Dental identification by comparison of antemortem and postmortem dental radiographs: influence of operator qualifications and cognitive bias

Dental forensic identifications based on comparison of antemortem and postmortem radiographs provide effective and reliable evidence. There are no standardized procedures for assessing similarities between different types of dental radiographs (e.g. orthopantomograms, bitewings, and periapical radiographs), and the operator's subjective judgment can considerably affect identification. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the potential influence of experts' qualifications, training, and cognitive bias on the accuracy of identification. Seventy-eight differently qualified and experienced experts underwent an identification test. The expert sample was composed of 10 specialists in emergency care (ER), 10 specialists in legal medicine (ML), 20 pregraduate dental students (STU), 12 dentists (DENT), 20 dentists educated in forensic odontology (DENT-TRA), and 6 experienced forensic odontologists (FOR). The simulated cases required participants to assess the possible matching of 42 postmortem intraoral radiographs with 16 antemortem panoramic radiographs. Accuracy and specificity for the different operator groups were as follows: ER, 0.76-0.70; ML, 0.76-0.88; STU, 0.89-0.82; DENT, 0.87-0.97; DENT-TRA, 0.88-0.92; and FOR, 0.97-1. As evidenced by high rates of accuracy and repeatability, the most experienced forensic odontologist consistently outperformed operators less or differently educated and trained, especially for difficult cases. In our sample, the dentists who received additional education in forensic odontology did not necessarily perform better than dentists who had not received this additional education. Some cognitive bias, mainly the so-called observer effect, emerged as a possible source of outcome variability among the operator groups.     

No Democratic Change… and Yet No Authoritarian Continuity: The Inter-paradigm Debate and North Africa After the Uprisings

North Africa has gone through dramatic events since the eruption of the Arab uprisings in Tunisia in late 2010. Despite sharing similar characteristics that were central to the uprisings, they have known different political and institutional trajectories since then. The article provides an appraisal of the contributions to this special issue focusing in particular on the peculiar situation of countries where no genuine democratic change has occurred and where there is little authoritarian continuity as well.     

Fair use and copyright protection: a price theory explanation

Copyright scholars suggest that computer technology has reduced transaction costs associated with copyright transfer, allegedly eliminating the need for the fair-use doctrines that were developed to allow limited use of copyrighted material in situations where the transaction costs of securing authorized use would be prohibitive. According to this emerging view, in an ideal world with no contracting costs, third party use of copyrighted material could realistically only take place with the express consent of the copyright holder. This would give the author absolute power to dispose of his work, including the right to veto uses, without the possibility of a fair use “override” of any sort.This paper shows the limits of such transaction cost-based arguments. If transaction costs provide the dominant economic justification of “fair-use” doctrines, an exogenous reduction of such transaction costs would limit the scope and application of the defense of fair use. Nevertheless, in this paper we suggest that, when viewed in light of the anticommons theory, fair-use doctrines retain a valid efficiency justification even in a zero transaction-cost environment. Fair-use defenses are justifiable, and in fact instrumental, in minimizing the welfare losses prompted by the strategic behavior of the copyright holders. Even if copyright licenses can be transferred at no cost (for instance, in a “click and pay” frictionless computer world), the strategic behavior of the copyright holders would still create possible deadweight losses.In this context, we identify a number of critical variables that should guide and constrain the application of fair-use doctrines. These variables include (a) the number of copyright holders; (b) the degree of complementarity between the copyrighted inputs; (c) the degree of independence between the various copyright holders in the pricing of their licenses; and (d) ability to price discriminate.     

Shared genetic data and the rights of involved people.

The authors examine the two main attitudes toward genetics: Exceptionalism and Undervaluation. They firstly pose the basis of the matter from the scientific point of view and then verify how these two attitudes really work in the different fields where human genetics finds relevant applications, dealing with the questions arising from the unique characteristics of genetic data that is shared among the whole bio-group. Then some judicial cases related to the conflicts arising when genetic data are stored in repositories, whatever the aims and reasons, are presented and discussed. The matter is then considered from the criminal law perspective, in the light of the new possible implications of DNA fingerprinting in criminal investigations. Finally, some general considerations on opposing Exceptionalism/Undervaluation viewpoints and the real reason for making up new rules are presented.