Distribution of methamphetamine and amphetamine in drug abusers’ head hair

In order to aid the interpretation of hair results from methamphetamine (MA) abusers the MA and amphetamine (AP) concentrations in 2070 hair samples were statistically evaluated. The MA and AP concentrations in hair were put into three groups arbitrarily representing low, medium and high ranges and the metabolite-to-parent drug ratios of each group were examined. The concentration ranges proposed here were also applied to the interpretation of five authentic cases. The low, medium and high ranges of MA were 0.5–4.2, 4.2–24.5 and 24.5–608.9 ng/mg and those of AP were 0.1–0.4, 0.4–1.7 and 1.7–41.4 ng/mg. The AP-to-MA ratios showed large variation but a tendency that it decreased as the MA ranges increased. This evaluation was very useful to presume the severity of individuals’ MA abuse and to provide law enforcement agencies more understandable information. It could also facilitate the court's decision regarding specific circumstances surrounding the drug-related crimes.     

Public Perception and Reporting of Different Kinds of Family Abuse in Hong Kong

The prevalence and serious consequences of family violence have given rise to massive research efforts. However, there is often a discrepancy between the official definitions and public perception of child abuse, elder abuse, and spouse abuse cases. Under-reporting is common due to lack of awareness of the abusive behaviors by the public. Differences between perception of abuse and reporting are well documented in the context of single group of victims. However, research studies on the differences in perception and reporting of different forms of abusive behaviors that occur to victims of child abuse, spouse abuse, and elder abuse are scarce. The present study attempts to examine whether perception and reporting of abuse will be different with respect to who the victim is and how the victim is abused. Findings show that perception and reporting of abusive behavior differ with respect to the victims of abuse and to the nature of abusive behaviors. Implications of these differences and directions for practice are discussed.

Correlates of in-law conflict and intimate partner violence against Chinese pregnant women in Hong Kong

This study examines correlates of in-law conflict with intimate partner violence (IPV) against pregnant women in a cohort of Chinese pregnant women who visited antenatal clinics in Hong Kong. This was a territory-wide, cross-sectional study of 3,245 pregnant women recruited from seven hospitals in Hong Kong. Participants were invited to complete the Chinese Abuse Assessment Screen and a demographic questionnaire. About 9% of the pregnant women reported having been abused by their partners in the preceding year. In-law conflict was the characteristic most significantly associated with preceding-year abuse against pregnant women, after controlling for covariates. Findings underscore the need to obtain information on in-law conflict as a risk factor for IPV. In-law conflict should be included in the assessment of risk for IPV. For the prevention of IPV, family-based intervention is needed to work with victims as well as in-laws.     

Comparing China’s frontier politics: how much difference did a century make?

In response to foreign demands for concessions and territories, China’s last imperial court in the early twentieth century executed reforms to strengthen fiscal, personnel, military, and cultural control over its frontier regions. However, in so doing, it provoked an awakening of the national consciousness of the elites of non-Han ethnic minorities there. Much has changed over the past 100 years regarding the governance of China’s frontier territories of Inner Mongolia, Tibet, and Xinjiang, with the diffusion of nationalist claims among increasing numbers of the ethnic minority populace, heightened focus of foreign actors on the humanitarian and rights situations of the ethnic minorities, and greatly extended reach and firmer grip of the central government. What remained unaltered is the “state integration” purpose of Chinese regimes, as manifested in the practices of “internal colonialism” or “ethnic assimilation,” which has led to grievances and resistance by China’s ethnic minorities against the Chinese state.     

Service targets and methods of redress: the impact of accountability in Malaysia

Malaysia's public service has decisively oriented its business activities towards meeting the needs of users. This brief review of what is known as the ‘Total Quality Management Programme’ outlines the four key elements of Malaysia's initiative, namely, the setting of service targets, measures of performance, work improvement, and the ‘service recovery system’, applied to redress grievances. (© 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)     

The Prewar School Civic Education Policy in Hong Kong： A Historical Comparative Analysis

The civic education policy at the school level in Hong Kong had emerged before the Second World War, but the Hong Kong Education Department did not really implement this civic education policy. From the statist and colonial perspectives, this phenomenon was due to several factors, such as： （1） how the Hong Kong Government coped with the whole historical period and scenarios; （2） how it implemented the related policy; （3） whether civic education policy really became part of the government agendas; and （4） whether education did clarify some crucial historical questions. This paper wants to make certain about these questions. In fact, the Republic of China adopted modern schooling system which civic education was one of school subject. But it was not the education policy of the colonial Hong Kong Government. Historical reasons about this issue require reconstructive explanation. Under this study, the understanding of misinterpreted history can be amended correctly.     

