Assessment of Silicone Polymer Composites for Environmental Forensic Applications: A Proof of Concept Study*

Abstract: This study evaluates the use of polydimethylsiloxane polymer composites (PDMS, Fe–PDMS) as a passive sampling media to preconcentrate analytes found in environmental settings. Samplers were made using commercially available silicone products. The composite samplers were assessed for their sorption properties using Atrazine and Irgarol 1051 as model compounds. The initial study assessed the utility of PDMS sheets as adsorption material by following analyte depletion from spiked water samples by solid‐phase microextraction gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS). Follow‐up studies conducted at high and low concentrations using lab manufactured iron‐ PDMS rods (Fe–PDMS) showed effective uptake at differential rates from concentrations ranging between 1 μg/L and 10 μg/L. Adsorption mechanism was reversible, and compounds were recovered from the exposed materials and analyzed by liquid–liquid extraction‐GC/MS. Both composites showed better affinity for Irgarol 1051, 100% removal, than for Atrazine, 30% removal, likely representing their K_OW differences, 3.6 and 2.6, respectively. This “proof of concept” study demonstrates the positive implications for the use of silicon polymer composites as a monitoring tool for environmental forensic purposes.     

Between the ‘Home’ and ‘Institutional’ Worlds: Tensions and Contradictions in the Practice of House Arrest

In this paper we argue that the theoretical work of Goffman (1961) on “total institutions,” Foucault’s (1977) insights into the workings of disciplinary power, and an account of contemporary forms of punishment and social control in postmodern society (Staples 2000) help us better understand the experiences of those individuals sentenced to house arrest. Based on face-to-face interviews with twenty-three people being electronically monitored in a Midwestern metropolitan area, our analysis identifies three themes that illustrate the ways in which electronic monitoring is experienced as a complex amalgam of what Goffman (1961, p. 13) saw as the distinct “home world” and the “institutional world”. These themes include (1) “Home is Where the Machine Is,” (2) “Producing Docile Bodies,” and (3) “Threat of Sanctions”. We reassert our claim (Staples 1994, 2000) that contemporary forms of social control such as electronic monitoring reflect an ongoing struggle to deal with problems and issues set in motion with the birth of modernity.     

Major depression – a study on the validity of clinicians’ diagnoses in medicolegal assessment

Major depression ranges among the most frequently diagnosed psychiatric disorders. Accordingly, diagnoses of depression are often underlying insurance, compensation or disability claims. This report evaluates the validity of clinicians’ diagnoses of major depression in a sample of claimants. In 2015, n = 127 consecutive cases were examined for medicolegal assessment. For all of them, a diagnosis of major depression had been established by clinicians. All testees underwent a psychiatric interview, a physical examination, they answered questionnaires for depressive symptoms according to DSM-5, embitterment disorder, post concussion syndrome (PCS) and unspecific somatic complaints. Performance and symptom validity tests were administered. Only 31% fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for DSM-5 major depression according to self-report, while none did so according to psychiatric assessment. Negative response bias was found in 64% of cases, feigned neurologic symptoms in 22%. Symptom exaggeration was indiscriminate rather than depression-specific. By self-report, 64% of the participants qualified for embitterment disorder and 93% for PCS. In conclusion, clinicians’ diagnoses of depression seem often confounded by improper assessment of the diagnostic criteria, confusion of depression with bereavement or embitterment and also by response bias.     

Cranial Backspatter Pattern Production Utilizing Human Cadavers

A backspatter pattern results from blood drops that travel retrograde to an applied external force. Historically, an array of animals and nonhuman objects have been used to create and study backspatter patterns. In this study, backspatter patterns captured on foam core targets that were placed 45.72 cm (18 in) behind the impact site (occipital area of the skull) were produced by cranial gunshots to human cadavers that were reinfused with fresh defibrinated bovine blood. These patterns were compared to the backspatter patterns produced by shooting blood‐soaked sponges, a typical simulant used in controlled studies of backspatter pattern production and characteristics. The backspatter pattern produced by shooting an actual human head was found to be different than those of blood‐soaked sponges in the number of stains produced, the size and size range of the stains, and the stain dispersion patterns.     

