Can Cephalometrics Discriminate Between the Sexes in a Diverse Juvenile Sample?

A critical component of the biological profile is sex estimation. Methods commonly used for sex estimation in adults do not work well for juveniles. Population‐specific studies have used cephalometrics to estimate juvenile sex with 80–90% accuracy. Our study attempts to estimate sex in individuals less than 18 years of age using a sample of 1618 lateral cephalograms incorporating all three Angle Class occlusions as well as population diversity. For the sample as a whole, 10 skeletal cephalometrics were found to have significant differences between the sexes. Males and females classify correctly about 50% of the time. Dividing the sample by age groups and race/ethnicity improves results for older age groups and Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Americans. Our results indicate that cephalometrics are not useful in determining sex of unidentified juveniles when age and race are not known.     

The neuropsychology of offending

Abstract

Structural damage or abnormality of the brain may be related to offending. What is known about the consequences of lesions to the frontal and temporal lobes and of the results of head injury, suggests psychological changes that might well enhance the risk of offending, and in particular violent offending. Evidence from two sources is reviewed, that based on studies of offender groups and that based on those follow-up studies of clinically defined samples of head injury victims which have reported offence related outcomes. Despite some methodological limitations, the balance of evidence is that frontal damage and possibly temporal lobe damage is related to offending, particularly violent offending, and that head injury can act to precipitate offence related behaviour. It is suggested that future research needs to concentrate more on the factors that mediate the link between brain damage and offending behaviour.     

“The most patient of animals,next to the ass:” Jan Smuts,Howard University,and African American Leadership, 1930

Former South African Prime Minister Jan Smuts’s 1930 European and North American tour included a series of interactions with diasporic African and African American activists and intelligentsia. Among Smuts’s many remarks stands a particular speech he delivered in New York City, when he called Africans “the most patient of all animals, next to the ass.” Naturally, this and other comments touched off a firestorm of controversy surrounding Smuts, his visit, and segregationist South Africa’s laws. Utilizing news coverage, correspondence, and recollections of the trip, this article uses his visit as a lens into both African American relations with Africa and white American foundation work toward the continent and, especially, South Africa. It argues that the 1930 visit represents an early example of black internationalism and solidarity, reflecting a shift from sociocultural connections between Africa and the diaspora to creating political movements on behalf of African people. To contextualize this visit, we assess events surrounding a meeting that the Phelps-Stokes Fund organized for Smuts at Howard University, using this as a lens into the two disparate, yet interlocked, communities.