Extraction and isolation of cannabinoids from marijuana seizures and characterization by 1H NMR allied to chemometric tools

Marijuana, a drug derived from the Cannabis sativa L. plant, is the world's most consumed illicit drug. In this paper, a total of 156 marijuana samples seized in the state of Espírito Santo (ES), Brazil were studied and analysed by proton nuclear magnetic resonance (¹H NMR) spectroscopy to identify the major cannabinoids present. A crude extract of all samples was purified using high performance liquid chromatography so that these compounds could serve as reference substances. Nine fractions were obtained and analysed by ¹H NMR and gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC–MS), with five presented cannabinoids. ?⁹-THC (Δ⁹-trans-tetrahydrocannabinol), ?⁹-THCA (?⁹-tetrahydrocannabinolic acid), ?⁸-THC (?⁸-tetrahydrocannabinol), 11-hydroxycannabinol, CBV (cannabivarin), and CBN (cannabinol) were found, and their chemical structures were confirmed by GC–MS. The latter compound was obtained with high purity (≈100%), while the others were obtained as less complex mixtures with purity higher than 75% (except for Δ⁸-THC). Principal component analysis (PCA) was used on the ¹H NMR spectra of the 156 samples, and it was found that the samples were grouped according to the months, differentiating into two groups (from July 2014 to January 2015 and from February 2015 to July 2015), where non-grouping was observed from four macro-regions of the ES state (North, Central, Metropolitan, and South). The chemical profile of the seized samples was correlated to the ¹H NMR spectrum of an isolated CBN sub-fraction, in which the group formed by samples seized in the year 2015 presented lower CBN content in the chemical composition. From the PCA score plot, two groups of samples were confirmed using the partial least squares discriminant analysis and orthogonal projections to latent structures classification methods.     

The role of institutional and governance factors in public–private partnerships infrastructure investments in emerging economies

The overall development and sustained growth of any economy depend heavily on its infrastructure provisioning. Emerging economies are usually characterised by constrained public investments in infrastructure. Budgetary constraints of the governments are one of the major hurdles to these investments. Due to these reasons that governments of emerging economies continuously seek collaborations with the private sector for additional sources of funding infrastructure. Economies with solid institutional and governance frameworks are known to provide a conducive environment for enhanced private sector attraction in the sector. However, emerging economies face greater institutional and governance issues than developed economies, and they sometimes fall short of luring private investments in the infrastructure sector. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate the role of institutional and governance aspects in private sector attraction in emerging economies. This study provides empirical evidence with a sample of 114 emerging economies over a period of 20 years. Various econometric estimates were developed to explore the interplay between public-private partnership investments and governance factors. The results of the study provide an evidence of a positive association between these factors and private investments in public-private partnership arrangements.     

Centre–periphery relations in Afghanistan: Badakhshan between patrimonialism and institution-building

The article offers a review of centre–periphery relations and local politics in the Afghan province of Badakhshan from the 1980s to the post-2001 era. It maps the local powerbrokers and charts the transformations that occurred during this period, with particular reference to the impact of the central government's policies on local political alignments and relations of power. The key argument is that President Karzai's and the cabinet's behaviour towards Badakhshani politics was aimed at re-establishing a patrimonial system, rather than at institution-building as claimed. Unable or unwilling to successfully deal with established local players, Kabul resorted to sponsoring new players in local politics and facilitating their rise in order to weaken more independent powerbrokers. However, a local perception of weakness in Kabul, not least due to uncertainty over the durability of the Karzai administration, led local players, old and new, to behave with very short-term horizons, as ‘roving bandits’ rather than as ‘stationary’ ones.     

The challenge of the creative Third World

This article is a contribution to recent literature on the shape of the polycentric world order. It argues that the Third World remains a valid concept for describing the interests and ideas that shape the foreign policies of many key non-Western states. However, the Third World has changed in a fundamental way. The article describes the historical emergence and contemporary manifestations of a ‘creative’ Third World in contrast to the ‘protest’ Third World of the past. It describes the nature of this shift and how it is reshaping Western leadership. It argues that the main challenge for the West is to create a coherent pluralism in international order that embraces this creative Third World.     

