Use of a Spray Device to Locate Touch DNA on Casework Samples

The use of a fluorescent dye to visualize cellular material on surfaces offers a targeted sampling approach for locating touch DNA on casework items. However, the current application of such dye is not feasible for examination of relatively large items. As a result, development of an efficient dye application system is required to translate this approach into practice. Here, the spray pattern (area covered, intensity, and evenness) of 15 different commercial spray devices was examined visually using food coloring. From this, five devices were selected to apply Diamond Nucleic Acid Dye (DD) to three substrates (glass slide, plastic sheet, and brown packing tape) seeded with saliva and touch DNA. The cellular material was visualized using the Dino-lite Microscope and Polilight. The inhibitory effects of DD afforded by each spray device were examined using Identifiler Plus^® DNA profiling kit and a DNA input of 800 pg. The two most promising devices were further tested on a range of mock casework items seeded with touch DNA. The results presented demonstrate the feasibility of a spray system to apply DD to large surfaces and subsequently detect cellular material at both micro and macroscale. Specifically, the data suggest that a pressurized continuous-spray system is favorable and that droplet size influences the intensity of fluorescence and surface coverage. Furthermore, this study indicates that full STR profiles can be obtained following spraying with DD solution, even with excessive application, which is essential for the widespread use of these devices in casework.     

CHILDREN,THE UNCRC,AND FAMILY LAW IN ENGLAND AND WALES

There is no doubt that, overall, there has been a great deal of activity in relation to children's rights under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) since it was ratified by the UK government in 1991. Of particular significance in the context of family law, however, are the provisions of Article 12, which have in many ways proved to be more problematic than other provisions, not least because, in the context of family law, children's participation rights are necessarily juxtaposed with the long‐standing and hitherto unchallenged rights of parents to make important decisions about family life. The reorganisation in 2001 of the family court welfare services in England and Wales with the creation of the Children and Family Courts Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS), generated a new impetus for the consideration of children's participation rights and, at an organizational level, considerable progress has been made in embracing the provisions of the UNCRC. More problematic, however, is the acceptance of children's participation in making decisions about their futures by adults using and working in the family justice system. At the level of the courts, judicial attitudes are slow to change and in England, as court judgments often demonstrate, these are firmly rooted in a view of children as being incompetent in such issues; at the level of parents using the system, it is arguable that new discourses about the best interests of the child serve as a proxy for continuing discourses about parents’ rights that have become evident, most recently, in the context of an increasingly influential fathers’ rights lobby; and at the level of welfare practitioners, recent research also demonstrates that, although the rhetoric of children's rights is widely accepted, the willingness and ability to make these real in the context of family proceedings is, for a variety of reasons, less in evidence.     

Paradoxes of Voting Power in Dutch Politics

In this paper we first evaluate thirteen seat distributions inthe Second Chamber of the Dutch parliament by means of severalindices of voting power. Subsequently, we search for theoccurrence of the paradox of redistribution, the paradox ofnew members, and the paradox of large size for each powerindex. The indices used are the Shapley-Shubik index, thenormalized Banzhaf index, the Penrose-Banzhaf index, theHoller index, and the Deegan-Packel index.     

Gender and the law of provocation in the long twentieth century

ABSTRACT

Provocation was an important common law doctrine, separating murder from manslaughter: a matter of life and death. It was particularly significant in the context of ‘domestic violence’. This article examines the doctrine as a lens through which to view gender relations in the long twentieth century. The doctrine developed from its origins in the early modern period until mid-twentieth century. Throughout this lengthy period provocation was narrowly confined for both genders. However, case law developments in mid-twentieth century gave rise to a doctrine which was unforgiving for abused women. At about the same time, statutory and case law changes produced a much broader partial defence of provocation available to men who had killed their wives. It was not until the very end of the century, and the beginning of the twenty-first century, that a more gender-neutral concept of provocation began to emerge as a result of feminist campaigning.     

