Modeling Forensic DNA Database Performance*

Abstract: Over the past decade or more, DNA databases have been a focal point of development for the forensic field. Using this approach, forensic and law enforcement agencies have aided millions of investigations, many of which would remain unsolved but for the intelligence links provided from DNA database comparison. However, despite their widespread use and increasingly broad legislative and operational reach, there has been limited overarching performance modeling or reflection on drivers of operational or financial efficiency. This study derives an inferential model for DNA database performance using data from major national DNA database programs. Parameters that optimize desirable database outputs (matches) are isolated and discussed, as is an approach for maximizing financial efficiency and minimizing ethical impact. This research takes important steps toward identifying measures of performance for forensic DNA database operations.     

Externalities in comparative guise

For those working with social science presumptions, ethical principles can seem to come out of nowhere. This paper wonders whether they operate like the positive externalities Callon wishes to derive from economists. In exploring the question, it is forced to consider different models of internal and external positioning. It does this through taking up two manifestations of the technological economy concerned with information management, following examples drawn from Callon's own work (competitive patenting and ethical deliberations on biotechnology).     

Forecasting the Political Economy of the Inner Solar System

Social structural methods are applied to forecast the political economy of the inner solar system to the 22nd century. One method considers structural indicators, specifically, population, social organization, environment, and technology. Another method examines the Tongan diaspora as an analog of human expansion into space. This future political economy could emerge as a consequence of user strain on a global electrical power grid that develops by 2050. Alternative energy needs could turn to space-based sources. If on-orbit space-based energy infrastructure provides the rationale, capability, and allure to see humans routinely living and working in space, their presence on the Moon and among the near-Earth asteroids can lead to a human diaspora to Mars and its moons. These events will build the multi-planet economy, the multi-world system of societies, and the transnational state. The development of Mars will reach a maturity of settlement from 2130 onward. As these potential events become history, capital would be transformed, and higher-order space logistics in a multi-world system of societies with its multi-planet economy would lay the foundation for a Solar System Federation. This federation constitutes transnational states among off-world human societies that could fill the vacuum of a fading Westphalian nation-state system on Earth.     

ADHD and criminality: A primer on the genetic, neurobiological, evolutionary, and treatment literature for criminologists

Objective

This state of the art review of 102 studies is a primer on ADHD and its major comorbidities for criminologists unfamiliar with the genetic, neurobiological, and evolutionary literatures.

Materials and methods

Neurological, genetic, medical, and criminal justice data bases were keyword searched for articles on ADHD and/or articles using ADHD as a major independent variable.

Results

ADHD is a disorder that is closely connected to externalizing behaviors, conduct problems, and criminal behavior across the life course.

Conclusions

To date, ADHD research has been carried out primarily by biomedical researchers and de-emphasized by criminologists whose training is overwhelmingly in the social sciences. The special expertise of criminologists in uncovering environmental correlates of antisocial behavior can benefit biomedical researchers who in turn can assist criminologists in uncovering the individual-level correlates of antisocial behavior.     

Police Cooperation across the Irish Border: Familiarity Breeding Contempt for Transparency and Accountability

This article critically examines the practice, methods, and regulation of cross‐border police cooperation between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Despite legal and political divisions, police cooperation has survived and flourished in recent years especially among police officers on the ground. By comparison, the development of transparent regulatory and accountability structures and processes has been disappointing. While there have been domestic initiatives at the intergovernmental and legislative levels, these have tended to emphasize the centrality of direct engagement between the police chiefs and senior civil servants at the expense of formal transparent procedures. EU instruments have been marginalized as the police forces and their administrations prefer informal networks and force‐to‐force agreements which, it is argued, shield cross‐border police cooperation from standards of transparency, oversight, and accountability which are essential to its legitimacy. They also highlight the limitations of the current EU legislative approach to cross‐border police cooperation.     

Bioterrorism: processing contaminated evidence, the effects of formaldehyde gas on the recovery of latent fingermarks

In the present age of heightened emphasis on counter terrorism, law enforcement and forensic science are constantly evolving and adapting to the motivations and capabilities of terrorist groups and individuals. The use of biological agents on a population, such as anthrax spores, presents unique challenges to the forensic investigator, and the processing of contaminated evidence. In this research, a number of porous and nonporous items were contaminated with viable anthrax spores and marked with latent fingermarks. The test samples were then subjected to a standard formulation of formaldehyde gas. Latent fingermarks were then recovered post decontamination using a range of methods. Standard fumigation, while effective at destroying viable spores, contributed to the degradation of amino acids leading to loss of ridge detail. A new protocol for formaldehyde gas decontamination was developed which allows for the destruction of viable spores and the successful recovery of latent marks, all within a rapid response time of less than 1 h.