Associative Learning of Nasonia vitripennis Walker (Hymenoptera:Pteromalidae) to Methyldisulfanylmethane

Traditional methods of volatile detection used by police typically consist of reliance on canine olfaction. However, dogs have some limitations such as cost of training and time of conditioning. The possibility of using parasitic wasps for detecting explosives and narcotics has been developed. Moreover, wasps are cheap to produce and can be conditioned with impressive speed for a specific chemical detection task. We examined the ability of Nasonia vitripennis Walker to learn and respond to methyldisulfanylmethane (DMDS), a volatile discriminator of cadaver. The training aimed to form an association between an unconditioned stimulus (pupae) and the conditioned stimulus (odor source). After the training, the time spent by conditioned wasps in the DMDS chamber was measured. Statistical analysis showed that the increasing concentrations involved an increase in the time spent in the chamber containing DMDS. This study indicates that N. vitripennis can respond to DMDS, which provide further support for its development as a biological sensor.     

Migration,memory and mythification: relocation of Suleymani tribes on the northern Ottoman–Iranian frontier

This article indicates that Suleymani tribes, which were relocated from Diyarbekir region en masse to the newly conquered territories of northern Ottoman-Iranian frontiers after the mid-sixteenth-century, created a shift in the administrative and ethnic structure of the region. Although the roles of tribes were mostly seen as subordinate to the power of the Kurdish emirs, this study shows that the chiefs of Suleymani tribes, more specifically Besyan and Heyderan, became the rulers of the newly captured Safavid territories and they did not recognize the authority of their own Suleymani emirs. The writer focuses on this migration and discusses that the relocated Suleymani tribes preserved the collective memory of their migration during the nineteenth-century and their perception shaped the creation of a tribal myth, Mil-and-Zil, after the Ottoman central government disinherited the Kurdish emirs during the mid-nineteenth-century. Suleymani tribes' migration, collective memory and mythification of their own identities show that tribes were not passive subjects but they were in fact at the center of the developments of the Ottoman eastern frontier.     

Paid military service at the intersection of militarism,nationalism, capitalism,and (hetero)patriarchy: escaping without leaving ‘manhood’

The variety of the political standpoints of governments that have initiated exempted military service for several times in Turkey is a sign of a general agreement on its legitimacy. However, Turkey is a country where conscientious objection is almost a taboo. I try to decipher the assumptions behind what is (il)legitimate, and their manifestations in the sociopolitical life from a gender perspective informed by the feminist theory. I argue that what lies behind these is the interconnection between militarism, nationalism, patriarchy, and capitalism. I show how they reciprocally support each other through a critical discourse analysis of the debate on legitimacy of paid military service and illegitimacy of conscientious objection. I conclude that the nature of these debates leads to a reproduction of the hegemonic definitions of manhood and womanhood, together with the reproduction of the masculinization of the political sphere at the expense of the exclusion of and discrimination against other identities.     

On the front and at home: women in the modern Ottoman epic

Changes in gender roles are related to larger developments in the spheres of social modernization and discipline. As Ottoman society evolved into a nation through the nineteenth century, women's roles in contemporary epic literature were reassigned to domestic life, showing them protecting the hinterland and nurturing younger generations in order to satisfy the state's growing need for manpower. Gradually, Ottoman women lost whatever autonomy they may have had over their bodies, and their status vis-à-vis the state was redefined. This article examines the female characters in modern Ottoman epic literature so as to explore the reflections in this literature of the social and political transformations that occurred during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. It aims to reveal the ways in which heroic female figures created before or at the beginning of the autocratic reign of Abdülhamid II (r. 1876–1909) changed into domestic characters as the social skeleton of the regime became apparent.     

Why Tolerate Conscience?

In Why Tolerate Religion?, Brian Leiter argues against the special legal status of religion, claiming that religion should not be the only ground for exemptions to the law and that this form of protection should be, in principle, available for the claims of secular conscience as well. However, in the last chapter of his book, he objects to a universal regime of exemptions for both religious and secular claims of conscience, highlighting the practical and moral flaws associated with it. We believe that Leiter identifies a genuine and important contemporary legal and philosophical problem. We find much to admire in his reasoning. However, we raise questions about two claims that are crucial for his argument. The first claim is that it is not religion as such, but conscience that deserves toleration and respect. The second claim is that respect for religion and conscience demands ‘principled toleration’ but does not entail stronger policies of legal exemptions. Against the first claim, we argue that Leiter does not successfully distinguish religious belief from secular conscience and morality; and he does not explain why secular conscience (which shares many of religious conscience’s epistemic features) deserves respect. Against the second claim, we argue that the most promising theories of legal exemptions are not classical theories of liberal toleration.     

