Facial Soft Tissue Depth Measurement: Validation of the 75‐Shormax

The shorth and 75‐shormax were recently posited as an improved alternative to the arithmetic mean for describing facial soft tissue thicknesses in craniofacial identification. The shorth better estimates the data peak, while the 75‐shormax provides improved provisions for a long right tail. When first proposed, the 75‐shormax was subjectively gauged. Herein, shormax errors are calculated at every whole percentile to quantitatively determine zones of error minimization in two large samples: (a) CT data of French adults, n‐range = 211–469 individuals; and (b) all C‐Table data, n‐range = 60–1065 individuals [including part but not all of sample (a)]. The smallest residuals were found at the 79th percentile (mean of raw residuals) and the 74th percentile (mean of absolute residuals). The 75‐shormax is subsequently verified as good error minimizer since the absolute differences carry the greatest weight and the 74th percentile closely approximates the 75th percentile.     

军事法官的角色冲突与重构

从理论和现实角度考察, 把我国军事法院专职审判人员的称谓统一为“军事法官”是合适的。在我国现行军事司法体制下, 军事法官受到了公正法律世界、军队政治机关、军事社区文化三种权威的制约,相应地存在着理性人、社会人、经验人三重角色的分离。军事法官处理个案无异于在上述三种角色期待之间调和冲突并寻求最佳位置。我国军事诉讼立法资源稀薄, 军事审判适用规范庞杂, 军事司法的相对独立性得不到应有的尊重, 导致军事法官的角色定位与行为模式选择很难满足司法公正的内在要求。因此, 有必要调整军事司法机关的归属地位, 改革军事法院内部管理体制和工作程序, 提高军事法官的综合素质, 加快军事诉讼立法步伐。     

法学本科教育与实践教学模式的重构

法学本科教育应定位为培养应用型法律人才。应用型法律人才培养的关键在于法律职业能力的培养;法律实践教学是培养应用型法律人才的根本途径。构建新的实践教学模式,应增加实践教学环节,以培养学生的法律职业能力。     

Form follows function: Applying photographic content analysis to forensic firearm identification

Drawing forensic conclusions from an image or a video is known as “photographic content analysis.” It involves the analysis of an image, as well as objects, actions, and events depicted in images or video. In recent years, photographic depictions of objects suspected as illegal firearms have substantially increased, appearing on CCTV surveillance footage, captured by mobile phones and shared on social media. However, the law in Israel states that a person can be charged with illegally possessing a firearm only if it can be proven that the object is capable of shooting with lethal bullet energy. This becomes more challenging in cases where the firearm was not physically seized, and the evidence exclusively consists of images and video. In this study, photographic content analysis was applied to images and video where objects suspected as commercial or improvised firearms had been depicted. An image and event sequence reconstruction video databases of both firearms and replicas were created in order to better define firearm-specific functional morphological features. We demonstrate that it is possible to classify an object as a firearm by analyzing the functional, and not only the esthetic, morphology in images and video. It is also shown that event sequence reconstruction in video may be used to infer that an object suspected as a firearm has the capacity to shoot by confirming the occurrence of a shooting act or shooting process. Thus, photographic content analysis may be used to forensically establish that an object depicted in an image or a video is a firearm by ruling out other known scenarios, and without physically seizing it.     

The effects of certain intermediary target materials and their proximity to ballistic gelatin on jacketed hollow point bullet expansion

Expanding bullets are preferred by law enforcement because of their wounding potential and ability to avoid over-penetration which could result in unintended targets being struck by bullets that perforate their intended targets. Expansion failure for jacketed hollow point (JHP) bullets is commonly attributed to several causes including damage to the bullet's cavity, velocity loss, bullet destabilization and materials from intermediate targets filling the bullet's cavity which can cause expansion failure when the bullet subsequently impacts a soft, fluid-based target such as human tissue or ballistic gelatin. In this study, JHP bullets were fired into ballistic gelatin after passing through selected intermediate targets representing items common to shooting incidents. Velocity loss and bullet destabilization were not factors that contributed to the JHP bullets that experienced expansion failure; however, materials obstructing the bullets' cavities and damage to the bullets' cavities were considered causes for some of the JHP bullet expansion failures. It was determined through this research that most of the target materials caused JHP bullet expansion failure when shored against the ballistic gelatin, but when placed at distances of 7 ft. from the ballistic gelatin, bullets fired through the same target materials did expand. This original and unique study produced findings that are of significant value to shooting incident reconstruction experts and other forensic professionals as shooting incidents can call into question a victim's proximity to a wall or door when a bullet(s) perforated such a target material.     

