Autonomy and audit--striking the balance

The Data Protection Act 1998 purports to implement European legislation which aims to protect the privacy of individuals. There were such concerns about the implications of the Act for certain research and audit that it became necessary to enact further legislation to enable such essential activities to continue. Although this empowers the Secretary of State for Health to approve proposals for these purposes, there should still be a requirement that the use of identifiable personal information without consent must be justified on compelling public interest grounds. It is this that can confound those seeking to rely on such justification. There can either be too cavalier an approach to the issue, and/or there is little sense of what considerations should come into play. This paper attempts to highlight some of the difficulties that are theoretically raised by some audit activities and set out the legal framework within which they must operate. However, the key focus is on how ethical considerations might inform the public interest argument.     

Erroneous gender identification by the amelogenin sex test

Human gender identification, based on the amelogenin gene, has important applications in forensic casework, prenatal diagnosis, DNA databasing, and blood sample storage. However, we report on the first known case, in the Israeli population, of an amelogenin sex test failure on a phenotypically normal male. He was typed as a female by both the AmpFlSTR SGM plus and GenePrint kits. Subsequent, karyotyping of the soldier's blood sample showed no abnormalities. These results suggest that the determination of sex, based on the amelogenin test, should be interpreted cautiously.     

Developmental validation of a single-tube amplification of the 13 CODIS STR loci, D2S1338, D19S433, and amelogenin: the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR Amplification Kit

Analysis of length polymorphism at short tandem repeat (STR) loci utilizing the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) process has proven to be an ideal assay for human identification purposes. The short length of STR loci coupled with the amplification of target sequence through PCR allows for a robust, sensitive, and specific assay for highly polymorphic markers. A multiplex containing fifteen STR loci plus the gender-determining locus Amelogenin was developed to provide a single amplification/detection of all CODIS (Combined DNA Index System) STR loci (CSF1PO, D3S1358, D5S818, D7S820, D8S1179, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, D21S11, FGA, TH01, TPOX, and vWA) as well as two internationally-accepted STRs (D2S1338 and D19S433). By incorporating five-dye fragment analysis technology and non-nucleotide linkers, previously optimized AmpFlSTR kit primer sequences have been maintained. This kit has been developed in accordance with the standards of the forensic community as defined by the DNA Advisory Board. Validation studies were performed to include developmental validation, and the results support the use of the AmpFlSTR Identifiler PCR Amplification Kit for human identity and parentage testing.     

Participation patterns at the 1998–2003 Southern Criminal Justice Association annual meetings

This paper examines the distance participants were willing to travel to attend the 1998–2003 Southern Criminal Justice Association annual meeting sites. The authors evaluate whether holding the conference at various locations throughout the region impacts individual participation, membership, and institutional representation. The findings reveal that conference sites that require greater travel have lower attendance and do not capture new members. However, the strength of offerings and tourist attractions can offset the negative impact of greater travel. The analysis also identifies a core group of members who show up at the meetings no matter where they are held. Finally, the conferences do not attract much local interest. Recommendations that would enhance attendance at regional meetings are advanced.     

Public choice and tort reform

The common law originally was thought to be immune to rent seeking. More recently, scholars have recognized that attorneys are engaged in exactly that activity. Rent seeking by the legal profession has greatly expanded the scope of US tort law, and generated efforts to reverse its expansion. Organized groups (attorneys, businesses and doctors) are active on both sides of the issue and the partisans have numerous tools available for advancing their agendas, such as litigating, lobbying for favorable rules and attempting to elect sympathetic legislators and judges. All of this creates an ideal setting for public choice analysis.     

Demokratisierung und Freiheitsstreben: Die Perspektive der Humanentwicklung

Much of the literature on democratic transitions presumes that mass attitudes are important for the consolidation of democracies but not for the process of democratization. We challenge this premise on the basis of human development theory. From the perspective of this theory, democratization is an emancipative achievement that should be fuelled by broader emancipative forces among the population. Using the Values Surveys we measure these emancipative forces by people’s liberty aspirations, showing that mass liberty aspirations have a causal effect on a society’s democratic development. No other factor, not GDP/capita and not social capital, can explain away the effect of liberty aspirations on democratization. We conclude that human development theory illuminates emancipative forces in democratization that have so far been neglected.