Development of a Pencil Drawn Paper-based Analytical Device to Detect Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD)*†

The need for agile and proper identification of drugs of abuse has encouraged the scientific community to improve and to develop new methodologies. The drug lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) is still widely used due to its hallucinogenic effects. The use of voltammetric methods to analyze narcotics has increased in recent years, and the possibility of miniaturizing the electrochemical equipment allows these methods to be applied outside the laboratory; for example, in crime scenes. In addition to portability, the search for affordable and sustainable materials for use in electroanalytical research has grown in recent decades. In this context, employing paper substrate, graphite pencil, and silver paint to construct paper-based electrodes is a great alternative. Here, a paper-based device comprising three electrodes was drawn on 300 g/m² watercolor paper with 8B pencils, and its efficiency was compared to the efficiency of a commercially available screen-printed carbon electrode. Square wave voltammetry was used for LSD analysis in aqueous medium containing 0.05 mol/L LiClO₄. The limits of detection and quantification were 0.38 and 1.27 μmol/L, respectively. Both electrodes exhibited a similar voltammetric response, which was also confirmed during analysis of a seized LSD sample, with recovery of less than 10%. The seized samples were previously analyzed by GCMS technique, employing the full scan spectra against the software spectral library. The electrode selectivity was also tested against 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and methamphetamine. It was possible to differentiate these compounds from LSD, indicating that the developed paper-based device has potential application in forensic chemistry analyses.     

Organising Everyday Resistance: An Ethnographic Study of Rickshaw Drivers in Bogotá

Workers in the informal transport sector are often exposed to multiple forms of workplace violence, for instance by the police and their colleagues. Through a collection of rich ethnographic stories and using the concept of popular resistance, this article investigates how and under what conditions rickshaw drivers in Bogotá resist violence in their workplace. The results reveal that rickshaw associations have been essential in articulating acts of everyday resistance to the legal ban on this activity, such regulating routes, fees and stops. However, associations have created new forms of oppression, being labelled as mafia-like organisations, showing that resistance can also translate into new forms of domination. Contrary to the argument that everyday resistance is uncoordinated, this article shows that acts of everyday resistance can be organised by actors that switch between different individual and collective strategies. Thus, organisations can provide a framework to resist the law on an everyday basis.     

Color Stability of Dental Restorative Materials Submitted to Heat Sources,for Forensic Purposes

During postmortem examination of the dental arches of carbonized victims, dental restorative materials may be found. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of heat source action on the color stability of composite resin (CR) and glass ionomer cement (GIC) restorations, to discriminate between them and compare with antemortem dental data. Sixty bovine teeth (30 CR and 30 GIC) were prepared (6 × 6 × 2 mm) and separated into groups (n = 10). The color readouts were taken by spectrophotometer, before and after heat action (100°C, 200°C, 300°C), in an oven for 15 min. There were color alterations for all coordinates (ΔE, ΔL*, Δa* eΔb*) for both materials. GIC presented greater change. The authors concluded that it is possible to distinguish between the materials by the color changes analyzed by instrumental method, helping victim identification.     

The Limitations of Water Regulation: The Failure of the Cochabamba Concession in Bolivia

This article examines the limitations of governmental capacity to regulate private sector participation in urban water supply in developing countries through an analysis of the most dramatic failure to date of a major franchise contract for supplying water and sanitation services to a large city – the 40-year concession awarded in September 1999 to Aguas del Tunari (AdT) in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Five months later, the population rioted against water tariff increases and the contract was cancelled. The paper analyses the background, context and factors that explain the failure of the concession and seeks to draw lessons for the regulation of future concessions.     

Main drivers of human capital,learning and performance

The aim of this study was to show the relationships between the enablers for knowledge creation and human capital (HC); the effect of HC on feedback and feedforward; and the influence of these learning flows on organizational performance. To achieve this, we developed a novel theoretical model of relationships and tested this model empirically. We quantitatively test this model using data from firms in the Spanish biotechnology sector. Results show strong relationships between HC and enablers for knowledge creation (redundancy, trust, and autonomy); HC and learning flows (feedback and feedforward); and learning flows and organizational performance. The originality of this study lies in linking—theoretically, empirically, and through a novel model—independent theories of HC, learning, and knowledge creation.     

Du système des bureaux au système des groupes et des commissions. Le règlement parlementaire italien de 1920 et la doctrine constitutionnelle*

An attempt to explore the scope of Italian parliamentary reforms in 1920 in the context of the transition from a traditional constitutional culture to a new model of political representation is presented. The workings of Parliament were ‘temporarily’ established in 1848, when a system of ‘bureaux’ was adopted which was to last until 1920. They were distributed among members by lot. Preliminary discussions took place in these ‘bureaux’, which then nominated a commission with the responsibility to present its work to the Assembly. This system related to the concept of representation according to which each deputy freely represented the entire nation. By contrast, the 1920 reforms proposed to organise this by means of commissions whose membership mirrored the proportional weighting of political groupings to which all deputies had to belong. This regulation complemented earlier electoral reforms which, following the introduction of male mass suffrage, favoured the presence on the political scene of modern parties. As a result of this new parliamentary regulation and in spite of resistance based on constitutional tradition, the political parties, now part of political life, moved to the heart of the institutional life of the state.