Accurate age estimates of immature necrophagous insects associated with a human or animal body can provide evidence of how long the body has been dead. These estimates are based on species-specific details of the insects’ aging processes, and therefore require accurate species identification and developmental stage estimation. Many professionals who produce or use identified organisms as forensic evidence have little training in taxonomy or metrology, and appreciate the availability of formalized principles and standards for biological identification. Taxonomic identifications are usually most readily and economically made using categorical and qualitative morphological characters, but it may be necessary to use less convenient and potentially more ambiguous characters that are continuous and quantitative if two candidate species are closely related, or if identifying developmental stages within a species. Characters should be selected by criteria such as taxonomic specificity and metrological repeatability and relative error. We propose such a hierarchical framework, critique various measurements of immature insects, and suggest some standard approaches to determine the reliability of organismal identifications and measurements in estimating postmortem intervals. Relevant criteria for good characters include high repeatability (including low scope for ambiguity or parallax effects), pronounced discreteness, and small relative error in measurements. These same principles apply to individuation of unique objects in general.
Key points
Metrological rigour can increase in forensic entomology by selecting measurements based on their metrological qualities.
Selection of high-quality features for morphological identification of organisms should consider these criteria: (1) pronounced discreteness of features (minimising group overlap or maximizing interval); (2) high repeatability of assessment (such as symmetrical width rather than asymmetrical length); (3) small relative error in measurement (selecting the physically largest continuous rigid feature for measurement).
These metrological principles also apply to individuation of unique objects in general.
The treatment processes associated with reduced suicidal ideation have received little research attention. This study evaluates the influence on suicidal ideation of theory-based intrapsychic processes: maladaptive cognition and defensive style. Thirty-three community mental health patients completed questionnaires at two time points. Decreases in automatic thoughts were a strong correlate of decreased suicidal ideation, and decreases in immature defenses were a moderate strength correlate. These relationships remained significant even when controlling for initial level of depression. The theorized mechanisms of cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic therapy had the expected effects on suicidal ideation. The strong association of decreased maladaptive cognitions with decreased suicidal ideation supports further development of cognitive-behavioral suicide interventions and clinical use of cognitive interventions. Psychodynamic processes in suicidal ideation and behavior warrant further exploration. 相似文献
Corpus linguistics is becoming a respected method of statutory and constitutional interpretation in the United States over the past decade, yet it has also generated a backlash from a group of scholars that engage in empirical work. This essay attempts to demonstrate both the contributions and the risks of using linguistic corpora as a primary tool in legal interpretation. Its legitimacy stems from the fact that courts routinely state that statutory terms, when not defined as a matter of law, are to be given their ordinary meaning. Judges have responded to this challenge, with the assistance of the linguistics community, by using corpora to determine which meanings are ordinary. However, legal analysts have not determined exactly what makes one meaning ordinary and another not ordinary. This gap has led to a level of disagreement in the field. Moreover, while linguists who engage in corpus linguistic analysis typically emphasize the importance of context, the legal application is peculiarly context-free, in keeping with legal philosophies that eschew reliance on reference to a law’s purpose and the intent of the legislature that enacted it. This move adds a political dimension to corpus analysis as a means of legal interpretation. Yet, the article concludes that by relying on a blend of general and specialized corpora, the legal system can substantially reduce the problem of contextualization, as some linguists and practitioners have already recognized.
Psychological Injury and Law - The extent to which persons may feign or malinger psychological symptoms is an important concern for civil litigation, specifically in the context of personal injury.... 相似文献
Correspondence in value orientation between parents and their offspring may be due to actual transmission processes between
generations, but it may also be due to influences from the general value context in society that are common to parents and
their offspring. This common value context is referred to as Zeitgeist. The present study deals with one family relationship
value (i.e., parents’ and adolescents’ obligations toward the family). Participants were 1,252 immigrant and 726 national
adolescent–parent dyads from 10 Western countries. There were significant relationships between the value placed on family
obligations among parents and offspring, and these were independent of gender. Zeitgeist effects, both intergenerational and
intragenerational, were found. The strength of these Zeitgeist effects depended on the basis for defining Zeitgeist, either
a person’s own ethnic group or the wider community including both nationals and immigrants. For explaining national adolescents’
acceptance of their family obligations, both the ethnic and the national Zeitgeist played a role, whereas in the immigrant
groups only the ethnic Zeitgeist played a significant role. In short, in an immigration context it makes sense to distinguish
the influence of a person’s own ethnic group from the influence of the wider community, including other ethnic groups. Explanations
are suggested and implications are discussed.