Fixed Investment and Economic Growth in China

This paper attempts to investigate empirically the investment-growth relationship in China. Using the exogeneity framework pioneered by Engle et al. (1983) and Engle and Hendry (1993), we find that fixed investment is a key determinant of China's economic growth, which, surprisingly, has not been rigorously examined in the literature. The super exogeneity test results suggest that there exists a robust (or structurally invariant) relationship between capital formation and income growth, thereby giving credence to policy evaluation.     

Methamphetamine-related deaths in San Francisco: demographic, pathologic, and toxicologic profiles

A study was undertaken to develop demographic, toxicologic, and pathological profiles of methamphetamine-related deaths. Anatomic and toxicologic findings in 413 deaths where methamphetamine was detected were compared with findings in a control group of 114 drug-free trauma victims. The number of cases per year did not change significantly over the course of the study. Mean age was 36.8 years, but 11% were over the age of 50. Decedents were overwhelmingly male (85.2%) and Caucasian (75%). Blood concentrations of methamphetamine and amphetamine were indistinguishable in cases where methamphetamine was related to the cause of death (MR) and cases where it was not (non-MR) (2.08 vs. 1.78 mg/L, p = 0.65, and 0.217 vs. 0.19 mg/L, p = 0.82). Coronary artery disease, ranging from minimal to severe multivessel, was identified in 79 of the 413 drug users, but in only six of the 114 drug-free controls (p = 0.0004), and MR decedents had enlarged hearts compared with controls. There were also ten cases of subarachnoid and intracranial hemorrhage in the MR group. Abnormalities of the liver (34%) and lungs (24.7%) were frequent. In 65% of these cases, death was due to accidental methamphetamine toxicity. In the remaining cases, methamphetamine was an incidental finding. We conclude that, in our jurisdiction, neither the rate of detection nor the number of methamphetamine deaths has increased significantly in the past 13 years. Decedents are almost all Caucasian males, and many were approaching middle-age. Methamphetamine use is strongly associated with coronary artery disease and with subarachnoid hemorrhage.     

Stressors, coping resources and strategies, and police stress in South Korea

The present article extends prior research to identify the predictors of police stress from work place problems, the resources available through social support, different strategies for coping with stress, and conditions unique to policing in South Korea. The unique conditions are perceived public perception of police and attitudes towards women working outside of the home. Seven hundred officers were asked to participate in the research, and 686 did participate (96 percent response rate). Almost half of the variance in stress could be explained. Reports of being ridiculed and “set up” in dangerous situations, and to a lesser extent, lack of support from superiors and perceived disrespect from the public, were salient predictors of stress. Coping strategies did not moderate the associations between stressors and stress. Findings were interpreted in relation to collectivist culture and possible points of intervention.     

Perceived crime seriousness: Consensus and disparity

In this article, the statistical technique for setting up the consensus of perceived crime seriousness in previous studies is critically reviewed. The conventional method, when applied to a data set of crime seriousness, is found to have exaggerated the consensus because, by using a more appropriate model, which assumes perfect agreement in crime severity between subgroups, the consensus is reduced unanimously. By breaking down the population by gender, age, and educational level, sociodemographic differentials in crime seriousness are set up. The disparity is then further examined in details by paired comparisons between a target crime with fourteen other crimes. The three factors are all found to be important in affecting perceived crime seriousness. This conclusion is different from that of previous studies. The scaling method is found to be responsible for the difference. As the Thurstone method used in this study is more responsive and can produce more discriminating results, it is recommended for future research in crime severity. Finally, the implications of the findings on some important issues, like the appropriateness of legal penalty and the construction of a crime index, are discussed.     

Female serial killers in the United States: means,motives, and makings

Most studies that have focused on female serial killers (FSKs), although informative, have examined limited sample sizes. We consulted mass media reports of demographics, motives, methods, mental health, and victim characteristics of 64 FSKs who committed their crimes in the US from 1821 to 2008. Consistent with other studies, our data showed that FSKs were typically White, educated, have been married, and held a caregiving role (e.g. mother, health care worker). Nearly 40% of FSKs in this sample experienced some form of mental illness. Their most common motive for murder was financial gain, and their most common method of killing was poisoning. FSKs knew all or most of their victims, and most were related to their victims. In all cases, FSKs targeted at least one victim who was a child, elderly, or infirm – those who had little chance of fighting back. We interpret these killers’ behaviors from clinical and evolutionary angles.     

Similar Facts in Civil Cases

This essay evaluates the recent restatement in O’Brienv Chief Constable of South Wales Police of the law on similarfacts in civil proceedings. The two-stage approach propoundedin O’Brien contains a number of conceptual problems. Apparentsimplicity was achieved by avoiding fundamental issues underlyingthis area. Prior to the Criminal Justice Act 2003, judges recognizedthat the common law similar facts rule had a role to play inboth civil and criminal trials; but they gave the rule a widerexclusionary scope in criminal than in civil cases. Adoptionof a moral perspective helps to explain this state of affairs.The rule, so it will be argued, protects the legitimacy of trialdeliberation by forbidding reliance on an assumption that disrespectsthe moral autonomy of the person whose conduct is being judged.This moral objection can arise in civil cases; but it arisesmore frequently and usually with greater force in criminal proceedings.Hence, while there is a need to reserve some judicial powerto disallow proof of similar incidents in the civil context,there is usually less reason for the exercise of that powerin civil cases than at criminal trials.     

Negativity in political perception

The tendency for negative information to have more weight than equally extreme or equally likely positive information appears in a variety of cognitive processing tasks, but has rarely been documented empirically in politics. This paper provides evidence for two types of negativity effects in electoral behavior: negativity in the formation of impressions (of Humphrey and Nixon in 1968, of McGovern and Nixon in 1972, and of Carter and Reagan in 1980), and negativity as a consequence of impressions (in the 1974 and 1978 congressional elections). Both post hoc rationalization and the nonequivalence of the positive and negative information were examined and ruled out as artifactual explanations for these results. Discussion centered around two possible explanations for negativity, a cost-orientation hypothesis (which holds that people are more strongly motivated to avoid costs than to approach gains) and a figure-ground hypothesis (which holds that negative information stands out against a general positive background).     

网络犯罪分析:用户及系统的多视图分析方法

近年来网络犯罪数量呈快速上升的势头,但是却缺乏一种有效的取证方法来处理这些案件.调查人员通常依靠调查大量繁琐的源代码来了解犯罪模型及提取证据,但这种方式需要很多的人力与时间,并可能导致人为错误.为了克服调查人员可能出现的这些潜在错误,我们在本文中提出了一种半自动的方法来解决这些问题.该方法集成了用户视图(基于取证调查人员的高级别研究)和系统视图(基于对源代码的自动分析),来帮助调查人员精确调查的范围.本文应用此方法分析了一个真实案件,证明了方法的可行性,同时帮助调查人员高效地确定了调查范围和犯罪模型.可见这种半自动方法可以对大量有多个来源的电子证据进行有效分析,提高了网络犯罪案件取证的效率和可靠性.