Optimization of Human mtDNA Control Region Sequencing for Forensic Applications

Sequencing mitochondrial DNA hypervariable regions I and II (HVI and HVII) is useful in forensic missing person and unidentified remains cases. Improvements in ease and sensitivity of testing will yield results from more samples in a timely fashion. Routinely, amplification of HVI and HVII is followed by Sanger sequencing using the BigDye^® Terminator v3.1 Cycle Sequencing kit (Applied Biosystems) using 4 μL of ready reaction mix (RRM). Each sequencing reaction is then purified through column filtration before capillary electrophoresis. Using lower amounts of RRM (2 μL or 1 μL) and purification using BigDye^® XTerminator^? (Applied Biosystems) instead of columns showed no loss of sequence length and increased the quality and the sensitivity of testing, allowing HVI and HVII typing from mitochondrial genome equivalent to 125 fg of nuclear DNA, or 100 pg of HVI/HVII amplicons. Using this methodology, testing can be completed in 1 day, and the cost of testing is reduced.     

The relationship between investigative interviewing experience and open-ended question usage

We present three studies examining the role of prior job experience in interviewing and interviewers' ability to learn open-ended questions during a training program. We predicted a negative relationship such that more experienced interviewers would perform worse after training than less experienced interviewers, and that (irrespective of baseline performance) the more experienced interviewers would improve the least during training. These predictions were made for two reasons. First, specific questions are commonly used in the workplace (i.e. open-ended questioning constitutes new learning). Second, experience in the use of specific questions potentially interferes with newly learned open-ended questions. Overall, our predictions were supported across different participant samples (including police officers specialized in child abuse investigation and social workers from the child protection area), time delays, and modes of training. The results highlight the need for investment in ongoing investigative interviewing training commencing early during professionals' careers, prior to the establishment of long-term habits in the use of specific questions.     

The oil lobby and the energy crisis

Abstract. The energy crisis has produced a confrontation between the federal government and the Canadian oil industry which has significantly reduced the latter's autonomy. This article postulates three hypotheses, which are then explored in the context of the energy crisis: that pressure group influence declines during a crisis situation; that if the crisis necessitates federal-provincial negotiation this tendency is accentuated; and that when facing a serious threat from government action the group under attack will seek to exert its influence as widely as possible. The article goes on to examine the oil industry's various channels of influence — the Senate, the Alberta Conservative caucus, the Alberta Liberal party, informal contacts with Alberta politicians, the Technical Advisory Committee on Petroleum Supply and Demand, and others and concludes that these were inadequate for serving the industry's objectives during the crisis. The speed at which events unfolded during the crisis and the consumer concern that arose led the federal government to respond rapidly, with little advance consultation with the industry or the producing provinces. In the federal-provincial Confrontation that ensued, the industry was excluded from a significant decision-making role. It will now seek to exert more public pressure on the federal government, but it must do so within a new set of rules under which the various levels of government will be more intimately involved in its activities. Sommaire. La crise de l'éergie a produit, entre le gouvernement fédéral et l'industrie canadienne du pétrole, une confrontation qui a réduit considérablement l'autonomie de cette dernière. L'auteur de cet exposé propose trois hypothèses qu'il examine ensuite dans le contexte de la crise de l'énergie, à savoir:que l'influence des groupes de pression diminue dans une situation de crise; que cette tendance s'accentue si la wise oblige à des nègociations fédéralesprovinciales et que, face à une menace sérieuse d'intervention gouvernementale, le groupe attaqué. cherche à exercer une influence aussi large que possible. II examine ensuite les différentes voies d'influence de l'industrie du pétrole:le sénat, le caucus conservateur de I'Alberta, le parti libéral de l'Alberta, les contacts officieux avec des liommes politiques de l'Alberta, le comité technique qui s'occupe de l'offre et de la demande de pétrole et d'autres, pour conclure qu'elles étaient insuffisantes pour permettre à l'industrie d'atteindre ses objectifs durant la crise. La rapidité avec laquelle les événements se sont déroulés pendant la crise et la manifestation des craintes des consommateurs entraînérent une réaction rapide de la part du gouvernement fédéral, sans grande consultation préalable avec l'industrie ou les provinces productrices. Dans la confrontation fédéraleprovinciale qui a suivi, l'industrie a été exclue de toute prise de décision importante. Elle va chercher maintenant à exercer des ressions publiques accrues sur le gouvernement fédéral, mais elle doit se confonner aux nouvelles régles du jeu qui impliquent une plus grande ingérence des différents niveaux de gouvernement dans ses activités.     

