A GC/MS study of the drying of ballpoint pen ink on paper

The determination of the age of an ink entry from a questioned document is often an essential problem and a controversial issue in forensic sciences. Therefore, it is important to understand the aging process of the different components found in ink. The aim of this work was to study the drying process of ballpoint ink, characterised by the disappearance of volatile solvents from the ink entry. Phenoxyethanol is of particularly high interest as it is found in more than 80% of the blue ballpoint pens at different concentrations. Liquid extraction followed by splitless gas chromatography/mass spectrometry in the selected ion mode was used to measure the quantitative decrease of solvents from ink entries made with a blue Parker ballpoint pen. Quantities of ethoxyethoxyethanol, dipropylene glycol, phenoxyethanol and phenoxyethoxyethanol were studied in ink entries up to 1.5 years old, thus allowing to calculate aging curves for this particular pen. The low quantities of solvents (in the microgram range for a 1 cm ballpoint entry) were found to decrease quickly after deposition of the ink on paper through the competitive processes of evaporation and diffusion. Losses of up to 75% of solvents were observed after a few seconds. The amount of ethoxyethanol stopped decreasing after about 10 days (quantities reached the nanogram range for a 1 cm ballpoint entry), while the aging curves of dipropylene glycol, phenoxyethanol and phenoxyethoxyethanol level off considerably after 2 weeks. It was observed that ethoxyethanol, dipropylene glycol and phenoxyethanol can also migrate from one sheet of paper to another if placed close enough (e.g. in a book or a stack of papers), therefore contamination from fresh ink strokes from other paper sheets has to be taken into account for those solvents. In this paper we demonstrate that differentiation between fresh ink (<2 weeks) and older inks is possible under laboratory storage conditions. For real cases samples, more parameters have to be studied and other possible pathways have to be considered.     

Development of a harmonised method for the profiling of amphetamines: IV. Optimisation of sample preparation

The suitability of liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase extraction (SPE) for the preparation of impurity extracts intended for gas chromatographic profiling analyses of amphetamine were evaluated. Both techniques were optimised with respect to the extraction of selected target compounds by use of full factorial designs in which the variables affecting the performance were evaluated. Test samples consisted of amphetamine synthesised by the Leuckart reaction, by reductive amination of benzyl methyl ketone and by the nitrostyrene route. The performance of LLE and SPE were comparable in terms of repeatability and recovery of the target compounds. LLE was considered the better choice for the present harmonised amphetamine profiling method due to the lack of information on the long-term stability of SPE columns.     

对全球化的思考

全球化在加速各国融入世界体系进程的同时,也带来了生态环境、能源、人口等一系列全球性问题,这些问题可以通过多极化得以更好的解决。中国作为最大的发展中国家,应该并且能够在国际舞台上发挥更为重要的作用。     

European integration from the agency theory perspective

European integration is a process in which national governments look for higher levels of integration and promote new requests for allocations from the supranational authority while the balance between the benefits and costs of the supranational collective action becomes increasingly favourable. This process may be analyzed as an agency problem where different national governments, acting as principals, try to lead a single agent—the supranational authority—to make a decision on the level of integration. In this paper, decisions on integration of equilibrium are studied as the result of a non co-operative two-stage game, where national governments outline their political support strategies in the first stage and the supranational authority decides the level of integration in the second stage. JEL Classification D72     

Institutionalizing uncertainty: the choice of electoral formulas

Taken from an infinite set of divisors methods, the D’Hondt formula is the unique rule that maximizes the minimum number of seats for parties exceeding average size but not surpassing an absolute majority of the votes. This property is also shared, in the quota set of methods, by the Droop formula. At the same time, these two methods are those most commonly observed in practice. This paper relates the property stated to the observed facts. If parties try to maximize the minimum number of seats for a given share of votes, then the D’Hondt formula should be chosen. This choice is consistent with rational parties that make institutional choices in an uncertain environment.     

Susceptibility to coalitional strategic sponsoring

It usually happens that the alternatives to be voted on in committees are chosen or sponsored by some particularly active committee members. For example, in parliaments, some representatives and some government members are known to be especially active in introducing bills on which the whole committee will later vote. It appears that parliamentary agendas—namely amendment and successive elimination voting rules—are vulnerable to strategic behavior by groups of individuals introducing motions which are not their most preferred alternatives. Our aim in this paper is to evaluate how frequently this type of behavior arises.     

The sampling of ignitable liquids on suspects’ hands

In arson cases, the collection and detection of traces of ignitable liquids on a suspect's hands can provide information to a forensic investigation. Police forces currently lack a simple, robust, efficient and reliable solution to perform this type of swabbing.In this article, we describe a study undertaken to develop a procedure for the collection of ignitable liquid residues on the hands of arson suspects. Sixteen different collection supports were considered and their applicability for the collection of gasoline traces present on hands and their subsequent analysis in a laboratory was evaluated. Background contamination, consisting of volatiles emanating from the collection supports, and collection efficiencies of the different sampling materials were assessed by passive headspace extraction with an activated charcoal strip (DFLEX device) followed by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS) analysis. After statistical treatment of the results, non-powdered latex gloves were retained as the most suitable method of sampling.On the basis of the obtained results, a prototype sampling kit was designed and tested. This kit is made of a three compartment multilayer bag enclosed in a sealed metal can and containing three pairs of non-powdered latex gloves: one to be worn by the sampler, one consisting of a blank sample and the last one to be worn by the person suspected to have been in contact with ignitable liquids. The design of the kit was developed to be efficient in preventing external and cross-contaminations.     

Environmental risks,the judgment-proof problem and financial responsibility

This paper examines a setting in which a firm is liable to pay environmental damages caused by its activity but may not have sufficient wealth for repair of damages. In order to induce the full internalization of the environmental cost, the firm is required to demonstrate a financial guarantee from a solvent party that covers this cost. Since the firm and the guarantor are joint liable for the harm caused by the firm, it is in the interest of the guarantor to design the guarantee contract in order to induce the firm to take an adequate level of prevention. First, I show that financial responsibility regime may achieve the social optimum. Secondly, I identify a particular form of contract in the set of contracts which induce the socially optimal level of prevention. This contract is closed to an alternative risk transfer product referred to as the spread loss treaty.     

The report of The International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur: The question of genocide

The crisis in Darfur (Sudan), which sparked in February 2003, only caught the United Nations’ attention in Spring 2004. Questions emerged as to whether the conflict between the rebels and the government was simply insurgency warfare or, in fact, concealed a genocide carried out by the Arab, Muslim-led government against the Animist and Christian-African population. The issue became so divisive that the Security Council requested the creation of an investigation team, the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, which amongst other tasks had to examine whether genocide had taken place. This article analyzes the facts as well as the legal reasoning that guided the International Commission of Inquiry in drawing the conclusion that a governmental policy to commit genocide had not been formed.     

Capitalism without compromise: Strong business and weak labor in Eastern Europe’s new transnational industries

This paper contributes to the debate on the social impact of globalization. It focuses on the mediating role of the sectoral pattern of transnational production relocation to the postcommunist economies of Eastern Europe. We argue that the collapse of the socialist heavy industries and the eastward relocation of traditional light industries initially forced the social conditions of the East European countries to converge at the bottom and deepened the gap between the West and the East. Later, the east-ward migration of high-skilled labor and capital-intensive industries and jobs led to decreasing social disparity between the West and some of the former socialist countries. However, convergence appears uncertain, costly, and uneven, and coincides with increasing social disparity within the group of East European new members and candidates of the European Union.