Simultaneous analysis of six amphetamines and analogues in hair, blood and urine by LC-ESI-MS/MS. Application to the determination of MDMA after low ecstasy intake

A rapid and sensitive method using LC-MS/MS triple stage quadrupole for the determination of traces of amphetamine (AP), methamphetamine (MA), 3,4-methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA, "ecstasy"), 3,4-methylenedioxyethamphetamine (MDEA), and N-methyl-1-(3,4-methylenedioxyphenyl)-2-butanamine (MBDB) in hair, blood and urine has been developed and validated. Chromatography was carried out on an Uptisphere ODB C(18) 5 microm, 2.1 mm x 150 mm column (Interchim, France) with a gradient of acetonitrile and formate 2 mM pH 3.0 buffer. Urine and blood were extracted with Toxitube A (Varian, France). Segmented scalp hair was treated by incubation 15 min at 80 degrees C in NaOH 1M before liquid-liquid extraction with hexane/ethyl acetate (2/1, v/v). The limits of quantification (LOQ) in blood and urine were at 0.1 ng/mL for all analytes. In hair, LOQ was <5 pg/mg for MA, MDMA, MDEA and MBDB, at 14.7 pg/mg for AP and 15.7 pg/mg for MDA. Calibration curves were linear in the range 0.1-50 ng/mL in blood and urine; in the range 5-500 pg/mg for MA, MDMA, MDEA and MBDB, and 20-500 pg/mg for AP and MDA. Inter-day precisions were <13% for all analytes in all matrices. Accuracy was <20% in blood and urine at 1 and 50 ng/mL and <10% in hair at 20 and 250 pg/mg. This method was applied to the determination of MDMA in a forensic case of single administration of ecstasy to a 16-year-old female without her knowledge during a party. She suffered from hyperactivity, sweating and agitation. A first sample of urine was collected a few hours after (T+12h) and tested positive to amphetamines by immunoassay by a clinical laboratory. Blood and urine were sampled for forensic purposes at day 8 (D+8) and scalp hair at day 60 (D+60). No MDMA was detected in blood, but urine and hair were tested positive, respectively at 0.42 ng/mL and at 22 pg/mg in hair only in the segment corresponding to the period of the offence, while no MDA was detectable. This method allows the detection of MDMA up to 8 days in urine after single intake.     

Campaign Strategies in the 2015 Swiss National Elections: Nationalization,Coordination, and Personalization

This research note examines parties' campaign strategies in the 2015 Swiss elections. We base our analyses on a collection of more than 5000 party advertisements, which were published in the forefront of the national elections in more than 50 daily and weekly national and cantonal print media. By comparing the amount of party and candidate ads, as well as the content and nature of the political advertisements, we explore the degree of professionalization of electoral campaigns in the most recent federal elections in terms of nationalization, coordination and personalization. First results show that although national campaign coordination exists, Swiss elections are to a considerable extent still cantonal and personal affairs.     

European integration from the agency theory perspective

European integration is a process in which national governments look for higher levels of integration and promote new requests for allocations from the supranational authority while the balance between the benefits and costs of the supranational collective action becomes increasingly favourable. This process may be analyzed as an agency problem where different national governments, acting as principals, try to lead a single agent—the supranational authority—to make a decision on the level of integration. In this paper, decisions on integration of equilibrium are studied as the result of a non co-operative two-stage game, where national governments outline their political support strategies in the first stage and the supranational authority decides the level of integration in the second stage. JEL Classification D72     

Law,Fact and Narratives in Ancient Rhetoric: The Case of the <Emphasis Type="Italic">causa Curiana</Emphasis>

The present article examines the role of narratives in rhetoric and jurisprudence, trying to understand the ancient system of ‘issues’ (staseis), an essential part of the rhetorical curriculum in antiquity, with the help of some basic notions of legal semiotics. After a brief reconstruction of the doctrine, I argue that narratives are essential to classical rhetoric, that the basic types of issues correspond to particular stories in and of the trial, and finally that the system of ancient rhetorical theory is capable of giving an account of the narrativisation of the pragmatics of the trial. Then I turn to a cause célèbre of Roman law, the causa Curiana, trying to show that not only the trial itself but also subsequent (ancient and modern) debates concerning the case were shaped by some grand narratives, and that stories about the trial are likely to return to the court, where they may become part of the story of the trial.     

Institutionalizing uncertainty: the choice of electoral formulas

Taken from an infinite set of divisors methods, the D’Hondt formula is the unique rule that maximizes the minimum number of seats for parties exceeding average size but not surpassing an absolute majority of the votes. This property is also shared, in the quota set of methods, by the Droop formula. At the same time, these two methods are those most commonly observed in practice. This paper relates the property stated to the observed facts. If parties try to maximize the minimum number of seats for a given share of votes, then the D’Hondt formula should be chosen. This choice is consistent with rational parties that make institutional choices in an uncertain environment.     

Detecting Domestic Violence: Spanish External Validation of the Index of Spouse Abuse

The aims of the study were to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the Index of Spouse Abuse (ISA), and to validate it against external criteria of intimate partner violence. The Spanish version of the ISA was administered to 223 non-abused women and 182 victims of intimate partner violence. Internal consistency coefficients oscillated between 0.88 and 0.98. The Confirmatory Factor Analysis failed to replicate the original two-factor structure. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis, a two-factor solution was found: physical (ISA-P) and non-physical (ISA-NP), but the items included in each factor were slightly different from the original two subscales. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis revealed an AUC value for the ISA global score of 0.99 (95% CI: 0.98–0.99), with the optimal cut-off of 12 for detecting intimate partner violence. The Spanish version of the ISA is a valid instrument for detecting intimate partner violence in a female population.     

Why should trade between Central Asia and China continue to expand?

Trade volume between Central Asia and China has tripled since 2002. This study, which is based on Chinese sources, explains the reasons for this expansion in trade. Even if numerous obstacles remain, Government development policy in China’s western regions has induced trade growth between Xinjiang and Central Asia. Trade flows mainly consist of three blocks: economic activities of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, commerce conducted by traders of the coastal province of Zhejiang, based in Xinjiang, and petty trade notably between Kazakhstan and Xinjiang.     

劫持人质谈判心理应对策略

谈判是警方处置暴力劫持人质犯罪过程中常常使用的主要手段之一。针对我国目前暴力劫持人质案件大幅度上升的趋势,全面了解和准确把握谈判的心理应对策略,对于减少和避免不必要的伤亡和损失,妥善处置这类案件具有重要的现实意义。     

Electoral Competition through Issue Selection

Politics must address multiple problems simultaneously. In an ideal world, political competition would force parties to adopt priorities that reflect the voters' true concerns. In reality, parties can run their campaigns in such a way as to manipulate voters' priorities. This phenomenon, known as priming, may allow parties to underinvest in solving the issues that they intend to mute. We develop a model of endogenous issue ownership in which two vote‐seeking parties (a) invest in policy quality to increase the value of their platform and (b) choose a communication strategy to prime voters. We identify novel feedback between communication and investment. In particular, we find that stronger priming effects can constrain parties to invest more resources in all issues. We also identify the conditions under which parties prefer to focus on their “historical issues” or to engage in “issue stealing.”