Metric forensic anthropology decisions: Reliability and biasability of sectioning-point-based sex estimates

Subjective decisions make human cognitive processes more susceptible to bias and error. Specifically, research indicates that additional context biases forensic anthropologists’ morphological analyses. To address whether metric analyses are also subject to bias, we conducted a pilot study in which 52 experienced osteologists measured a difficult-to-classify human femur, with or without additional contextual information. Using a metric sectioning-point sex-estimation method, participants provided a sex estimate for individual skeletal element(s) and, when given multiple elements, the combined skeletal assemblage. Control group participants (n = 24) measured only the femur. In addition to the femur, bias group participants (n = 28) either measured a female humerus and viewed a female-biasing photograph (n = 14) or measured a male humerus and viewed a male-biasing photograph (n = 14). We explored whether the experts in the different groups would differ in: (1) femoral measurements; (2) femoral sex-estimation conclusions; and (3) final sex-estimation conclusions for the skeletal assemblage. Although the femoral measurements and femoral sex estimates were comparable across groups, the overall sex estimates in the female-biased group were impacted by contextual information—differing from both the control and male-biased groups (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that cognitive bias can occur even in metric sex-estimation conclusions. Specifically, this occurred when the metric data and single-element sex estimates were synthesized into an overall estimate. Thus, our results suggest that metric methods are most vulnerable to bias when data are synthesized into an overall conclusion, highlighting the need for bias countermeasures and comprehensive statistical frameworks for synthesizing metric data to mitigate the effects of cognitive bias.     

Defense Industries and Global Dependency

The global defense industrial sector is a remarkably accurate indicator of the distribution of power in the post-Cold War international system. However, the defense industrial sector as a policy tool has received relatively little scrutiny, even though it not only reflects the international order, but also provides the United States with the ability to influence the foreign policy behavior of other states. The defense industrial sector is a powerful, if undervalued, diplomatic tool in the United States’ political arsenal.     

The National Integrity System: assessing corruption and reform

This article builds on a Transparency International (TI)‐sponsored research study funded by the Dutch Government into the National Integrity System (NIS) in practice. The NIS is a framework approach developed by TI that proposes assessing corruption and reform holistically. The NIS not only looks at separate institutions or separate areas of activity or separate rules and practices, but also bases its perspective on institutional and other inter‐relationships, inter‐dependence and combined effectiveness. The study involved 18 countries, using in‐country researchers and an overview report. This article assesses the findings of the study to consider how the approach can work in practice, and what the approach can reveal about the causes and nature of corruption as well as the implications for reform. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Technocracy or transformation? Mapping women's policy agencies and orienting gender (in)equality in the Canadian provinces

Canadian gender equality policy has taken a “technocratic turn” that favours bureaucratic expertise to monitor and measure (in)equality rather than participatory and consultative mechanisms. While the processes and impacts of this shift are well documented at the federal level, less is known at the provincial level. This article takes stock of provincial gender equality mechanisms, demonstrating variations in women's policy agencies (WPAs) across the ten provinces. It then links these variations to the discursive politics of gender equality within each province. We demonstrate that the potential for transformative orientations of gender equality emerges in WPAs with broad consultative mechanisms.     

Bridging the gap: online materials to equip graduate entrants to a law degree with essential subject knowledge and skills

Graduate entrants to law degrees can be disadvantaged by being exempted from Level 4 modules. Many lack the law-specific knowledge and skills that they would have gained from their first-year studies, making it more difficult for them to achieve mastery of higher-level modules. This poses risks to their retention and progression. The Open University Law School sought to bridge this gap by providing optional online “catch-up” materials, including 12 sessions of knowledge-based learning. Each session was followed by a brief Moodle poll so that we could ascertain that session’s fitness for purpose, and which students had studied it. The sessions were highly rated by respondents, and most had been studied in the target time of around 15 minutes. Studying the sessions was statistically associated with academic success. This finding does not prove that the sessions contribute towards student's attaining higher grades, but it is encouraging. Only a small percentage of students studied any sessions, and most of those did not study all of them. Since the sessions met their intended purpose for those who studied them, the Law School has now decided on a range of initiatives designed to increase the number of LLB students who study most of them.     

Recent Publications

An Independent Woman: The Life of Lou Henry Hoover, by Anne Besier Allen. Westport, CT: Greenwood P, 2000.

Recovering the Black Female Body: Self‐Representations by African American Women, edited by Michael Bennett and Vanessa D. Dickerson. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2001.

