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.     

Quasi-citizenship as a category of practice: analyzing engagement with Russia’s Compatriot policy in Crimea

This article analyzes engagement with Russia’s Compatriot policy, as an example of ethnizenship-type of quasi-citizenship, in Crimea, as the most likely case of Compatriot engagement. The article focuses on unpacking the lived experience of Compatriot identification and engagement and the rationale for this engagement. The article finds a narrow and niche engagement with the Compatriot policy in Crimea where only the most politicized and discriminated individuals, alongside beneficiaries of the Compatriot policy, identify as Compatriots. However, the article also finds dissatisfaction with the Compatriot policy because it fails to offer the kind of status, and rights and benefits, of ‘full’ citizenship. Thus, while citizenship might be becoming fractured, via quasi-citizenship policies, citizenship remains the key point of entry to the kin-state. Focusing on the lived experience of quasi-citizenship, and examining quasi-citizenship as a category of practice, is crucial for developing understanding of the social and political impacts of quasi-citizenship policies.     

Models of engagement between the state and the faith sector in sub-Saharan Africa – a systematic review

ABSTRACT

In sub-Saharan Africa many individuals rely on non-state health providers, and engagement between state and non-state providers is increasingly common. Little analytic work has been done on the varied models of engagement, resulting in a lack of clarity about the promises and challenges of public–private engagement (PPE) for health. Despite their prevalence, PPEs often fail. Faith-based health providers (FBHPs) form a significant proportion of the non-state health sector in sub-Saharan Africa, and the number of partnerships with FBHPs is increasing. Building on a prior systematic review project that developed a typology of organisational models for PPE for health, this article reports on a secondary analysis, highlighting PPE initiatives with FBHPs.     

The Unintended Consequences of Structural Change: When Formal and Informal Institutions Collide in Efforts to Address Wicked Problems

Significant restructuring of bureaucracies has occurred to facilitate joined-up working. This article draws on new institutionalism to explore the rationale behind the use of structural change for the promotion of joined-up working. It argues that a strong institutionalized myth has emerged which has created isomorphic pressures in the public sector to instigate structural changes in the name of vertical integration. These combine with informal institutions in ways that can be both productive and unproductive, highlighting the need to find a balance between formal institutional change and informal institutionalized practices, which often go unacknowledged as a powerful influence on policy.     

School and Neighborhood Contexts,Perceptions of Racial Discrimination,and Psychological Well-being Among African American Adolescents

The present study examined contextual influences on the relationship between racial discrimination (individual, cultural, and collective/institutional) and psychological well-being. Two hundred and fifty two African American adolescents (46% male and 54% female, average age = 16) completed measures of racial discrimination, self-esteem, depressive symptoms and life satisfaction. Archival information regarding the racial/ethnic composition of the participants’ neighborhoods and schools was used and increased school diversity was linked to increased perceptions of cultural discrimination. Regardless of school and neighborhood diversity, high perceptions of collective/institutional discrimination were linked to lower self-esteem for students in high diversity settings. Further, high levels of collective/institutional discrimination were associated with lower life satisfaction for African American youth in low diversity settings.

The political cost of public–private partnerships: Theory and evidence from Colombian infrastructure development

Infrastructure public–private partnerships (PPPs) eschew traditional public management to provide distributive goods worldwide. Yet, in Colombia, the context of our study, both the promise of and voters' experience with PPPs hinder incumbent parties in elections when theories of distributive politics expect otherwise. We argue that negative experiences with PPPs introduce a sociotropic turn in individual voting: bad experience crowds out the possibility that promising a new project will improve a voter's own welfare. Studying what are, to our knowledge, all 109 Colombian PPP projects between 1998 and 2014, and over 8,700 individual survey responses, our evidence shows that vote intention for the incumbent executive or his party decreases as experience with more PPPs in respondents' districts increases. Our analysis and results introduce an important agenda for research into the political significance of these legacies of new public management.     

The economic role of middle-class women in Victorian Glasgow

Abstract

It has long been recognised that working-class women in the nineteenth century participated in waged labour, albeit dependent on marital status, stage in family life cycle, and locality. Middle-class women's economic role has been less fully explored, although it has been acknowledged that they played an informal, ‘hidden’ role in the economy. This article examines the extent of middle-class women's economic activity and independence by looking in detail at a residential area of Glasgow in the period 1850-1914. The authors demonstrate that women could negotiate the parameters of a gendered and limited labour market, the legal constraints on their property rights, and social constraints on their economic freedom, in order to achieve considerable economic autonomy and influence     

How Do Female and Male Faculty Members Construct Job Satisfaction? The Roles of Perceived Institutional Leadership and Mentoring and their Mediating Processes

In this study we examine how a sample of 248 male and female professors at a Midwestern private research university construct their academic job satisfaction. Our findings indicate that both women and men perceive that their job satisfaction is influenced by the institutional leadership and mentoring they receive, but only as mediated by the two key academic processes of access to internal academic resources (including research-supportive workloads) and internal relational supports from a collegial and inclusive immediate work environment. Gender differences emerged in the strengths of the perceived paths leading to satisfaction: women’s job satisfaction derived more from their perceptions of the internal relational supports than the academic resources they received, whereas men’s job satisfaction resulted equally from their perceptions of internal academic resources and internal relational supports received. Implications for leadership and institutional practices are drawn from the findings.     

The implementation of complex social policy: Institutional layering and unintended consequences in the National Disability Insurance Scheme

In this article, we identify the unfolding unintended consequences which flow from one instance of policy layering in Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS). We show how use of a causal diagram, which highlights feedback loops and emergent properties, to map complex chains of causal factors can assist policy scholars and policy practitioners to understand the likely direction of change and possible responses. In the case of Australia's National Disability Insurance Scheme, our analysis suggests that the likely direction of change will work against two of the fundamental design features of the NDIS: providing participants with more choice and control, and ensuring all eligible Australians are able to access appropriate services and supports regardless of where they live. Our analysis points to the use of price regulation as the site of potential intervention because of the role it plays in subsequent feedback loops and the development of the two, unwelcome, emergent properties.     

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