Investigation into "normal" background DNA on adult necks: implications for DNA profiling of manual strangulation victims

Others have investigated the role that DNA profiling could play as a method for identifying the perpetrator of manual strangulation. These studies have demonstrated that it is possible to collect offender DNA from the skin surface of a victim following physical contact. It is not known whether nonself biological material is normally present on the skin surface due to adventitious transfer occurring during innocent everyday interactions. To test the hypothesis that detectable amounts of nonself DNA are normally present on the skin surface of healthy adult individuals due to the adventitious transfer of DNA occurring during normal day-to-day social interactions, we designed an experiment in three phases. Phase 1 was used to deduce which DNA collection, extraction, and amplification methods were suited to investigating this question. During phase 2, the neck surface of 24 healthy adult volunteers was swabbed. DNA was extracted using the QIAamp DNA mini kit and amplified using the SGM Plus PCR amplification kit, using 28 PCR cycles. The work carried out during phase 3 involved a simulated assault to investigate primary and secondary transfer of DNA during physical contact. It was found that 23% of neck areas swabbed during phase 2 of this investigation showed nondonor alleles in the resulting DNA profile, with 5% of areas showing six or more nondonor alleles. The results of phase 3 showed that primary, secondary, and zero transfer of victim and/or offender DNA could be observed after physical contact and that alleles from an unknown source could still be detected in this more controlled experiment. The data presented in this paper demonstrate that DNA profiles generated after swabbing the skin surface of healthy adults can include components of an unknown source, present due to adventitious transfer. These components, if present in large quantities, have the potential to interfere with DNA profile interpretation of swabs taken for the investigation of physical assault by DNA profiling.     

Dining with Sam Orr: Nation Review and the Restaurant Reviews of Richard Beckett

In Australia in the 1970s, restaurant dining became a popular middle-class pastime, and restaurant criticism began to play an important role in the shaping of Australian tastes. Richard Beckett was one of the most prolific Australian food writers of the 1970s and 1980s and one of the first to write a regular column devoted to restaurant reviews. Writing as Sam Orr, a satirical character invented to suit the ethos of the irreverent Nation Review, Beckett produced highly original reports of his dining experiences. He aimed to both educate and entertain his readers and to subvert the perception of restaurant dining as an elitist pastime. Beckett’s contribution as a tastemaker was disparaged at the time and has been largely neglected since. Through a consideration of the role of Nation Review, Beckett’s reviews, published responses to Sam Orr by both his critics and his fans and unpublished correspondence from readers, this article offers a reassessment of Richard Beckett’s role in the shaping of Australia’s tastes in restaurant dining through his endorsement of the distaste of taste.     

Race and Gender Recidivism Differences Among Juvenile Mental Health Court Graduates

Grounded in the theory of therapeutic jurisprudence, this research explores whether recidivism differs by race, ethnicity, or gender among juvenile mental health court graduates (N = 63). Mean number of pre‐program offenses were compared to the mean number of offenses committed by program completion. Results showed statistically significant reductions in recidivism by both males (p < .001) and females (p < .003). Racial and ethnic minorities demonstrated larger reductions when compared to Whites (p < .001 for Hispanics and p < .01 for combined ethnicities). These results contribute to the literature on effective intervention models for diverse juvenile offender populations.     

‘This fair lady,in her laces’: Margaret Howie Strang Hall,the first woman in Scotland to try to become a lawyer

ABSTRACT

Margaret Howie Strang Hall was the first woman in Scotland, and the youngest woman in the UK, to try to become a lawyer through the same formal process open to her male contemporaries. This examination of Hall’s attempt aims to set it in context, using contemporary court documents and newspaper reports, while expanding on what is known of her life. Hall’s story is an important one in the struggle for equal professional opportunities and her experience in the Scottish legal system provides a counterpoint to the better-known English examples.     

Guessing in the Gaps

The genesis of this conversation was the forthcoming new Penguin edition - under the general editorship of Adam Phillips - of the works of Freud. Mark and Phillips consider the concept of a 'literary' Freud alongside the 'scientific'or 'clinical' Freud, and discuss the related issues of translation, representation and interpretation, particularly as they bear on psychoanalytic writing. Adam Phillips's relationship to the institutions of psychoanalysis is considered, and the perpetuation of these institutions through the training of psychoanalysts and psychotherapists. Also discussed is the project of psychoanalysis: the nature of psychoanalysis as a therapy as well as a body of ideas. Mark and Phillips make reference to the work of Freud, Lacan, Klein, Winnicott and Laplanche, and to concepts such as the 'enigmatic signifier' and 'transgenerational haunting'.