The Differentiation of the Volatile Organic Signatures of Individuals Through SPME-GC/MS of Characteristic Human Scent Compounds

Abstract:  Human scent evidence is utilized as an investigative tool through canine scent discriminations based on the premise that human scent is an individualizing characteristic. This study describes the development of what is effectively a human scent barcode consisting of the relative ratios of an individual's "primary odor" compounds utilized to determine a reproducible and individualizing profile which can be stored in a searchable database for a proof of concept of human scent as a biometric measure. Triplicate hand odor samples were evaluated from 10 subjects utilizing solid phase micro-extraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (SPME-GC/MS) and compared via Spearman Rank Correlations. Narrowing the compounds considered for each subject to only those common in all three samples, or a subject's "primary odor constituents," produced a greater degree of both individualization and discrimination; at both correlation thresholds of 0.9 and 0.8, the individuals were correctly discriminated and identified in 99.54% of the cases.     

Measuring Governance in Urban Innovation

Abstract

The international political science literature is ambiguous on the point if the involvement of a plurality of external actors (citizens, economic and social groups, NGOs and CSOs, Universities and experts, different public authorities at the same or at different territorial level, etc.) in governance processes is an end in itself (because it increases democracy) or it is useful in order to achieve better results in the production of public goods.

This article espouses the latter hypothesis and tries to understand if a governance perspective brings about a higher level of innovation in metropolitan areas. In order to test this hypothesis, two metrics are designed: ? In measuring innovation, the ideas are that there are four dimensions in urban innovation (agenda innovation, process innovation, product innovation and innovative communication) and that a metropolitan city has to score high in most of them in order to be considered really innovative.

? As far as governance is concerned, the analytical proposal is that the ideal governance network is at the same time complex (bringing together actors from different territorial levels and from different societal and institutional domains), dense (favouring direct interaction between the actors) and ‘focused’ (showing one or few actors able to act as focal points of the network).

Drawing from a research done in four Italian cities (Turin, Milan, Florence and Naples) through the reconstruction of 120 urban innovation processes, the article illustrates the analytical steps taken and the conclusions that can be reached.     

University Technology Transfer and Manufacturing Innovation: The Case of Italy

This article analyzes the influence of universities on Italian firms' probability to innovate. Using firm‐level data, we focus on institutionalized technology transfer (TT) activities in universities, namely spin‐offs, patents, and research contracts. Results show that TT activities play a significant role in the probability to innovate by Italian manufacturing firms located in the same province as the university. Nevertheless, the effect is not uniform: the contribution of university TT activities to the probability of firms' innovating is concentrated in certain territorial areas (North‐East and Center) and sectors (science based and scale intensive) and among firms that are large.     

"Vaginal" bleeding in prepubertal age: a rare scaring riddle, a case of the urethral prolapse and review of the literature

The entities responsible for isolated vaginal bleeding are a broad spectrum of diseases. Vaginal bleeding in a prepubertal child is always treated as an alarming symptom both by parents and professionals. Most often, one of the first hypotheses is that a sexual abuse may be occurred and the clinical work up is oriented to explore it and eventually confirm or substantiante another diagnosis. Among the possible differential diagnosis urethral prolapse has to be considered. We report the case of a 6 years-old Caucasian girl referred to our Service for a mild vaginal bleeding and with the suspicion of sexual abuse, excluded after the confirmation of the presence of urethral prolapse. The clinical picture and workup are described and compared with a review of the international literature on the issue.     

Improving automatic face recognition with user interaction

Face recognition systems aim to recognize the identity of a person depicted in a photograph by comparing it against a gallery of prerecorded images. Current systems perform quite well in controlled scenarios, but they allow for none or little interaction in case of mistakes due to the low quality of images or to algorithmic limitations. Following the needs and suggestions of investigators, we present a guided user interface that allows to adjust from a fully automatic to a fully assisted modality of execution, according to the difficulty of the task and to amount of available information (gender, age, etc.): the user can generally rely on automatic execution and intervene only on a limited number of examples when a failure is automatically detected or when the quality of intermediate results is deemed unsatisfactory. The interface runs on top of a preexistent automatic face recognition algorithm in such a way to guarantee full control over the execution flow and to exploit the peculiarities of the underlying image processing techniques. The viability of the proposed solution is tested on a classic face identification task run on a standard publicly available database (the XM2VTS), assessing the improvement to user interaction over the automatic system performance.     

