Allele frequencies of 15 autosomal STR loci in the Iraq population with comparisons to other populations from the middle-eastern region

Allele frequencies for the 15 autosomal STR loci included in the AmpFlSTR((R)) IdentifilerTM PCR Amplification Kit panel from Applied Biosystems (D3S1358, vWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D19S433, D2S1338, D16S539) and several statistical parameters were estimated from a sample of 103 unrelated individuals, mostly Shia and Sunni Arabs, living in most of central and southern Iraq provinces. We compared the allele frequency spectrum detected in the Iraqi population to allele frequencies from 11 other data sets from published studies of individuals from Turkey, Iraqi-Kurdistan, Saudi Arabia, Arab Emarates, Oman, Iran, Syria, and Jordan. Significant global differences in allele frequencies were detected in 9 of the 11 comparisons following sequential Bonferroni corrections. Comparisons with the two independent panels from Saudi Arabia were not significant after applying Bonferroni corrections, however, low P-values (P<0.05) associated with these two contrasts nonetheless suggested that at least slight genetic differences between populations may exist.     

Rights redistribution and COVID-19 lockdown policy

European Journal of Law and Economics - What is the tenet upon which the public policy of lockdown by fiat experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic is based on? The work approaches this question...     

Meet the Producer: Exchange Rate Shocks, Media Salience, and the Legislative Importance of Economic Sectors in Argentina

In the last 15 years, considerable efforts have been directed towards understanding how currency shocks affect the clout of economic actors. Little research, however, has studied how currency shocks affect the salience of key economic actors and their organizations among the public. In this article, we test for the effect of currency shock on the media salience and legislative importance of economic actors. We use a novel empirical design that (1) measures the level of media salience of 23 Labor, Rural, Business, and Financial Associations and (2) measures the targets of legislation initiated in key Congressional committees. Results show that currency shocks have moderate effects on the media salience of economic actors and more pronounced policy consequences, reflected on the legislative importance of key economic jurisdictions in Congress.     

Combating terrorism in East Asia—a framework for regional cooperation

The nature of the East Asian terrorist threat is obviously most acute in Southeast Asia. In dealing with that threat there are three levels of action to pursue. The first relates to the domestic developments nations can all be expected to take individually within their respective countries. Secondly there's the broader international cooperation that nations undertake through organisations such as the UN, G8, ASEAN and APEC. The third area for action and cooperation is the support given directly to individual countries in Southeast Asia, and in particular, the aid and assistance to develop and enhance their own domestic capabilities to combat terrorism. The bombing of the Australian Embassy in Jakarta emphasises that the priorities for assistance and cooperation are in the field of intelligence, namely to gain a better understanding of the terrorists and their motives and the requirement for the exchange of intelligence between regional countries.     

Legislative Parties in Volatile,Nonprogrammatic Party Systems: The Peruvian Case in Comparative Perspective

This article extends the analysis of political parties in electorally volatile and organizationally weak party systems by evaluating two implications centered on legislative voting behavior. First, it examines whether disunity prevails where weakness of programmatic and electoral commonalities abound. Second, it analyzes whether inchoate party systems weaken the ability of government parties to control the congressional agenda. The empirical analysis centers on Peru, a classic example of a weakly institutionalized party system, and how its legislative parties compare to those of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and the United States. The results lend support to the view that lower unity characterizes weakly institutionalized settings. The agenda‐setting power of government parties, however, appears to be influenced more by the majority status of the government than by the level of party system institutionalization.     

A rapid screening procedure for drugs and poisons in gastric contents by direct injection-HPLC analysis

A high performance liquid chromatographic method for toxicological drug screening of gastric content has been developed. The samples were diluted (1:3-1:30) in 0.01 N hydrochloric acid and injected into a reverse phase column for separation by gradient elution. Mobile phase consisted of solvent A (acetonitrile/water 90:10, 0.01 M sodium dodecylsulphate, 0.5% v/v glacial acetic acid) and solvent B (water/acetonitrile 90:10, 0.01 M sodium dodecylsulphate, 0.5% v/v glacial acetic acid); the gradient was programmed from 20 to 80% A in 30 min. The flow was kept constant at 1.5 ml/min. Two home-made internal standards, butyrylsalicylic acid and diacetyltubocurarine with retention times of 5.6 and 21.4 min, respectively, were used. Drugs are identified by matching their relative retention times and UV spectra (200-400 nm) with those contained in a home made library of more than 340 reference compounds (9 analgesics, 22 antidepressants, 30 antihistamines, 14 antihypertensives, 21 antirheumatics, 15 beta-blockers, 9 bronchodilators, 10 Ca antagonists, 14 diuretics, 26 neuroleptics, 25 tranquilizers, and other significant xenobiotic compounds). The fluorometric (FLD) emission spectrum (280-700 nm; excitation wavelength, 230 nm) was used as a further identification. At 50mg/l analyte concentrations, the injection of gastric content after dilution (1:3) produced S/N ratios in the range 8-140. The method is simple, rapid, rather inexpensive and proved to be a useful means of investigation if used in combination with GC-MS screening in blood. On the other hand, the system suffers from a relatively limited sensitivity for compounds with a low UV absorption and from interferences due to the presence in the matrix of some highly UV- and FL-responsive compounds (e.g. tryptophan).     

Setting the agenda: Social influence in the effects of the Human Rights Committee in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe

Analyzing original data from Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe, this article explores the influence of the Human Rights Committee (HRC) of the United Nations (UN) in the configuration of states' normative agendas and the roles they seek to play. Focusing on the HRC's reporting procedure, the article investigates whether states adjust the substantive content of their periodic reports to mimic the human rights agenda explicitly set by the HRC through its concluding observations reports. The article finds that states take the HRC seriously and play the role of “good,” committed members of the human rights regime, following in their periodic reports the agenda of rights previously set by the HRC. The article, therefore, offers a specific theoretical argument and systematic, original evidence on the potential and the limits of the influence of the organs of the international human rights regime.