An unusual case of corpse dismemberment

A case of corpse dismemberment into 850 fragments was investigated at the Cracow Department of Forensic Medicine. The perpetrator employed various tools to divide the body into fragments and subsequently boiled the pieces to reduce their volume. The thus-prepared body decreased its volume to 30 kg. Subsequently, the perpetrator placed the body fragments in 2 large pots, which were then positioned in the space under the stairs and walled in.     

Application of false discovery rate procedure to pairwise comparisons of refractive index of glass fragments

This study was undertaken to apply a new method of controlling type I error when performing pairwise comparisons. The Benjamini and Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) controlling procedures have proved to be very powerful tools in solving many practical problems but have not yet been applied to pairwise comparisons of refractive index of glass samples. Students t-test and Welch test (unequal variance Student's t-test) were applied to all possible pairwise comparisons. The comparisons were made on the basis of refractive index values of 72 glass fragments from different car windows and 69 different fragments from one windscreen. The type I error was controlled by the use of Benjamini and Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) controlling procedure. To illustrate the importance of controlling type I error when using pairwise comparisons, results of pairwise comparisons with the FDR controlling procedure were compared to those comparisons made without any controlling procedure. Significantly fewer false negative results (false rejection of H0) were found during the use of FDR procedure in the comparison of refractive indices from the same windscreen than when comparing without controlling type I error. The results of application of FDR method were also compared to the results of other post-hoc tests, such as Tukey HSD test and Bonfferoni test. The FDR method has higher power than Bonferroni method and Tukey HSD method and control errors better than comparing without controlling type I error. The method of choice, for pairwise comparison of glass fragments on the basis of refractive index is Welch test with FDR adjustment. The method gave type I errors at level about 5.3% and type II error at about 3.7%.     

Multisectoral econometric models of the centrally planned economies and the disequilibria

The paper provides a systematic analysis of the properties of large econometric macro models built for the Centrally Planned economies of the '70s and '80s. A specific typology of macro models is introduced, distinguishing between the demand and quasi-demand determined systems on the one hand and the supply and quasi-supply determined systems on the other, and also between complete and incomplete models specifying only one side of economic activities (i.e. generating either demand or supply). It is shown that, under the command type economy, the incomplete, fully supply determined systems prevailed, generating production and showing its allocation. The economic reforms of the '80s, which aimed at a slow transition towards market economies, brought about a tendency towards constructing complete quasi-supply determined systems (especially for Poland and the CSRS). Since, in principle, they were built for shortage economies, the model builders had to allow for unobservables (final and intermediate demand, capacity utilization) and, on the other hand, for an increasing role of the financial phenomena (including prices) and financial policy instruments. A summary of the applications of macro models in forecasting and policy simulations is provided and new tendencies associated with regaining economic equilibria and approaching the market mechanisms emerging in the period of transition are shown.     

The Estonian song celebration (Laulupidu) as an instrument of language policy

There is an established body of literature surveying the role of language policy in identity construction. This paper exposes an angle that has been understudied. It suggests that national song festivals may be seen as a tool of ‘implicit’ language policy in Estonia. Informed by expert interviews and ethnographic, this study explores the tensions arising from the dual function of the festival. On the one hand, it sustains the language as the central ethnic-national attribute of Estonians. On the other hand, the ‘affective solidarity’ stemming from joint singing could support a stronger civic attachment to the language and state (by Russian-speaking minorities).     

Support for behavioral nudges versus alternative policy instruments and their perceived fairness and efficacy

An extensive debate has emerged in recent years about the relative merits of behavioral policy instruments (nudges) aimed at changing individual behavior without coercion. In this article, we examine public support for non-deliberative nudges and deliberative nudges and compare them to attitudes toward top-down regulation and free choice/libertarian options. We also examine whether support for both types of nudges is associated with perceptions of fairness and efficacy. We test these expectations with a survey experiment with 1706 UK adult respondents (representative of the population on age, gender, and location) in two policy areas (retirement savings and carbon offsets for airline passengers). We find higher levels of public support for both nudge policy options compared to top-down regulation. Support for nudges is associated with the perceived fairness of nudges more than their efficacy.     

Case-study of fatal gunshot wounds from non-lethal projectiles

The authors present a case of the death of a 60-year-old man shot using rubber projectiles that were fired by a police officer from a Mossberg smooth-bore shotgun in an enclosed space from a distance of a few metres. The post-mortem examination revealed that death had been due to gunshot wounds in the chest which had caused heart and lung damage with subsequent massive internal haemorrhaging.     

