The fingernails of Mary Sullivan: developing reliable methods for selectively isolating endogenous and exogenous DNA from evidence

The fingernails of Mary Sullivan, the last victim of the Boston Strangler, were examined to determine if any genetic information about the murderer could be obtained. The nails were extremely friable necessitating the development of new techniques for isolating and purifying DNA. DNA yields from nails were optimized by using a NaOH-based preparation technique, which was simple, efficient, and minimized handling. Methods for selectively and thoroughly removing exogenous material on nails were also developed through use of a species-specific PCR assay, wherein mitochondrial DNA from the nail could easily be differentiated from DNA of contaminating cells.     

The effect of misperception on strategic behavior in legislative settings: Social psychology meets rational choice

This paper is about the conditions under which simple social psychological processes can affect collective decisions. In rational choice theory, social psychological effects are said to cancel out, be randomized, or be corrected by communication. Yet as Janis and Mann (1977) argued, there are generally recurring conditions in which such factors influence individual decisions. The question is, Under what conditions can we expect these factors to affect collective decisions? This paper suggests a general approach to identifying the effects of strategic misperception, illustrates it with an example of a social psychological process that affects player perceptions, and describes the preference distributions in which this simple process would change majority voting outcomes. The general conclusion is that strategic misperception may affect majority decisions under so many distributions of preferences that decisions cannot be predicted from knowledge of actors' preferences alone.     

“Open skies”

Abstract

As a result of the convergence of telecommunications and mass communications technologies, American policymakers face a series of critical decisions about infrastructural investment, technical architecture, and regulation that will determine the character of the U.S. electronic industrial base. This article develops the argument that the current policy trajectory will likely lead to some awkward choices. Powerful vested interests have distorted the communications policy process. Regulatory inertia has come to tie the hands of the regulators as well as the hands of industry leaders. We argue that there exists a critical opportunity for independent communications policy research to make a difference and to anticipate and facilitate a paradigm shift in telecommunications regulation.     

Geopolitical perceptions of the world today

Abstract

This article is based on the author's study of geopolitical perceptions of the power of nations made during the last decade.

He describes the thinking of scholars, especially Mackinder, Mahan, and Spykman, as they have related geopolitics to international affairs.

He cites the Soviet domination of Afghanistan as one of the primary current examples of a classical geopolitical objective of the USSR to obtain access to territory opening the way eventually to the Indian Ocean.

He points out that the Soviet Union, dominating much of the landmass of Eurasia, the Mackinder “Heartland,” has polarized world politics and military security alignments because of its totalitarian political system and its expansion into other crucial areas of the world.

For fifty years, the author explains, the United States has been forced to take defensive measures against totalitarian states, in recent times principally the USSR, to prevent their domination of the economic resources and peoples of the world.

The author proposes that the United States, destined geopol‐itically to be a sea power, must have sufficient military strength to develop and protect global maritime and trading links with other seafaring nations on the periphery of Eurasia and in the Southern Hemisphere. The U.S. forces would constitute a peacetime constabulary of the sea to insure the security and prosperity not only of Americans but of their friends and allies.     

Soviet footprints in St. Peter's Square

Abstract

The collapsing political and economic structures, the rise of Islamic nationalism, and the defeat in Afghanistan are viewed as contributing factors to potential terrorism within the Soviet Union. These factors are discussed within the framework of nationalist terrorism. An attempt is made to predict, based on the current trends, sociopolitical results if nationalistic terrorism becomes a reality in the Soviet Union.     

Remarks

This study analyzes the ways in which the issue (or issues) of religion and politics were shaped during the 1984 campaign partially by the exigencies of political rhetoric and partially by the logic of the problem itself. The form in which the issue(s) of religion and politics came into view is traced in four addresses: one each by President Reagan, Walter Mondale, Senator Edward Kennedy, and Governor Mario Cuomo. One premise of this study is that such political speeches are in some sense and to some extent rational discourse aimed at persuading the unpersuaded that the speakers’ moral, political, and constitutional perceptions are cognitively superior to opposing perceptions. The author finds two substantive issues in the argument: the “toleration/church and state” issue and the “relation of Catholic moral principles and public policy” issue. The manner in which the speakers defend their position on these issues is explicated so as to reveal the strengths and weaknesses in each speaker's formulation. The limits of the accuracy of each side's rhetoric are identified in such a way that it becomes evident they are debating importantly different interpretations of principles on which they nominally agree. It is argued that the core of the debate concerned whether religious citizens have a right to try to change the drift towards an exclusion of religious traditions and practices and of religiously based moral values from a place in our public policy or whether such exclusion is required constitutionally and hence attempts to change its attack or undermine the Constitution.     

Deaths Involving Methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) in Upper East Tennessee

Two deaths involving 3, 4‐methylenedioxypyrovalerone (MDPV) are reported. MDPV is a synthetic cathinone stimulant found in “bath salts” with neurological and cardiovascular toxicity. Biological specimens were analyzed for MDPV by GC/MS and LC/MS. A White man was found dead with signs of nausea and vomiting after repeatedly abusing bath salts during a weekend binge. Femoral venous blood and urine had MDPV concentrations of 39 ng/mL and 760 ng/mL. The second fatality was a White man with a history of drug and bath salt abuse found dead at a scene in total disarray after exhibiting fits of anger and psychotic behavior. Femoral venous blood and urine had MDPV concentrations of 130 ng/mL and 3800 ng/mL. The blood and urine MDPV concentrations are within the reported recreational concentration ranges (blood 24–241 ng/mL and urine 34–3900 ng/mL). Both decedents’ deaths were attributed to relevant natural causes in a setting of MDPV abuse.     

Drug use and criminal activity among rural probationers with DUI histories

The present study examined whether ever being arrested for driving under the influence (DUI) was associated with higher levels of substance use and criminal activity in a sample of 800 probationers. Lifetime and 30-day histories of substance use and criminal activity were compared across three groups of probationers from rural Kentucky: those with a single DUI arrest, those with two or more DUI arrests, and those with no DUI arrests. A larger percentage of probationers with a DUI arrest reported lifetime and 30-day substance use than non-DUI offenders in almost all drug and alcohol categories. Higher prevalence of criminal activity was limited primarily to the multiple DUI arrest group. Findings add to the literature on rural substance abusers and indicate that DUI may be used as a marker to help identify opportunities for targeted substance abuse interventions.