The Decipherment of Latent White Board Entries

This case involves an incriminating message written on a white board and erased before the investigators seized the evidence. Investigators inquired about the possibility of recovering the entries and subsequently submitted the board to the Documents and Digital Evidence Branch for examination. In an attempt to recover latent handwritten entries, examinations were conducted utilizing the Foster and Freeman Video Spectral Comparator 6000/Hyper Spectral (VSC 6000/HS). Latent handwritten entries were observed with the use of an excitation band‐pass filter in the range of 485 nm‐610 nm with a longpass barrier filter at 645 nm in front of the camera lens of the VSC 6000/HS. Entries were also recovered and imaged using an alternate light source with the Phase One (P65) imaging system. Multiple latent handwritten entries were recovered utilizing various instruments and lighting techniques. This report discusses the details concerning the examination and the results.     

Comparing Homicide‐Suicides in the United States and Sweden

Research on homicides followed by suicides has largely relied on very localized samples and relatively short time spans of data. As a result, little is known about the extent to which patterns within cases of homicide‐suicides are geographically specific. The current study seeks to help fill this gap by comparing twenty years of homicide‐suicide data for Sweden and a large U.S. county. Although some of the underlying patterns in the two countries are similar (e.g., decreasing rates), a number of important differences emerge, particularly with respect to incidence, weapons used, perpetrator age, and relationship of the perpetrator to the victim.     

The Experience of the Infant Entering Refuge (Shelter) Setting with Their Mothers After Fleeing Family Violence

Journal of Family Violence - Almost nothing is known about how the infant may experience being in a women’s Refuge (Shelter) setting with their mother after fleeing family violence, despite...     

Negotiating a Place for ‘Sustainability’ Policies in Municipal Planning and Governance: The Role of Scalar Discourses and Practices

The widespread adoption of sustainability agendas in urban contexts has opened a now well-recognised ‘policy space’ linking sustainability principles with urban development and local politics. Central to these enquiries is a focus on the need to spatialise debates on sustainable urban development by examining the scales at which locally grounded tensions are resolved. Using a case study set in the City of Vancouver, Canada, this article shows how the adoption of one specific sustainability policy—food policy—was enabled by specific reframings of the scale at which it was assumed to be most appropriately situated, and shows how new strategies for co-ordinating governance at and between scales were deployed.     

Pathways of Intergenerational Transmission of Advantages during Adolescence: Social Background,Cognitive Ability,and Educational Attainment

Educational attainment in adolescence is of paramount importance for attaining higher education and for shaping subsequent life chances. Sociological accounts focus on the role of differences in socioeconomic resources in intergenerational reproduction of educational inequalities. These often disregard the intergenerational transmission of cognitive ability and the importance of children’s cognitive ability to educational attainment. Psychological perspectives stress the importance of cognitive ability for educational attainment but underemphasize potentially different roles of specific socioeconomic resources in shaping educational outcomes, as well as individual differences in cognitive ability. By integrating two strands of research, a clearer picture of the pathways linking the family of origin, cognitive ability, and early educational outcomes can be reached. Using the population-based TwinLife study in Germany, we investigated multidimensional pathways linking parental socioeconomic position to their children’s cognitive ability and academic track attendance in the secondary school. The sample included twins (N?=?4008), respectively ages 11 and 17, and siblings (N?=?801). We observed strong genetic influences on cognitive ability, whereas shared environmental influences were much more important for academic tracking. In multilevel analyses, separate dimensions of socioeconomic resources influenced child cognitive ability, controlling parental cognitive ability. Controlling adolescent cognitive ability and parental cognitive ability, parental socioeconomic resources also directly affected track attendance. This indicated that it is crucial to investigate the intertwined influences on educational outcomes in adolescence of both cognitive ability and the characteristics of the family of origin.     

The Role of Peer Group Aggression in Predicting Adolescent Dating Violence and Relationship Quality

Past research has shown that adolescent peer groups make a significant contribution to shaping behavior but less is known about the role of peer groups in adolescent dating relationships. This longitudinal study examined the contribution of aggressive peer group norms on relationship quality and dating violence among dating adolescents. At the beginning of the school year (T1) and 6 months later (T2), participants (n = 1,070; M _age = 15.45; 49 % Female) provided self-reports of attitudes towards aggression, and physically- and relationally-aggressive behaviors. Peer groups were identified using a peer-nomination technique and aggressive behaviors and attitudes were averaged across peer groups. Participants with dating experience (n = 598) reported on the frequency of their experience with dating violence (both as a victim and perpetrator). Multilevel analyses indicated that peer group relational aggression at T1 positively predicted dating abuse victimization and perpetration, and negatively predicted relationship quality at T2, beyond individual predictions. An unexpected finding was that membership in physically aggressive peer groups at T1 was associated positively with relationship quality at T2. Results point to the importance of the peer group in shaping adolescent dating experiences.     

A Longitudinal Path Analysis of Peer Victimization, Threat Appraisals to the Self, and Aggression, Anxiety, and Depression Among Urban African American Adolescents

Threat appraisals—individuals’ perceptions of how stressful situations may threaten their well-being—are an important but understudied mechanism that could explain links between peer victimization and adjustment. The goal of the present study was to examine relationships between physical and relational victimization by peers, threats to the self, and aggression, anxiety, and depression to better understand the cognitive evaluations that make youth vulnerable to negative adjustment. The sample comprised two cohorts of African American adolescents (N = 326; 54 % female; M = 12.1; SD = 1.6) and their maternal caregivers, who participated in three waves of a longitudinal study. Path models revealed significant direct effects from Time 1 relational victimization, but not physical victimization, to Time 2 threat appraisals (i.e., negative self-evaluations and negative evaluations by others), controlling for Time 1 threat appraisals. Significant direct effects were found from Time 2 threats of negative evaluations by others to Time 3 youth-reported aggression, controlling for Time 1 and Time 2 aggression. Significant direct effects also were found from Time 2 threats of negative self-evaluations to T3 youth-reported depression, controlling for Time 1 and Time 2 depression. Overall, findings highlight the need to consider the role of threats to the self in pathways from peer victimization to adjustment and the implications these appraisals have for youth prevention and intervention efforts.