Feminisms and Women's Movements in Contemporary Europe, edited by Anna Bull, Hanna Diamond, and Rosalind March. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Female Communities, 1600–1800: Literary Visions and Cultural Realities, edited by Rebecca D'Monte and Nicole Pohl. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Gender and Material Culture in Historical Perspective, edited by Moira Donald and Linda Hurcombe. London: Macmillan, and New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Asian American Studies: Identity, Images, Issues Past and Present, edited by Esther Mikyung Ghymn. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 2000.

Out of the Past: Adventures in Film Noir, by Barry Gifford. Jackson, MI: UP of Mississippi, 2001.

My Dangerous Desires: A Queer Girl Dreaming Her Way Home, by Amber L. Hollibaugh. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2000.

Body Matters: Feminism, Textuality, Corporeality, edited by Avril Horner and Angela Keane. Manchester and New York: Manchester UP, 2000.

The Recess, by Sophia Lee. Lexington, Kentucky: The UP of Kentucky, 2000.

Women Performing Music: The Emergence of American Women as Instrumentalists and Conductors, by Beth Abelson Macleod. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &; Company, 2000.

Unveiling Traditions: Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World, by Anouar Majid. Durham: Duke UP, 2000.

The Loony‐Bin Trip, by Kate Millett. Urbana and Chicago: U of Illinois P, 2000.

Thousand of Roads: A Memoir of a Young Woman's Life in the Ukranian Undergroud During and After World War II, by Maria Savchyn Pyskir, translated by Ania Savage. Jefferson, NC, and London: McFarland &; Company, 2001.

A Woman's Way: The Forgotten History of Women Spiritual Directors, by Patricia Ranft. New York: Palgrave, 2000.

Records of Girlhood: An Anthology of Nineteenth‐Century Women's Childhoods, edited by Valerie Sanders. England and United States: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000.

Battered Women and Feminist Lawmaking, by Elizabeth Schneider. New Haven: Yale UP, 2000.

Food, Consumption, and the Body in Contemporary Women's Fiction, by Sarah Sceats. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000.

Chaucer's Pardoner and Gender Theory: Bodies of Discourse, by Robert S. Sturges. New York: St. Martin's P, 2000.

Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender, and British Slavery, 1713–1833, by Charlotte Sussman. Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2000.     

Involved-Vigilant Parenting and Socio-Emotional Well-being Among Black Youth: The Moderating Influence of Natural Mentoring Relationships

Positive relationships with parents and nonparental adults have the potential to bolster Black adolescents’ socio-emotional well-being. Though each type of intergenerational relationship has been linked to more positive youth outcomes, few studies have examined the interactive influences of parenting and natural mentoring relationships on the socio-emotional development of Black youth. In the current study, we examined associations between involved-vigilant parenting and the psychological well-being and social skills of Black early adolescents (n = 259; 58 % female; mean age = 13.56, SD = .96) across types of natural mentoring relationships. Using K-means cluster analysis, we identified two types of mentoring relationships (less connected and more connected) based on relationship length, involvement, closeness, and frequency of contact. Youth with more connected mentoring relationships (n = 123) had higher psychological well-being and social skills than youth with no mentor (n = 64) or less connected mentors (n = 72). Youth without a natural mentor and youth with less connected mentors did not differ in their levels of social skills or psychological well-being. Structural equation modeling was conducted to determine if associations between involved-vigilant parenting and youths’ psychological well-being and social skills varied among youth with a more connected mentoring relationship in comparison to youth without a mentor or with a less connected mentor, controlling for participants’ gender, age, school, and parental education. The positive associations between involved-vigilant parenting and adolescents’ psychological well-being and social skills were weaker among adolescents with a more connected mentoring relationship in comparison to their peers without or with a less connected mentoring relationship. These results suggest that youth may be more strongly influenced by involved-vigilant parenting in the absence of a strongly connected natural mentoring relationship.     

Attributional style,depressive features,and self-esteem: Adult children of alcoholic and nonalcoholic parents

Undergraduate adult children of alcoholics (ACOAs; N=57) were compared to children of nonalcoholic parents (CONAs; N=100) on measures of the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), selfesteem, and attributional style. ACOA status was determined using the Children of Alcoholics Screening Test (Jones, 1981). ACOAs were found to have significantly higher scores on the BDI and to have significantly lower self-esteem, as measured by the Index of Self-Esteem, than CONAs. ACOAs were also more likely to have a depressive attributional style, in that they perceived failure as more internal, stable, and global than CONAs. Further, females had significantly higher BDI scores than males.Received B.A. from West Virginia University. Research interests: adult children of alcoholics and human sexual behavior.Received Ph.D. from West Virginia University. Research interests: the impact of popular culture on adolescents and the impact of parental conflict on children.Received Ph.D. from University of Massachusetts. Research interests: adolescent suicide risk.