Results of the GEP-ISFG collaborative study on two Y-STRs tetraplexes: GEPY I (DYS461, GATA C4, DYS437 and DYS438) and GEPY II (DYS460, GATA A10, GATA H4 and DYS439)

A collaborative exercise was carried out by the Spanish and Portuguese ISFG Working Group (GEP-ISFG) in order to evaluate the performance of two Y-chromosome STR PCR tetraplexes, which include the loci DYS461, GATA C4, DYS437 and DYS438 (GEPY I), and DYS460, GATA A10, GATA H4 and DYS439 (GEPY II). The participating laboratories were asked to type three samples for the eight markers, using a specific amplification protocol. In addition, two control samples, with known haplotypes, were provided. The results obtained by the 13 different participating laboratories were identical, except for two laboratories that failed to type correctly the same two samples for GATA C4. By sequence analyses, two different GATA C4 allele structures were found. One control sample (allele 21) and two questioned samples (allele 22, correctly typed by all the laboratories, and allele 25) presented the following repeat structure: (TCTA)4(TGTA)2(TCTA)2(TGTA)2(TCTA)n, but different from the one found for allele 26 in one sample included in this exercise, as well as in the second control sample (allele 23), namely (TCTA)4(TGTA)2(TCTA)2(TGTA)2(TCTA)2(TGTA)2(TCTA)n. The collaborative exercise results proved that both Y-tetraplexes produce good amplification results, with the advantage of being efficiently typed using different separation and detection methodologies. However, since GATA C4 repeat presents a complex structure, with alleles differing in sequence structure, efficient denaturing conditions should be followed in order to avoid typing errors due to sizing problems.     

A serological and histological study of the Egyptian mummy 'Iset Iri Hetes' from the Ptolemaic period III-I B.C

Serological and histological examinations of the muscles of the calf of an Egyptian mummy dated between the third and first centuries B.C. were performed. Human protein was identified, the ABO phenotype was determined as type B, and morphological disruption of the cells was observed.     

Allele frequencies of six STR loci in Argentine populations

Allele frequencies of six short tandem repeat (STR) loci were determined in a Caucasian urban sample of La Plata city and three Amerindian sample populations of Argentina. Allele frequencies showed differences between urbans and Amerindians, and among Amerindians as well. The degree of genetic differentiation of subpopulations was mainly due to the Amerindian contribution. Mapuche, Mocovi, and pooled Amerindian populations showed little evidence of HW disequilibrium, and association of alleles. In the urban sample, there is no evidence of population substructuring. Forensic probabilities of exclusion and matching showed high differences between the population groups. Finally, La Plata sample did not show differences with Caucasians from other geographic regions.     

Adolescents' evaluations of Peers' motives for helping

Four groups of high-school students (N=92) were each informed about a pair of helpers, either male or female, who independently helped a sameor opposite-sex peer. Within each pair of same-sex helpers, one was presented as having helped for empathic reasons and the other was presented as having helped for nonempathic reasons. The adolescents' ratings of the helpers indicated that they generally favored empathically motivated helping in both male and female peers. However, a female helper who did not express sensitivity and emotional responsiveness to the feelings of the needy other in her prosocial moral reasoning tended to be judged more harshly by the adolescents than did a male helper who failed to express such sentiments.Received Ph. D. from Northwestern University. Research interests include empathy and prosocial behavior.All received B.S. in psychology from Kansas State University in 1987.     

Conditional Cash Transfers and Voting for Incumbents under Democratic Backsliding: The Case of Honduras's Bono 10,000

As democracies worldwide have reverted to competitive authoritarian regimes or full dictatorships, some autocrats have used clientelist policies to strengthen their positions of power. We contend that autocrats can weaponise conditional cash transfers (CCTs) to shore up electoral support under democratic backsliding. In this vein, we analyse the impact of Honduras's Bono 10,000, a discretionary CCT, on the electoral support for the incumbent National Party and opposition blocs between 2013 and 2017, an era marked by the erosion of democracy. Using two survey waves from the AmericasBarometer by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP), we show how the CCT boosted the electoral support for the National Party as democracy unravelled. Our findings contribute to the growing literature on how autocrats rely on carrots – not just sticks – to consolidate power.     

Party Polarization and the Business Cycle in the United States

A large literature has studied the trend of greaterpolarization between Democrats and Republicans in Congress.This paper empirically examines the extent to which inflationand unemployment explain cyclical movements ofpolarization over time. An informal application of thestandard Downsian spatial competition model of partiesgenerates the following relationships, ceteris paribus: (1)inflation should be associated with policy convergence, (2)unemployment should be associated with polarization, (3) theeffect of unemployment on polarization should be larger inmagnitude than the effect of inflation on convergence, and (4)the effect of unemployment on polarization should be strongerin the House than in the Senate. We estimate the relationshipbetween vote records and business cycle conditions over the1947–1999 period using a GLS model with varying lags. Ourresults are broadly consistent with these business cyclehypotheses of polarization, though greater support is found inHouse data than in Senate data.     

Chronicle of a Survival Foretold: How Protest Behavior Against Armed Actors Influenced Violence in the Colombian Civil War, 1988–2005

This article examines the circumstances under which civilians, using protests as a mechanism, alter the strategic use of violence by armed actors (rebels and state forces). By examining the civil war in Colombia between 1988 and 2005, this study finds that combatants decrease their attacks against the population when civilians protest against the enemy. Combatants interpret such demonstrations as costly signals of loyalty. Furthermore, when insurgents are the target of the protests, insurgents increase repression against civilians as rebels get stronger. In contrast, state forces (and paramilitaries) compensate for their weakness in the area by multiplying civilian victims. Both state forces and rebels, however, are likely to decrease violence against civilians when civilians protest against both parties in contested zones. In such contexts, armed actors are likely to refrain from retaliation because any violence might drive noncombatants toward the enemy.     

Neo-liberalism's New Gendered Market Citizens: The 'Civilizing' Dimension of Social Programmes in Chile

This article explores the reconfiguration of social citizenship, or 'market citizenship', underway in Chile, as one crucial dimension of the refashioning of state institutions along neo-liberal lines in Latin America. It focuses on the 'civilizing' dimension of social citizenship, as an instance of the state's involvement in the regulation of subordinate populations. Specifically, the article studies the case of new social policy aimed at poverty alleviation. Inspired by Michel Foucault's late work but moving beyond it, it examines institutional transformation as on-the-ground practices through which policies take effect and sees 'market citizenship' as emerging from the rearticulation of the efforts of myriad individuals located at different levels of government, 'civil society', and poor and working-class communities. In this process, state agents are translators on the one hand of official documents into instances of participatory learning and empowerment, and on the other of people's realities into instances of documentary categories of poverty. This cultural-political transformation of neo-liberal modernization in Chile and beyond is potentially radical, and we need to ask: to what extent will the new market terms of belonging in the national community, which increasingly permeate private and public actions and discourse, change the very material and cultural contexts in which people's lives and struggles are framed?