Carbon monoxide poisoning without cherry-red livor

Carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning typically causes so-called cherry-red livor of the skin and viscera. The authors report a case of CO poisoning in which cherry-red livor did not develop. The decedent was a 75-year-old white man who was found dead in his car during a cold winter. Blood CO saturation was 86%. The death was attributed to CO poisoning, and the manner of death was designated suicide. The curious absence of cherry-red livor was studied. The decedent's tissue and blood specimens were tested at different temperatures. There was no tendency for either type of specimen to develop cherry-red color at cold or warm temperatures. The antemortem response of the skin to cold possibly sequestered CO-saturated blood in the cadaver. As regards the viscera, there are other proteins to which CO can bond, and possibly these proteins contribute to the development of visceral cherry-red livor. In this case, the absence of cherry-red livor could have led to misclassification of the cause and manner of death. The medicolegal and social consequences of such misclassification can be significant, and psychiatric history, which may be useful to surviving family members, could be lost.     

Family Characteristics and Adolescent Competence in India: Investigation of Youth in Southern Orissa

This study examines the relationship among a host of family characteristics and indicators of adolescent competence in a sample (N = 107) of 8th- and 9th-grade students in one school located in Berhampur city in Orissa state, India. Social competence (SC) and antisocial behavior (AB) were assessed by teachers, and adolescents evaluated various areas of their own competence on a perceived competence scale. Final examination grades also were obtained as a general measure of cognitive competence. The results indicated that families of more socially competent participants tended to be verbally and emotionally expressive; democratic with regard to discipline, input, and decision making; close but not enmeshed; higher in their level of parent–adolescent communication and family ideals; and lower in external locus of control. Consequently, families of more antisocial adolescents had more conflict and enmeshment and were more external-locus-of-control oriented and either permissive or authoritarian. Finally, several personal and family demographic traits were positively associated with SC and negatively associated with AB, including gender (girls higher in SC and lower in AB than boys), age and grade (older students and those in grade 9 more competent and less problematic), education level of mothers and fathers (positively related to SC and negatively to AB), and birth order (middle children in the family lower in self-perceptions of competence than oldest or youngest children). The findings have implications for parenting and family-life education efforts in India that could have a major impact on the development of adolescent competence.     

Identification of a skeleton using DNA from teeth and a PAP smear.

Identification of unknown living or deceased persons using dental treatment records is an established forensic technique. However, some cases remain unidentified, especially when antemortem dental records are not available for comparison to postmortem dental records. Cytological smears have been previously reported to be potential sources of DNA reference samples which can be compared to DNA recovered from found human remains. The case described here involves an adult skeleton which exhibited extensive, complex dental restorative treatment. A putative identification of the found skeleton as a missing woman was established using circumstantial evidence found at the scene. However, it became important to establish a positive identification using reliable scientific methods. When it was discovered that antemortem dental records were not available because the treatment was completed in another country and the treating dentist could not be found, cytological smears stained with Papanicolaou (PAP) stain obtained from the putative decedent's medical records were used as a reference DNA sample. DNA was recovered from the teeth of the skeleton using cryogenic grinding. Comparison of the genotypes resulted in the conclusion that the DNA originated from the same source. The use of PAP smears in this way is seen as a valuable resource in cases where positive identification using traditional dental and medical records is not possible.     

Inferring ancestral origin using a single multiplex assay of ancestry-informative marker SNPs

Tests that infer the ancestral origin of a DNA sample have considerable potential in the development of forensic tools that can help to guide crime investigation. We have developed a single-tube 34-plex SNP assay for the assignment of ancestral origin by choosing ancestry-informative markers (AIMs) exhibiting highly contrasting allele frequency distributions between the three major population-groups. To predict ancestral origin from the profiles obtained, a classification algorithm was developed based on maximum likelihood. Sampling of two populations each from African, European and East Asian groups provided training sets for the algorithm and this was tested using the CEPH Human Genome Diversity Panel. We detected negligible theoretical and practical error for assignments to one of the three groups analyzed with consistently high classification probabilities, even when using reduced subsets of SNPs. This study shows that by choosing SNPs exhibiting marked allele frequency differences between population-groups a practical forensic test for assigning the most likely ancestry can be achieved from a single multiplexed assay.     

No room for Asia-Pacifists?

When this Journal decided to run a special issue on IP in theAsia-Pacific region, it was following the conventional wisdomof the profession and the marketplace. For many years, the conceptof the Asia-Pacific sold conferences and printed publications.And it was on this assumption that JIPLP based its decisionto give over its March issue for coverage of that zone. However,there comes a point in the life of     

Making the innocent pay

Even those of us who enter the legal profession for reasonsof personal advancement or greed can spot an injustice whenwe see it. As students and raw recruits to the profession, weshare with our clients the notion that, in any cause, one sideis ‘right’ and the other ‘wrong’. Toallow the party in the wrong to vanquish the party in the rightwould be unjust, notwithstanding the fact that the law permitsit. In time our perspective mellows: we learn to appreciatethat     

Power in Editorial Positions: A Feminist Critique of Public Administration

Journal editors serve a vital, powerful role in academic fields. They set research priorities, serve as gatekeepers for research, play a critical role in advancing junior scholars as reviewers and eventually into editorial roles, build extensive networks, and gain valuable insight into the behavior and preferences of reviewers and scholars. This article analyzes data collected from leading public administration journals in 2017 to investigate the role of women as gatekeepers of public administration knowledge. The data illustrate a clear underrepresentation of women on editorial boards. Drawing from these data, research on journal editorships, and feminist theory, the authors present a critique of the current state of public administration research and a discussion of a way forward. They conclude with a proposal for how all public administration scholars (junior, senior, men, and women), journal leadership, and academic departments can move toward increasing women's representation in these important positions.     

The INSPIRE Framework: How Public Administrators Can Increase Compliance with Written Requests Using Behavioral Techniques

Public administrators rely on written communications to send information to citizens and stakeholders, and they are among the heaviest users of the postal service. Behavioral science research has identified several techniques that public administrators can use to increase compliance with written requests and, in turn, increase effectiveness. Currently, however, many written communications from government bodies are not written in a manner that utilizes these techniques. It remains an ongoing challenge for public administrators to identify, understand, and use these techniques in the written communications sent by their organizations. This article presents a framework capturing seven prominent techniques in a simple mnemonic—INSPIRE—that is already being used by several government bodies in Australia. It also provides practical examples of how to use each technique and demonstrates that using these techniques could result in large aggregate improvements in effectiveness and socially desirable outcomes of public administrators' written communications.