Concordance study between the AmpFlSTR MiniFiler PCR amplification kit and conventional STR typing kits

The AmpFlSTR MiniFiler polymerase chain reaction amplification kit developed by Applied Biosystems enables size reduction on eight of the larger STR loci amplified in the Identifiler kit, which will aid recovery of information from highly degraded DNA samples. The MiniFiler Kit amplifies CSF1PO, FGA, D2S1338, D7S820, D13S317, D16S539, D18S51, and D21S11 as well as the sex-typing locus amelogenin. A total of 1308 samples were evaluated with both the MiniFiler and Identifiler STR kits: 449 African American, 445 Caucasian, 207 Hispanic, and 207 Asian individuals. Full concordance between Identifiler and MiniFiler Kits was observed in 99.7% (10,437 out of 10,464) STR allele calls compared. The 27 differences seen are listed in Table 1 and encompass the loci D13S317 (n = 14) and D16S539 (n = 10) as well as D18S51 (n = 1), D7S820 (n = 1), and CSF1PO (n = 1). Genotyping discrepancies between the Identifiler and MiniFiler kits were confirmed by reamplification of the samples and further testing using the PowerPlex 16 kit in many cases. DNA sequence analysis was also performed in order to understand the nature of the genetic variations causing the allele dropout or apparent repeat unit shift.     

Race,Partisanship, and Political Trust Following <Emphasis Type="Italic">Bush versus Gore</Emphasis> (2000)

In contrast to what we know about the sources of political trust among whites, recent research suggests that political mistrust among blacks indicates discontent with the political system. The current study adds to research investigating racial differences in political trust by examining racial differences in the influence of the 2000 United States presidential election on political trust. Specifically, I test for whether whites and blacks adjusted their trust in government in response to the Supreme Court’s decision in Bush versus Gore (2000) and whether the influence of the Court’s decision on trust was dependent on partisan identification. The findings indicate that blacks perceived the Court’s decision as illegitimate, reinforcing their mistrust in their political system.

How to read Michelle Obama

ABSTRACT

Michelle Obama's role as the first African American First Lady is more than merely symbolic. Her self-representation as a professional woman, mother and spouse is directed towards a wider representativeness that is new in American political discourse. As a descendant of slaves and slave owners whose American ancestry can be traced back to the 1850s, she can lay claim to an African American legacy that the President lacks. As a result, some of her more controversial statements during the presidential campaign about the black family, class mobility and national pride need to be read in the context of an African American literature and historiography that challenges the American creed of equality, liberty and unconditional love of one's country. Michelle Obama's family history, her Princeton undergraduate thesis and her own words in interviews are analysed here in the discursive context of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, Toni Morrison's Beloved, Richard Powers's The Time of Our Singing, and Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave-girl, as well as the historiography of the civil rights movement. Such a reading reveals how Michelle Obama's background weaves the legacy of slavery into the American fabric, and shows that a redemptive construction of American history—in which the success of the civil rights movement of the 1960s and the Obama presidency are taken as fulfilment of the American creed (and of Martin Luther King's dream)—must be refused if a new national self-definition with African America at its heart is to take its place.     

The Shale Gas Revolution: U.S. and EU Policy and Research Agendas

The “shale gas revolution” raises a host of questions for policy makers and researchers on both sides of the Atlantic. We provide a brief overview of the regulatory environment as it relates to hydraulic fracturing for natural gas in the United States and the European Union. We then pose a set of open questions, which we believe should shape policy and research agendas surrounding shale gas wherever the development of this resource is being pursued or considered.     

African being and cultural project

This article examines aspects of African culture seen as projects from an existentialist perspective and seeks to make a robust contribution to African studies and in particular interdisciplinary African studies. It offers a focus on the interiorisation of African cultural project-as-text as an upsurge of being; interiorisation(s) of being projects of African being and consciousness. This study on African subjectivity situates the African cultural constituency within a specific existentialist schematic: the African for itself in the form of cultural project-as-text, a reflective black consciousness, the black ‘I’ or African being-with-others in the form of cultural projects-as-texts, a self-reflective conscious of black consciousness, the black ‘we’-subject, ‘us’, and lastly African being-for-ourselves Black existentialist philosophy is predicated on the liberation of all black people from oppression.     

Schools,Neighborhoods, and Adolescent Conflicts: A Situational Examination of Reciprocal Dynamics

Youths' exposure to school violence is ecologically patterned, occurring disproportionately in public schools located in urban disadvantaged communities. We know less, however, about how situational processes and environmental contexts shape school violence. In addition, limited research has examined the reciprocal nature of school and neighborhood conflicts. Here we draw from a qualitative study of violence in the lives of African American youths from a disadvantaged inner‐city community to examine young men's experiences with school‐based violence. Specifically, we investigate two questions: (1) how conflicts are shaped by the school setting, and (2) how and when such conflicts unfold and spill over between neighborhoods and schools. Our findings highlight the importance of examining the situational and ecological contexts of youth violence to further illuminate its causes and consequences.     

苏联宪法学说对中国宪法学说的影响

苏联宪法学说对中国宪法学说的影响集中体现在20世纪50年代,但其影响过程前可追溯至20世纪20年代以降,后可延续至20世纪80、90年代。其影响的方式体现为翻译出版苏联宪法的教材、著作和论文,苏联法学专家直接开设"苏维埃国家法"课程介绍苏联宪法理论;影响的内容主要表现在宪法概念、宪法作用、宪法本质、宪法与法制和法治的关系、人民权利与公民权利、宪法学体系等方面;影响的结果可归结为宪法学研究"阶级斗争范式"的形成、以国家学说为核心的宪法学体系建构以及轻视宪法基础理论的研究。     

Blockchain and law: Incompatible codes?

Blockchain has recently joined a long line of technological innovations that have been characterised as disruptive to, and possibly even subversive of, fundamental legal principles. This article looks behind the hype to examine how blockchain might – or might not – be compatible with established legal and regulatory models. Data protection is discussed as an example of an area of law that some have claimed cannot be reconciled with blockchain. Various other conflicts are also identified and concerns about blockchain are placed in the context of wider historical debates about new technologies vs law.     

Banking in the cloud: Part 1 – banks' use of cloud services

This paper looks at EU banks' use of public cloud computing services. It is based primarily on anonymised interviews with banks, cloud providers, advisers, and financial services regulators. The findings are presented in three parts. Part 1 explores the extent to which banks operating in the EU, including global banks, use public cloud computing services. It describes how banks are using cloud computing and the key drivers for doing so (such as time to market), as well as real and perceived barriers (such as misconceptions about cloud and financial services regulation), including cultural and technical/commercial aspects. It summarises how banks have approached the cloud and how cloud providers have approached the banking sector.Part 2 of this paper will cover the main legal and regulatory issues that may affect banks' use of cloud services, including how the regulation of outsourcing applies to banks' use of cloud services. Part 3 will look at the key contractual issues that arise between banks and cloud service providers, including data protection requirements, termination, service changes, and liability.All three parts of the paper can be accessed via Computer Law and Security Review's page on ScienceDirect at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/02673649?sdc=2. The full list of sources is available via the same link and will be printed alongside the third part of the paper.     

Conclusions: security culture and transnational challenges – ECOWAS in comparative perspective

Drawing upon the various contributions to this special issue, this concluding article reflects upon the ways in which a shared security culture has influenced how the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has responded to transnational challenges. It then attempts to contextualise the ECOWAS approach by providing a brief comparative analysis of how other regional arrangements in Africa and Asia have addressed transnational challenges.