An Optimized Centrifugal Method for Separation of Semen from Superabsorbent Polymers for Forensic Analysis

Connection of a perpetrator to a sexual assault is best performed through the confirmed presence of semen, thereby proving sexual contact. Evidentiary items can include sanitary napkins or diapers containing superabsorbent polymers (SAPs), complicating spermatozoa visualization and DNA analysis. In this report, we evaluated the impact of SAPS on the current forensic DNA workflow, developing an efficient centrifugal protocol for separating spermatozoa from SAP material. The optimized filtration method was compared to common practices of excising the top layer only, resulting in significantly higher sperm yields when a core sample of the substrate was taken. Direct isolation of the SAP‐containing materials without filtering resulted in 20% sample failure; additionally, SAP material was observed in the final eluted DNA samples, causing physical interference. Thus, use of the described centrifugal‐filtering method is a simple preliminary step that improves spermatozoa visualization and enables more consistent DNA yields, while also avoiding SAP interference.     

Posthumous reproduction: a consideration of the medical, ethical, cultural, psychosocial and legal perspectives in the New Zealand context

This paper describes the development of New Zealand policy on posthumous reproduction in assisted human reproduction. It outlines five perspectives: medical, ethical, cultural, psychosocial and legal and shows the multidisciplinary approach taken by the National Ethics Committee. It is argued that each of these perspectives has important contributions to make to the multidisciplinary approach. The guidelines determined by the Committee are outlined, along with the processes used in arriving at these.     

Ground penetrating radar surveys to locate 1918 Spanish flu victims in permafrost

The "Spanish Flu" killed over 40 million people worldwide in 1918. Archival records helped us identify seven men who died of influenza in 1918 and were interred in Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway, 1,300 km from the North Pole. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) was used successfully, in a high-resolution field survey mode, to locate a large excavation with seven coffins, near the existing seven grave markers. The GPR indicated that the ground was disturbed to 2 m depth and was frozen below 1 m. Subsequent excavation showed that: a) the GPR located the position of the graves accurately, b) the coffins were buried less than 1 m deep, and c) that the frozen ground was 1.2 m deep where the coffins were located. The GPR assisted in planning the exhumation, safely and economically, under the high degree of containment required. Virologic and bacteriologic investigations on recovered tissues may give us an opportunity to isolate and identify the micro-organisms involved in the 1918 influenza and expand our knowledge on the pathogenesis of influenza.     

Competing Gender Paradigms: Gender Difference, Fetal Rights and the Case of Johnson Controls

Political debates over the concept of “fetal rights” pose in sharp relief questions regarding the meaning of biological gender difference for gender equality. Can the state's obligation to “protect” fetal health be used to modify or control women's behavior? If so, what does this mean for women's status as full and equal citizens in a democratic society? This article addresses these questions through an analysis of the political, legal, scientific and moral debates over “fetal protection policies” in hazardous workplaces.     

Yes,no, maybe: an analysis of journalists’ views about political party membership in South Africa

This article reports on an analysis of South African journalists’ views on independence from political parties at a time when the journalist fraternity appeared to be split in two (with nuances in between): those who appeared to support the nationalistic, patriotic project of sunshine journalism to focus on the “positives” and enhance the image of the country as espoused by the ruling party, the African National Congress (ANC), and those who attempted to abide by codes of ethics according to the Press Council of South Africa (PCSA). The PCSA stipulates that belonging to a political party constitutes a conflict of interests, and recommends distance from political parties, with the liberal normative view of watchdog journalism and holding the powerful to account. The analysis combined and integrated a few methods to reach conclusions about the master signifier in the discourse of journalists. It used a survey conducted with journalists in 2015 for quantitative and qualitative analysis, and deployed Zizek’s use of the concepts of master and floating signifiers to offer some critical reflections about journalists’ relationships to political parties. It found that the majority of journalists felt that their credibility would be compromised if they belonged to a political party, but quite a large section felt that journalists had biases anyway, so what was the problem?     

On monarchy

Monarchy is liberalism’s little secret. Given the number of articles and books appearing every year dealing with liberal democracy as the hallmark of contemporary Western societies, it is astonishing that monarchy is rarely ever mentioned despite the fact that monarchy, and not a republic, is the constitutional form of quite a number of Western liberal states. I argue that considering the political reality of the established monarchies in Europe leads into a dilemma: either contemporary liberalism is not the kind of theory it claims to be or it has to reconsider its central tenets. In conclusion, I show that the dilemma cannot be solved or avoided but needs to be embraced by conceiving liberalism not as a applied moral theory but as a political theory that leaves room for various symbolic self-understandings and acknowledges the crooked timber of historical realities.     

African international students in Klang Valley: colonial legacies,postcolonial racialization,and sub-citizenship

This article examines the experiences of African international students attending universities around the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. I draw upon participant-observations, interviews, and discussions with international students from several African nations and Malaysian citizens of various ethnicities. Malaysian educational programs are actively marketed in Africa, where many students and their families are motivated to pursue an affordable English-language education in an Asian nation. However, African students face an unfriendly and racist reception in the greater Klang Valley area. Persisting colonial legacies of white supremacy, global flows of negative images of Blacks, and newly emergent meta-cultural circulation of representations of Africans-cum-‘Nig(g)erians’ as predatory males shape their experiences of exclusion from cosmopolitan citizenship. I argue that African international students are cast into a low grade of cultural citizenship that cuts across zones of graduated sovereignty. African students adapt to this urban context, perform acts of citizenship, and attempt to foster cosmopolitan relations among themselves and in the broader society. Moments of critical cosmopolitanism from Malaysians are rare and need to be expanded.     

A family with unusual Kell genotypes

A family in which kKp^a, kKp^b, KKp^b and K^o are segregating confirms the depressing effect of Kp^a on the products of other Kell genes in cis. The significance of such unusual Kell genotypes in forensic testing is discussed.