Narrators’ perspectives: communicating the EU in Ukraine,Israel and Palestine in times of conflict

ABSTRACT

The role of newsmakers as intermediaries in the shaping of external perceptions and reception of narratives advanced by different actors remains sparse in EU studies. This contribution fills this gap and addresses the personal images of the EU of newsmakers. We contribute to the understanding of those personal perceptions and their link to professional values of audience interest, newsworthiness and objectivity in reporting the EU. The article will demonstrate that all journalists perceive EU coverage in their respective locations are led by local priorities. Negative views of the EU as a weakening, biased, ineffective, elitist and arrogant actor are dominant. Arguably, they create conditions for the birth and dissemination of Euro-distant and even Euro-sceptic media narratives. The article will explain why this is the case while drawing on political/ideational and business/financial explanations.     

Relevance analysis using revision identifier in MS word

Electronic documents often contain personal or confidential information, which can be used as valuable evidence in criminal investigations. In the digital investigation, special techniques are required for grouping and screening electronic documents, because it is challenging to analyze relationships between numerous documents in storage devices manually. To this end, although techniques such as keyword search, similarity search, topic modeling, metadata analysis, and document clustering are continually being studied, there are still limitations for revealing the relevance of documents. Specifically, metadata used in previous research are not always values present in the documents, and clustering methods with specific keywords may be incomplete because text‐based contents (including metadata) can be easily modified or deleted by users. In this work, we propose a novel method to efficiently group Microsoft Office Word 2007+ (MS Word) files by using revision identifier (RSID). Through a thorough understanding of the RSID, examiners can predict organizations to which a specific user belongs, and further, it is likely to discover unexpected interpersonal relationships. An experiment with a public dataset (GovDocs) provides that it is possible to categorize documents more effectively by combining our proposal with previously studied methods. Furthermore, we introduce a new document tracking method to understand the editing history and movement of a file, and then demonstrate its usefulness through an experiment with documents from a real case.     

Developmental validation of reduced-size STR Miniplex primer sets

This paper describes a developmental validation study of three Miniplex sets covering 12 of the 13 CODIS loci. As these new sets will be used for the analysis of degraded and low level DNA, the validation studies were performed using 100-125 pg of DNA, the lowest input level at which peak balance, peak intensity, and allele consistency were stable. To demonstrate the applicability of the Miniplex sets to forensic casework, these validation studies were completed in accordance with the Scientific Working Group on DNA Analysis Methods (SWGDAM). A range of tests were performed including studies of concordance with standard multiplex kits, sensitivity and reproducibility, and PCR amplification conditions. Additionally, studies of mixtures, nonhuman and environmentally degraded DNA, and simulated forensic samples were performed. Our results demonstrate that Miniplex STR amplification procedures are a robust and sensitive tool for the analysis of degraded DNA.     

Cross-examination of liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and solid-phase microextraction (SPME) methods for impurity profiling of methamphetamine

Impurities in 48 methamphetamine (MA) samples were analyzed by liquid-liquid extraction (LLE) and headspace solid-phase microextraction (HS-SPME) methods. MPS-2 autosampler was used to improve reproducibility of SPME method, and nonadecane (C(19)) diluted with potassium bromide (KBr) powder was used as an internal standard for standardizing retention time. Impurities identified by SPME method showed different patterns compared with LLE method. Non-volatile impurities like methamphetamine dimer were not identified by SPME method, but some volatile impurities like diphenylketone, caprolactam and lots of unknowns were identified only by SPME method. 1-Phenyl-2-propanone (P2P), 1-phenyl-2-propanol and benzylcyanide peaks could be discriminated clearly by SPME method without interference of amphetamine, an artifact originates from MA degradation. Differences in the impurity patterns resulted in different clustering results. When 48 MA samples were classified into 5 LLE and 5 SPME clusters, cross-matching of the clusters resulted in 8 sub-clusters. It shows that combination of the different extraction methods can distinguish the differences which cannot be distinguished by LLE or SPME method alone, and can improve reliability of the profiling results.