Validation of LUCIO-Direct-ELISA kits for the detection of drugs of abuse in urine: application to the new German driving licence re-granting guidelines

LUCIO-Direct-enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) tests were validated for the screening of drugs of abuse cannabis, opiates, amphetamines and cocaine in urine for the new German medical and psychological assessment (MPA) guidelines with subsequent gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric (GC-MS) confirmation. The screening cut-offs corresponding to 10 ng/mL 11-nor-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol-9-carboxylic acid (THC-COOH), 50 ng/mL amphetamine, 25 ng/mL morphine and codeine and 30 ng/mL benzoylecgonine were chosen at the point where the number of false negatives was lower than 1%. Due to their accuracy, ease of use and rapid analysis, these ELISA tests are very promising for cases where a large proportion of the tests are expected to be negative such as for abstinence monitoring as part of the driving licence re-granting process.     

Law, Diagram, Film: Critique Exhausted

What potential can be found in the work of Deleuze and Guattari for critical legal scholarship? The authors argue that their work can be deployed to re-think ??critique?? by directly addressing the place and role of the ??critic??. It is argued that the continued commitment to a stance of ??resistance?? in CLS is underpinned by never-ending dualisms which, if not confronted and replaced, can only make CLS ever more redundant. The authors ask: ??what is critique beyond the dualism of power and resistance, of state and nomad??? This question arises from a belief that critique is still capable of being effective, but only if there is the courage to experiment, and to think creatively. In this sense, the ??exhaustion?? of critique is framed as an opportunity to re-think and re-engage with the politics of law. The paper diagrams, through image and film, a critical thought: the potential of the artisan. Film is utilised not as representation, nor as illustration, but as a thinking mind in its own right, through which questions relating to the state, political action, and creative thinking can be (re)framed. Such a re-framing is essential, it is argued, for an engagement with the emergence of societies of control.     

Cruel and Unusual Punishment in the Roman Empire and Dynastic China

The paper compares cruel and unusual punishment in two ancient empires, Imperial Rome and Dynastic China, through an exploration their imperial legal codes and, to a lesser degree, through the examination of selected exemplary cases. The paper argues that both empires utilized extraordinary punishments in cases where conduct threatened social order or major cultural values. However, while the Romans generally extended these punishments to include cruel mass spectacles, the Chinese employed unusual public punishments in a more instrumental manner primarily to ward off the threat of disorder and the thirst for cruel spectacle for its own sake was absent.     

Recovery of DNA and fingerprints from touched documents

This study investigated the various factors affecting DNA profiling from DNA recovered from fingerprints deposited on paper before and after fingerprint enhancement treatments. The DNeasy^® plant mini kit (QIAGEN^®) was found to improve DNA recovery from paper by over 150% compared with the QIAamp^® mini kit. A significant decrease in the amount of DNA recovered was observed following treatment with DFO and/or Ninhydrin. This decrease in yield did not have a comparably significant effect on the quality of the SGM Plus™ profiles. Furthermore, this study found that whilst certain paper types, such as newspaper, magazine and filter paper allowed for the good recovery of DNA, common office paper and white card, strongly interfered with the recovery of DNA resulting in poor quality profiles.     

What Stops the Torture?

States whose agents engage in torture in a given year have a 93% chance of continuing to torture in the following year. What leads governments to stop the use of torture? We focus on the principal–agent relationship between the executive and the individuals responsible for supervising and interrogating state prisoners. We argue that some liberal democratic institutions change the probability that leaders support the creation of institutions that discourage jailers and interrogators from engaging in torture, thus increasing the probability of a state terminating its use of torture. These relationships are strongly conditioned by the presence of violent dissent; states rarely terminate the use of torture when they face a threat. Once campaigns of violent dissent stop, however, states with popular suffrage and a free press are considerably more likely to terminate their use of torture. Also given the end of violent dissent, the greater the number of veto points in government, the lower the likelihood that a state terminates its use of torture.     

China as a latecomer: Toward a global logic of the open policy

The paper reviews a number of substantive issue‐areas in China's foreign economic sector (the foreign trade system, industrial and geographical targeting, foreign investment regulations, and the foreign exchange regime), finding that conventional mercantilist accounts of China's recent success in world markets are overstated. In fact, the paper argues that the most salient changes occurring in China's foreign economic sector are now in many respects beyond the immediate control of the state. In this vein, it is argued that most scholars have seriously underestimated the structuring impact of the international political economy on China's reform and opening. Indeed, the paper maintains that there is a ‘global’ logic to the evolution of the Open Policy, just as others have identified an ‘economic’ or ‘political’ logic to foreign trade reform, the creation of the SEZs, liberalization of investment laws, the loosening of foreign exchange controls, and other such changes. The paper concludes, therefore, that there is much about the course of China's reform and deepening integration into the world economy that can be understood as a function of its position as a latecomer in the international system.