Book reviews

“Poor Carolina”: Politics and Society in Colonial North Carolina, 1729–1776. By A. Roger Ekirch. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1981. 305 pp. $23.50.

Violent Death in the City: Suicide, Accident and Murder in Nineteenth‐Century Philadelphia. By Roger Lane. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1979. ix, 193 pp. $22.00.     

Featured reviews

The article examines the political origins and impact of recent managerial reform (the shift from the professional bureaucracy model of public administration to the new public management [NPM]) in UK local government. Two key drivers of managerial reform are identified: central–local relations and labour management. The former are historically complex due, partly, to the Victorian expediential justification of local government, and the tenuous constitutional status of local government in the British polity. These factors necessitate and permit central control with models of public administration a key mechanism for achieving this. In addition, as 70% of overall sector costs are made up of centrally funded labour costs, the centre's attempts to control labour management (pay and performance) is a second key driver of managerial reform. And models of public administration, again, are a major mechanism for achieving central control. The analysis is rooted in a brief historical examination of developments from the 1880s, and a longitudinal case study examining more recent developments to illustrate the general case made. Empirical findings show councillor, union and worker resistance to managerial reform. They also show job loss, work intensification, job insecurity and demoralisation of staff. Another key finding is that NPM is not new, but a regression to the Victorian era.     

Remembering the Indonesian Peasants’ Front and Plantation Workers’ Union (1945–1966)

The absence of a strong national peasant and agricultural workers’ movement in Indonesia can be traced back to the violent destruction of the Indonesian Peasants’ Front (BTI) and Plantation Workers’ Union (SARBUPRI) in 1965–1966. This contribution reflects on their role in building a progressive movement of peasants and workers in the face of continual attempts to squash them by the Indonesian state and military. How did the cadres learn about the situation and problems in rural areas, and what were their priorities in working with the peasants? Unpublished reports from the last round of the BTI's local-level ‘participatory action research’ conducted in 1965 provide some answers to these questions.     

Public–Private Partnership in Tunisia: Enfidha Airport Assessment of an Infrastructure Achievement

One of the largest recent private-sector investments and the first airport private-sector concession in the Maghreb is Enfidha Airport, a key factor in the success of the Tunisian Government’s public–private partnership (PPP) strategy. However, since Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, political and social turmoil is sweeping the country and worsening the economic indicators. This article aims to assess this PPP infrastructure, allowing us to determine if it is profitable in the long term and contributes therefore to the economic growth. The case study reveals the key role of the economic, social, and political environment in Tunisia, the dawn of the Arab Spring.     

Public–private partnerships (PPPs) in local services: risk-sharing and private delivery of water services in Spain

Local governments are increasingly utilising the public–private partnership (PPP) model as a means of organising service delivery in the public–private domain. This article examines the experiences with construction and operation of 131 PPP wastewater treatment plants in the region of Aragon, Spain. The study highlights how an inadequate management of construction risk and unsuitable transfer of demand and revenue risk resulted in significant time delays in execution of the PPP projects. The research also shows how the involvement of public bodies at local, regional and national level further added to the complexity of implementing the projects. The findings contribute to the literature on local service delivery and provide insights regarding risk transfer in long-term PPP contracts for the delivery of local services in general and water services in particular.     

Explaining Young People’s Involvement in Online Piracy: An Empirical Assessment Using the Offending Crime and Justice Survey in England and Wales

Abstract

The Internet has been widely acknowledged as facilitating many forms of youth offending. Existing research has identified important drivers of young people’s involvement in online crime, yet this has overwhelmingly relied on school or college samples. As such, it tells us little about those young people that have left the formal education system—a group who are more likely perpetrators of juvenile crime more generally. Focusing on young people’s involvement in online piracy offenses, our analysis draws on data from a nationally representative survey of England and Wales to better understand the dynamics of involvement in online crime across the population. We assess the potential overlaps between online and offline offending, the role of differential association and deviancy neutralization techniques in shaping offending behavior, as well as the protective effect of strong family support networks in reducing involvement in piracy. We find that illegal downloaders tend to be young, male, and have a higher number of delinquent friends. We also find that many of these offenders do not confine their offending to online spaces, with involvement in offline property offenses also high among this group.