Application of fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) in latent finger mark detection

Fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) in frequency domain enables the mapping of the spatial distribution of fluorescence lifetimes of a specimen. It has been extensively applied in biology. In this paper, a theoretical analysis for the fluorescence lifetime determination of latent finger mark samples is described, which is followed by the feasibility study of using FLIM in frequency domain for latent finger marks detection. Preliminary experiments are carried out with latent finger marks treated with a fluorescent powder on two different substrates. The resulting fluorescence lifetime image of finger mark revealed a good contrast, and was able to detect the latent finger marks clearly.     

Toward an International Relations Theory of National Innovation Rates

The ability of nations to innovate technologically plays an important causal role in both security studies and international political economy. Explanations for national differences in technological capabilities, however, have had little place in international relations theory. This gap is partly the result of assumptions made by scholars that the rate and direction of technological change are determined by a state's domestic institutions and policies. This article will bring together recent findings about the political economy of technological innovation in order to show that much of this conventional wisdom is incorrect. Instead, it will be shown that, due to the distributive nature of technological change, different combinations of domestic tensions and external security concerns motivate elites to pursue or eschew a technologically competitive economy. Institutions are not causal, they are merely instrumental. Recent findings in the economic development literature therefore have important implications for security studies.     

Kampf um Souveränität?

The article documents a panel debate held at the Kiel congress of the German Political Science Association (DVPW) in September 2009. With its Lisbon judgment passed in June 2009, the German Federal Constitutional Court delivered a groundbreaking decision on Germany’s involvement in the European integration process. The Court ruled that the German accompanying law (Begleitgesetz) violated the national constitution because it did not guarantee sufficient parliamentary involvement. Furthermore, the Court announced its intention to intensify the constitutional control of the national applicability of European legal acts (the ultra vires control and the identity control). Stephan Leibfried, Marcus Höreth, Martin Höpner, Fritz W. Scharpf and Michael Zürn discuss the judgment with respect to its implications for the further integration process, for the national and supranational capacities to act, for the democratic quality in the European multilevel system and for political-economic problems.     

Some recent East African peasant studies

Torben Bager, Marketing Cooperatives and Peasants in Kenya Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1980, pp. 116. Ño price.

John Carlsen, Economic and Social transformation in Rural Kenya Scandinavian Institute of African Studies, Uppsala, 1980, pp. 230. No price.

Frederick Cooper, From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labour and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya, 1890–1925, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1980, pp. 328, £15.75.

The author discusses three recent books on agrarian Kenya: Marketing Cooperatives and Peasants in Kenya by Torben Bager, Economic and Social Transformation in Rural Kenya by John Carlsen, and From Slaves to Squatters: Plantation Labour and Agriculture in Zanzibar and Coastal Kenya 1880–1925 by Frederick Cooper. It is argued that the data presented in these books confirm that a middle peasantry preponderates in areas outside the White Highlands, although one of the authors, Carlsen, asserts the contrary. Some fundamental methodological issues with respect to the analay sis of the development of capitalism in the countryside — in particular, the treatment of differentiation of the peasantry — are discussed.     

The propriety of establishing the fact of neonatality based on the examination of the child's corpse

It is shown based on the historical and legal analysis that the designation of the child's status as a newborn infant throughout the period of its neonatal life till violent death "at or immediately after births" is the exclusive prerogative of the law-enforcement authorities. An original approach has been developed and recommended for the introduction into the expert practice. According to this proposal facts and arguments in the "Expert conclusions" should be formulated so as to avoid mentioning the child as newborn and to indicate only the duration of its extrauterine life. Such an approach leaves it to the law-enforcement authorities to decide in each concrete case whether the child should be designated as a newborn infant or not.     

Blind lineup administration as a prophylactic against the postidentification feedback effect

Confidence and other testimony-relevant judgments may be distorted when witnesses are given confirming postidentification feedback, and double-blind procedures-wherein the lineup administrator does not know the identity of the suspect-are a commonly proposed, but untested, remedy for this effect. In the current study, mock witnesses viewed a staged crime video followed by a target-present or target-absent lineup where the administrator was or was not presumed to know the identity of the suspect. After making an identification decision, witnesses were or were not given realistic, but nonidentification-specific, feedback, and then confidence and other judgments were assessed. A significant interaction was found between blind condition and feedback such that feedback inflated confidence and other judgments in presumed nonblind conditions only; feedback had no effect on participants in presumed blind conditions. As predicted by the selective cue integration framework-a theoretical model suggested to explain the interaction between presumed blind administration and feedback-this interaction was significant only for inaccurate participants. These results suggest that blind administration may serve as a prophylactic against the negative effects of postidentification feedback. In addition, the effectiveness of our subtle feedback in influencing judgments suggests that lineup administrators should take care not to provide any feedback to eyewitnesses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

Detection of the synthetic drug 4-fluoroamphetamine (4-FA) in serum and urine

4-Fluoroamphetamine (4-FA) was detected in the blood and urine of two individuals suspected for driving under the influence (DUI). The test for amphetamines in urine subjected to immunoassay screening using the CEDIA DAU assay proved positive. Further investigations revealed a 4-FA cross-reactivity of about 6% in the CEDIA amphetamine assay. 4-FA was qualitatively detected in a general unknown screening for drugs using GC/MS in full scan mode. No other drugs or fluorinated phenethylamines were detected. A validated GC/MS method was established in SIM mode for serum analysis of 4-FA with a limit of detection (LOD) of 1 ng/mL and a lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) of 5 ng/mL. Intra-assay precision was approx. 4% and inter-assay precision approx. 8%. Applying this method, the 4-FA serum concentrations of the two subjects were determined to be 350 ng/mL and 475 ng/mL, respectively. Given the pharmacological data of amphetamine, 4-FA psychoactive effects are to be expected at these serum levels. Both subjects exhibited sympathomimetic effects and psychostimulant-like impairment accordingly.