1995 MEYER ELKIN ESSAY CONTEST WINNER IMPACT OF EXPEDITED VISITATION SERVICES,A COURT PROGRAM THAT ENFORCES ACCESS

The impact of a court service that is set up to enforce access orders is measured from the perspective of 70 children whose parents were program participants in the service. Children's perception of conflict diminished significantly over the 6-month period of service involvement. Children improved in their overall and school adjustment when visits with their noncustodial parents were more frequent. They were less depressed when they had quality relationships with both their mother and father. Children perceived more conflict as visits increased, but the negative impact was minimal.     

Dead Man Walking: The Affective Roots of Issue Proximity Between Voters and Parties

Do voters like the party they already agree with or do they agree with the party they already like? Previous studies have suggested a link from preferences to perceptions. However, such a causal link has not been convincingly demonstrated. Most issue voting studies have adopted the basic premise of spatial models of voting—that voters compare parties’ positions with their own ideal points and apply a rule to choose among these parties. Drawing on a natural experiment, this study shows that perceptual agreement between parties and voters is endogenous to voters’ party affect. We use the murder of a Dutch politician amidst the data collection period of the 2002 Dutch election study. The death increases respondents’ feelings for his party without providing information about its issue stances. This upward shift in feelings translates into a significant increase in the perceived level of proximity with the party. The design also allows us to explore the mechanism bringing parties and voters closer. Rather than taking up the party’s stances, voters move a party’s positions closer to their own views when their feelings for that party increase. The findings challenge established assumptions about the theoretical underpinnings of spatial models of voting. They support classic notions of voter projection and lend credence to recent theories of attitudinal change, which are based on coarse thinking and uninformative updating.     

Social Justice Attitudes and Their Demographic Correlates Among a Nationally Representative Sample of U.S. Adolescents

Compared to extant studies, this study uses more rigorous analyses to describe social justice attitudes and their correlates among a nationally representative sample of 2,811 U.S. ninth-graders. Females and adolescents with more educated mothers tended to express more support for social justice. Strikingly, about 90 % of adolescents believed that equal opportunity to obtain a good education exists in the U.S. Adolescents were also more likely to support abstract social justice principles rather than solutions that promote social justice: about 80 % agreed that all races and genders should have equal opportunities, but only 55 % reported that government should be responsible for individuals’ economic needs. Differences between U.S. adolescents’ and adults’ attitudes are noted, and implications for future research are presented.     

Elder neglect and the pathophysiology of aging

Elder neglect, one of the 6 forms of elder maltreatment, is difficult to diagnose and is underreported both in the scientific literature and to law enforcement. Recognizing fatal neglect is even more challenging especially with concurrent organic disease. Many entities can mimic elder neglect, and many age-related changes can result in pathology that may be confused with maltreatment. We retrospectively reviewed all forensic cases of individuals age sixty-five years and older which were referred for autopsy. Cases of fatal neglect were analyzed as to age, sex, race, cause of death, location of incident, perpetrator, victim-to-perpetrator relationship, and autopsy and ancillary findings. The cases studies totaled 8. The age range was 74 to 94 years. Two were white, 6 black, one male, and 7 female. The causes of death were sepsis due to severe decubitus ulcers and severe dehydration. Five cases occurred in the victim's home, and 3 occurred in an institution (nursing home/care facility). In 5 cases, the perpetrators were family members. The pathophysiology of aging with respect to elder maltreatment is reviewed.     

Effect of electron beam irradiation on forensic evidence. 2. Analysis of writing inks on porous surfaces

The effect of electron beam irradiation on a series of different writing inks is described. As the anthrax-tainted letters were discovered in October 2001, the U.S. government began to experiment with the use of the electron beam irradiation process for destroying such biological agents. Plans initially considered a large-scale countrywide use of this technology. However, over time the scope of this plan as well as the radiation dosage were reduced, especially when some adverse consequences to mailed items subjected to this process were observed. Little data existed at the time to characterize what level of damage might be expected to occur with common items sent through the mail. This was especially important to museums and other institutions that routinely ship valuable and historic items through the mail. Although the Smithsonian Institution initiated some studies of the effect of electron beam irradiation on archived materials, little data existed on the effect that this process would have on forensic evidence. Approximately 97 different black, blue, red, green, and yellow writing inks were selected. Writing ink types included ballpoint, gel, plastic/felt tip, and rollerball. All noncontrol samples were subjected to standard mail irradiation conditions used by the U.S. Postal Service at the time this experiment was performed. A video spectral comparator and thin-layer chromatography (TLC) analysis were used to evaluate both the control and the irradiated samples. Some published studies reported changes in the presence/absence of dye bands in the chromatograms of irradiated writing inks. Some of these studies report the formation of additional dye bands on the chromatogram while others report missing dye bands. However, using standard testing guidelines and procedures, none of the 97 irradiated inks tested were found to show any significant optical or chemical differences from the control samples. In addition, random testing of some of the ink samples using a second solvent system did not reveal any changes. However, one control ink did show some minor changes in optical properties and dye characteristics over time (but not TLC) while the irradiated sample remained stable. Significant changes in the ultraviolet fluorescence characteristics of the irradiated paper samples themselves (not inks) were also observed.     

