Metric forensic anthropology decisions: Reliability and biasability of sectioning-point-based sex estimates

Subjective decisions make human cognitive processes more susceptible to bias and error. Specifically, research indicates that additional context biases forensic anthropologists’ morphological analyses. To address whether metric analyses are also subject to bias, we conducted a pilot study in which 52 experienced osteologists measured a difficult-to-classify human femur, with or without additional contextual information. Using a metric sectioning-point sex-estimation method, participants provided a sex estimate for individual skeletal element(s) and, when given multiple elements, the combined skeletal assemblage. Control group participants (n = 24) measured only the femur. In addition to the femur, bias group participants (n = 28) either measured a female humerus and viewed a female-biasing photograph (n = 14) or measured a male humerus and viewed a male-biasing photograph (n = 14). We explored whether the experts in the different groups would differ in: (1) femoral measurements; (2) femoral sex-estimation conclusions; and (3) final sex-estimation conclusions for the skeletal assemblage. Although the femoral measurements and femoral sex estimates were comparable across groups, the overall sex estimates in the female-biased group were impacted by contextual information—differing from both the control and male-biased groups (p < 0.001). Our results demonstrate that cognitive bias can occur even in metric sex-estimation conclusions. Specifically, this occurred when the metric data and single-element sex estimates were synthesized into an overall estimate. Thus, our results suggest that metric methods are most vulnerable to bias when data are synthesized into an overall conclusion, highlighting the need for bias countermeasures and comprehensive statistical frameworks for synthesizing metric data to mitigate the effects of cognitive bias.     

Lethal small bowel obstruction due to pica

Up to 25% of institutionalized patients with cognitive deficiencies display pica-like behavior, with an estimated annual incidence of small bowel obstruction of 2%. We present a case based on the forensic autopsy of a 41-year-old woman who died as a result of a missed diagnosis of small bowel obstruction after ingesting a foreign body. The case underlines the importance of precaution when treating patients with cognitive deficiency and/or language deficits and gastrointestinal symptoms. In such cases, it is important to employ a liberal threshold for radiological investigations and, if possible, obtain a medical history from a person close to the patient.     

侦查认识原理初探

侦查认识原理既包括侦查认识活动最基本的客观规律,也包括根据最基本的规律而制定的侦查认识的基本方法和基本原则。研究侦查认识原理的意义是多方面的,而这一主题在中外侦查学著作中都只简单地提到,而尚未进行充分地挖掘。探索侦查认识原理应当从侦查认识的基本假设入手,根据侦查认识活动的本质提出侦查认识的三大原理,继而根据侦查认识的三大原理设立评价侦查认识结果的标准,最后根据三大原理和标准设计克服侦查认识错误的对策。     

腐败心理的内涵、构成及抑制策略

腐败心理是支配腐败行为人实施腐败行为的复杂心理现象的总称。腐败心理不仅是腐败行为发生的内在动因,其构成要素的组合状况和特点还决定了腐败行为的性质、类型和发生频次。因此,抑制腐败心理的生成,需要培育积极的心理动力结构要素、合理的心理认知结构要素和有效的心理自控结构要素,从源头上构筑起预防腐败行为发生的内在防线。     

Can the Boundary Commissions Help the Conservative Party? Constituency Size and Electoral Bias in the United Kingdom

As part of a strategy to remove perceived biases operating against it in the system used for elections to the House of Commons, the British Conservative party is promoting a revision of the rules used by the Boundary Commissions to ensure greater equality in constituency electorates. A Bill designed to achieve this—and also to reduce the size of the House—was introduced to the House of Lords in 2007. This paper critiques that Bill and suggests an alternative formulation that would better achieve the goal, whilst identifying a number of operational difficulties that its implementation would involve.     

再议“合一论”与“复合罪过说”

德国关于间接故意与有认识过失的合一论的主张与我国学者所提出的复合罪过的概念各有特定含义,“合一论”的罪过形式的出现有其特定的类型划分和观念为前提。复合罪过现象的原始含义不同于合一论。应该结合我国《刑法》分则的具体罪名来进行真正复合罪过形式的研究。     

Precarity,Cognitive (Non-)Resistance and the Conservative Working Class in China

ABSTRACT

Workers’ resistance is crucial to understanding how the working class respond to the growing labour precarity in post-socialist China. The labour studies literature posits that inequality and volatile capital movements increase workers’ precarity and lead to stronger labour resistance, such as strikes. However, workers’ cognition as an integral part of resistance has been rarely studied. This article examines cognitive resistance by Chinese workers from different tier cities by looking at their social trust, class identity, understanding of policies and class solidarity. Despite capital movements and precarity causing more labour unrest, it does not necessarily lead to a stronger cognitive resistance. While inequality and precarity are greater in the more developed megacities with a shifting capital favourability, workers in megacities display a more conservative cognitive resistance than those from the lower-tier cities. This study of workers’ cognitive resistance provides insight into the future of the Chinese labour movement. It argues that the working class’s current cognitive non-resistance suggests that even if a window of opportunity were to appear in the wall of state oppression, workers are not cognitively prepared to coalesce into a coherent social movement that would bring about transformative changes.     

The role of moral disengagement in the execution process

The present study tested the proposition that disengagement of moral self-sanctions enables prison personnel to carry out the death penalty. Three subgroups of personnel in penitentiaries located in three Southern states were assessed in terms of eight mechanisms of moral disengagement. The personnel included the execution teams that carry out the executions; the support teams that provide solace and emotional support to the families of the victims and the condemned inmate; and prison guards who have no involvement in the execution process. The executioners exhibited the highest level of moral, social, and economic justifications, disavowal of personal responsibility, and dehumanization. The support teams that provide the more humane services disavowed moral disengagement, as did the noninvolved guards but to a lesser degree than the support teams.     

认知语境的建构与英语阅读理解

认知语境观揭示语义推理的认知心理依据和心理状态，语篇理解是一个”认知一推理”的动态化过程。认知语境及其在此基础上的预设在语篇处理中占有十分重要的地位，它揭示了语篇理解的认知心理依据，解释并制约着语言的表达与理解。本文从认知角度分析认知语境在阅读教学中的作用，从而指出在阅读教学中，教师应该引导学生运用正确的预设，建构合适的语境，提高学生的阅读能力和阅读速度。