Inc. (FSF) under a grant from the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA) in the United States carried out a research project on the design and execution of a proficiency testing program for crime laboratories. Following completion of that research, FSF Inc. affiliated with Collaborative Testing Services Inc. (CTS) to maintain an operational program on a cost recoverable basis and with the assistance of a professional advisory committee (PAC) appointed by the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD).This paper discusses the problems of running a proficiency testing program of this type on a national/international basis for a large number of laboratories and covering a variety of evidence categories. Problems of confidentiality of results, test design and production, results analysis and reporting are emphasized. Some evaluation is made of the general types of results reported in this program.     

Naturschutz bei der Ausbringung von gentechnisch veränderten Organismen – Teil 2

Im ersten Teil des Aufsatzes ging es um die Beachtung des Naturschutzes bei der Freisetzungsgenehmigung, der IVB-Genehmigung, den nachmarktlichen Ma?nahmen und den sog. vereinfachten/differenzierten Verfahren. über diese klassisch umweltrechtliche Anforderung hinaus ist denkbar, dass manche Fl?chen von GVO ganz freigehalten werden, damit neben der Gentechnik einsetzenden Landnutzung naturn?here ?kosysteme erhalten bleiben. Dieser Frage widmet sich der zweite Teil. Er schlie?t mit einer Zusammenfassung des ganzen Beitrags ab.     

Exploring officers' acceptance of community policing: Implications for policy implementation

Organizations interested in implementing community policing should be cognizant of the attitudes of line officers toward this policy due to the fact line officers are responsible for implementing community policing on the street level. Successful implementation of organizational change may rely on identifying individuals who are most supportive of community policing. What remains unclear is what factors are related to officers' acceptance of community policing. This research examined the factors related to acceptance of the community policing philosophy. Surveys were administered at roll calls by researchers to a total of 445 officers of all departmental ranks. It was found that officers who supported informal problem-solving tactics perhaps involving agencies outside the police department, and officers who were non-White were more likely to support concepts of community policing. At the same time, several factors, which presumed to be related to community policing, did not materialize, including previous work on structured problem-solving projects, rank, education, and desire for autonomy. Explanations and policy implications are discussed.     

Not being echo: Women's voices in New Australian fiction

Margaret Coombs, Regards to the Czar (UQP) St Lucia, 1988; Marion Campbell, Not being Miriam (Fremantle Arts Press) Fremantle, 1988; Mary Fallon, Working Hot (Sybylla Co‐Operative) Melbourne, 1989.     

Dental Age Estimation: A Test of the Reliability of Correctly Identifying a Subject Over 18 Years of Age Using the Gold Standard of Chronological Age as the Comparator

This study was designed to test the reliability of using the third molars to demarcate between child and adult status. A total of 2000 dental panoramic tomographs were used for assessment of the calculated age using the 8‐stage system of tooth development and applied to all four third molars. The LL8 was also assessed using this 8‐stage system. For each tooth development stage, the Normal distribution and percentile summary data were estimated. The calculated dental age compared with the chronological age was statistically significantly different (p < 0.001) for both females and males giving underestimates of the true age. Comparison of single tooth dental age and chronological age was only slightly different. The most important finding is that the assignment to above or below the 18‐year threshold, in the age range 17 years to 19 years, could be wrong on up to 50% of occasions.     

Tourist Representations and Public Space Regulation

This article illustrates the ways in which visual representations construct the meanings of norms governing the spaces we commonly inhabit. I argue that norms regulating public spaces such as streets, parks, plazas, and beaches arise within the process of conceiving tourist representations of space that benefit hegemonic groups in society. My argument is empirically grounded on evidence from a case study on public space regulation in Acapulco, Mexico. By means of a semiotic analysis of tourist materials such as maps and postcards, I show that images related to tourism represent urban space in a way that includes some elements and excludes others. By doing so, they portray a very specific image of the city and its public spaces. Because representations of space are performed upon the entire society, the imagery reproduced by tourist materials is part of the expectations that surround social actors’ actions. This is one of the mechanisms through which the tourism industry influences the regulation of public spaces.     

Structural Topic Models for Open‐Ended Survey Responses

Collection and especially analysis of open‐ended survey responses are relatively rare in the discipline and when conducted are almost exclusively done through human coding. We present an alternative, semiautomated approach, the structural topic model (STM) (Roberts, Stewart, and Airoldi 2013; Roberts et al. 2013), that draws on recent developments in machine learning based analysis of textual data. A crucial contribution of the method is that it incorporates information about the document, such as the author's gender, political affiliation, and treatment assignment (if an experimental study). This article focuses on how the STM is helpful for survey researchers and experimentalists. The STM makes analyzing open‐ended responses easier, more revealing, and capable of being used to estimate treatment effects. We illustrate these innovations with analysis of text from surveys and experiments.     

Y-STR mutational rates determination in South Portugal Caucasian population

Y-STR mutational rate estimation is very important for the correct evaluation of typing results in forensic casework and specially kinship genetic studies. In this work we studied 95 Southern Portuguese Caucasian father/son pairs in order to estimate mutational rates for the 17 Y-STRs multiplex used in routine casework. In a total of 1615 allele transfers three single step mutations were detected in DYS385a, DYS439, and DYS448, with an estimated mutation rate of 10,526 × 10⁻³ (95%CI 0.265 × 10⁻³ to 20.788 × 10⁻³). The estimated average mutation rate is 1.858 × 10⁻³ (95%CI 8.08 × 10⁻⁴ to 2.908 × 10⁻³). It would be important to characterize more father/son pairs in order to estimate more reliable allele specific mutation rates for the most widely used Y-STRs markers in forensic genetics.     

What a girl's gotta do: the labor of the biopolitical celebrity in austerity Britain

This article debunks the widespread view that young female celebrities, especially those who rise to fame through reality shows and other forms of media-orchestrated self-exposure, dodge “real” work out of laziness, fatalism, and a misguided sense of entitlement. Instead, the authors argue that becoming a celebrity in a neoliberal economy such as that of the United Kingdom, where austerity measures disproportionately disadvantage the young, women, and the poor, is not as irregular or exceptional a choice as previously thought, especially since the precariousness of celebrity earning power adheres to the current demands of the neoliberal economy on its workforce. What is more, becoming a celebrity involves different forms of labor that are best described as biopolitical, since such labor fully involves and consumes the human body and its capacities as a living organism. Weight gain and weight loss, pregnancy, physical transformation through plastic surgery, physical symptoms of emotional distress, and even illness and death are all photographically documented and supplemented by extended textual commentary, usually with direct input from the celebrity, reinforcing and expanding on the visual content. As well as casting celebrity work as labor, the authors also maintain that the workings of celebrity should always be examined in the context of wider cultural, social and real economies.