Extension of the color suite available for chemical enhancement of fingerprints in blood

The use of ortho- and para-phenylenediamine (OPD & PPD respectively) for the enhancement of fingerprints in blood has been investigated. Optimal pH conditions and H2O2 concentrations have been determined using UV/Vis spectroscopy. Both OPD and PPD are effective and less hazardous alternatives to the presently used 3,3'-diaminobenzidine (DAB) for the development of blood fingerprints, especially on porous surfaces. The orange color of OPD and the purple color of PPD offer alternative colors to the brown color of DAB and the light green color of ABTS for standing out against particular backgrounds. Both OPD and PPD can be used after ninhydrin treatment, but the reverse is not the case.     

Introducing Students to the Generic Terminology of Social Research

The aim of this article is twofold: first, to present an accessible way of introducing students to the key generic terms of social science research. There is an obvious need for clarifying the generic tools and terminology of the social sciences across the disciplines, as academics argue past each other, using identical terms but attaching different meanings to them. Secondly, this article presents the interrelationship between the core concepts of social science (ontology, epistemology, methodology, methods and sources). This 'directional' and logical relationship needs to be understood, if students – and academics – are to engage in constructive dialogue and criticism of each others' work.     

Municipal Bond Insurance: Trends and Prospects

Privately sold bond insurance is the most common form of credit enhancement for municipal bonds. Research generally finds that bond insurance reduces interest costs for lower rated, long–term debt issues. Researchers have concluded that these results are consistent with presumed investor risk aversion, as well as more "rational" risk management behaviors, and with theories concerning the efficiency–enhancing properties of financial intermediation in imperfect markets. We propose a research agenda based both on traditional theories and on additional hypotheses that seek to account for the observed use of bond insurance where net savings would not normally be predicted.     

Conversations in Context: The (Mis)Measurement of Value Change in Advanced Industrial Societies

One aspect of the multifaceted controversy on value change in advanced industrial societies concerns the measurement of values. Analyses of 1976–86 Euro-Barometer data have indicated that responses to the four-item “materialist-postmaterialist” values index are very sensitive to current economic conditions, especially inflation and unemployment rates and, hence, much of the recorded increase in postmaterialism in eight Western European countries since the mid-1970s is artifactual. Although it has been claimed these findings disappear if more recent data are considered, time series analyses reveal that responses to the values measure are strongly affected by prevailing economic conditions throughout the entire 1976–92 period. These aggregate-level findings are buttressed by individual-level analyses of 1989 Euro-Barometer data.     

The Coming of Parliamentary Television: The Lords and the Senate Compared

Subscribing to a Burkean view of representation, legislators have long tended to resist constant public scrutiny. In recent years, however, they have overcome this reluctance in a large number of countries and voted to allow the televising of their proceedings. But why they did so remains a mystery. Some media theorists argue that television exposure is a 'great democratizer'. It demystifies public authority figures and obliges them to become more accountable for their actions. The experience of the British House of Lords and the United States Senate suggests instead that television was invited in by rational political actors as a means of achieving their goals in a time of change. In this view, television is best seen not as a force in its own right, but as a medium of communication that can be strategically deployed by goal-oriented political élites responding to different political circumstances and institutional incentive structures.     

Budget Control in Virginia Public School Districts

This article examines the selection and use of a budget approval technique. Specifically, two research questions are addressed: (1) Does the use of a particular budget approval method by a governmental body impact the execution of the budget? (2) What characteristics of a local government are associated with its decision to use a particular budget approval method? Both research questions are addressed by analyzing data from public school systems in the Commonwealth of Virginia, specifically, whether using categorical budget approval differs in the accuracy of budgeting versus using a lump-sum approval method. Characteristics of Virginia school districts are also analyzed according to whether any of them are likely to be associated with school districts using a particular approval method. The remainder of this article is organized as follows: the next section describes the role of budgeting control in schools; subsequent sections review Virginia school district budgeting practices, develop the empirical model used to test the hypotheses, describe the sample, analyze the results of empirical tests and discuss implications of the findings.     

Does European Community Regional Policy Empower the Regions?

A central goal of the 1980s reforms of the European Community's regional development policy was to contribute to an increase in the discretionary authority of sub–national decision–makers in the Community's member states. This article assesses the degree to which this goal was attained through comparative studies of selected French and Italian regions. It concludes that only in those regions in which timely policy entrepreneurship on the part of regional–level elected leaders coincided with the pre–existence of a territorial policy Community for economic development did the transfer of resources from the Community contribute to regional empowerment.