College programs in prison and upon reentry for men and women: a literature review

People in prison participating in college education are least likely to recidivate and most likely to be employed after incarceration. Almost no research exists on the collateral – negative and often unanticipated – consequences of a criminal conviction on access to college upon community re-entry. We review these few studies, the existing research on college in prison – with special attention to women’s needs; some new ‘hybrid’ programs with 2 years of college in prison plus 2 years in the community; and the rare studies that interview people applying to college upon re-entry. Their struggles can be overwhelming and require more research and activism.     

Autopsy radiography: digital radiographs (DR) vs multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) in high-velocity gunshot-wound victims

This study compared full-body digital radiography (DR) with multidetector computed tomography (MDCT) in the postmortem evaluation of gunshot wound (GSW) victims. Thirteen consecutive male GSW victims (mean age, 27 years) had full-body DR and MDCT prior to routine autopsy. DR successfully identified all metallic fragments, but MDCT was superior in its ability to precisely determine location because it provided 3-dimensional anatomic localization. In all cases, MDCT more accurately assessed organ injuries and wound tracks. Both DR and MDCT are limited in classifying multiple wounds and major vessel injury, but MDCT is generally superior to DR. MDCT shows significant advantages over DR in the forensic evaluation of GSW victims. This is particularly advantageous for the pathologist retrieving metallic fragments and for describing fracture detail accurately. Use of MDCT instead of radiographs will require medical examiners to become familiar with reading cross-sectional images.     

Using indirect questions to detect intimate partner violence: the SAFE-T questionnaire

A screening instrument for detecting intimate partner violence (IPV) was developed using indirect questions. The authors identified 5 of 18 items studied that clearly distinguished victims of IPV from a random group of health conference attendees with a sensitivity of 85% and a specificity of 87%. This 5-item instrument (SAFE-T) was then tested on 435 women presenting to three emergency departments and the results compared to a direct question regarding current abuse. The SAFE-T questions detected only 54% of the women who admitted being abused and correctly classified 81% of the women who said they were not victims. The 1-year prevalence of IPV in this sample of women presenting to an emergency department was 11.6%. The authors conclude that indirect questioning of women appears to be more effective at ruling out IPV in an emergency department population and may be less useful for women "early" in an abusive relationship.     

CFI decision leaves Bitte taste for Bitburger

Bitburger's over-reliance on its brand strength and lack ofsubstantive evidence of similarities between its own marks andthe contested marks meant that it failed again to prevent Anheuser-Buschselling its beer under the name ‘Bud’ in Germany.     

Addressing problems with traditional crime linking methods using receiver operating characteristic analysis

Purpose. Through an examination of serial rape data, the current article presents arguments supporting the use of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis over traditional methods in addressing challenges that arise when attempting to link serial crimes. Primarily, these arguments centre on the fact that traditional linking methods do not take into account how linking accuracy will vary as a function of the threshold used for determining when two crimes are similar enough to be considered linked. Methods. Considered for analysis were 27 crime scene behaviours exhibited in 126 rapes, which were committed by 42 perpetrators. Similarity scores were derived for every possible crime pair in the sample. These measures of similarity were then subjected to ROC analysis in order to (1) determine threshold‐independent measures of linking accuracy and (2) set appropriate decision thresholds for linking purposes. Results. By providing a measure of linking accuracy that is not biased by threshold placement, the analysis confirmed that it is possible to link crimes at a level that significantly exceeds chance (AUC = .75). The use of ROC analysis also allowed for the identification of decision thresholds that resulted in the desired balance between various linking outcomes (e.g. hits and false alarms). Conclusions. ROC analysis is exclusive in its ability to circumvent the limitations of threshold‐specific results yielded from traditional approaches to linkage analysis. Moreover, results of the current analysis provide a basis for challenging common assumptions underlying the linking task.     

