Police interrogation practice in Slovenia

Interrogation techniques are well explored, but in Slovenia it has remained unknown what interrogation techniques are used and what the basic characteristics of suspect interrogations are. The Slovenian interrogation manual proposes some coercive interrogation techniques and neglects their weaknesses. The aim of the current study was to examine Slovenian police officers’ beliefs as to the basic characteristics of their interrogations and whether techniques proposed by the manual are used in practice to begin to provide some insight into what actually happens in such interrogations. A survey instrument was used to obtain selfreport data from a sample of criminal investigators. From 86 completed questionnaires it was found that a typical interrogation of a suspect lasts around 90 minutes and is not recorded. Interviewers typically use three interrogation techniques namely (i) conducting interrogations in isolation; (ii) identifying contradictions in the suspect’s story; and (iii) confronting the suspect with evidence. Findings suggest that some coercive interrogation techniques are used in practice (e.g. offering moral justifications, alluding to have evidence of guilt, good cop/bad cop routine, and minimization). The study is the first insight into the practices of Slovenian investigators when questioning suspects. Differences among general, white-collar and organized crime investigators are also discussed

SUPERSHARP - Segmented Unfolding Primary for Exoplanet Research via Spectroscopic High Angular Resolution Photography

A proposal in response to the ESA New Science Ideas call. Sept 2016. 25 pagesWe propose to search for biosignatures in the spectra of reflected light from about 100 Earth-sized planets that are already known to be orbiting in their habitable zones (HZ). For a sample of G and K type hosts, most of these planets will be between 25 and 50 milli-arcsec (mas) from their host star and 1 billion to 10 billion times fainter. To separate the planet's image from that of its host star at the wavelength (763nm) of the oxygen biosignature we need a telescope with an aperture of 16 metres. Furthermore, the intensity of the light from the host star at the position in the image of the exoplanet must be suppressed otherwise the exoplanet will be lost in the glare. This presents huge technical challenges. The Earth's atmosphere is turbulent which makes it impossible to achieve the required contrast from the ground at 763nm. The telescope therefore needs to be in space and to fit the telescope in the rocket fairing it must be a factor of 4 or more times smaller when folded than when operational. To obtain spectroscopy of the planet's biosignature at 763nm we need to use an integral field spectrometer (IFS) with a field of view (FOV) of 1000 x 1000 milli-arcsec (mas) and a spectral resolution of 100. This is a device that simultaneously takes many pictures of the exoplanet each at a slightly different wavelength which are then recorded as a data cube with two spatial dimensions and one wavelength dimension. In every data cube wavelength slice, the background light from the host star at the location of the planet image must be minimised. This is achieved via a coronagraph which blocks the light from the host star and active/adaptive optics techniques which continuously maintain very high accuracy optical alignment to make the images as sharp as possible. These are the technical challenges to be addressed in a design study

'Then look!' Unborn attachments and the half-moving image

This article explores the emotional impact on the viewer of disturbing and disorienting images of infant-caregiver relationality in four “melo-horror” films: Imitation of Life (Stahl, 1934), Imitation of Life (Sirk, 1959), The Brood (Cronenberg, 1979), and Beloved (Demme, 1998). Comparing some of these filmic images with the infant performances of “disorganized” attachment styles captured on videotape by attachment researchers such as Mary Main, the author argues that the filmed audiovisual enactment of relational trauma, whether in the context of scientific research or cinematic art, offers the spectator an opportunity to work consciously and unconsciously with representations of unbearable psychic and psychosocial experience—both her own and that of others—that may hitherto have been thought unrepresentable or simply not thought at all

Progress towards a public chemogenomic set for protein kinases and a call for contributions

Protein kinases are highly tractable targets for drug discovery. However, the biological function and therapeutic potential of the majority of the 500+ human protein kinases remains unknown. We have developed physical and virtual collections of small molecule inhibitors, which we call chemogenomic sets, that are designed to inhibit the catalytic function of almost half the human protein kinases. In this manuscript we share our progress towards generation of a comprehensive kinase chemogenomic set (KCGS), release kinome profiling data of a large inhibitor set (Published Kinase Inhibitor Set 2 (PKIS2)), and outline a process through which the community can openly collaborate to create a KCGS that probes the full complement of human protein kinases

The ureide-degrading reactions of purine ring catabolism employ three amidohydrolases and one aminohydrolase in Arabidopsis, soybean, and rice

Several ureides are intermediates of purine base catabolism, releasing nitrogen from the purine nucleotides for reassimilation into amino acids. In some legumes like soybean (Glycine max), ureides are used for nodule-to-shoot translocation of fixed nitrogen. Four enzymes of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), (1) allantoinase, (2) allantoate amidohydrolase (AAH), (3) ureidoglycine aminohydrolase, and (4) ureidoglycolate amidohydrolase (UAH), catalyze the complete hydrolysis of the ureide allantoin in vitro. However, the metabolic route in vivo remains controversial. Here, in growth and metabolite analyses of Arabidopsis mutants, we demonstrate that these enzymes are required for allantoin degradation in vivo. Orthologous enzymes are present in soybean, encoded by one to four gene copies. All isoenzymes are active in vitro, while some may be inefficiently translated in vivo. Surprisingly, transcript and protein amounts are not significantly regulated by nitrogen fixation or leaf ureide content. A requirement for soybean AAH and UAH for ureide catabolism in leaves has been demonstrated by the use of virus-induced gene silencing. Functional AAH, ureidoglycine aminohydrolase, and UAH are also present in rice (Oryza sativa), and orthologous genes occur in all other plant genomes sequenced to date, indicating that the amidohydrolase route of ureide degradation is universal in plants, including mosses (e.g. Physcomitrella patens) and algae (e.g. Chlamydomomas reinhardtii)