Bringing Political Science to Bear on Tropical Conservation

With the renewed international emphasis on governance for sustainable development, political scientists wishing to have an impact on global environmental problems will find significant opportunities to collaborate with practitioners. These collaborations can be very rewarding, but academics should enter them with their eyes open to the associated challenges. Bridging the worlds of research and practice entails tensions between what is true according to the research, and what is possible given the constraints of specific organizations; between the problems that practitioners need solved and the puzzles that researchers find appealing; and, importantly, between the divergent cultures that shape the expectations and incentives of academics and their counterparts.     

On the Complexity and Accuracy of Geographic Profiling Strategies

Geographic profilers have access to a repertoire of strategies for predicting a serial offenders home location. These strategies range in complexity—some involve more calculations to implement than others—and the assumption often made is that more complex strategies will outperform simpler strategies. In the present study, we tested the relationship between the complexity and accuracy of 11 strategies. Data were crime site and home locations of 16 UK residential burglars who had committed 10 or more crimes each. The results indicated that strategy complexity was not positively related to accuracy. This was also found to be the case across tasks that ranged in complexity (where complexity was determined by the number of crimes used to make a prediction). Implications for police policies and procedures, as well as our understanding of human decision-making, are discussed.To whom correspondence should be addressed. Phone: +1-709-737-3101; E-mail: bsnook@play.psych.mun.ca     

Forecasting Recidivism in Mentally Ill Offenders Released from Prison

Little research has focused on assessing the risk of mentally ill offenders (MIOs) released from state prisons. Here we report findings for 333 mentally ill offenders released from Washington State prisons. Logistic regression identified sets of variables that forecasted felony and violent reconviction as accurately as state-of-the-art risk assessment instruments. Sums of simple recoded versions of these variables predicted reoffense as well as complex logistic regression equations. Five of these 9 variables were found to be relative protective factors. Findings are discussed in terms of the value of stock correctional variables in forecasting risk, the need to base actuarial risk assessments on local data, the importance of protective factors in assessing MIO risk, and the need for dynamic, situational, and clinical variables that can further sharpen predictive accuracy of emergent risk in the community.     

Autonomy and audit--striking the balance

The Data Protection Act 1998 purports to implement European legislation which aims to protect the privacy of individuals. There were such concerns about the implications of the Act for certain research and audit that it became necessary to enact further legislation to enable such essential activities to continue. Although this empowers the Secretary of State for Health to approve proposals for these purposes, there should still be a requirement that the use of identifiable personal information without consent must be justified on compelling public interest grounds. It is this that can confound those seeking to rely on such justification. There can either be too cavalier an approach to the issue, and/or there is little sense of what considerations should come into play. This paper attempts to highlight some of the difficulties that are theoretically raised by some audit activities and set out the legal framework within which they must operate. However, the key focus is on how ethical considerations might inform the public interest argument.     

Erroneous gender identification by the amelogenin sex test

Human gender identification, based on the amelogenin gene, has important applications in forensic casework, prenatal diagnosis, DNA databasing, and blood sample storage. However, we report on the first known case, in the Israeli population, of an amelogenin sex test failure on a phenotypically normal male. He was typed as a female by both the AmpFlSTR SGM plus and GenePrint kits. Subsequent, karyotyping of the soldier's blood sample showed no abnormalities. These results suggest that the determination of sex, based on the amelogenin test, should be interpreted cautiously.     

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.     

Developmental validation of a single-tube amplification of the 13 CODIS STR loci, D2S1338, D19S433, and amelogenin: the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR Amplification Kit

Analysis of length polymorphism at short tandem repeat (STR) loci utilizing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process has proven to be an ideal assay for human identification purposes. The short length of STR loci coupled with the amplification of target sequence through PCR allows for a robust, sensitive, and specific assay for highly polymorphic markers. A multiplex containing fifteen STR loci plus the gender-determining locus Amelogenin was developed to provide a single amplification/detection of all CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) STR loci (CSF1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, TH01, TPOX, and vWA) as well as two internationally-accepted STRs (D2S1338 and D19S433). By incorporating five-dye fragment analysis technology and non-nucleotide linkers, previously optimized AmpFlSTR kit primer sequences have been maintained. This kit has been developed in accordance with the standards of the forensic community as defined by the DNA Advisory Board. Validation studies were performed to include developmental validation, and the results support the use of the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR Amplification Kit for human identity and parentage testing.