SPERM ON ICE

Freezing technologies and extraction techniques make posthumous reproduction possible. This article discusses the bioethical and legal debates that surround the possession and use of dead men's sperm as they unfold in three select cases in Denmark and Australia. In the analysis we use feminist perspectives on reproduction to argue that the debates frame posthumous reproduction in light of four discursive configurations: The ‘child’, the ‘father’, the ‘widow’, and the ‘necrophile’. Whereas the performance of responsibility and maturity is key in the production of the ‘good’ widow in the Australian legal cases, the monstrous figure of the necrophile takes on a more prominent place in the Danish bioethical material. The legal and bioethical debates jointly, however, resurrect the nuclear, patriarchal family, while they also tend to re-naturalise heterosexed, romantic reproductive desire.     

The Predicament of Writing Political History: The Challenge of the Tacit

Political histories composed by contemporaries (or near contemporaries) are affected by the predicament of confronting the tacit in a past. Three case studies of famous writers of histories of politics in their own times are used to suggest an additional epistemology for political history which relies rather less on representations than has been common since the “Linguistic Turn” privileged the propositional thrall of discourses. My extra element attends to the tacit in human lives: affects and effects in context of the lived‐in and lived‐around of politics. My three case studies suggest that histories of politics and policies by contemporaries and near‐contemporaries do not simply amount to a re‐representation (broadly defined) of past representations (broadly defined). A wide angle is adopted; three case studies treat renowned political historians, ancient, mediæval and modern: Procopius in the mid‐sixth, Commynes in the late‐fifteenth, and A.J.P. Taylor in the mid‐twentieth centuries. Each of these “great” historians of politics was driven to discount the lived‐out‐loud of politics they narrated in, or close to, their own times. The predicament and the response is more general, I believe: all historians of politics have to try to situate and narrate things once taken‐for‐granted. That predicament prompted each of my three — and still prompts historians — to have to transcend “representationalism”. The three cases show how and why history writing about politics also needs to attend to the habitual and tacit in a past, the ubiquitous things seldom represented. A controversial foundation for such an “extra” epistemology is then suggested: Dasein, the being‐of‐being, a key concept of Martin Heidegger's. The writing of political history by contemporaries (or near‐contemporaries) is then conceived as also a (ethnography‐like) study of past life‐worlds‐in‐being. This extra foundation for (very‐old and still current!) writing practices about power and politics emphasises metonyms over metaphors. Surprises discerned from contexts are emphasised over propositions peddled in representations. The metonyms disclosed by my three case studies, which I think apply in most writing about politics by contemporaries or near contemporaries, had to be inferred from contexts, rather than read as discourses. The tacit is elicited by contemporaries from (1) records and recollects of predicaments and situations, and from (2) reading actions as texts. Histories of politics are really about things people once felt and did, more than what they said, in their there‐and‐then.     

Parental role in teenage driving

Students in 75 high schools in seven states participated in a questionnaire survey. The results showed that high school students want to become licensed as soon as possible and that parents are important in teaching them to drive. Once licensed, the majority of students have their own cars, though they do not typically pay the majority of the costs. Seventy-one percent of licensed students who do not have their own cars reported that they can usually or always use a family car. Most students, particularly younger ones and females, reported that their parents expect them to conform to certain rules or restrictions when driving and when riding as passengers. The most common restrictions were that their parents asked them not to drive after drinking, to tell parents where they were going and with whom, and to be home at a certain time. Students were far less likely to report that their parents required that they wear seat belts.This work was supported by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.Received a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Yale University. Research interests are highway safety, pedestrian safety, and evaluation of training and education programs.Received a Ph.D. in social psychology from Harvard University. Research interests are the factors related to motor vehicle injuries, drinking and driving, and the crash involvement of teenagers.Received a Ph.D. in social psychology from State University of New York at Buffalo. Research interests are health behavior and the role of the individual in public health.