Trace detection of meglumine and diatrizoate from Bacillus spore samples using liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry

Following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, letters containing Bacillus anthracis were distributed through the United States postal system killing five people. A complex forensic investigation commenced to identify the perpetrator of these mailings. A novel liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry protocol for the qualitative detection of trace levels of meglumine and diatrizoate in dried spore preparations of B. anthracis was developed. Meglumine and diatrizoate are components of radiographic imaging products that have been used to purify bacterial spores. Two separate chromatographic assays using multiple mass spectrometric analyses were developed for the detection of meglumine and diatrizoate. The assays achieved limits of detection for meglumine and diatrizoate of 1.00 and 10.0 ng/mL, respectively. Bacillus cereus T strain spores were effectively used as a surrogate for B. anthracis spores during method development and validation. This protocol was successfully applied to limited evidentiary B. anthracis spore material, providing probative information to the investigators.     

DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY? IMMIGRANT YOUTH AND PEER INFLUENCE*

There is reason to suspect that lower levels of exposure to criminogenic peer‐based risks help explain why immigrant youth are less involved in crime and violence. However, it also is possible that if and when they do encounter these risks, immigrant youth are more vulnerable to them than are native‐born youth. Drawing from literature on the adaptation experiences of immigrant adolescents, we hypothesize that immigrant youth will be relatively more susceptible to the effects of both 1) exposure to deviant peers and 2) unstructured and unsupervised socializing with peers when compared with their nonimmigrant counterparts. Using a sample of approximately 1,800 adolescents from the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN) study, we find support for our first hypothesis but not the second. Specifically, in both cross‐sectional and longitudinal models, we find that exposure to deviant peers has a greater impact on violence among immigrant youth than it does for native‐born youth. Furthermore, this pattern of results is supported with supplemental, sensitivity analysis using the AddHealth data. In contrast, there are no statistically significant differences across immigrant generation status with regard to the effect of informal socializing with peers on violence.     

The Cyprus and other EU court rulings on data retention: The Directive as a privacy bomb

This paper discusses the controversy surrounding the Data Retention Directive with an emphasis on the 2011 decision of the Cyprus Supreme Court which has annulled several district court orders that allowed the police access to telecommunications data relating to certain persons relevant to criminal investigations. The annulment has been on the ground that the legal provisions upon which the orders have been issued are unconstitutional. It will suggest that the decision does not entail a direct rejection of the EU Data Retention Directive and that in any event, Cyprus is not a Member State resisting the particular measure. This is because the legal provisions are deemed unconstitutional, though part of the law that has transposed the relevant Directive into national law are provisions that go beyond what the EU legislator intended to regulate through that Directive. Still, the particular Directive sits rather uneasily within the ‘human rights’ regime, in particular the one governing the individual right of privacy.     

Allocating responsibility among controllers,processors, and “everything in between”: the definition of actors and roles in Directive 95/46/EC

In Opinion 1/2010, the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party has provided additional guidance concerning the concepts of ‘controller’ and ‘processor’ contained in Directive 95/46/EC. This guidance aims to assist practitioners in their determination of whether an entity is acting as a controller or as a processor towards a particular data processing operation. Despite the fact that this opinion is informative, the existing framework still appears to leave room for a considerable amount of legal uncertainty. This uncertainty is attributable in part to the nature of the existing concepts, but also (and perhaps to a larger extent) to their apparent misalignment with current processing realities. In this paper, the author seeks to articulate why the existing concepts often remain difficult to apply in practice, in order to enable a constructive reflection on how these issues might be addressed in the future.     

Medical data breaches: Notification delayed is notification denied

The EU and the United States have implemented data breach notification rules that cover the health sectors. Nevertheless, data breach incidents involving medical data continue to rise, especially in the US and the UK. The HITECH Act, Pub. L. 111-5 Title XIII is the first federal health breach notification law in the US to be characterized by less government intrusions, while the revised EU Privacy Directive, 2009/136/EC calls for tougher privacy protection for data held by electronic communication providers. While the EU law sets a global de facto standard, the law remains toothless without strong enforcement mechanisms.     

GC/MS衍生化测定精浆中游离支链氨基酸和果糖

目的 建立人精浆中支链氨基酸和果糖的气相质谱衍生化分析方法.方法 精液样本液化离心后,按精子活率的临床标准分为正常组和非正常组,经TMS微波衍生化,GC/MS分析两组支链氨基酸、果糖衍生物含量差异.结果 正常组与非正常组的缬氨酸,亮氨酸,异亮氨酸在相对含量上均有一定差异.正常组3种氨基酸相对含量高于非正常组.果糖分析观察到同样的特征,正常组相对含量高于非正常组.结论 精子活率低的精浆样本仍可检出支链氨基酸和果糖,其差异有助于无精子、少精子精斑的法医学鉴别.     

GC/MS法联合分析生物检材中的尼美舒利、二氧丙嗪

目的建立生物检材中尼美舒利、二氧丙嗪的GC/MS检验方法。方法采用浸取法提取,GC/MS定性检验,内标法选择离子检测（SIM）模式定量检验。结果最低回收率为69%,尼美舒利的线性相关系数为0.998,克咳敏的线性相关系数为0.9973。结论该方法操作简便快速,提取率高,可用于实际案件中尼美舒利、二氧丙嗪的检验。     

顶空GC／MS法检验血液中的硫化氢

目的建立血液中硫化氢的气相色谱质谱联用分析方法。方法取心血3mL-5mL,置于20mL顶空瓶中,加入1g氯化钠,加3mL-5mL蒸馏水,加入2mol／L盐酸1mL,加盖密封,混匀后于80℃水浴中加热20min。取液上气体0．5mL进样分析。结果在中毒死亡者的心血中检出硫化氢,保留时间参考值为3．6min。结论该方法可用于刑事案件中硫化氢的快速分析。