Dental age in Central Poland

Precise evaluation of the developmental stage of a child is an integral part of both diagnosis and treatment of pediatric patients; it is also essential in forensic medicine and dentistry. Among radiological methods for dental age estimation in children the Demirjian's method is widely used, however original standards elaborated for the French-Canadian population are mostly not suitable for other populations. The aim of the study was to compare the dental age of children from the region of Mazovia (Central Poland) with the developmental standards presented by Demirjian, to analyse sexual dimorphism of dental age in the studied group and to estimate validity of the Demirjian's standards for the studied Polish population. The material consisted of clinical files and panoramic X-ray images of 994 children aged from 6 to 16 in good general health, without development impairments. Chronological ages of the patients were established. Next dental ages were estimated by means of the Demirjian method based on developmental maturity of seven left mandibular permanent teeth. It was found that the standards were significantly different from the chronological ages in the studied population, which means that dental development was considerably accelerated. The most significant acceleration was observed in girls aged 11 and 12, as well as in 13-year-old boys; in both groups a considerable acceleration of the dental age was seen in 6-year-olds. No statistically significant differences between dental ages of girls and boys were observed in particular age groups. There were devised gender-specific equations allowing for adaptation of original Demirjian's scores for estimation of dental age in the population of Mazovia (Central Poland). In conclusion, the developmental standards used by Demirjian are not suitable in the case of the population of children of Central Poland. Therefore, it is necessary to establish new tables for this population.     

Moderators and Mediators of Framing Effects in Political Marketing: Implications for Political Brand Management

Due to its important practical implications, there has been a growing number of studies on framing conducted by scholars from various research domains. There has been, however, no paper that would provide a comprehensive overview of various moderators and mediators of the effect. The aim of this paper is to address this research gap, concentrating on psychological moderators and mediators of framing characteristic for political marketing. The paper consists of three parts. In the first part, the concepts of framing, priming and agenda-setting as well as the similarities and differences between them are presented in order to resolve common terminological inconsistencies. In the second, we discuss the moderating role of such variables as knowledge, trust in media and values on framing effect. In the third section, psychological mechanisms that underlie framing and priming are reviewed. Here, cognitive mediators such as accessibility and applicability effects are presented, followed by the discussion of the moderating and mediating role of emotions in framing effects, with special attention given to positive-negative asymmetry observed in the evaluation of political candidates and events. Finally, implication for political brand management are discussed. Our findings can be relevant for politicians, specialists dealing in political brand image and scholars studying framing effects.     

Communicating Dissent in Judicial Opinions: A Comparative,Genre-Based Analysis

To date, there has been surprisingly little research on separate opinions in legal linguistics literature. Scarce attention has been paid to the linguistic and communicative aspects of how judges frame their disagreements. This paper serves as one of the early attempts to examine the institution of votum separatum, or separate opinion, from a comparative, cross-language perspective using a linguistic methodology. The evidence indicates a clear similarity in terms of how separate opinions are integrated within the respective macrostructures of the US SC opinions and the Constitutional Tribunal judgments. This study demonstrates how judges tend to employ highly formulaic expressions to signal their disagreement despite the absence of clear guidelines to communicate such stances. The analysis of their frequent phraseology demonstrates that declaring votum separatum and providing its justification are two different acts, not only legally but also linguistically, especially in terms of their formulaicity. The Polish and American justifications differ in the degree to which the frequent phraseology reveals peculiarities of judicial argumentation in addition to the presence of strong evaluative concerns.

     

First practical applications of eye temperature measurements for estimation of the time of death in casework. Report of three cases

This paper presents first three successive cases of death where at scene measurements of the internal eyeball temperature soon after death allowed to precisely estimate the times of deaths based on this data (33.1°C, 32.2°C and 29.5°C, respectively), which were later confirmed during the police investigation. Simultaneously the rectal temperatures in all three cases were measured and appeared to be between 36.3 and 36.8°C-reflecting a living individual's body temperature. Thanks to a significantly faster postmortem decrease of the eye temperature and a residual or nonexistent plateau effect affecting the eye, using the formula developed in previous comprehensive studies in pigs, the time of death in real cases could be estimated with good precision: 1 h 33 min, 2 h 24 min and 3 h 17 min since death respectively. The actual TOD established during investigation appeared to be: between 1 h 30 min and 1 h 50 min in case 1; 1 h 55 min in case 2 and between 2 h 55 min and 3 h 05 min in case 3. Such precise estimation, mainly due to the plateau effect lasting up to a few hours, could not have been done based only on rectal temperature, commonly measured in forensic practice.