Asia pacific news

This column provides a country-by-country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications' industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Asia Pacific news

This column provides a country-by-country analysis of the latest legal developments, cases and issues relevant to the IT, media and telecommunications industries in key jurisdictions across the Asia Pacific region. The articles appearing in this column are intended to serve as ‘alerts’ and are not submitted as detailed analyses of cases or legal developments.     

Facilitators and Impediments to Designing,Implementing, and Evaluating Risk-Based Policing Strategies Using Risk Terrain Modeling: Insights from a Multi-City Evaluation in the United States

The contemporary policing literature contains numerous examples of partnerships between academic researchers and police agencies. Such efforts have greatly contributed to evidence-based policing by increasing the knowledge base on effective strategies. However, research has demonstrated that successful collaboration between researchers and practitioners can be a challenge, with various organizational and inter-agency factors presenting difficulties at various stages of the process. Additionally, applied research can oftentimes face implementation challenges when the time comes to convert research into practice. The current study contributes to the literature by discussing researcher/practitioner partnerships and program implementation in the context of a multi-city risk-based policing project in the United States. We conceptualize police interventions as contingent on four distinct phases: 1) problem analysis, 2) project design, 3) project implementation, and 4) project evaluation. In this project, the research partners were able to successfully complete each phase in certain cities while the project experienced difficulty at one or more phases in other cities. We discuss these disparate experiences, identifying factors that facilitate or impede successful completion of each step. Policy implications and recommendations for future risk-based policing interventions are discussed.     

The Rite to Vote: Community Interactions and Grassroots Voter Participation in China

Journal of Chinese Political Science - Voting in China’s grassroots elections is more of a ritual than a right. For most citizens especially in the urban areas, the results of the local...     

Physical match: insole and shoe

In this case report, the authors show an interesting case of a physical match between an insole and a suspect shoe that was connected to the crime scene by a blood drop. Several pairs of shoes were seized and inspected. On the insoles of the main suspect's shoes, two different types of prints were seen, one was clear and the other image was faint. A physical match examination was conducted and the authors could place the right insole inside the right shoe. The insole was apparently glued to the shoe by the sweat, heat and dirt inside the shoe, and not by the manufacturer. In this case, the critical questions were how conclusive can the complexity of the random contours be, and whether the physical match between the two objects could pass the "Daubert challenge."     

Urban adolescent mothers exposed to community, family, and partner violence: is cumulative violence exposure a barrier to school performance and participation?

Using a risk and resilience perspective, the authors assessed urban adolescent mothers' exposure to community, family, and partner violence and analyzed the relationships between cumulative violence exposure and multiple school outcomes, within the context of welfare reforms. Positive attitude toward school and social support were examined as moderators of violence exposure on school outcomes. The authors pilot tested the questionnaire with 10 participants, then surveyed 120 adolescent mothers regarding their violence exposure, school performance and participation, positive attitude toward school, and social support. Results indicate very high rates of lifetime exposure to violence; intercorrelations and regression analyses indicate that as violence exposure increases, school outcomes tend to worsen, with positive attitude toward school found to be a significant moderator of the effects of exposure to community violence on behavior problems in school. Implications for researchers, practitioners, school policies and programs, and welfare policies and programs conclude the article.     

Twelve short tandem repeat loci Y chromosome haplotypes: genetic analysis on populations residing in North America

A total of 2443 male individuals, previously typed for the 13 CODIS STR loci, distributed across the five North American population groups African American, Asian, Caucasian, Hispanic, and Native American were typed for the Y-STR loci DYS19, DYS385a/b, DYS389I/II, DYS390, DYS391, DYS392, DYS393, DYS437, DYS438 and DYS439 using the PowerPlex Y System. All population samples were highly polymorphic for the 12 Y-STR loci with the marker DYS385a/b being the most polymorphic across all sample populations. The Native American population groups demonstrated the lowest genetic diversity, most notably at the DYS393 and DYS437 loci. Almost all of the 12-locus haplotypes observed in the sample populations were represented only once in the database. Haplotype diversities were greater than 99.6% for the African Americans, Caucasians, Hispanics, and Asians. The Native Americans had the lowest haplotype diversities (Apaches, 97.0%; Navajo, 98.1%). Population substructure effects were greater for Y-haplotypes, compared with that for the autosomal loci. For the apportionment of variance for the 12 Y-STRs, the within sample population variation was the largest component (>98% for each major population group and approximately 97% in Native Americans), and the variance component contributed by the major population groups was less than the individual component, but much greater than among sample populations within a major group (11.79% versus 1.02% for African Americans/Caucasians/Hispanics and 15.35% versus 1.25% for all five major populations). When each major population is analyzed individually, the R(ST) values were low but showed significant among group heterogeneity. In 692 confirmed father-son pairs, 14 mutation events were observed with the average rate of 1.57x10(-3)/locus/generation (a 95% confidence bound of 0.83x10(-3) to 2.69x10(-3)). Since the Y-STR loci reside on the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome, the counting method is one approach suggested for conveying an estimate of the rarity of the Y-haplotype. Because the Y-STR loci are not all in disequilibrium to the same extent, the counting method is a very conservative approach. The data also support that autosomal STR frequencies can be multiplied by the upper bound frequency estimate of a Y-haplotype in the individual population group or those pooled into major population groups (i.e., Caucasian, African American, Hispanic, and Asian). These analyses support use of the haplotype population data for estimating Y-STR profile frequencies for populations residing in North America.     

Breaking out—Women in adult education

Adult Education is primarily a women's service: women are the majority of staff and students yet they are not represented at the decision-making levels where resources are allocated. Adult Education is not as effective as it should be in providing open, life-long education, if the argument that when women achieve equality of numbers they will achieve equality of opportunity is to be believed. It still reinforces women's domestic and secondary role through its structures, policies and programmes and this, combined with its powerlessness within the British education system, reinforces the marginality of women as second class citizens. But this paper will argue that it has potential for women.