Whitewashing: How Obama Used Implicit Racial Cues as a Defense Against Political Rumors

Political Behavior - Although Barack Obama won the presidency in 2008, some Whites nevertheless penalized him because of his race. In part, these penalties involved persistent rumors about his...     

PCL-R psychopathy predicts disruptive behavior among male offenders in a Dutch forensic psychiatric hospital

In this study, the relationship between psychopathy, according to the Dutch language version of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), and various types of disruptive behavior during inpatient forensic psychiatric treatment is investigated. Ninety-two male participants were administered the PCL-R following admission to an inpatient forensic hospital. From daily hospital information bulletins, incidents of verbal abuse, verbal threat, physical violence, and violation of hospital rules were derived. Also, the number of seclusion episodes was recorded. As expected, significant correlations were found between PCL-R scores and verbal abuse, verbal threat, violation of rules, total number of incidents, and frequency of seclusion. Psychopaths (PCL-R > or = 30) were significantly more often involved in incidents than nonpsychopaths. Multiple regression analyses revealed that the PCL-R Factor 2 score in particular contributed uniquely to the prediction of the total number of incidents. The findings are discussed in terms of their clinical implications.     

Determination of carbohydrate deficient transferrin (CDT) with capillary electrophoresis: an inter laboratory comparison

Carbohydrate deficient transferrin (CDT) is currently the most specific laboratory marker of chronic or sustained alcohol abuse. CDT is increasingly being used as a diagnostic tool in the areas employment, traffic safety and forensic medicine. In recent times, capillary electrophoresis (CE) has been proposed as a convenient tool for rapid, precise and accurate CDT determination, not only for research but also for routine analyses. Quite recently, commercial kits have been introduced which, reportedly, could simplify and standardize CDT analysis with capillary electrophoresis. The present work was aimed at testing the ruggedness of a capillary electrophoretic method based on a commercial kit (CEofix, Analis), by comparing the results obtained with different instruments in different laboratories, on a panel of sera randomly collected and exchanged. The results showed, notwithstanding few outliers, excellent correlation of the results obtained in the two laboratories (R=0.974). Also high concordance was found when results were classified as positive or negative on the basis of a cut-off (1.25%) established from a control group of teetotalers. In conclusion the present data support the usefulness of capillary electrophoresis for CDT determination for clinical, forensic and administrative diagnosis of chronic alcohol abuse.     

Quantitative analysis of multiple illicit drugs in preserved oral fluid by solid-phase extraction and liquid chromatography–tandem mass spectrometry

We present a validated method for the simultaneous analysis of basic drugs which comprises a sample clean-up step, using mixed-mode solid-phase extraction (SPE), followed by LC–MS/MS analysis. Deuterated analogues for all of the analytes of interest were used for quantitation. The applied HPLC gradient ensured the elution of all the drugs examined within 14 min and produced chromatographic peaks of acceptable symmetry. Selectivity of the method was achieved by a combination of retention time, and two precursor-product ion transitions for the non-deuterated analogues. Oral fluid was collected with the Intercept^®, a FDA approved sampling device that is used on a large scale in the US for workplace drug testing. However, this collection system contains some ingredients (stabilizers and preservatives) that can cause substantial interferences, e.g. ion suppression or enhancement during LC–MS/MS analysis, in the absence of suitable sample pre-treatment. The use of the SPE was demonstrated to be highly effective and led to significant decreases in the interferences. Extraction was found to be both reproducible and efficient with recoveries >76% for all of the analytes. Furthermore, the processed samples were demonstrated to be stable for 48 h, except for cocaine and benzoylecgonine, where a slight negative trend was observed, but did not compromise the quantitation. In all cases the method was linear over the range investigated (2–200 μg/L) with an excellent intra-assay and inter-assay precision (coefficients of variation <10% in most cases) for QC samples spiked at a concentration of 4, 12 and 100 μg/L. Limits of quantitation were estimated to be at 2 μg/L with limits of detection ranging from 0.2 to 0.5 μg/L, which meets the requirements of SAMHSA for oral fluid testing in the workplace. The method was subsequently applied to the analysis of Intercept^® samples collected at the roadside by the police, and to determine MDMA and MDA levels in oral fluid samples from a controlled study.     

安徽省桔梗科药用植物资源调查

目的：研究安徽省桔梗科药用植物资源及其开发、利用价值。方法：野外资源调查和标本研究。结果：安徽省桔梗科药用植物共有7属12种3亚种，其中2种1亚种为安徽省分布新记录，另外，还有3个新分类群有待进一步研究。结论：安徽省桔梗科药用植物资源有进一步研究的价值。