Gelatine lifting, a novel technique for the examination of indented writing

The limitations of the examination of indented writing impressions using electrostatic detection are often paper related. Paper types such as glossy paper, paper of high basis weight, and lithography or gravure-printed papers often give rise to problems resulting in a decrease in sensitivity or a lack of detection altogether. In this paper, a novel technique for the examination of indented writing is presented, which is in a sense complimentary to the technique of electrostatic detection as it is especially suitable for glossy-coated and printed paper types and can in some instances also deal with paper types of higher basis weight. Indented writing grooves will normally contain more particles than the surrounding nonindented areas due to damage of the surface layer resulting in a build-up of filler powder. The method presented uses black gelatine lifter slabs to lift the paper dust image off the surface of the paper. This image can quite easily be photographed using near-to-coaxial lighting. The gelatine lifting method outperforms oblique lighting for the detection of indented writing and is almost as sensitive as electrostatic detection if compared on the types of paper where both perform well. The main advantage of this new technique is, however, that it is especially suitable for those types of paper where electrostatic detection fails and is therefore a welcome addition to the range of methods available to a forensic document examiner for the examination of indented writing.     

Searching for political business cycles in Germany

One reslt of the revitalised literature on political business cycles is that there are signs in German data that elections and ideology have an impact. However, using monthly data for the period 1950-1989, and standard methods of time series analysis, we reject both the Nordhaus hypothesis of opportunistic cycles and the partisan approaches by Hibbs ans Alesina. We show that some results are sensitive to the assumption of stationarity. There are signs of policy cycles in M1. It is hard, though, to bring this in line with the Rogoff hypothesis of rational opportunistic cycles because of the German institutional setting.