Population genetics of nine short tandem repeat loci: allele frequency distribution in a Brazilian population sample

Gene and genotype frequencies in relation to the D3S1358, vWA, FGA, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, D5S818, D13S317, and D7S820 loci were determined in a sample of 290 unrelated individuals (204 Caucasians and 86 mulattoes) living in the city of S?o Paulo, Brazil. The sex test Amelogenin was also performed in all subjects from our sample, revealing the expected sex in all instances. Allele frequency data obtained from the analysis of these samples were in the usual range of other population groups with similar racial background. In the sample of Caucasian individuals, panmictic proportions were ruled out in relation to TPOX and CSF1PO loci, but only in the latter was the overall frequency of heterozygotes significantly less than expected. In the sample of mulattoes, Hardy-Weinberg proportions were rejected in relation to FGA and CSF1PO loci, but in no instance were the overall numbers of heterozygotes different from the corresponding expected ones under panmixia. Taking into account all this and also the number of tests performed, the degree of genetic heterogeneity of Brazilian populations, and the critical level reached by the significant results (1% < alpha<5%), the departures from panmixia here observed can be considered to be negligible in altering significantly biologic relationship odds calculated under the assumption of random matings.     

Latent Fingermark Aging Patterns (Part IV): Ridge Width as One Indicator of Degradation

This fourth article of the series is taking an in‐depth analysis at the visible aging of latent fingermarks regarding changes in ridge widths over time. The objective is to quantify and statistically describe significant ridge size variations under controlled indoor conditions. The effect of three environmental variables are examined: type of secretion (sebaceous‐ and eccrine‐rich) and type of substrate (glass and polystyrene) when aged in three light conditions (direct natural light, shade, and dark). Prior to width measurements, fresh and aged fingermarks were powdered with titanium dioxide (TiO₂) and sequentially photographed at predetermined times over 6 months. Three independent observers measured the ridges from thirty predetermined locations using strategically placed intersecting lines on the print. Results indicate that fingermarks deposited on glass are more resilient to degradation compared with those deposited on plastic. The presence of direct natural light plays a negligible role on degradation compared to secretion and substrate types.     

Preliminary results of an investigation on postmortem variations in human skeletal mass of buried bones

Extreme fragmentation can complicate the inventory of human skeletal remains. In such cases, skeletal mass can provide information regarding skeleton completeness and the minimum number of individuals. For that purpose, several references for skeletal mass can be used to establish comparisons and draw inferences regarding those parameters. However, little is known about the feasibility of establishing comparisons between inherently different materials, as is the case of curated reference skeletal collections and human remains recovered from forensic and archaeological settings. The objective of this paper was to investigate the effect of inhumation, weather and heat exposure on the skeletal mass of two different bone types. This was investigated on a sample of 30 human bone fragments (14 trabecular bones and 16 compact bones) that was experimentally buried for two years after being submitted to one of four different heat treatments (left unburned; 500?°C; 900?°C; 1000?°C). Bones were exhumed periodically to assess time-related mass variation. Skeletal mass varied substantially, decreasing and increasing in accordance to the interchanging dry and wet seasons. However, trends were not the same for the two bone types and the four temperature thresholds. The reason for this appears to be related to water absorption and to the differential heat-induced changes in bone microporosity, volume, and composition. Our results suggest that mass comparisons against published references should be performed only after the skeletal remains have been preemptively dried from exogenous water.     

A New Approach of Juvenile Age Estimation using Measurements of the Ilium and Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) Models for Better Age Prediction

Juvenile age estimation methods used in forensic anthropology generally lack methodological consistency and/or statistical validity. Considering this, a standard approach using nonparametric Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) models were tested to predict age from iliac biometric variables of male and female juveniles from Marseilles, France, aged 0–12 years. Models using unidimensional (length and width) and bidimensional iliac data (module and surface) were constructed on a training sample of 176 individuals and validated on an independent test sample of 68 individuals. Results show that MARS prediction models using iliac width, module and area give overall better and statistically valid age estimates. These models integrate punctual nonlinearities of the relationship between age and osteometric variables. By constructing valid prediction intervals whose size increases with age, MARS models take into account the normal increase of individual variability. MARS models can qualify as a practical and standardized approach for juvenile age estimation.