Taphonomic mycota: fungi with forensic potential

Forensic archaeologists and criminal investigators employ many different techniques for the location, recovery, and analysis of clandestine graves. Many of these techniques are based upon the premise that a grave is an anomaly and therefore differs physically, biologically, or chemically from its surroundings. The work reviewed in this communication demonstrates how and why field mycology might provide a further tool towards the investigation of scenes of crime concealed in forest ecosystems. The fruiting structures of certain fungi, the ammonia and the postputrefaction fungi, have been recorded repeatedly in association with decomposed mammalian cadavers in disparate regions of the world. The ecology and physiology of these fungi are reviewed briefly with a view to their potential as a forensic tool. This application of mycology is at an interface with forensic archaeology and forensic taphonomy and may provide a means to detect graves and has the potential to estimate postburial interval.     

Does Self-Control Influence Maternal Attachment? A Reciprocal Effects Analysis from Early Childhood Through Middle Adolescence

Objectives

The purpose of this study is twofold. First, this study assesses the extent to which self-control and maternal attachment mutually influence one another. Second, it investigates whether this process continues to occur during adolescence. To date, studies of the etiology of self-control have yet to adequately address these issues, despite the fact that a number of theoretical perspectives emphasize the reciprocal nature of the parent-child relationship.

Methods

The current study seeks to shed light on these issues by examining the relationship between self-control and maternal attachment using structural equation modeling for eight waves of data spanning a period of time that encompasses early childhood through middle adolescence.

Results

The results yield two findings bearing on the adequacy of Gottfredson and Hirschi??s model of self-control development. First, measures of self-control and maternal attachment were found to mutually influence one another during childhood. Second, these effects were reduced to nonsignificance during adolescence.

Conclusions

This study finds that self-control emerges during childhood in a complex manner in which it both shapes and is shaped by parental attachment.     

Using ninhydrin to detect gravesoil

Some death scene investigations commence without knowledge of the location of the body and/or decomposition site. In these cases, it is necessary to locate the remains or the site where the body decomposed prior to movement. We hypothesized that the burial of a mammalian cadaver will result in the release of ninhydrin reactive nitrogen (NRN) into associated soil and that this reaction might have potential as a tool for the identification of clandestine graves. Juvenile rat (Rattus rattus) cadavers were buried in three contrasting soil types in Australian tropical savanna ecosystems and allowed to decompose over a period of 28 days. Soils were sequentially harvested and analyzed for NRN. Cadaver burial resulted in an approximate doubling (mean = 1.7 +/- 0.1) in the concentration of soil NRN. This reaction has great potential to be used as a presumptive test for gravesoil and this use might be greatly enhanced following more detailed research.     

A laboratory incubation method for determining the rate of microbiological degradation of skeletal muscle tissue in soil

A controlled laboratory experiment is described, in principle and practice, which can be used for the of determination the rate of tissue decomposition in soil. By way of example, an experiment was conducted to determine the effect of temperature (12 degrees, 22 degrees C) on the aerobic decomposition of skeletal muscle tissue (Organic Texel x Suffolk lamb (Ovis aries)) in a sandy loam soil. Measurements of decomposition processes included muscle tissue mass loss, microbial CO2 respiration, and muscle tissue carbon (C) and nitrogen (N). Muscle tissue mass loss at 22 degrees C always was greater than at 12 degrees C (p < 0.001). Microbial respiration was greater in samples incubated at 22 degrees C for the initial 21 days of burial (p < 0.01). All buried muscle tissue samples demonstrated changes in C and N content at the end of the experiment. A significant correlation (p < 0.001) was demonstrated between the loss of muscle tissue-derived C (Ct) and microbially-respired C (Cm) demonstrating CO2 respiration may be used to predict mass loss and hence biodegradation. In this experiment Q10 (12 degrees C-22 degrees C) = 2.0. This method is recommended as a useful tool in determing the effect of environmental variables on the rate of decomposition of various tissues and associated materials.     

Orthodox Identity as Traditionalism: Construction of Political Meaning in the Current Public Discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church

This article reviews the articulation of traditional political values in the contemporary discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC). As an empirical basis, the article takes the ROC’s official documents reflecting its position on social and political issues, the statements of various Synodal departments and Church hierarchs, as well as the statements of those representatives of the Orthodox intelligentsia, who promote an alternative agenda for Church-state dialogue. The author analyses the discursive forms deployed for the use of two key concepts, related to two markers of traditionalist worldview (opinions about liberalism, and positions taken with regard to the rights of sexual minorities), and studies the context in which these confessional ethical norms are politicized. This allows the author to move from interpreting Orthodox identity as merely a confessional/religious affiliation, expressing itself in a range of practices (attending services, etc), to an interpretation of Orthodox identity as traditionalist in the political sense of that word, involving the formation of a distinctive political theology and the politicization of confessional ideas of morality.     

Sanction de la croyance dans le procès de sorcellerie

Conclusion De cette brève étude, trois problèmes d'ordre méthodologique et theorique se dégagent.Tout d'abord, la question de l'inhérence de la sanction au processus syntagmatique de la croyance. Le croire, pourrait-on dire, est un effet de sens éminemment volatile et qui demande à être fixé. En tant que configuration modale, il présuppose donc le croisement des parcours cognitifs sous-jacents de deux sujets, dont l'un reconnaît (sanctionne) l'autre, et inversement, dans l'alternance réversible de la position destinatrice. Il y a alors surmodalisation épistémique (en termes de certitude) d'un jugement aléthique implicite (de contingence): le Destinateur exige du sujet que celui-ci lui donne forme; c'est à ce stade qu'interviennent les relations entre les modalités du devoir et du pouvoir d'un côté, et celle du croire, de l'autre.La question, ensuite, de l'énonciation, car la croyance est un effet de discours et le procés de sorcellerie est un dialogue construit; le système actantiel qu'ils recouvrent ensemble s'inscrit nécessairement dans un discours à deux voix: l'autre (ici actualisé, mais qui peut être simplement virtuel dans d'autres configurations) est co-présent dans l'énoncé du sujet du croire en tant qu'instance énonciative. Et le discours dialogique où se forme la mouvance du croire est tout entier orienté vers l'établissement d'un monologue collectif: la conjonction des je dans le nous.Il nous semble, enfin, que la tripartition de la figure de la sanction — transitive, réflexive, translative —, qu'on vient de dégager à partir de sa manifestation occurrentielle dans le discours du procès de sorcellerie, peut être considérée comme un modèle méthodologique plus large, et étendue à l'ensemble des procés où la question porte essentiellement, à travers le rôle thématique ambigu de l'accusé, sur la validité d'un univers doxologique: le discours de l'auto-critique ne vise-t-il pas, avant tout, la sauvegarde et la confirmation d'un Destinateur menacé?