AGE,GENDER, AND THE CRIME OF CRIMES: TOWARD A LIFE‐COURSE THEORY OF GENOCIDE PARTICIPATION*

This article asks whether genocide follows the age and gender distributions common to other crime. We develop and test a life‐course model of genocide participation to address this question using a new dataset of 1,068,192 cases tried in Rwanda's gacaca courts. Three types of prosecutions are considered: 1) inciting, organizing, or supervising violence; 2) killings and other physical assaults; and 3) offenses against property. By relying on systematic graphic comparisons, we find that the peak age of those tried in the gacaca courts was 34 years at the time of the genocide, which is older than the peak age for most other types of crime. We likewise find that women were more likely to participate in crimes against property and comparatively unlikely to commit genocidal murder. Symbolic–interactionist explanations of crime suggest people desist from crime as a result of shared understandings of the expectations of adulthood. We argue that this process may be turned on its head during genocide as participants may believe they are defending their communities against a perceived threat. Thus, in contrast to other criminological theories suggesting that people must desist from crime to be accorded adult status, some adults may participate in genocide to fulfill their duties as adult men.     

Relatively Permanent Pigmented or Vascular Skin Marks for Identification: A Pilot Reliability Study

In child sexual exploitation offenses, the collected evidence images often show the skin of nonfacial body parts of the criminals and victims. For identification in this scenario, “relatively permanent pigmented or vascular skin marks,” abbreviated as RPPVSM, were recently introduced as the basis for a novel biometric trait. This pilot study evaluated the interexaminer variability of RPPVSM identification. Four dermatology physicians were recruited to examine RPPVSM from 75 skin images collected from a total of 51 Caucasian and Asian subjects. The images were separated into 50 reference (“suspect”) images and 25 evaluation (“evidence”) images. The examiners were asked to perform identification by annotating RPPVSM in each of the 25 evaluation images and matching them with the reference images. The rate of misidentification was 0% while the mean rate at which examiners failed to find a match was 6%, indicating the potential of dermatology physicians performing the role of RPPVSM examiners.     

Deep learning for sex determination: Analyzing over 200,000 panoramic radiographs

The objective of this study is to assess the performance of an innovative AI-powered tool for sex determination using panoramic radiographs (PR) and to explore factors affecting the performance of the convolutional neural network (CNN). The study involved 207,946 panoramic dental X-rays and their corresponding reports from 15 clinical centers in São Paulo, Brazil. The PRs were acquired with four different devices, and 58% of the patients were female. Data preprocessing included anonymizing the exams, extracting pertinent information from the reports, such as sex, age, type of dentition, and number of missing teeth, and organizing the data into a PostgreSQL database. Two neural network architectures, a standard CNN and a ResNet, were utilized for sex classification, with both undergoing hyperparameter tuning and cross-validation to ensure optimal performance. The CNN model achieved 95.02% accuracy in sex estimation, with image resolution being a significant influencing factor. The ResNet model attained over 86% accuracy in subjects older than 6 years and over 96% in those over 16 years. The algorithm performed better on female images, and the area under the curve (AUC) exceeded 96% for most age groups, except the youngest. Accuracy values were also assessed for different dentition types (deciduous, mixed, and permanent) and missing teeth. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of an AI-driven tool for sex determination using PR and emphasizes the role of image resolution, age, and sex in determining the algorithm's performance.     

Genetic diversity and admixture data on 11 STRs (F13B, TPOX, CSF1PO, F13A01, D7S820, LPL, TH01, vWA, D13S317, FESFPS, and D16S539) in a sample of Rio de Janeiro European-descendants population, Brazil

Allelic frequencies, forensic parameters and admixture values for eleven STR loci (F13B, TPOX, CSF1PO, F13A01, D7S820, LPL, TH01, vWA, D13S317, FESFPS, and D16S539) were determined in a sample of unrelated individuals, European descendants from Rio de Janeiro area, Brazil.     

