Automated PCR setup for forensic casework samples using the Normalization Wizard and PCR Setup robotic methods

Human genome, pharmaceutical and research laboratories have long enjoyed the application of robotics to performing repetitive laboratory tasks. However, the utilization of robotics in forensic laboratories for processing casework samples is relatively new and poses particular challenges. Since the quantity and quality (a mixture versus a single source sample, the level of degradation, the presence of PCR inhibitors) of the DNA contained within a casework sample is unknown, particular attention must be paid to procedural susceptibility to contamination, as well as DNA yield, especially as it pertains to samples with little biological material. The Virginia Department of Forensic Science (VDFS) has successfully automated forensic casework DNA extraction utilizing the DNA IQ(trade mark) System in conjunction with the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation. Human DNA quantitation is also performed in a near complete automated fashion utilizing the AluQuant Human DNA Quantitation System and the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation. Recently, the PCR setup for casework samples has been automated, employing the Biomek 2000 Automation Workstation and Normalization Wizard, Genetic Identity version, which utilizes the quantitation data, imported into the software, to create a customized automated method for DNA dilution, unique to that plate of DNA samples. The PCR Setup software method, used in conjunction with the Normalization Wizard method and written for the Biomek 2000, functions to mix the diluted DNA samples, transfer the PCR master mix, and transfer the diluted DNA samples to PCR amplification tubes. Once the process is complete, the DNA extracts, still on the deck of the robot in PCR amplification strip tubes, are transferred to pre-labeled 1.5 mL tubes for long-term storage using an automated method. The automation of these steps in the process of forensic DNA casework analysis has been accomplished by performing extensive optimization, validation and testing of the software methods.     

Cutting the Grass: A Reexamination of the Link between Marital Attachment,Delinquent Peers and Desistance from Marijuana Use

Recent work indicates that marriage contributes to desistance from crime. However, two prominent interpretations of this relationship have been offered. The first, rooted in informal control theory, suggests that the marriage effect is a direct result of social bonds that tend to accompany matrimony. The second contends that the effect is indirect and due to the impact of marriage on patterns of delinquent peer association. Using data from waves 5 and 6 of the National Youth Survey, this study re-analyzes these interpretations by examining the relationship between marital attachment, delinquent peer association and desistance from marijuana use. Although change in delinquent peer association is a powerful predictor of marijuana desistance, findings are also consistent with the control theory interpretation of the marriage effect. Implications and limitations of the current study are noted.A previous version of this paper was presented at the 2000 meeting of the American Society of Criminology in San Francisco, CA.     

Civilizations and the twenty-first century: some theoretical considerations

Since the end of the Cold War, globalization has become the centralphenomenon in world politics. Civilizations, once geographically based,are now loosened from fixed space, as migration of peoples andof ideas has accelerated. A focus on the dimensions of intersubjectivitywill give some understanding both of differences among civilizationsand on transformations of civilizations. Attention is thus givento different forms of substantive economies, to historical dominanceand subordination of civilizations and to the reawakenings ofcultures; to what Sorokin called the sensate and ideationaltypes of consciousness and to different forms of spirituality,and to relative orientations toward time and space. Two propositionsare implicit in a concern for civilizations: (i) that thereare alternatives for the human future, and (ii) that if differentcivilizations do coexist, the problem of mutual comprehensionbecomes paramount for the maintenance of world order. The implicationsfor a research program are to study civil societies as the sourcesof intersubjective meanings, the maintenance of the biosphereas the basic material condition of existence of all civilizations,and world governance as the modus vivendi of a plural world.