Assessing the instrumental and symbolic elements in attitudes toward the death penalty using a sample of Puerto Rican students

Theoretical explanations for the support or opposition to the death penalty have often been dichotomized into the instrumental and the symbolic perspectives. The instrumental perspective sees support for the death penalty as utilitarian, that it is a means to a desired end, which is often to lower crime rates. The symbolic perspective sees support for the death penalty as emanating from individuals’ political and social ideologies, no matter its utilitarian value. Both perspectives have often been examined individually, and seldom juxtaposed as competing explanations in a singular model. This paper examines both perspectives in a singular model, using a sample of Puerto Rican students.     

Legal education in the training of health professionals in Ghana: the need for legislative and curricular reforms

The present paper critically analyses the essence of legal education in the training of medical professionals in Ghana. It argues that health professionals lack the requisite knowledge in law, especially the legal implications of medical malpractice, and calls for legislative and curricular reforms in institutions engaged in the training of health professionals to reflect a legal education component. The authors opine that the basic medical law curriculum should be focused on the kinds of legal problems that physicians encounter most frequently in practice rather than on sensational cases. The authors are of the view that the curriculum should address the clarification of central concepts in law, the ability to apply the concepts, decision‐making procedures, acquisition of legal knowledge in tortuous and criminal matters relevant to the medical profession. This view sets objectives for teaching medical law to medical students and young doctors.     

The Odyssey of the Regulatory State: From a “Thin” Monomorphic Concept to a “Thick” and Polymorphic Concept

This article assesses the “odyssey” of the regulatory state from a mere American thin and monomorphic concept to a global, thick and polymorphic concept that captures some of the more important features of the capitalist–democratic state. The burgeoning literature on the regulatory state presents a confusing number of images and characterizations that are increasingly conflicting, and it too often presents a monomorphic conception of the regulatory state. The article suggests that we need to define the regulatory state rather than merely characterizing it. And we need to do so in a manner that will allow us to move beyond the specific institutional features of a certain era, nation, region, or sector. Rather than contrasting regulation with distribution and redistribution, and contrasting the regulatory state with other forms of state, I treat the regulatory state as one morph of the polymorphic capitalist state, a morph that may help constitute other morphs (such as the welfare state and the developmental state) instead of replacing them. This in turn may help remove the artificial walls between the regulatory scholarly community and other social scientists, and promote more fruitful social science.     

Forensic Investigation of Cooperative Storage Cloud Service: Symform as a Case Study

Researchers envisioned Storage as a Service (StaaS) as an effective solution to the distributed management of digital data. Cooperative storage cloud forensic is relatively new and is an under‐explored area of research. Using Symform as a case study, we seek to determine the data remnants from the use of cooperative cloud storage services. In particular, we consider both mobile devices and personal computers running various popular operating systems, namely Windows 8.1, Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9.5, Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS, iOS 7.1.2, and Android KitKat 4.4.4. Potential artefacts recovered during the research include data relating to the installation and uninstallation of the cloud applications, log‐in to and log‐out from Symform account using the client application, file synchronization as well as their time stamp information. This research contributes to an in‐depth understanding of the types of terrestrial artifacts that are likely to remain after the use of cooperative storage cloud on client devices.     

Forensic Taxonomy of Android Social Apps

An Android social app taxonomy incorporating artifacts that are of forensic interest will enable users and forensic investigators to identify the personally identifiable information (PII) stored by the apps. In this study, 30 popular Android social apps were examined. Artifacts of forensic interest (e.g., contacts lists, chronology of messages, and timestamp of an added contact) were recovered. In addition, images were located, and Facebook token strings used to tie account identities and gain access to information entered into Facebook by a user were identified. Based on the findings, a two‐dimensional taxonomy of the forensic artifacts of the social apps is proposed. A comparative summary of existing forensic taxonomies of different categories of Android apps, designed to facilitate timely collection and analysis of evidentiary materials from Android devices, is presented.     

Fatal Intoxication with α‐PVP,a Synthetic Cathinone Derivative

This study presents the fatal case of a young man who was admitted to the ICAU due to sudden cardiac arrest. An interview revealed that the patient had taken some unspecified crystals. From the moment of admission, his condition deteriorated dramatically as a result of increasing circulatory insufficiency. After a few hours, sudden cardiac arrest occurred again and the patient was pronounced dead. In the course of a medicolegal autopsy, samples of biological material were preserved for toxicology tests and histopathological examination. The analysis of samples using the LC‐MS/MS technique revealed the presence of α‐PVP in the following concentrations: blood—174 ng/mL, urine—401 ng/mL, brain—292 ng/g, liver—190 ng/g, kidney—122 ng/g, gastric contents—606 ng/g. The study also presents findings from the parallel histopathological examination. Based on these findings, cardiac arrest secondary to intoxication with alpha‐PVP was determined as the direct cause of the patient's death.     

STRESS,GENES, AND GENERALIZABILITY ACROSS GENDER: EFFECTS OF MAOA AND STRESS SENSITIVITY ON CRIME AND DELINQUENCY*

In the current study, we extend the gene‐by‐environment interaction (cGxE) literature by examining how a widely studied polymorphism, the MAOA upstream variable number tandem repeat (MAOA‐uVNTR) interacts with distal and proximal stressors to explain variation in crime and delinquency. Prior research findings have revealed that MAOA‐uVNTR interacts with single indicators of environmental adversity to explain criminal behavior in general‐population and incarcerated samples. Nevertheless, the genetically moderated stress sensitivity hypothesis suggests that increased risk for criminal behavior associated with variation in the MAOA‐uVNTR can be best understood in the context of both distal stress during childhood and proximal stress in adulthood. Therefore, we employed Tobit regression analyses to examine a gene–distal–proximal environment (CGxExE) interaction across gender in a sample of university students (n = 267) and with data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health; n = 1,294). The results across both sets of analyses demonstrate that variation in the MAOA‐uVNTR interacts with distal and proximal stress to lead to increased risk for criminal behavior in males. Although proximal life stress is associated with an increase in crime and delinquency, this effect is more pronounced among MAOA‐L allele carriers that have experienced distal stress.     

A Rare Case of Poisoning with a Volatile Substance: Quantitative Determination of n‐Butane in Postmortem Tissue

Poisoning with volatile substances remains exceptional. Authors report the case of a married couple who were found in a car with a butane gas bottle: the woman was dead and her husband alleged it was an unsuccessful suicide pact. A specific research of volatile substances on postmortem samples with headspace gas chromatography–mass spectrometry following a quantitative determination was performed. The n‐butane concentrations detected were composed of 610 μg/L (cardiac blood), 50 μg/kg (brain), 134 μg/kg (lungs), 285 μg/kg (liver), and 4090 μg/kg (heart) and were compatible with the rare lethal concentrations evoked in the literature. The cause of death was determined to be asphyxiation through n‐butane criminal poisoning. Authors recommendation therefore is to take samples immediately and place them in properly sealed containers and hence analyzing the samples as soon as possible after collecting them or storing them under ?30°C (?22°F) if analyses cannot be performed immediately.