Palmer Drought Index

DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the genetic material that carries the genetic instructions being used in growth, development and reproduction of all living things. DNA has regions called genetic polymorphisms that are used to determine paternity/maternity, kinship, determination of human remains, and inherited diseases. DNA is an example of what forensic use for evidence in a crime. Using regions in the DNA you can determine a “fingerprint” for an individual that can help in a crime, with this…

Fingerprint evidence is highly accurate in the identification of suspects, because the likelihood of two different people possessing the same set of fingerprints is estimated to be one in 64 billion (Hall, 2015). Therefore, state and federal courts universally accept fingerprint evidence during a criminal trial due to the validated science behind the analysis of fingerprint characteristics (Hall, 2015). Next, as with everything else in law enforcement, computers have advanced fingerprint…

My primary interest of study lies in the field of forensic anthropology, in which I will analyze human remains while using a variety of techniques based on forensic chemistry to solve criminal cases. Moreover, forensic chemistry is a field of study that inspires my passion for science, while readying me for a future career as a forensic anthropologist. Ultimately, being an attendant at the Summer Pre-College Forensic Chemistry program at UMass Amherst will allow me to study a field that…

During the 10 through 24 weeks of gestation , ridges form on your epidermis, which is the outermost layer of skin on your fingertips. This pattern on your epidermis is known as your fingerprint. Fingerprint patterns are static and don’t change with age so an individual will have the same pattern from infancy to adulthood. Your fingerprint never changes over time, they will get bigger over time , but will not change. Fingerprints can be very helpful in identifying people. The FBI and many…

In observing the preceding decades following the first use of DNA analysis through technology in 1986, the criminal justice system has manifestly prioritized this specific high-tech DNA evidence in every case following the discovery. Maurice Wilkins once said “DNA is like Mida’s gold, everyone who touches it goes mad,” and in this case it corresponds fittingly. As the material that accompanies the process of DNA technology progressively becomes further “professional” and more frequent, criminal…

Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDs in the Dominican Republic, by Mark Padilla, explores the social and economic effects of the Dominican Republic’s dependency on the tourism industry, particularly as they relate to male sex workers. The abundance of opportunity in the tourism industry—as opposed to the lack thereof in, per se, agriculture—all but forces migration of the middle class and the poor to urban areas, where they can easily access popular tourist destinations,…

Film Analysis: Dólares de Arena The film by filmmakers Israel Cardenas and Laura Amelia Guzaman Dólares de Arena was released in 2014 and features Noeli (Yanet Mojica) as the main character. The fairly attractive young Dominican woman, Noeli is improvised. She lives in a hut with her boyfriend Yeremi (Ricardo Ariel Torbio). Her life seems very relaxed as she hangs out with and hustles white tourist on the beaches of the Dominican Republic. Her main conflict is her class and by consequence her…

“I think that when I write, I write out of who I am and the questions I need to figure out” (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents 169). Everyone has a way to escape reality, some draw, some listen to music, some take a nap, while others merely read and write, such as Julia Alvarez. The self proclaimed Dominican- American explains so in the Bloomsbury Review as her early life has consisted of many hardships that her writing addresses at one point or another throughout her poetry and novels.…

Since 2012 the drought has infected California with the most intense dry period in the last 1,200 years. The drought is becoming a major problem in California. The current drought occurring since 2012 has shown up negative five on the Palmer Drought Index Severity. The Palmer Drought Index Severity is a scale to record droughts where, a zero represents normal conditions, a negative one is a drought, and a negative four is an extreme drought. Even though many might think the drought is only going…

The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) operating on a decadal scale and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) affects annually are measured against the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and compared with fires records between 1700 AD and into the 20th century (Hessl, McKenzie, and Schellhaas, 2004, p. 425). While major fire years correlating with La Nina years in the Southwest, no tests have been conducted in the…