Fluorescence of a Natural Fluorophore as a Key to Improve Fingerprint Contrast Image

The optical and morphological properties of resveratrol were investigated. This nontoxic fluorescent natural material, emitting in the visible blue light, was used as an optical marker, enabling the enhancement of the image contrast coming from relief pictures marked on challenging surfaces. By applying appropriated imaging softwares, this marker was verified to be very useful in the latent fingerprint recognition deposited on different wood surface types, mainly those with high level of roughness, where conventional forensic materials do not allow effective fingerprint image visualization.     

Coups and nascent democracies: the military and Egypt's failed consolidation

Why do coups happen in some nascent democracies but not in others? To answer this question, I probe four interconnected variables in democratizing regimes: the military's ethos; the military's corporate interests; the military's perception of the new civilian ruling elite; and the correlation of force between the military and the founding democratic government. My argument is twofold: first, I maintain that ideational variables are central to shaping the military's political behaviour; and second, I argue in favour of merging insights from cultural, corporate, and structural theories to understand the consolidation, or breakdown, of nascent democracies.     

The new urban poor: the Tobas indians

This article focuses on the Tobas Indians who belong to a large group of indigenous people known as the ?guaycurues?. Originally, the Tobas occupied an extensive part of northern Argentina in the Chaco area, which includes the provinces of Chaco, Santa Fe, Santiago del Estero, Salta, and Formosa, reaching as far as neighboring Paraguay. The Tobas were a nomadic group who lived by hunting, fishing, and gathering. They later adopted some Andean cultural traditions such as ceramics, weaving, and basket making. However, over the years of continuing development, devastation plagued the community and migration became the only option. Rosario became the preferred destination and now the Tobas are living in and around the city. Rubbish provides these people with food, clothes, shoes, and a regular income. Aggravating their poor situation is the difficulty in obtaining social welfare assistance from the government because of political and religious factors. In order for the Tobas to develop in their new urban environment, various specialists are needed to tap the potential of this group to take the initiative to be productive in their own small ways.     

Navigating ISIS’s Preferred Platform: Telegram1

ABSTRACT

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) online recruitment has been the subject of considerable interest by journalists and technology writers, but there has been no scholarly work to date exploring ISIS Telegram channels and chat rooms. Telegram has played an important role in recruitment and coordination in recent ISIS/terror attacks in Europe. Further, Telegram is quickly replacing the group’s online presence on more open platforms such as Facebook and Twitter as these companies aggressively police and shut down ISIS-linked accounts. This research note aims to demystify Telegram, explain how it can be used for research, and discuss some of the addictive qualities associated with user engagement.     

Three-dimensional computer-assisted craniometrics: a comparison of the uncertainty in measurement induced by surface reconstruction performed by two computer programs

Digital investigation of anthropological material through computed tomography (CT) offers several new opportunities in morphometrics. However, an object measured with computer-assisted methods does not necessarily exactly match the original one. The scanning and surface reconstruction of the object induce some alterations, and data acquisition is prone to measurement uncertainty. The purpose of this research is to evaluate the intra- and inter-observers variations in medical CT scan measurements of a known-size phantom and two dry crania. Two software packages, AMIRA and Treatment and Increased Vision for Medical Imaging (TIVMI), which use different techniques of surface reconstructions, were compared. The mean difference between the measurements was lower for TIVMI, using an objective algorithm based on the half-maximum height (HMH) protocol in three dimensions (3D). AMIRA can induce up to a 4% error in known measurements and 5% uncertainty in dry skull measurements. This study emphasises the risk of object shape alteration in each step of its digitisation.