Participatory Democracy? Exploring Peru's Efforts to Engage Civil Society in Local Governance

As institutions are created to engage citizens and civil society organizations more directly, who participates, and what effect does participation have? This article explores two of Peru's participatory institutions, the Regional Coordination Councils and the participatory budgets, created in 2002. Specifically it asks, once these institutions are set up, do organizations participate in them? and what effect does this participation have on the organizations? The data show that the participatory processes in Peru are including new voices in decisionmaking, but this inclusion has limits. Limited inclusion has, in turn, led to limited changes specifically in nongovernmental organizations. As a result, the democratizing potential of the participatory institutions is evident yet not fully realized.     

Optimisation of choline testing using Florence Iodine reagent,including comparative sensitivity and specificity with PSA and AP tests

The detection of semen in forensic science is essential in cases of sexual assault but can be problematic in the absence of spermatozoa. Choline is known to occur in high concentrations in seminal fluid and the Florence Iodine test for its detection has been used in forensic science for many years, however very little is documented regarding its sensitivity and specificity in forensic casework. This paper describes the optimisation of the choline Florence Iodine test (FI) and investigates the sensitivity and specificity of the test against different body fluids, food and drink substances, cleaning products and laboratory chemicals. Comparative testing against Acid Phosphatase (AP) and Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA Seratec®) tests is described and shows that the FI test has greater specificity than the PSA test which cross reacts with a number of body fluids.     

Survival strategies of widows and their families in early modern Holland,c. 1580–1750

This article analyses the impact of widowhood upon women in early modern urban society in Holland. Widows were able to maintain their households and to minimize the discontinuity with their lives when married. A remarkably egalitarian inheritance and marital property law, access to a broad range of occupations, a privileged status, an extended poor relief system, institutionalised mutual assistance and new forms of financial provisions for widows enabled widows to survive after the loss of an adult male breadwinner. However, legal rights, social provisions and economic opportunities available to women in the Dutch Golden Age and thereafter, could not prevent social polarization after women lost their spouse.     

Managing a large household. The gender division of work in orphanages in Dutch towns in the early modern period, 1580–1800

Early modern social institutions were modelled analogous to the family, and work within these institutions strongly depended upon the co-operation of women and men. This type of organization seems to be contradictory to processes of professionalization and bureaucratization. This article investigates to what extent professionalization and bureaucratization took place in early modern orphanages and how this influenced the gender division of work. By analyzing various occupations, remuneration and access to work in three Dutch orphanages it becomes clear that the frequently mentioned characteristics that made ‘typical’ women's work combinable with women's reproductive tasks, were not all applicable and cannot wholly explain female access to these occupations. Work was characterized by an increasing differentiation, hierarchy and, to a certain extent, bureaucratization tendencies. At the same time, the gender division sharpened. However, the late eighteenth century ideology of women as nurturers and the strong analogy to the role women were supposed to play within the household prevented exclusion from this domain.     

Seeing White−Female Whiteness and the Purity of Children in Australian,Chinese and British Visual Culture

In this paper, I interrogate the expression and usage of ‘whiteness’ in Australian, British and Chinese visual culture. My approach is through reading local texts with an eye to transcultural systems of meaning, paying particular attention to the ways in which whiteness is used as a doubled category in sexual politics. The paper is formed through the performance of cross-cultural connectivities within an epistemological emphasis on the travelled theorist. The movement between Chinese, Australian and English ethical positions are constitutive of the perspectives expressed here; the perspectives are themselves concerned to look back and into those ethical positions. The performance works towards a recognition of the semiotic systems of power and identity, and therefore of the conditions of theoretical performance itself.