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.     

Trial and Error – Failing and Learning in Criminal Proceedings

This paper addresses the selective mechanisms by which criminal proceedings produce strong arguments. It does so by focusing on the failing of argument themes (topoi) in the course of criminal proceedings, rather than on their career. In a further step, the notion of failing is bound to learning: different forms of failing point at different ways and places of learning. The study is comparative, relating cases from four different legal regimes (England, USA, Italy and Germany) that are taken from four extensive ethnographic studies in defense lawyer’s firms. We will track down the failures of topoi at three different stages (pre-trial, trial, and deliberation) in our different legal regimes. Failing occurs in all proceedings in various modes and at different stages. We argue that those modes as well as the different stages at which they occur point at the spots in the respective procedures that allow for learning about the inherent conceptions of “good reasons.”     

Property versus political holdouts: the case of the TGV rail line Lyon–Budapest in Italy

The law and economics literature commonly justifies the state’s taking power on the grounds that it is necessary to overcome holdouts and, thus, allow efficient development projects to move forward (A development project is efficient when the benefit it generates exceeds its cost.). By permitting the government to take private property rights non-consensually, the taking power limits the ability of private property owners to engage in strategic bargaining with the government and puts a cap on their ability to extract payments from the government in exchange for agreeing to transfer their rights. In this paper, I will argue that the standard story is highly incomplete and, therefore, inaccurate. It conveniently ignores the ability of politically powerful groups to block development projects by exercising their de facto veto power over proposed projects. Such groups do not necessarily have rights in any properties directly affected by the project. Once these groups, whom I call “political holdouts”, are added to the analysis, it becomes clear that the payment of just compensation—or any other aspect of eminent domain law and regulatory takings jurissprudence—will not help to remove their opposition and, a fortiori, cannot guarantee efficient development. I will explore the phenomenon of “political holdouts” and analyze its causes. As I will show, political holdouts are ubiquitous. Political holdouts may arise with respect to most of what passes for public policy projects, under either the aegis of eminent domain or the government’s police power, and also with respect to non-NIMBY projects. This observation may seem counterintuitive at first. However, one should consider that efficient development projects create a surplus over which powerful interest groups compete. As should be clear, what is of interest to localities and political groups is not the overall utility of a particular development project, but rather their payoff from it. Municipalities may oppose projects that benefit them simply to increase their share of the overall surplus generated by the project. Hence, the problem I point out is significant and acute. In the remainder of this paper, I will discuss in depth how the problem of political holdouts affected the construction of a fast train line (the Lyon–Torino–Milano–Trieste–Khoper–Ljubljana–Budapest TGV line) in northern Italy.     

Intentional Homicide: A Fifteen-Year Study (2000–2014) at the Department of Forensic Medicine,University of Rome “Sapienza”

This study analyzes postmortem records from 260 homicide cases autopsied by the Department of Forensic Medicine in Rome from 2000 to 2014. The victims were mainly males (74%) and young (61% aged from 21 to 50 years). Although the victims were mostly Italians, the number of foreign victims (33%) has increased since 1990, primarily due to immigration. The offenders frequently used firearms (39%), particularly in multiple murders. An increase in blunt (20%) and sharp force (32%) weapons was also seen. The primary crime scene was residential (42%), and the head was the most frequently injured body region. Male victims occurred frequently in the context of organized crime (7.6%). In family or intimate-sexual relationships, women were the majority of victims (8%). Forensic pathologists play an important role during investigation. They should consider all the information available to them, including autopsy information, crime scene information, and crime investigation data.     

Trustworthy shared electronic health records: recordkeeping requirements and HealthConnect

HealthConnect is a proposed national electronic health record system, centred on electronic health event summaries, that capture all health encounters of those patients and health care professionals who "opt in" to the system. This article reports on key findings of an analysis of HealthConnect's data principles, systems and business architecture, from a records continuum perspective, and from recordkeeping requirements of reliability and authenticity. It concludes that HealthConnect lacks critical recordkeeping functionality and that inadequate policy with regard to ownership, consent and privacy impacts on the business and systems architecture, and consequently its ability to deliver trustworthy records.     

A Closer Look at an Eye for an Eye: Laypersons’ Punishment Decisions Are Primarily Driven by Retributive Motives

According to recent research on laypersons’ punitive attitudes people’s sentencing decisions are primarily driven by a desire for retribution. The research designed to test this notion, however, can be criticized for suffering from several limitations. Three online-based studies were conducted with samples from Western Europe with the aim of replicating the findings of Carlsmith (J Exp Soc Psychol 42:437–451, 2006) in which participants’ punishment motives were inferred from their behavior in a process tracing task. In the present research, this approach was adopted and modified in order to provide a more conservative test for the notion that people mainly care about retribution. Although these modifications strongly influenced the overall pattern of results, retribution still was the most important punishment motive in all three studies.     

‘Doing gender and gender equality’ through emotional expressions during a research interview. Views of highly educated Swedish young adults

The aim of this article is to contribute to the knowledge on how concepts of gender and gender equality are constructed within research interviews, deepening our understanding of the underlying gender system in society. We focus on emotions and emotional processes expressed during interviews on work and family when specific questions originating in the World Value Survey were asked. Our study is based on interviews with highly educated women and men, in two metropolitan areas of Sweden. In this article, we seek to shed more light on how incorporating emotional expressions and the evaluation of these emotions can grasp the construction of gender and gender equality. We highlight the range of emotional expressions that appear during the interviews, differences in their usage by women and men and the links to the construction of gender and gender equality. We explore how the specific situation of the interview influences ‘doing gender and gender equality’ through emotions. Our results reveal that men and women use similar but also different emotional expressions in conforming to the gender equality norm. Men and women, interviewers and interviewees agreed on this norm, but the ways they ’performed’ the norm are gender based.     

Family policies and gender in Hungary, Poland, and Romania

This paper discusses changes and new directions in the gendered nature of the welfare state in three post-state socialist societies: Hungary, Poland and Romania. Relying on an analysis of laws and regulations passed after 1989 concerning child care, maternity and parental leave, family support, unemployment and labor market policies, retirement and abortion laws, the authors identify the differences and the similarities among the three countries, pointing out not only their status in 2001, but also their trajectory, the dynamics and timing of their change. The authors argue that there are essential differences between the three countries in terms of women’s relationship to the welfare state. They also specify some of the key historical and social variables which might explain variation across countries.