Promoting customer engagement: A new trend in utility regulation

This paper traces a new development in regulation that encourages utilities to engage more directly with their customers. We make four contributions: First, we perform a comprehensive analysis of how regulators are using customer engagement, and offer a simple model for understanding different customer engagement initiatives. Second, we review assessments of customer engagement. We find that there are no quantitative, empirically robust assessments of the effectiveness of customer engagement as a regulatory tool. Third, we develop two detailed case studies of an energy regulator and a water regulator that are in the forefront of customer engagement efforts. We find that there is no direct link between the engagement strategy used and the economic incentives received by a firm. Finally, we propose a framework for improving the customer engagement process. The new framework relies on microeconomics, modern tools of program evaluation, and supplying the regulated firm with direct incentives to engage with the customer.     

The Prospective Impact of Family Functioning and Parenting Practices on Court-Involved Youth’s Substance Use and Delinquent Behavior

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Court-involved youth exhibit high rates of psychiatric symptoms, substance use, and delinquency, yet little is known about the contributing roles of caregiver and...     

Trajectories of Perceived Parental Psychological Control across Adolescence and Implications for the Development of Depressive and Anxiety Symptoms

Journal of Youth and Adolescence - Theory and research indicate considerable changes in parental control across adolescence (e.g., declining behavioral control), but the developmental course and...     

The Need for Confidentiality in Evaluative Processes: Arbitration and Med/Arb in Family Law Cases

Arbitration, mediation/arbitration and arbitration/mediation allow parties to resolve their disputes usually more expeditiously, privately and with less cost than going to court. While confidentiality is seen as essential to the mediation process and often included in statutes, confidentiality seems less essential to a more adversarial process. Confidentiality provisions rest at the intersection between privacy and self‐determination and the protection of vulnerable parties in family law disputes. This article explores the importance of confidentiality clauses in drafting arbitration and med/arb or arb/med agreements.     

Significant Differences in PostMortem Heart Weight Before and After Dissection Using the Short-Axis Dissecting Method

Correctly assessing heart weight can be critical at postmortem examination. The current international guidelines advocate using the short-axis method in dissecting the heart and the heart weighed when the blood is emptied. However, it did not specify at what point the heart should be weighed or how the blood should be emptied. This study compared heart weights at three different time points during the heart examination (immediately after dissecting out of the pericardial sac with blood still in chambers, blood washed/removed from heart chambers without the heart opened, and the heart completely opened, blood emptied, and pad dried). This was to illustrate the variation in measurement and potential errors when the heart is weighed at different time of dissection. The results show that there were statistical and clinical significant differences between the heart weights at each weighing points. We recommend the heart to be completely dissected with any blood and residual washing/rinsing water emptied before being weighed. Although performed in this study, the effect of pad drying the heart on heart weight was not explored and was a limitation in this study.     

Postmortem Computed Tomography in Firearm Homicides: A Retrospective Case Series,

Postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) is integrated into the evaluation of decedents in several American medical examiner offices and medicolegal death investigative centers in many other countries. We retrospectively investigated the value of PMCT in a series of firearm homicide cases from a statewide centralized medical examiner’s office that occurred during 2016. Autopsies were performed or supervised by board-certified forensic pathologists who reviewed the PMCT scans prior to autopsy. PMCT scans were re-evaluated by a forensic radiologist blinded to the autopsy findings and scored by body region (head–neck, thoracoabdominal, and extremities). Injury discrepancies were scored using a modified Goldman classification and analyzed with McNemar’s test. We included 60 males and 20 females (median age 31 years, range 3–73). Based on PMCT, 56 (79.1%) cases had injuries relevant to the cause of death in a single body region (24 head–neck region, 32 thoracoabdominal region). Out of these 56 cases, 9 had a missed major diagnosis by PMCT outside that region, including 6 extremity injuries visible during standard external examination. Yet all had evident lethal firearm injury. We showed that PMCT identifies major firearm injuries in homicide victims and excludes injuries related to the cause of death in other regions when a single body region is injured. Although PMCT has a known limited sensitivity for soft tissue and vascular pathology, it can be combined with external examination to potentially reduce or focus dissections in some of these cases depending on the circumstances and medicolegal needs.     

The Stability of 4-Chloromethcathinone in Blood and Vitreous Humor

We present results of our study on the stability of 4-chloromethcathinone (4-CMC) in authentic postmortem peripheral blood and vitreous humor samples. The stability of 4-CMC was determined in postmortem blood samples (for a period of 90 days) and vitreous humor (30 days) at three different temperatures: −15°C, +4°C, and + 23°C. The analyses were carried out using ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-QqQ-MS/MS). In both materials, the lowest 4-CMC stability was demonstrated at room temperature. The blood samples stored in a freezer (−15°C) showed stability for the entire study period (90 days), while in the case of the vitreous humor sample stored at the same temperature the concentration of the substance decreased by 53% after 30 days. The study carried out in authentic postmortem blood and vitreous humor samples confirms the previous reports of 4-CMC instability in biological material. Authors suggest that the biological material should be stored frozen until analyses are carried out as soon as possible after collection of the material.     

Empirical Evaluation of the Reliability of Photogrammetry Software in the Recovery of Three-Dimensional Footwear Impressions

This paper examines the reliability of Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry as a tool in the capture of forensic footwear marks. This is applicable to photogrammetry freeware DigTrace but is equally relevant to other SfM solutions. SfM simply requires a digital camera, a scale bar, and a selection of oblique photographs of the trace in question taken at the scene. The output is a digital three-dimensional point cloud of the surface and any plastic trace thereon. The first section of this paper examines the reliability of photogrammetry to capture the same data when repeatedly used on one impression, while the second part assesses the impact of varying cameras. Using cloud to cloud comparisons that measure the distance between two-point clouds, we assess the variability between models. The results highlight how little variability is evident and therefore speak to the accuracy and consistency of such techniques in the capture of three-dimensional traces. Using this method, 3D footwear impressions can, in many substrates, be collected with a repeatability of 97% with any variation between models less than ~0.5 mm.