A study of background population of fibres on knife blades.

Edged weapons are frequently used to commit violent crimes (e.g., homicides, assaults or sequestrations).

Institutional multiplexity: social networks and community-based natural resource management.

Natural resource management has changed profoundly in recent decades emphasizing new legislation that transfers responsibilities to local user groups. In this article, I follow changing water policies to Namibia and show that the enactment of policy in local institutions deviates from community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) blueprints and design. To understand why, I examine the theoretical premises of CBNRM.

A preliminary investigation of textile fibers in smothering scenarios and alternative legitimate activities.

Was this group of target fibers transferred during a criminal action? Is it possible that it was transferred during another legitimate activity? Acquiring knowledge about the activity, whether legitimate or criminal, leading to the transfer of a group of fibers is a recurring challenge encountered throughout the evidence interpretation process. Trace evidence such as fibers may assist with generating a reasoning of the activity which produced the trace, but this assumes that one already has a thorough understanding of the transfer phenomenon. How to generate and then use such relevant knowledge? What are the influencing parameters and which ones should (or can) be controlled? The present work focuses on homicides by smothering using a pillow and the transfer of fibers on the face of the victim in such events.

Lost in Translation: State Policies and Micro-politics of Water Governance in Namibia.

Water governance in rural Namibia has profoundly changed since the early 1990s. After independence and in accordance with global environmental policies, it became a central theme of Namibia's environmental legislation to transfer the responsibility for managing natural resources to local user associations. In this article, I explore the emergence of new social forms at the intersection of existing cultural models and new rationalities for governance.

Moral equality and success of common-pool water governance in Namibia.

In the course of decentralization, pastoral communities in Namibia have had to find new ways to share their most salient resource, water, and the costs involved in providing it. Using data from sixty communities, we examine (1) whether and to what extent different sharing rules emerge, (2) how variations can be explained, (3) how rules are perceived and influence success, and (4) what economic consequences they have. Our results reveal that either all members pay the same (numerical equality) or payment is according to usage (proportional equality).

Reciprocity on Demand : Sharing and Exchanging Food in Northwestern Namibia.

Two competing models concerning food transfers prominent in the anthropological literature conceptualize such transfers either as sharing or as exchange. Sharing is understood as situational transactions formed through demands and unconditional giving, whereas reciprocal exchange is understood in terms of networking and keeping score. I propose that the picture is more complicated than these classifications suggests.

Motorcycle helmets: What about their coating?

In traffic accidents involving motorcycles, paint traces can be transferred from the rider's helmet or smeared onto its surface. These traces are usually in the form of chips or smears and are frequently collected for comparison purposes. This research investigates the physical and chemical characteristics of the coatings found on motorcycles helmets.

Food sharing at meals : Kinship, reciprocity, and clustering in the taimyr autonomous okrug, northern Russia.

The presence of a kinship link between nuclear families is the strongest predictor of interhousehold sharing in an indigenous, predominantly Dolgan food-sharing network in northern Russia. Attributes such as the summed number of hunters in paired households also account for much of the variation in sharing between nuclear families. Differences in the number of hunters in partner households, as well as proximity and producer/consumer ratios of households, were investigated with regard to cost-benefit models.