Business Angel and risk capital： The impact on innovation

The aim of the analysis is to understand if the risk capital carried by Business Angels （B.A.） could affect firms with high innovation propensity in creating more innovations than receiving risk capital from other financial operators. Innovation is a critical factor for the competitiveness of national system especially when the economy of the latter has come to maturity. For realizing ＂the successful exploitation of ideas, into new products, processes, services or business practices, and the critical process for achieving two complementary business goals of performance and growth, which in turn will help to close the productivity gap＂ （DTI＇s Innovation Report, 2003, p. 8）, firms have to understand which are the right competences to increase. In this context, the authors have developed a framework that measures the propensity to innovate in the firms. The model considers the firm＇s competences （grouped into four macro areas as management, organization, ITC and marketing） to improve the creation, development and diffusion of the innovation. The work is structured as an empirical analysis as follows： （1） The authors analyzed a sample of 12 business plans （choices for high level of innovation in their business） that received risk capital from B.A. and other financial operators; （2） For each firm, their innovation propensity is measured through the author＇s model during their start-up period （the data analyzed are business plan＇s data）; （3） After a period of time （3 years）, the authors checked if the firms with high innovation propensity have created real innovation and if a correlation exists between risk capital origin （from Business Angels or not） and innovation propensity. The conclusion of the work is the finns with B.A.＇s risk capital have a high innovation propensity and create after a medium term period more innovation compared with the others.     

Political activism in Iran: strategies for survival,possibilities for resistance and authoritarianism

This article examines mobilizations and activism in authoritarian settings by considering the case of Iran. By focusing on the transformation of activism since the 1990s and the green movement, it advances an explanation of how oppositional political groups have been able to survive and produce forms of resistant subjectivity despite authoritarian constraints. In order to do so, the article brings together two scholarly traditions, namely Social Movement Theory (SMT) and the study of subjectivity and resistance as framed by Sari Hanafi. SMT explains how activists have been able to navigate repression and create opportunities for mobilization while shifting between formal and informal politics. The study of subjectivity helps conceptualize the type of subjects or political citizens that authoritarian environments generate. The article builds on field research with activists conducted in Iran and Turkey between 2007 and 2016. It argues that authoritarian constraints allow autonomous activism to flourish while emptying of meaning the regime-sanctioned political infrastructures.     

From Bretton Woods onwards: the birth and rebirth of the world's hegemon

Will the dollar soon lose its key international currency status? In this article I argue that neither the emergence of the Euro nor geopolitical issues threaten the future of the dollar. The world's central banks may slow down their accumulation of dollars, but are unlikely to put an end to the dollar standard regime. I also caution against confusing the international role of the dollar as the supreme store of value with its two other roles—as the dominant international unit of account and medium of exchange. These latter two functions do not change abruptly, meaning, once again, that there is no immediate threat to the future of the dollar. The article also discusses similarities between today's dollar standard and the Bretton Woods regime, and conclude that the complexity of today's system is such that it cannot just be defined as a repetition of the Bretton Woods system, or ‘Bretton Woods 2’.     

comparing different generations of feminists: precariousness versus corporations?

This article focuses on the gap and conflicts in Italy between the so-called ‘historical feminists’ of the 1960s and 1970s, and the generation of young women who entered the public and political arena from 1990 onwards. It discusses the absence of a critical and self-critical perspective within the Italian historical feminist tradition, the various political conflicts that emerged before and during the Berlusconi right-wing government at the beginning of 2000 and the absence of an active visible presence of young women in the media and in politics.