Dale Kokholm (quiltgrowth5)

This research provides new insights from the level of microscopic fractions to macroscopic fluxes to investigate the impacts of anthropogenic activity on regional environmental changes.Detecting gunshot residue (GSR) particles on samples collected from individuals or their belongings can connect them to a shooting event. Scanning electron microscopy combined with energy-dispersive X-ray spectrometry (SEM/EDX) is currently the most common forensic method for detecting and characterizing GSR. At the forensic laboratory of the Israel Police, one inch (25 mm) diameter sticky stubs are used to collect samples from suspects' hands, hair, clothes and vehicles. To maximize testing capacity, stubs of samples collected from several different cases and persons may be analyzed side by side in a single run. This has raised concern in court that a clean sample taken from an innocent person may be contaminated during the analysis by GSR particles from an adjacent sample transferred inside the SEM chamber. several experiments were conducted where stubs that were known to contain GSR particles were run adjacent to stubs that were known to be clean. Not a single event of GSR particle transfer was detected, even when a clean stub was surrounded on all sides by stubs containing a total of over 100,000 particles. Thus, the probability of transfer of a single particle is at most 1100,000. Since the total number of GSR particles found per run is usually three orders of magnitude lower than 100,000, we conclude that the risk of inter-stub contamination is highly negligible.Recent developments regarding the detection and measurement of the magnetic heterogeneity between texts produced with two different laser printers were evaluated. The present exploratory study focused on letter- and word-size fragments of texts inserted in a document to simulate the context of printed document alteration by addition. The measured values from genuine samples were used to create model arrays with the replacement or insertion of a letter or a word into the text of a base document. These model arrays were analyzed using newly introduced software features (named "induction at the point", "target", and "fragment" functions) enabling the targeted selection and isolation of small subsections of the total sensor area of the magneto-optical measuring device used in this study. It was observed that magnetic measurements of letter- or word-size fragments using the proposed methodology to the tested models allowed detection of text alterations by insertion that could not typically be detected with magnetic measurements over the full field of view of the magneto-optical device.Local neuronal circuits in non-glabrous skin drive the initial increase of the biphasic cutaneous vasodilation response to fast non-noxious heating. Voltage-sensitive Na+ (NaV) channel inhibition blocks the afferent limb of the non-glabrous forearm cutaneous axon reflex. Slow local heating does not engage this response. These mechanisms have not been adequately investigated or extended into areas associated with flushing pathology. We hypothesized that despite regional differences in sensory afferents, both sensory blockade and slowing the heating rate would abate the cutaneous axon reflex-mediated vasodilator responses in facial skin. We measured skin blood flow responses (laser-Doppler flowmetry) of 6 healthy subjects (5 female) to non-noxious forearm, cheek, and forehead local heating, expressed as a percentage of cutaneous vascular conductance at plateau (CVC = flux/mean arterial pressure). We assessed CVC during fast (1 °C/30s) and slow (1 °C/10 min) local heating to 43 °C in both NaV inhibition (topical 2.5% lidocaine/prilocaine) and control conditions. NaV inhibition decreased forearm (control 84 ± 4, block 34 ± 9%plateau, p less then 0.001) and trended toward decreased forehead (control 90 ± 3, block 68 ± 3%plateau, p = 0.057) initial CVC peaks b