Ik zie, ik zie, wat jij niet ziet. Het gebruik van paragnosten door de Nederlandse politie.

Abstract In many police investigations a psychic turns up to help the investigation with his extraordinary knowledge of the crime and the crime scene. Little is known about how the Dutch police deals with psychics and their information. We conducted research into this phenomenon via interviews with experts, a review of the legal literature and an online questionnaire for police practitioners. Although a guideline by the public prosecutor’s office state psychics are not to be consulted without permission, most police practitioners are not aware of this guideline. At the moment little is known about the actual use of information of psychics in police investigations

dUTPase activity is critical to maintain genetic stability in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

We identified a viable allele (dut1-1) of the DUT1 gene that encodes the dUTPase activity in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The Dut1-1 protein possesses a single amino acid substitution (Gly82Ser) in a conserved motif nearby the active site and exhibits a greatly reduced dUTPase activity. The dut1-1 single mutant exhibits growth delay and cell cycle abnormalities and shows a strong spontaneous mutator phenotype. All phenotypes of the dut1-1 mutant are suppressed by the simultaneous inactivation of the uracil DNA N-glycosylase, Ung1. However, the ung1 dut1-1 double mutant accumulates uracil in its genomic DNA. The viability of the dut1-1 mutant is greatly impaired by the simultaneous inactivation of AP endonucleases. These data strongly suggest that the phenotypes of the dut1-1 mutant result from the incorporation of dUMPs into DNA subsequently converted into AP sites. The analysis of the dut1-1 strain mutation spectrum showed that cytosines are preferentially incorporated in front of AP sites in a Rev3-dependent manner during translesion synthesis. These results point to a critical role of the Dut1 protein in the maintenance of the genetic stability. Therefore, the normal cellular metabolism, and not only its byproducts, is an important source of endogenous DNA damage and genetic instability in eukaryotic cells

Evidence-based aanpak van woninginbraak: Enkele voorstellen voor een intensievere aanpak van woninginbraak, op basis van een inventarisatie van de criminologische literatuur.

Regiopolitie Amsterdam-Amstelland, District WestFdR – Publicaties zonder aanstelling Universiteit Leide

Collaboration and competition policy in a market-based hospital system: a case-study from The Netherlands

In the Dutch healthcare system, provider competition is used as a tool to improve efficiency. From a competition policy perspective, little is known about how collaboration among healthcare providers contributes to overall patient welfare, and how a balance is achieved between scale benefits and preventing anticompetitive collusion. This paper examines the ex-post effects of a Dutch case study in which three competing hospitals have collaborated to provide highcomplexity low-volume cancer surgery, an arrangement that tests the limits of permissibility under the Dutch cartel prohibition. Our preliminary empirical research demonstrated only a modest increase in price and travel time for some of the tumour surgeries. Volume analysis showed that the intended centralization of surgical procedures has not been fully realized. Our findings highlight the importance of a comprehensive self-assessment by the collaborating hospitals to ex-ante assess (potential) e

Het effect van intensief surveilleren vlak bij en vlak na een eerdere inbraak

Can a fruitful police surveillance scheme be based on supposedly increased risk immediately after and around a previous burglary (‘near repeat phenomenon’)? An experiment in Amstelveen has been set up and analysed for this purpose. Some neighbourhoods got a ‘near repeat surveillance’ scheme, and the occurrence of burglary in those areas has been compared with control neighbourhoods elsewhere in town. We observed a change in the near repeat pattern in the experimental area, but no net effect on burglary rates, presumably because of large between-neighbourhood variance in incidence. Dit artikel beschrijft een experimenteel onderzoek in Amstelveen, waarbij in verschillende buurten de politie extra surveilleert in de buurt van en kort na een eerdere inbraak, dit vanwege een mogelijk verhoogd risico dan en daar (‘besmettelijkheid’). Het vóórkomen van inbraken wordt vergeleken met wat er in controlebuurten gebeurt. Ofschoon het besmettelijkheidspatroon in de experimentele buurten wel verandert door de extra surveillance, konden we geen netto positief effect van de surveillance aantonen, wellicht vooral omdat de tussen-buurtvariatie erg groot is, gegeven de betrekkelijk kleine aantallen inbraken in de diverse buurten