Neuroimaging in Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

Neuroimaging in mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) is reviewed. While computed tomography remains the acute standard for neuroimaging of mTBI, it is only sensitive to gross abnormalities and is typically performed as a measure to rule out more serious and life-threatening injury. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), especially at field strength of 3.0 T, is the follow-up neuroimaging standard for assessing potential underlying structural injury to the brain. Several MRI sequences are particularly sensitive to subtle hemorrhagic lesions and signal abnormalities in white matter, sensitive enough to detect pathology when present in mTBI. Clinical correlation of neuropsychological outcome with neuroimaging findings is discussed along with the future potential for functional neuroimaging in evaluating the mTBI patient.     

To Test or Not To Test?: The Value of Toxicology in a Delayed Overdose Death

A case demonstrating the necessity of thorough death investigation processes where toxicology plays an active role is presented. A 33‐year‐old white man presented to the emergency room in respiratory distress after an overdose episode where he was revived on the scene by fire rescue. His condition continued to deteriorate and he expired 6 days after the initial incident. No admission specimens were available for testing; however, there were specimens drawn 4 and 5 days after the incident. Drug paraphernalia from the scene was obtained by the laboratory through collaboration with local law enforcement. Drug paraphernalia was initially tested in the laboratory and after obtaining the results, the antemortem and postmortem specimens were tested identifying mitragynine and U‐47700, among other drugs. These results indicate the value in obtaining and testing drug paraphernalia, and the value of testing antemortem specimens even in the event of a delay.     

Average Probability that a "Cold Hit" in a DNA Database Search Results in an Erroneous Attribution

Abstract:  We consider a hypothetical series of cases in which the DNA profile of a crime-scene sample is found to match a known profile in a DNA database (i.e., a "cold hit"), resulting in the identification of a suspect based only on genetic evidence. We show that the average probability that there is another person in the population whose profile matches the crime-scene sample but who is not in the database is approximately 2( N  −  d ) p _A , where N is the number of individuals in the population, d is the number of profiles in the database, and p _A is the average match probability (AMP) for the population. The AMP is estimated by computing the average of the probabilities that two individuals in the population have the same profile. We show further that if a priori each individual in the population is equally likely to have left the crime-scene sample, then the average probability that the database search attributes the crime-scene sample to a wrong person is ( N  −  d ) p _A .     

From Apathy to Action: Promoting Active Citizenship and Global Responsibility amongst Populations in the Global North

Efforts to address social and global problems such as poverty, mass hunger and mass-atrocity crimes are hindered significantly by apathy and low levels of active civil and political engagement amongst populations in developed countries. Social change non-government organisations (NGOs), such as Oxfam Australia, Oxfam Hong Kong and Médecins Sans Frontières, have recently employed innovative, creative, experience-based strategies in their efforts to promote active citizenship and greater global responsibility amongst populations in the Global North. These techniques are based on two key assumptions: that experiences change attitudes and that changes in behaviour will follow changes in attitudes. Yet the effectiveness of these newer techniques and the accuracy of the assumptions on which they are based remain largely untested. This article explores these assumptions and discusses the innovative, creative techniques that they have generated in NGO public education efforts. The article examines the theoretical literature on the problem of apathy and on the use of creative techniques to overcome apathy. It further discusses the practical application of these techniques through an examination of Oxfam Australia's “Refugee Realities” project. This discussion is based on preliminary evaluation research conducted by Oxfam Australia and the author's own experiences as an actor/volunteer on the project. The article suggests that creative, experience-based public education strategies are effective in challenging and confronting public attitudes towards issues of global injustice. Further research is needed, however, to determine whether these encounters result in long-term changes in attitudes and whether they contribute to moving individuals and communities from apathy to action.