Thyreoglobulin and violent asphyxia

The concentration of thyreoglobulin (tg) was determined for death caused by hanging, strangulation by ligature, and throttling. Cases of sudden death (traumatic aortic rupture, penetrating wounds of the heart) were used for comparison. The mean values in cases of hanging (149.9±202.3 ng/ml), strangulation by ligature (193.1±173.3), manual strangulation (561.6±173.9) are distinguishable from violent acute deaths (23.3±27.6) and living healthy individuals (17.3±16.1). By means of statistical comparisons, significant differences were found between throttling and strangulation by ligature and between throttling and hanging (adjusted P<0.001). In connection with examination of the bodies high tg values can be regarded as a vital reaction in obstructive asphyxia.     

Anthropological analyses of 30 insertion/deletion autosomal markers in five major ethnic groups of Pakistan

We investigated the forensic efficacy of the 30 insertion/deletion (Indel) markers included in the Qiagen Investigator® DIPplex kit in 529 Pakistani individuals from five major subpopulations in Pakistan (Punjabi, Pashtun, Sindhi, Saraiki, and Baloch). In the Sindhi population, the distribution of HLD81 and HLD97 alleles deviated from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium after Bonferroni correction. The combined match probability ranged from 2.0E-12 (Pashtun and Baloch) to 1.0E-12 (Sindhi), and the mean paternity exclusion power varied from 0.995 (Punjabi, Sindhi, and Saraiki) to 0.996 (Pashtun and Baloch). The high combined power of discrimination (0.999 999 999 999 97) and low combined match probability (1.7E-12) for all subpopulations studied support the utility of the 30 Indel markers for forensic identification in the studied subpopulations. The allele frequencies of the Indel markers in the Pakistani subpopulations were compared with those from 18 other populations. The results show that the populations clustered according to geography. The subpopulations investigated in this work showed a close genetic relationship with others from Pakistan, as well as with South Central Asian and Middle Eastern populations. The results suggest that the Investigator^® DIPplex kit can be useful as a supplementary tool for human identification in the five Pakistani subpopulations investigated in this study.Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/20961790.2021.1933366 .     

The Effects of Local Government Consolidation on Turnout: Evidence from a Quasi‐Experiment in Switzerland

In the last decades, municipal mergers have been one major element of local government reforms in Switzerland and beyond. In this article, we describe and analyze the political effects of this development. We use a quasi‐experimental setting to test the impact of municipal mergers on electoral participation. We find that in merged municipalities, the decrease in turnout is significantly stronger than in non‐merged municipalities. Further, the effect is more pronounced in relatively small localities. There is a temporal dimension to this effect—that is, turnout drops mainly in the first election after the first merger, but not so much after the second or third merger. Hence, the study provides a skeptical yet differentiated perspective on the democratic consequences of municipal mergers and points to further research avenues to develop a more comprehensive understanding of local government consolidation.     

Gender,populist attitudes,and voting: explaining the gender gap in voting for populist radical right and populist radical left parties

Empirical studies have demonstrated that compared to almost all other parties, populist radical right (PRR) parties draw more votes from men than from women. However, the two dominant explanations that are generally advanced to explain this disparity – gender differences regarding socio-economic position and lower perceptions regarding the threat of immigrants – cannot fully explain the difference. The article contends that it might actually be gender differences regarding the conceptualisation of society and politics – populist attitudes – that explain the gender gap. Thus, the gap may be due, in part, to differences in socialisation. The article analyses EES 2014 data on voting for the populist radical right and the populist radical left in nine European countries. Across countries, the gender gap in voting for the PRR is indeed partly explained by populist attitudes. For populist radical left parties, the results are less clear, suggesting that populism has different meanings to voters on the left and on the right.     

Successful STR and SNP typing of FTA Card samples with low amounts of DNA after DNA extraction using a Qiagen BioRobot EZ1 Workstation

FTA Cards (GE Healthcare) have been used for more than 4 years in Denmark for the collection of buccal cells as reference samples in crime cases. Semi-automated protocols for STR typing of DNA on punches of FTA Cards are routinely used. In average, full STR profiles were generated from approximately 95% of the FTA Cards with a standard punching protocol, while partial or no STR profile were obtained from 5% of the samples. Here, the Qiagen BioRobot^® EZ1 Workstation (Qiagen) and the EZ1 DNA Investigator Kit (Qiagen) was used to extract DNA from 29 FTA Cards from which a complete STR profile was not generated with the standard punching protocol. All 29 samples were successfully typed with the AmpF?STR^® Identifiler™ PCR Amplification Kit (Applied Biosystems) and with the SNPforID 49plex SNP assay. The lowest amount of DNA that resulted in complete STR and SNP profiles was 80 pg. The STR and SNP profiles were identical to those generated from another sample collected from each of the 29 individuals.     

Managerial autonomy: does it matter for the performance of water utilities?

The public administration literature asserts that autonomy is central to performance. In this article we develop a managerial autonomy index, which we apply to 22 water utilities in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. The 16 items that underlie our composite autonomy index display a high degree of internal consistency. This speaks for the validity of the autonomy concept. We find that the autonomy scores of the 22 utilities vary widely. We also find strong and positive associations between autonomy scores and six out of eight key performance indicators. Our results support the idea that autonomy is central to the performance of water service providers. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.