侦查中影响测谎结论准确性的因素

测谎技术是当前在侦查实践中经常使用的一种技术手段,由于受主观和客观因素的影响,使得测谎结论出现偏差。本文通过对测谎技术存在误差的客观性、常见误差的分析及衡平的探究,进而对影响准确性的因素进行剖析,总结性的得出测谎准确度的使用公式。     

关于《现代汉语词典》若干词条释义的商榷

《现代汉语词典》是一部发行量很大的词典，在读者尤其是青少年读者当中影响深广。进一步提高《现代汉语词典》的质量，具有重要意义。本文从准确性、严谨性和完整性三个方面，对《现代汉语词典》部分词条或单字的释义进行了分析，提出一些问题与编者商榷，希望对《现代汉语词典》的修改和完善有所帮助。     

A Preliminary Study of the Reliability of Anatomical Facial Landmarks Used in Facial Comparison

Anatomical landmarks are considered the most objective indicators for use in forensic facial comparisons. Therefore, accurately identifying and locating these landmarks is the beginning of reliable facial comparison. This study evaluated the accuracy with which facial landmarks are located and examined their reliability according to type of landmark, head posture, and image quality. Nine operators located a series of landmarks on prepared facial images used to produce comparison images. Then, the average distances between the reciprocal landmarks (ADRL) on the reference and the comparison images were measured as indicators of landmark reliability. We found that a set of landmarks had higher or lower reliability as a function of the head angle and image quality. More reliable landmarks were associated with certain head postures and degrees of image quality. These should be used for facial comparison analysis depending on various head and image conditions.     

Accuracy of comparison decisions by forensic firearms examiners

This black box study assessed the performance of forensic firearms examiners in the United States. It involved three different types of firearms and 173 volunteers who performed a total of 8640 comparisons of both bullets and cartridge cases. The overall false-positive error rate was estimated as 0.656% and 0.933% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, while the rate of false negatives was estimated as 2.87% and 1.87% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The majority of errors were made by a limited number of examiners. Because chi-square tests of independence strongly suggest that error probabilities are not the same for each examiner, these are maximum-likelihood estimates based on the beta-binomial probability model and do not depend on an assumption of equal examiner-specific error rates. Corresponding 95% confidence intervals are (0.305%, 1.42%) and (0.548%, 1.57%) for false positives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, and (1.89%, 4.26%) and (1.16%, 2.99%) for false negatives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The results of this study are consistent with prior studies, despite its comprehensive design and challenging specimens.     

Improving Decision Making in Forensic Child Sexual Abuse Evaluations

Mental health professionals can assist legal decision makers in cases of allegations of child sexual abuse by collecting data using forensic interviews, psychological testing, and record reviews, and by summarizing relevant findings from social science research. Significant controversy surrounds another key task performed by mental health professionals in most child sexual abuse evaluations, i.e., deciding whether or not to substantiate unconfirmed abuse allegations. The available evidence indicates that, on the whole, these substantiation decisions currently lack adequate psychometric reliability and validity: an analysis of empirical research findings leads to the conclusion that at least 24% of all of these decisions are either false positive or false negative errors. Surprisingly, a reanalysis of existing research also indicates that it may be possible to develop reliable, objective procedures to improve the consistency and quality of decision making in this domain. A preliminary, empirically-grounded procedure for making substantiation decisions is proposed.     

Pinpoint authentication watermarking based on a chaotic system

Watermarking technique is one of the active research fields in recent ten years, which can be used in copyright management, content authentication, and so on. For the authentication watermarking, tamper localization and detection accuracy are two important performances. However, most methods in literature cannot obtain precise localization. In addition, few researchers pay attention to the problem of detection accuracy. In this paper, a pinpoint authentication watermarking is proposed based on a chaotic system, which is sensitive to the initial value. The approach can not only exactly localize the malicious manipulations but reveal block substitutions when Holliman-Memon attack (VQ attack) occurs. An image is partitioned into non-overlapped regions according to the requirement on precision. In each region, a chaotic model is iteratively applied to produce the chaotic sequences based on the initial values, which are determined by combining the prominent luminance values of pixels, position information and an image key. Subsequently, an authentication watermark is constructed using the binary chaotic sequences and embedded in the embedding space. At the receiver, a detector extracts the watermark and localizes the tampered regions without access to the host image or the original watermark. The precision of spatial localization can attain to one pixel, which is valuable to the images observed at non-ordinary distance, such as medical images and military images. The detection accuracy rate is defined and analyzed to present the probability of a detector making right decisions. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of our algorithm.     

Assessing the Risk of Future Psychological Abuse: Predicting the Accuracy of Battered Women’s Predictions

Building on a handful of studies demonstrating battered women’s accuracy in assessing their risk of being physically reabused, this study examined how accurately victims assess their risk of future psychological abuse. Participants’ ratings of the likelihood that their partner would engage in controlling/dominance behaviors or efforts to humiliate/degrade them in the coming year and their reports 18 months later of whether this had actually occurred were used to create a four category version of accuracy (true positive, false positive, true negative, false negative). Victims were more likely to be right than wrong in their assessments of risk; PTSD symptoms, the recency of physical violence, and the degree of stalking and psychological abuse in the relationship predicted membership in the four accuracy categories. These findings overlap considerably with those examining victim accuracy in predicting physical abuse and inform ongoing debates about the value of incorporating victims’ insights into risk assessment efforts.

Assessing the Accuracy of Life Event Calendar Data in an Offender Sample

Criminologists are increasingly interested in the effects of life-course dynamics on criminological development. However, detailed longitudinal data are difficult to obtain and possibly confounded due to recall errors. Life Event Calendars (LECs) are designed to reduce recall errors and are increasingly used as a method for obtaining valid retrospective data in criminological studies. Yet few studies exist that assess the accuracy of LEC data in offender samples. This study aims to fill this void. We compare data regarding the prevalence and timing of marriage, divorce, and childbirth obtained through an LEC to official registry data in a sample of convicted offenders. We examine whether the accuracy of the data vary by event or respondent specific characteristics. We conclude that the LEC data are quite accurate regarding the prevalence of marriage, divorce, and childbirth. The data are less accurate regarding the timing of these life events.     

法治评估的有效性和准确性——以中国八项法治评估为检验分析对象

自余杭法治指数初创至今,法治评估实践在我国已历经15载,现俨然成为中国法治实践学派的标签。那么量化法治实践中究竟如何才能保证法治评估的有效性和准确性?要回答这一问题,首先需要对我国现有法治评估的有效性和准确性进行科学检验。在明确界分法治评估有效性和准确性概念基础上,采用验证性因子分析法、探索性因子分析法对我国4项法治评估的有效性进行检验。经检验,我国法治评估的有效性特征表现为:结构效度低,理论构想的整体符合度低。采用主成分分析法、重新赋值法对我国8项法治评估的准确性进行检验,结果表明,余杭法治指数、四川依法治省评估、中国法治满意度评估等3项准确度低;江苏依法行政评估等1项准确度一般;中国法治政府评估、广东法治政府满意评价、广东法治社会满意度评价、上海法治满意度指数等4项准确度高。文末根据检验结论,提出保证法治评估有效性和准确性4个方面的实验研究路径。