The Role of Perceived Deservingness in the Toleration of Human Rights Violations

Based on evidence that people have a strong need to see that individuals get what they deserve, we reasoned that people will tolerate a human rights violation to the extent that they believe the target of the violation deserves severe treatment. Thus, we expected that variables that influence the perceived deservingness of a target (i.e., “contextual cues” to deservingness) should influence toleration of a violation of the target’s rights, mediated by perceptions of the target’s deservingness. We also expected that the effect of a contextual cue to targets’ deservingness on toleration should occur even for people who support the violated right in the abstract. Across two studies, using student versus community samples, we measured participants’ abstract support for the right to humane treatment. We then presented participants with scenarios about a target who was tortured (a violation of the right to humane treatment), and manipulated a contextual cue to the targets’ deservingness for severe treatment—the moral reprehensibility of the targets’ past behavior. Participants tolerated a target’s torture more if he had engaged in highly morally reprehensible (vs. less reprehensible) behavior and, thus, was perceived to deserve more severe treatment. Participants’ abstract support for the right to humane treatment did not moderate the effect of moral reprehensibility on toleration. Our findings highlight the importance of perceived deservingness in the toleration of human rights violations and have implications for reducing such toleration. Our research also extends literature on deservingness to an important global issue.     

After Enactment: The Lives and Deaths of Federal Programs

While many scholars have focused on the production of legislation, we explore life after enactment. Contrary to the prevailing view that federal programs are indissoluble, we show that programmatic restructurings and terminations are commonplace. In addition, we observe significant changes in programmatic appropriations. We suggest that a sitting congress is most likely to transform, kill, or cut programs inherited from an enacting congress when its partisan composition differs substantially. To test this claim, we examine the postenactment histories of every federal domestic program established between 1971 and 2003, using a new dataset that distinguishes program death from restructuring. Consistent with our predictions, we find that changes in the partisan composition of congresses have a strong influence on program durability and size. We thus dispel the notion that federal programs are everlasting while providing a plausible coalition-based account for their evolution.     

Incentives and their dynamics in public sector performance management systems

We use the principal‐agent model as a focal theoretical frame for synthesizing what we know, both theoretically and empirically, about the design and dynamics of the implementation of performance management systems in the public sector. In this context, we review the growing body of evidence about how performance measurement and incentive systems function in practice and how individuals and organizations respond and adapt to them over time, drawing primarily on examples from performance measurement systems in public education and social welfare programs. We also describe a dynamic framework for performance measurement systems that takes into account strategic behavior of individuals over time, learning about production functions and individual responses, accountability pressures, and the use of information about the relationship of measured performance to value added. Implications are discussed and recommendations derived for improving public sector performance measurement systems. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

HIV/AIDS and older women in Zambia: Concern for self,worry over daughters,towers of strength

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa has exposed the way in which gender relations can place women in a particularly precarious position in respect of health matters (Ankrah, 1991; Baylies, Bujra et al , 1999; de Bruyn, 1992; Heise & Elias, 1995; Obbo, 1993; Ulin, 1992). As it advances, it is also evident that women do not face the epidemic as a homogeneous group, but as one which is divided by varying levels of vulnerability and varieties of response. This article focuses on generational differences, as well as those defined by marital status and economic security, and identifies older women who have completed their families as positioned not just to perform a caring role but also to serve as advocates for others in articulating the dangers which gendered practices may pose for their daughters and for women in general, both married and unmarried. It will be argued that they may become spokeswomen for their communities and their families and should be seen as powerful actors around AIDS issues.