Illegal finance and usurers behaviour

This paper deals with a stochastic dynamic optimization problem in the context of illegal company financing. Our analysis of the usury phenomenon is conducted by searching for the best interest rate which an illegal financier should apply to a company in order to bring about the firm??s bankruptcy whilst still securing the maximum wealth for the firm??s guarantee. In this case, the company itself can be taken over and used by the financier for illegal activities. Because of the highly complex nature of the problem, the analysis will be performed via simulation studies.     

Feeling so Hood. Rap,lifestyles and the neighbourhood imaginary in Tunisia

The article examines the role of rap in reimagining the social structure in Tunisia after its 2010/2011 revolution. Before the revolution, the Ben Ali regime imposed a narrative of Tunisian society as mainly middle class; beneath this narrative, the Tunisian folklore hosted multiple markers of social distinction that classified people through their perceived lifestyles: residence, language habits, consumption patterns, religious attitudes. Disadvantaged neighbourhoods were obliterated by the official narrative and condemned to social spite by the unofficial ones. After the revolution, the success of rap came to ‘represent’ those quarters and the youth that inhabited them: rappers sang the hoods by criticizing their hard conditions and, at the same time, glorifying the hoods themselves. The vagueness of the social narratives in the country allowed rap musicians to manipulate both the image of the poor neighbourhoods and the idioms of social difference circulating in Tunisia: through this manipulation, they provided a new dignity to the most marginalized sectors of Tunisian society. At the same time, by representing the hoods, rappers could claim social capital and credibility as the ‘true’ narrators of the new Tunisia. But the reimagination of social narratives was not enough to improve the life conditions of dispossessed youth.     

MMPI-2 and 16PF-5 Personality Traits of Parents Involved in Personality Assessment

The present study focused on both the MMPI-2 scales and the 16PF-5 primary and global factors, involving 213 individuals who were court-ordered to undergo a personality assessment in neglect and/or abuse cases. Results showed a defensive approach to the assessment and specific psychological characteristics indicated by moderate range elevations in the MMPI-2 clinical scales 4 and 6 and in the 16PF-5 Tough-Mindedness, and high scores of 16PF-5 Self-Control associated with low scores of PSY-5 Disconstraint. Finally, this study revealed strong associations between MMPI-2 PSY-5 and 16PF-5 global factors, offering a detailed picture of psychological functioning.     

‘You caught ’em!’…or not? Feedback affects investigators’ recollections of speech cues thought to signal honesty and deception

Purpose. When eyewitnesses to crime receive feedback about their choice of a suspect from a line‐up (or post‐identification feedback), such information can substantially alter their recollections of the witnessing experience. This study examined whether feedback exerts similar effects on investigators’ recollections of a suspect's behaviours. Methods. Participant‐investigators received training on speech cues that they were told, when present in a speaker's account, signal either honesty or deception. After hearing a suspect's account of a theft, participants decided whether the suspect was lying or telling the truth. One‐third of participants subsequently received immediate confirming feedback about their performance, while another third received disconfirming feedback. The remaining one‐third of participants did not receive feedback about their decision. Finally, participants rated the frequencies of speech cues that they had been instructed to detect in the suspect's account. Results. Disconfirming feedback significantly altered retrospective judgments about the characteristics of the suspect's account. Specifically, when told that the decision they made about the speaker's credibility was incorrect, participants judged the speaker as having exhibited fewer behaviours consistent with the credibility decision they had made, relative to those who either received no feedback or confirming feedback. Conclusions. Biases in recollections of a suspect may have consequences in real‐world interrogations wherein investigators assess credibility on the basis of numerous behavioural cues. Results are discussed in light of findings of post‐identification feedback studies on eyewitnesses.     

Caught between Europe and the orient: Israel and the EMP

As the case of Transnistria illustrates, the politico-economic arrangements of de facto states are marked by a tendency to sacrifice the economy to political objectives. Despite non-recognition and limited local resources, these entities manage to make use of their ambiguous status and external support to sustain their claims to statehood. Yet, the priority of these claims over economic development, as well as strategies of survival in general can have unintended effects on unrecognised state-building projects, such as the emergence of a spin-off opposition or public disillusionment.     

Organized crime,money laundering and legal economy: theory and simulations

This paper proposes a dynamic model to simulate the relationships between the profits of organized crime, money laundering and legal investments. We develop a macro framework in which organized crime can increase its possibilities to invest in the legal sector by resorting to effective but costly money laundering schemes. The model explores the conditions under which the effectiveness of money laundering causes a positive trend in the legal assets owned by the criminal organizations. We use the model to simulate the total amount of legal wealth generated by organized crime through drug trafficking in different world regions, with particular attention to Europe.     

Postmortem molecular analysis in victims of sudden unexplained death

Among several conditions that can be responsible for sudden cardiac death (SCD), an important role is played by long QT syndrome (LQTS). LQTS is a congenital electric heart disease that can be asymptomatic or have very severe clinical manifestation, leading to cardiac arrest. In fact, the first manifestation of LQTS can be hyperkinetic ventricular arrhythmias. The presence of LQTS should be considered in all cases of SCD where autopsy is negative for anatomic and histopathological findings. In these cases, after an accurate anamnesis, a genetic screening should always be performed. The screening on LQTS genes is performed on DNA extracted from paraffin-embedded tissues. Making a proper diagnosis in such cases can help to find new affected subjects among the family members of SCD victims and treat them. In these cases, if the pathologist does not make a correct diagnosis, can he or she be sued for malpractice?