Injury analyses of fatal motorcycle collisions in south-east Scotland

The timing of death and pathological findings in fatal motorcycle accidents in south-east Scotland between 1987 and 1997 were investigated. Of the 59 motorcyclists who died, 38 were dead when found at the accident scene, six others were alive when found but died at the scene, two died in an ambulance in transit to hospital and 13 died after reaching hospital. Scoring of the injuries according to the Abbreviated Injury Scale revealed Injury Severity Scores (ISS) ranging from 25 to 75. Overall, injuries to the head, neck and chest were responsible for the most severe injuries. Twenty-five motorcyclists had injuries acknowledged to be unsurvivable (ISS = 75), most of which involved the thoracic aorta, brainstem and cervical spinal cord. The greatest potential to reduce the death rate amongst motorcyclists lies with accident prevention/injury reduction measures, rather than through improved treatment of injuries. Efforts to try to alter driving behaviour and to improve the design of vehicles and helmets need to continue.     

GitHub use in public administration in Canada: Early experience with a new collaboration tool

GitHub is a web‐based digital project hosting service that facilitates collaboration. We introduce how GitHub works and assess how it has been used in the public sector in Canada based on interviews with federal government leaders and a survey of Canadian public service GitHub users. With little research to date on public sector use of GitHub, and none on its use in Canadian governments, we explore the early experience with this collaboration tool and consider the possible implications for collaboration in government.     

Evidence for Tackling the Complexities of Water Governance

Water policy and management decisions are increasingly challenged by uncertainties associated with climate change, changing demographics, and social values. This article discusses how research by water governance scholars supports and complements Rob M. Skinner's arguments about the complexities of water planning and policy making and the importance of stakeholder engagement. Specifically, it focuses on how this decision‐making context shapes the ways in which evidence is used and understood in water governance. To conclude, this article draws lessons for practitioners about the limitations of using evidence in water governance.     

Detecting Lies in Children and Adults

In this study, observers' abilities to detect lies in children and adults were examined. Adult participants observed videotaped interviews of both children and adults either lying or telling the truth about having been touched by a male research assistant. As hypothesized, observers detected children's lies more accurately than adults' lies; however, adults' truthful statements were detected more accurately than were children's. Further analyses revealed that observers were biased toward judging adults' but not children's statements as truthful. Finally, consistent with the notion that there are stable individual differences in the ability to detect lies, observers who were highly accurate in detecting children's lies were similarly accurate in detecting adults' lies. Implications of these findings for understanding lie-detection accuracy are discussed, as are potential applications to the forensic context.     

The shadow value of migrant remittances,income and inequality in a household‐farm economy

This article offers econometric evidence that income remittances sent home by family migrants stimulate household‐farm incomes indirectly by relieving credit and risk constraints on household‐farm production. A high but unequally distributed shadow value of migrant remittances appears to reinforce an equalising direct effect of remittances on the income distribution across a sample of household‐farms in rural Mexico.     

Afghanistan in the Great War

The period of the Great War in Afghanistan was one of the most transformational periods of her entire history. Less than a year after the end of the Great War, both Afghanistan and her relations with the rest of the world had changed forever. The article covers Afghanistan and the outbreak of war, the Niedermayer-Hentig mission from Germany, pressure on the frontier and at court, and the aftermath of the Assassination of Amir Habibullah. At Kabul, the emergence of a ‘War Party’, which favoured the declaration of war on India on the side of the Central Powers, caused difficulties for Habibullah's attempt to remain neutral. Although the War Party was to have some support from the Niedermayer-Hentig Mission to Kabul, it was never strong enough to act until the Great War itself was over. On the other side of the frontier, the tribes were expecting to be called to fight at any moment. Keen to raid into the plains, they initially moved too early and were rebuffed but low-level tribal activity took place all over the frontier, though not at the intensity seen in previous large uprisings. At the same time, the Indian Army was taking out the best troops to send to Europe and other fronts, leaving a comparatively small force to protect the frontier. Large scale response to tribal raiding was not possible but the Indian Army was able to deploy aeroplanes, artillery and machine guns as force multipliers to help make up for the lack of fighting men. The cumulative experience was one of change which needed to be understood and accommodated in short order. Men like Sir Denys Bray of the Foreign Department and Mahmud Tarzi and Abdul Quddus Khan in Kabul were able to do this and, in so doing, facilitated Afghanistan's emergence to independence and nationhood.     

Fluorescent TiO2 powders prepared using a new perylene diimide dye: applications in latent fingermark detection

A new, highly fluorescent dye was synthesised using oleylamine combined with a perylene dianhydride compound. The new dye was characterised by 1H NMR, UV-vis spectroscopy and fluorescence spectroscopy as well as quantum yield. The dye was absorbed onto titanium dioxide nanoparticles for use as a fingerprint detection powder. The new fluorescent powder was applied to latent fingermarks deposited onto different non-porous surfaces and compared with commercial fluorescent powders. The powder exhibits strong fluorescence at 650-700 nm under excitation at 505 nm. On glass surfaces, the new powder gave images showing tertiary-level detail of the fingermark ridges with almost no background development. Compared with current magnetic fluorescent powders, the new powder was slightly weaker in fluorescence intensity but produced significantly less background development, resulting in good contrast between the fingermark and the substrate.