The Prevalence of Female Representation in Supervisory and Management Positions in American Law Enforcement: An Examination of Organizational Correlates

Increasing gender diversity in American policing has long been a focus of reform efforts since the 1960s. Although the proportion of women in the profession improved initially and research has focused on the gender breakdown of police organizations in general, less scholarly and empirical attention has been directed to female representation in positions of power (i.e., supervisory and management roles). Using data from the 2013 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics survey, the current study examined the prevalence as well as the organizational correlates of female representation in supervisory (e.g., sergeants), mid-level management (e.g., lieutenants) and chief executive roles in departments across the United States. The findings indicate a number of factors associated with female representation in supervisory and mid-level management positions, including the size and type of agencies, geographic region of the country, and potential indicators of professionalism. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Bioinformatics Approach to Assess the Biogeographical Patterns of Soil Communities: The Utility for Soil Provenance,

Soil DNA profiling has potential as a forensic tool to establish a link between soil collected at a crime scene and soil recovered from a suspect. However, a quantitative measure is needed to investigate the spatial/temporal variability across multiple scales prior to their application in forensic science. In this study, soil DNA profiles across Miami‐Dade, FL, were generated using length heterogeneity PCR to target four taxa. The objectives of this study were to (i) assess the biogeographical patterns of soils to determine whether soil biota is spatially correlated with geographic location and (ii) evaluate five machine learning algorithms for their predictive ability to recognize biotic patterns which could accurately classify soils at different spatial scales regardless of seasonal collection. Results demonstrate that soil communities have unique patterns and are spatially autocorrelated. Bioinformatic algorithms could accurately classify soils across all scales with Random Forest significantly outperforming all other algorithms regardless of spatial level.     

Childhood Abuse,Intrapersonal Strength,and Suicide Resilience in African American Females who Attempted Suicide

There is a significant association between childhood abuse and suicidal behavior in low-income African American women with a recent suicide attempt. Increasingly, empirical focus is shifting toward including suicide resilience, which mitigates against suicidal behavior. This cross-sectional study examines childhood abuse, intrapersonal strengths, and suicide resilience in 121 African American women, average age of 36.07 years (SD?=?11.03) with recent exposure to intimate partner violence and a suicide attempt. To address the hypothesis that childhood abuse will be negatively related to suicide resilience and that this effect will be mediated by intrapersonal strengths that serve as protective factors, structural equation modeling examined the relations among three latent variables: childhood abuse (measured via physical, sexual, and emotional abuse), intrapersonal strengths (assessed by self-efficacy and spiritual well-being), and suicide resilience (operationalized via the three components of suicide resilience—internal protective, external protective, and emotional stability). The initial measurement model and the structural model both indicated excellent fit. Results indicated that childhood abuse was negatively associated with intrapersonal strengths and suicide resilience, intrapersonal strengths were positively associated with suicide resilience, and intrapersonal strengths fully mediated the association between childhood abuse and suicide resilience. Thus, the results suggest a positive and protective influence of intrapersonal strengths on suicide resilience in the face of childhood abuse in suicidal African American women. The clinical implications and directions for future research that emerge from these findings are discussed.     

Higher Capillary Electrophoresis Injection Settings as an Efficient Approach to Increase the Sensitivity of STR Typing

Abstract:  Evidentiary traces may contain low quantities of DNA, and regularly incomplete short tandem repeat (STR) profiles are obtained. In this study, higher capillary electrophoresis injection settings were used to efficiently improve incomplete STR profiles generated from low-level DNA samples under standard polymerase chain reaction (PCR) conditions. The method involves capillary electrophoresis with higher injection voltage and extended injection time. STR peak heights increased six-fold. Inherent to the analysis of low-level DNA samples, we observed stochastic amplification artifacts, mainly in the form of allele dropout and heterozygous peak imbalance. Increased stutter ratios and allele drop-in were rarely seen. Upon STR typing of 10:1 admixed samples, the profile of the major component did not become overloaded when using higher injection settings as was observed upon elevated cycling. Thereby an improved profile of the minor component was obtained. For low-level DNA casework samples, we adhere to independent replication of the PCR amplification and boosted capillary electrophoresis.     

An analysis of science–industry collaborative patterns in a large European University

Our paper analyses the modalities according to which a large European university collaborates with firms by exploring its relational portfolio. We address this issue by exploiting a database that lists more than 1,000 firms having collaborated with the University Louis Pasteur (ULP) between 1990 and 2002. We first observe the relative importance of four collaborative channels (private contracts, European contracts, co-publications, co-inventions) across the whole population of firms. Second, using a multi-correspondence analysis, we derive a typology of collaborative patterns which underline the discriminating features of the frequency of interactions, of the exclusive versus open character of the relationships and of the nature of the collaborative channels. Four coherent classes emerge from particular combinations of these relational characteristics. Finally, using multinomial logit estimation, we show how this diversity of partnerships is connected to some individual attributes of the firms: size, status, sector and location.