Y-chromosome STR-haplotype typing in El Salvador

Eight Y-chromosome STRs were investigated in a male population sample from El Salvador. Complete Y-chromosomal STRs haplotypes were obtained in 121 individuals, among which 107 different haplotypes were observed. The two most common haplotypes were shared by approximately 4% of the sample, while 100 haplotypes were unique. The gene diversity was 0.9883 and the discrimination capacity was 0.8926. The combined Y-chromosome STR polymorphisms provide a powerful discrimination tool for routine forensic applications.     

Examining the Canadian Government's Resistance to Including Socioeconomic Concerns in Genetically Modified Seeds Regulation: A Policy Transfer and Multilevel Approach

In 2011, Canadian Members of Parliament refused to transfer a regulatory initiative taken from Argentina that would have required an analysis of potential harm to export markets before authorizing the sale of any new genetically modified seed. This was the purpose of Bill C‐474, which was defeated in the House of Commons. After exploring Argentina's regulatory framework as a source of transfer, this paper combines a multilevel analysis with a typology of policy transfer mechanisms in order to address the complexities underlying this unsuccessful attempt. We explore how the mechanisms of competition and coercion might have impeded the transfer of such an initiative at the international and the macro‐state levels. Moreover, while a policy transfer network in support of the bill called on previous experiences with genetically modified seeds, their efforts appear to have been outweighed by another network using arguments based on the mechanisms of competition, coercion, and mimicry.     

Public Support for Climate Change Policy: Consistency in the Influence of Values and Attitudes Over Time and Across Specific Policy Alternatives

This study examines the factors that explain public preferences for a set of climate change policy alternatives. While scholarly work indicates a relationship between attitudes and values on views toward specific issues, the literature often examines general support for issues rather than specific policy proposals. Consequently, it is unclear the extent to which these attitudes and values affect specific policy considerations. This project examines public support for five climate change policy options in two national surveys taken three years apart. The empirical analysis reveals that time is a factor and that those who are liberal, have strong ecological values, report greater concern for climate change, and trust experts are consistently more supportive of the climate policy options considered here. The results shed new light on the nuanced views of the American public toward climate change.     

A Fresh Look at Stock Market Short‐termism

In this article, we develop a novel understanding of stock market short‐termism as a social phenomenon. Contrary to formerly popular academic belief, short‐termism is a problem that is highly unlikely to be structurally self‐correcting. An important driver of short‐termism typically elided within standard legal‐academic analyses is the informational centricity of modern stock markets, and resulting pressure on corporate managers to generate fresh ‘news’ indicative of perceived business ‘progress’. We highlight the growing enthusiasm of policy‐makers for a discriminatory ‘two‐tiered’ approach to public company investor relations. Accordingly, long‐term and committed investors are expected to be brought into the company's governance ‘inner circle’, while other investors are implicitly relegated to lowertier ‘outsider’ status. We argue that this supports a discriminatory approach to the allocation of voting entitlements in newly listing companies, enabling committed investors to develop cooperative and sustained governance relations with management unencumbered by ‘outside’ stock market pressures for short‐term financial‐performance outcomes.     

Watering Down the Court of Justice? The Dynamics between Network Implementation and Article 258 TFEU Litigation

With the establishment of an administrative network to manage implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), a more consensual approach to judicial enforcement seemed like a natural next step. This anticipation was partially derived from the experimentalist nature of the WFD, requiring concerted action in the specification and application of its open‐ended and broad provisions. This article assesses how important changes in WFD implementation practices shape the role played by the Court of Justice with respect to Article 258 Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The examination of the WFD litigation reveals interesting tensions. Network‐based implementation practices keep Member States accountable for the progress of implementation and make a subsequent legal action swifter. At the same time, implementation practices remove from courts those issues that may be better solved by network participants. The results show how the function and exercise of judicial enforcement is influenced by the ways in which legislation is implemented.