The ‘relics of Joan of Arc’: A forensic multidisciplinary analysis

Archaeological remains can provide concrete cases, making it possible to develop, refine or validate medico-legal techniques.In the case of the so-called ‘Joan of Arc's relics’ (a group of bone and archaeological remains known as the ‘Bottle of Chinon’), 14 specialists analysed the samples such as a cadaver X of carbonised aspect: forensic anthropologist, medical examiners, pathologists, geneticists, radiologist, biochemists, palynologists, zoologist and archaeologist. Materials, methods and results of this study are presented here.This study aims to offer an exploitable methodology for the modern medico-legal cases of small quantities of human bones of carbonised aspect.     

Exploring Risk: Potential Static,Dynamic, Protective and Treatment Factors in the Clinical Histories of Female Sex Offenders

Despite nearly a century of knowledge indicating a significant number of women engaging in sexual activities with children, the phenomenon has not yet been fully acknowledged. Recently, however, there has been a marked increase in research in this area. However, due to the relatively small numbers of detections or convictions there remains a lack of data regarding: (1) the specific clinical characteristics of female sex offenders; and (2) how these clinical factors link to re-offending and treatment need. The following study examines potential risk, protective, and treatment factors that are highlighted through the process of clinical intervention, using an adapted version of the Beech and Ward (2004) risk framework. We describe how female sex offenders typically display clinical deficits in the same risk domains as their male counterparts, while noting the ways in which these deficits manifest in this population. In addition, we compare these vulnerability factors in four established types of female sex offender.     

The Concentration and Stability of Gun Violence at Micro Places in Boston, 1980–2008

Boston, like many other major U.S. cities, experienced an epidemic of gun violence during the late 1980s and early 1990s that was followed by a sudden large downturn in gun violence in the mid 1990s. The gun violence drop continued until the early part of the new millennium. Recent advances in criminological research suggest that there is significant clustering of crime in micro places, or “hot spots,” that generate a disproportionate amount of criminal events in a city. In this paper, we use growth curve regression models to uncover distinctive developmental trends in gun assault incidents at street segments and intersections in Boston over a 29-year period. We find that Boston gun violence is intensely concentrated at a small number of street segments and intersections rather than spread evenly across the urban landscape between 1980 and 2008. Gun violence trends at these high-activity micro places follow two general trajectories: stable concentrations of gun assaults incidents over time and volatile concentrations of gun assault incidents over time. Micro places with volatile trajectories represent less than 3% of street segments and intersections, generate more than half of all gun violence incidents, and seem to be the primary drivers of overall gun violence trends in Boston. Our findings suggest that the urban gun violence epidemic, and sudden downturn in urban gun violence in the late 1990s, may be best understood by examining highly volatile micro-level trends at a relatively small number of places in urban environments.     

Now <Emphasis Type="Italic">Everyone</Emphasis> Looks the Same: Alcohol Intoxication Reduces the Own-Race Bias in Face Recognition

Several factors influence the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence. Typically, recognition for same-race faces is better than for different-race faces (the own-race bias), and alcohol intoxication decreases overall face recognition accuracy. This research investigated how alcohol intoxication influences the own-race bias. Asian and European participants completed tests of recognition memory for Asian and European faces when either mildly intoxicated (mean breath alcohol concentration of .05) or when sober. Compared to their sober counterparts, intoxicated participants showed a reduced own-race bias. Specifically, alcohol intoxication had a larger negative effect on the recognition of same-race faces compared to different-race faces. The legal and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.     

LIFE AFTER DEATH: THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE LEGAL STATUS OF POSTHUMOUSLY CONCEIVED CHILDREN

The advance of reproductive technology, coupled with a legal system that cannot keep up, has had a detrimental effect on posthumously conceived children. There is controversy over whether a child conceived after the death of one parent, by way of reproductive technology, is considered a child of that parent for inheritance purposes. An overwhelming majority of state legislatures have not given consideration to the unique question that posthumously conceived children pose. Legislative inaction has forced state courts to apply antiquated laws in the midst of a technological revolution. The result: children are being denied inheritance rights to their deceased parent's estate solely because of the way they were conceived. This Note advocates that all children should be given the same rights and benefits regardless of how they are conceived. To accomplish that goal, this Note proposes a model state statute to be adopted in all states. The model statute deems a posthumously conceived child to be the child of his or her deceased parent, and thus entitled to inheritance rights, if 1) the posthumously conceived child was provided for by will, or 2) the deceased parent intended to be a parent; there is a genetic relationship between parent and child; the child is born within three years from the death of his or her deceased parent; and the child's best interest, balanced against the state's interests, exceeds the state's interest. The desired effect of the statute is to put posthumously conceived children on equal footing with naturally conceived children.     

Exploring gender differences in dating violence/harassment prevention programming in middle schools: results from a randomized experiment

In this study, we randomly assigned 123 sixth and seventh grade classrooms from seven middle schools in the greater Cleveland area to one of two five-session curricula addressing gender violence/sexual harassment (GV/SH) or to a no-treatment control group. A baseline survey and two follow-up surveys were administered immediately after the treatment (Wave 2) and about six months post-treatment (Wave 3). In an earlier paper, we demonstrated the effectiveness of two approaches to youth GV/SH prevention programming (a fact-based, law and justice curriculum and an interaction-based curriculum). In this paper, we explored whether these largely positive findings remain for both girls and boys, including whether girls experience higher levels of GV/SH than boys. Most of our statistical models proved to be non-statistically significant. However, in 2 of our 48 victimization/perpetration (any violence, sexual violence and non-sexual violence) models (across two post-intervention follow-up points), we observed that the interventions reduced peer (male or female, non-dating partner) sexual violence victimization and reduced peer perpetration, but another outcome model indicated that the interventions increased dating perpetration. These mixed findings will need to be explored further in future research. Regarding our primary research question, we observed no statistically significant differences for the treatment multiplied by gender interaction terms for any of the perpetration or victimization outcome models, suggesting that the treatment had similar effects on girls and boys. However, we did observe that boys are more involved in violence than girls: both as victims and perpetrators. Boys experienced significantly more of three types of victimization from peers and dating partners compared to what girls experienced at the hands of their peers and dating partners. As perpetrators, boys committed more sexual victimization against peers (immediately post-intervention only) and more sexual victimization against dating partners than girls. The implications of these results are discussed.     

Crossing the threshold: A positive analysis of IBRD graduation policy

According to World Bank policy, countries remain eligible to borrow from the IBRD until they are able to sustain long-term development without further recourse to Bank financing. Graduation from IBRD is not an automatic consequence of reaching a particular income level, but rather is supposed to be based on a determination of whether the country has reached a level of institutional development and capital-market access that enables it to sustain its own development process without recourse to Bank funding. This paper takes a positive approach to IBRD graduation policy, investigating what income and non-income factors appear to have influenced graduation status in recent decades, based on panel data for 1982 through 2009. Explanatory variables include the per-capita income of the country, as well as measures of institutional development and market access that are cited as criteria by the graduation policy, and other plausible explanatory variables that capture the levels of economic development and vulnerability of the country. We find that the observed correlates of Bank graduation status are generally consistent with the stated policy. Countries that are wealthier, more creditworthy, more institutionally developed, and are less vulnerable to trade, financial, and other shocks are more likely to be graduates. Predicted probabilities generated by the model conform closely to the actual graduation and de-graduation experiences of Trinidad and Tobago and Korea, among other countries, and suggest that Hungary and Latvia may have graduated prematurely—a prediction subsequently borne out by the large loans that they later received from the IBRD in the wake of the global financial crisis.