Genetic variation of 15 STR autosomal loci in the Maracaibo population from Venezuela

Allele frequencies for 15 short tandem repeats (STRs) autosomal loci (D8S1179, D21S11, D7S820, CSF1PO, D3S1358, TH01, D13S317, D16S539, D2S1338, D19S433, vWA, TPOX, D18S51, D5S818 and FGA, included in the AmpFLSTR Identifiler, Applied Biosystems) were studied in the city of Maracaibo, Venezuela and were compared with other published Latin-American populations for the same loci. Population and forensic parameters were estimated.     

Women's experience of world war one: Suffragists,pacifists and poets

The period of 1914–1918 was a time of immense change for women in Britain. The Suffragist movement, begun in 1867, gained irresistible force, culminating in the Act of 1918 in which women were given the vote at thirty and men at twenty-one. It was not until the 1928 Act that for the first time in the history of Britain there was full adult suffrage, granting the vote to both sexes at twenty-one. The picture is a complex one; Mrs Pankhurst and her daughter Christabel identified their movement with the war effort, indeed their pre-war militancy became militarism. Mrs Fawcett, an avowed non-militant suffragist before the war, who believed in the verbal power of argument over revolutionary tactics, also supported the war effort and nationalism. However, there were other suffragists such as Sylvia Pankhurst, Emily Hobhouse, Catherine Marshall, Helena Swanwick, Olive Schreiner and Kate Courtney, who were opposed to the war. Mrs Pankhurst believed if women couldn't fight, they shouldn't vote. The pacifists believed that this view simply gave in to the argument for physical force. They also saw militarism as yet another version of the strong oppressing the weak and thus an emphatic form of patriarchy. However, although the suffragists were bitterly divided in their moral view of the war, they were united in the cause of women's emancipation.The war itself provided all classes of women with important opportunities to work outside the home, as munition workers, land-army workers, police-women, doctors and nurses. The experience of change caused by the suffrage movement, together with the effect of the war upon women's lives, transformed women's image of themselves in radical and irreversible ways.My paper draws on some 125 poems by 72 women poets; Scars Upon My Heart is the first anthology of its kind and testifies to women's involvement in the war and the impact it had upon their lives. The anthology is necessary reading, together with the soldier poets like Owen, Sassoon, Blunden and Rosenberg, whose war poetry has been known to us for the past sixty years, for a full understanding of the significance of war for women and men.     

Medicalization and social justice

Most social justice critiques of medical care focus upon the allocation of extant, but scarce, resources. In contrast to that focus, this article explores the preallocative arena of factors which shape the supply and availability of medical care. We identify four such factors: (1)medicalization — the tendency to regard as biologically caused various human problems which were in earlier eras ignored or attributed to other causes; (2)social inclusion — the bringing of economically deprived and socially marginal groups into participation in the medical care system; (3)biomedical transcendence — the elevation of biomedically derived concepts of human function into a social and personal world view; and (4)health absolutism — the ideology which holds individuals accountable for their own health and which, contrary to the thrust of the other factors, deemphasizes access and social equity for professionally provided medical care. While these forces all enhance the place of health as a social value, it is by no means certain that they will lead to a society which is more medically just. The article concludes with an appeal for critical analysis of the processes which shape both the medical care system and the broad social concern with medical care.     

Domestic violence between same-gender partners: recent findings and future research

Empirical literature about same-gender domestic violence was relatively nonexistent until the past 20 years, and conducting research with this population about a sensitive topic remains a daunting endeavor. Existing studies reveal similarities between opposite-and same-gender domestic violence in prevalence, types of abuse, and various dynamics, as well as dispel myths and establish a theoretical basis on which to conduct future research. Differences are evident in areas such as help-seeking behaviors and correlates, thus demanding unique assessment and intervention strategies. This article presents further explanation of the latest research, recommendations for future studies, and effective as well as problematic methodological practices about same-gender domestic violence.     

Population genetic data for 18 STR loci in Costa Rica

Allele frequencies for 18 STR autosomal loci (D3S1358, VWA, FGA, D8S1179, D21S11, D18S51, D5S818, D13S317, D7S820, D16S539, TH01, TPOX, CSF1PO, Penta D, Penta E, D19S433, D2S1338 and SE33) were obtained from a sample of 191-500 unrelated individuals from Costa Rica, Central America.     

Clientelism or Something Else? Squatter Politics in Montevideo

Through the in‐depth ethnographic study of one squatter neighborhood in Montevideo and its leader's political networks, this article illustrates a successful strategy through which some squatter neighborhoods have fought for their right to the city. This consists of opportunistic, face‐to‐face relationships between squatter leaders and politicians of various factions and parties as intermediaries to get state goods, such as water, building materials, electricity, roads, and ultimately land tenure. Through this mechanism, squatters have seized political opportunities at the national and municipal levels. These opportunities were particularly high between 1989 and 2004, years of great competition for the votes of the urban poor on the periphery of the city, when the national and municipal governments belonged to opposing parties. In terms of theory, the article discusses current literature on clientelism, posing problems that make it difficult to characterize the political networks observed among squatters.     

Morphologic patterns of lip prints in a portuguese population: a preliminary analysis

Lip prints are thought to have the ability to distinguish individuals and, hence, have a potential use in human identification purposes. However, questions remain regarding their utility for sex determination. This study aimed to classify lip prints for different individuals in a Portuguese population and to determine whether sex differences exist. Lip prints of 25 females and 25 males were obtained using dark-colored lipstick and cellophane tape. Lip prints were analyzed using a magnifying lens and classified according to the Suzuki and Tsuchihashi classification. A Type II pattern was found to be most common. A comparison of lip-print patterns between males and females showed results with a statistically significant difference: Type III pattern was most common in males, and a Type II pattern in females. This study corroborates the hypothesis that lip prints are able to distinguish individuals and may be useful in sex determination.