Police Strategies and Suspect Responses in Real-Life Serious Crime Interviews

This research focuses exclusively on real-life taped interviews with serious crime suspects and examines the strategies used and types of questions asked by police, and suspects’ responses to these. The information source was audio-tape-recorded interviews with 56 suspects. These recordings were obtained from 11 police services across England and Wales and were analysed using a specially designed coding frame. It was found that interviewers employed a range of strategies with presentation of evidence and challenge the most frequently observed. Closed questions were by far the most frequently used, and open questions, although less frequent, were found to occur more during the opening phases of the interviews. The frequency of ineffective question types (e.g. negative, repetitive, multiple) was low. A number of significant associations were observed between interviewer strategies and suspect responses. Rapport/empathy and open-type questions were associated with an increased likelihood of suspects admitting the offence whilst describing trauma, and negative questions were associated with a decreased likelihood

One way or another? Criminal investigators' beliefs regarding the disclosure of evidence in interviews with suspects in England and Wales

The research base concerning interviews with suspects remains to be comprehensively developed. For example, the extant literature provides differing views regarding how best to undertake the important interview task of disclosing evidence. In the current study, using a self-report questionnaire, 224 investigators based in England and Wales were asked as to their own preferred methods. Most respondents advocated a gradual method of disclosing evidence, stating that this approach would better reveal inconsistencies and obtain a complete version of events (similar to the reasoning of those who preferred disclosing evidence later). Those who advocated revealing evidence early stated this approach would more likely elicit confessions. Several respondents would not commit to one single method, arguing that their chosen strategy was contextually dependent. The study’s findings suggest that it remains arguable as to whether there is one best approach to evidence disclosure and/or whether particular circumstances should influence interviewing strategies

A Small Peptide Modeled after the NRAGE Repeat Domain Inhibits XIAP-TAB1-TAK1 Signaling for NF-κB Activation and Apoptosis in P19 Cells

In normal growth and development, apoptosis is necessary to shape the central nervous system and to eliminate excess neurons which are not required for innervation. In some diseases, however, apoptosis can be either overactive as in some neurodegenerative disorders or severely attenuated as in the spread of certain cancers. Bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) transmit signals for regulating cell growth, differentiation, and apoptosis. Responding to BMP receptors stimulated from BMP ligands, neurotrophin receptor-mediated MAGE homolog (NRAGE) binds and functions with the XIAP-TAK1-TAB1 complex to activate p38MAPK and induces apoptosis in cortical neural progenitors. NRAGE contains a unique repeat domain that is only found in human, mouse, and rat homologs that we theorize is pivotal in its BMP MAPK role. Previously, we showed that deletion of the repeat domain inhibits apoptosis, p38MAPK phosphorylation, and caspase-3 cleavage in P19 neural progenitor cells. We also showed that the XIAP-TAB1-TAK1 complex is dependent on NRAGE for IKK-α/β phosphorylation and NF-κB activation. XIAP is a major inhibitor of caspases, the main executioners of apoptosis. Although it has been shown previously that NRAGE binds to the RING domain of XIAP, it has not been determined which NRAGE domain binds to XIAP. Here, we used fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) to determine that there is a strong likelihood of a direct interaction between NRAGE and XIAP occurring at NRAGE's unique repeat domain which we also attribute to be the domain responsible for downstream signaling of NF-κB and activating IKK subunits. From these results, we designed a small peptide modeled after the NRAGE repeat domain which we have determined inhibits NF-κB activation and apoptosis in P19 cells. These intriguing results illustrate that the paradigm of the NRAGE repeat domain may hold promising therapeutic strategies in developing pharmaceutical solutions for combating harmful diseases involving excessive downstream BMP signaling, including apoptosis

Bone morphogenetic proteins in tissue engineering: the road from laboratory to the clinic: part I (basic concepts)

Discovered in 1965, bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) are a group of cytokines from the transforming growth factor-β (TGFβ) superfamily with significant roles in bone and cartilage formation. BMPs are used as powerful osteoinductive components of diverse tissue-engineering products for the healing of bone. Several BMPs with different physiological roles have been identified in humans. The purpose of this review is to cover the biological function of the main members of BMP family, the latest research on BMPs signalling pathways and advances in the production of recombinant BMPs for tissue engineering purposes