A comparative study of analytical methods to determine postmortem changes in carbon monoxide concentration

Twenty-one autopsy blood samples were analyzed using spectrophotometric and gas chromatographic procedures after storage for 30 and 150 days.When carboxyhemoglobin was measured spectrophotometrically at the absorbance ratio of $\text{540}\text{nm}\text{555}\text{nm}$, the observed average percent losses were 8 ± 9% and 35 ± 27% after 30 and 150 days of storage, respectively. When measured at the absorbance ratio of $\text{540}\text{nm}\text{579}\text{nm}$, the average percent losses of carboxyhemoglobin were 7 ± 8% and 34 ± 25% after 30 and 150 days, respectively. Wavelength shifts and distorted spectral scans were observed at 150 days.When carbon monoxide was determined by gas chromatographic methods based on combining capacity, the average percent loss was 15 ± 24% and 37 ± 36% after 30 days and 150 days, respectively. The average percent loss of calculated CO based on hemoglobin concentration after 30 days was 31 ± 14% and at 150 days, 40 ± 24%. The average percent loss of calculated CO based on iron content was 23 ± 13% and 37 ± 23% after 30 and 150 days, respectively.     

Official standards versus actual criteria in bond dispositions

The setting of bond in a first appearance court in one southeastern judicial district was examined to determine its relationship with official standards based on the recommendations of the American Bar Association advisory committee on standards for criminal justice and the National Advisory Commission on Criminal Justice Standards and Goals. Eighteen measures of five different recommended standards were considered. Only seriousness of charge showed apparent strength in its relationship with bond. The authors suggest a “facility hypothesis” (that court officials gravitated toward factors such as seriousness of charge) that may be readily processed and understood within constraints of time and organization. As added support for this hypothesis, defendants' demeanor in court is also shown to be significantly related to bond in the present study. These legal and personal criteria may be more identified as indicators of defendants' culpability than many other considerations recommended by the study commissions. Use of other official recommendations may require changes in the concepts of defendants held by court personnel or drastic changes in the organization of first appearance in court.     

Federal Oversight, Local Control, and the Specter of "Resegregation" in Southern Schools

Analyzing data for the 100 largest districts in the South andBorder states, we ask whether there is evidence of "resegregation"of school districts and whether levels of segregation can belinked to judicial decisions. We distinguish segregation measuresbased on racial isolation from those based on racial imbalance.Only one measure of racial isolation suggests that districtsin these regions experienced resegregation between 1994 and2004, and changes in this measure appear to be driven largelyby the rising nonwhite percentage in the student populationrather than by district policies. Although we find no time trendin racial imbalance over this period, we find that variationsin racial imbalance across districts are nonetheless associatedwith judicial declarations of unitary status, suggesting thatsegregation in schools might have declined had it not been forthe actions of federal courts.     

Color separation in forensic image processing

In forensic image processing, it is often important to be able to separate a feature from an interfering background or foreground, or to demonstrate colors within an image to be different from each other. In this study, a color deconvolution algorithm that could accomplish this task is described, and it is applied to color separation problems in document and fingerprint examination. Subtle color differences (sometimes invisible to the naked eye) are found to be sufficient, which is demonstrated successfully for several cases where color differences were shown to exist, or where colors were removed from the foreground or background. The software is available for free in the form of an Adobe Photoshop-compatible plug-in.