Building better crime simulations: systematic replication and the introduction of incremental complexity

Computer simulation models have changed the ways in which researchers are able to observe and study social phenomena such as crime. The ability of researchers to replicate the work of others is fundamental to a cumulative science, yet this rarely occurs in computer simulations. In this paper, we argue that, for computer simulations to be seen as a legitimate methodology in social science, and for new knowledge to be generated, serious consideration needs to be given to how simulations could or should be replicated. We develop the concept of systematic replication, a method for developing simulation experiments that move towards a generalisable inference that is directed, explicit, and incorporates complexity incrementally. Finally, we outline how the discrete parts of this process might be carried out in practice, using a simple simulation model.

Desublimating monstrous desire: the horror of gender in new extremist cinema

Known for graphic gore and formal experimentation, films of European new extremism stand out for the way in which they combine sex with violence, stressing the body in extreme modes of being and rendering its materiality emphatic, uncanny and profoundly disturbing. While this emphasis on sex and violence has been widely recognized in scholarly literature on new extremism, its connections to gendered conventions of genre cinema have not. In this article, we contend that films such as Philippe Grandrieux's Sombre (1998), Lars von Trier's Antichrist (2009) and Claire Denis's Trouble Every Day (2001) directly reference gendered tropes and conventions of horror cinema in their explorations of desire, sexual difference and violence. Far from being inconsequential or secondary concerns, we argue that emphatically gendered characteristics of cinematic horror are crucial to the disturbing impact of these films. By appropriating tropes from the horror film, but refusing them the closure and recuperation customary to narrative conventions of the genre, new extremist films critique these gendered implications, calling attention to the paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the gender politics of horror.     

An experimental comparison of adversarial versus inquisitorial procedural regimes

This article reports the results of a multiyear series of economicexperiments comparing the two dominant types of legal proceduresused in adjudication: (1) the 'adversarial' model of party-controlledprocedure versus (2) the 'inquisitorial' model of judge-controlledprocedure. The principal finding is that the relative fact-findingefficiency of the two systems, in terms of both the 'revelation'of hidden facts and the 'accuracy' of decision, depends significantlyupon the information structure. Under a 'private' informationstructure, inquisitorial procedure is relatively more efficient,whereas under a 'correlated' information structure, adversarialprocedure is relatively more efficient.