高职法学教育现代案例教学模式重构

法学教学中案例教学具有十分重要的地位,按照案例在教学中的地位,可将教学模式分为传统案例教学模式和现代案例教学模式。在对传统案例教学模式的反思基础上、面对高职法学教育的现状,应重构高职法学教育现代案例教学模式、重新确定教学价值目标、增加教学功能、改变案例教学模式。对学生的分析能力的培养应居于首位,要进一步提高学生的知识接受能力,使案例教学富有成效性。     

Measuring the accuracy of facial approximations: a comparative study of resemblance rating and face array methods

The success of facial approximation is thought to depend, at least in part, upon the "accuracy" of the constructed face. However, methods of accuracy assessment are varied and this range in methods may be responsible for the disparate results reported in the literature. The aim of this study was to determine if the accuracy results of one facial approximation were comparable across two different assessment methods (resemblance ratings and simultaneous face array tests using unfamiliar assessors) and if resemblance ratings co-varied with recognition responses. True-positive recognition performance from the facial approximation was poor (21%) while resemblance scores using the same facial approximation were moderately high (3 out of 5 on a five-point scale). These results are not, therefore, consistent and indicate that either different variables are being evaluated by the methods, or the same variable is being examined but with different weight/calibration. Further resemblance ratings tests of the facial approximation to three foil faces from the face array revealed that resemblance scores were similar irrespective of which face was compared, and did not closely correspond with the degree of recognition performance. This was especially the case for isolated comparisons of single faces to the facial approximation. Collectively, these results indicate that resemblance ratings are: (i) insensitive measures of a facial approximation's accuracy; and (ii) inconsistent with results of unfamiliar simultaneous face-array recognition results. These data suggest that familiar and unfamiliar recognition tests should be given increased weight in contrast to current resemblance rating tests.     

重建耻骨联合三维结构用于活体年龄推断的技术方法

目的建立基于MRI成像的快速耻骨联合三维结构重建技术方法。方法利用3.0 T超导磁共振仪对成年男性志愿者骨盆进行T1小角度快速激发3D梯度回波序列扫描,进行二值化阈值分割、区域增长提取骨盆软组织图像;运算获得耻骨联合三维结构模型雏形,经逆向工程软件降噪处理建立耻骨联合三维结构模型,并与耻骨CT扫描三维结构重建模型进行比较。结果耻骨联合面沟嵴、下端、腹侧缘(斜面)、背侧缘(斜面)、耻骨结节等结构显示完整,无明显噪点,与CT扫描三维重建模型吻合较好。结论 MRI扫描成像可实现快速有效的耻骨联合三维结构重建,可为法医活体年龄推断提供安全无辐射作用的三维可视化影像学技术方法。     

Alexander and Anastayzia: the separation and search for family among Europe’s displaced

Abstract

In 1949, the child search branch of the International Tracing Service, set up after the war by the Red Cross and the Allies, began a search for the mother of a four year old boy, born to a forced labourer and left at a hospital in Rottenmunster at 8 months old. His file records first his abandonment, then his mother's strong resistance to external pressure to sign his adoption papers. His later attempts to trace his mother is also recorded. Taken together, the records shed light on the history of Nazi slave labour, lost children, forced adoptions, exile and the search for identity that connected episodes of displacement for many DPs that ended up in Australia. This article examines this history, and also considers the role of the archive as a powerful source for both enabling and disabling the search for family in the decades following the Second World War.     

东亚经济发展模式的演变与重构

由于日本充当东亚经济发展领头者的“雁行模式”已经崩溃,因此,“日本在前面拉、中国在后面推”的东亚经济发展的“双头列车”模式也就失灵了。这就需要我们重新构建东亚经济的发展模式。未来中国具备了引领东亚经济发展领头者的条件,日本在对外直接投资、技术转移等方面是东亚经济强有力的推动者,而且在东亚经济一体化方面离不开中日两国的密切合作。因此,未来东亚经济的发展模式是“中国在前面拉、日本在后面推。”这种模式和传统“双头列车”模式相比,中日在东亚经济中作用的角色发生了换位,故称之为“新双头列车”模式。“新双头列车”模式对中国来说,既有机遇,又有挑战。