Firearm examination: Examiner judgments and computer‐based comparisons

Forensic firearm examination provides the court of law with information about the source of fired cartridge cases. We assessed the validity of source decisions of a computer‐based method and of 73 firearm examiners who compared breechface and firing pin impressions of 48 comparison sets. We also compared the computer‐based method's comparison scores with the examiners' degree‐of‐support judgments and assessed the validity of the latter. The true‐positive rate (sensitivity) and true‐negative rate (specificity) of the computer‐based method (for the comparison of both the breechface and firing pin impressions) were 94.4% and at least 91.7%, respectively. For the examiners, the true‐positive rate was at least 95.3% and the true‐negative rate was at least 86.2%. The validity of the source decisions improved when the evaluations of breechface and firing pin impressions were combined and for the examiners also when the perceived difficulty of the comparison decreased. The examiners were reluctant to provide source decisions for "difficult" comparisons even though their source decisions were mostly correct. The correlation between the computer‐based method's comparison scores and the examiners' degree‐of‐support judgments was low for the same‐source comparisons to negligible for the different‐source comparisons. Combining the outcomes of computer‐based methods with the judgments of examiners could increase the validity of firearm examinations. The examiners' numerical degree‐of‐support judgments for their source decisions were not well‐calibrated and showed clear signs of overconfidence. We suggest studying the merits of performance feedback to calibrate these judgments.     

金融市场的开放及我国银行法的完善

入世意味着我国服务贸易市场的全面开放 ,特别是中美协定为我国金融业开放提出了期限。我们根据WTO规则及国际惯例 ,检讨了我国现行银行法的缺陷 ,并提出了放宽内资银行的经营范围 ,树立混业经营的长期目标 ,鼓励内资银行拓展海外业务及加强对外资银行有效监管等完善措施。     

行政决策听证及其存在问题、对策初探

现行听证会给公众造成了听证走过场的不良印象;对策是制定行政程序法典,扩大听证范围,公开征求民意渠道,延长听证时间,建立代表意见回应机制,分离听证组织机构与决策机关。     

Sentencing disparity: An analysis of judicial consistency

This paper reports the results of an analysis of judicial disparity in the sentencing of persons represented by legal-aid lawyers. Because the socioeconomic characteristics of legal-aid clients are fairly uniform, the analysis of such cases made it possible to explore the influence of case facts, system factors, and the judicial disparity of the sentences given in relatively similar situations. The analysis finds that case facts and offender characteristics, particularly prior record, are good predictors of sentence type and excellent predictors of sentence length. While there was some indication of judicial inconsistency in sentence-type decisions, that is, unexplained variation from case to case, there was little indication of strong individual judicial bias across the cases used in the analysis.     

当前制贩假币案件的特点与侦查对策

我国当前制贩假币犯罪案件体现出涉案金额大、科技含量高等特点。针对这类案件,公安 机关要采取相应有效的侦查对策。     

我国公共决策主体多元体系的建构与完善

本文基于系统理论的研究视角,认为我国的公共决策主体体系包括核心层决策主体、中间层决策主体、外部层决策主体,并从各个子系统的角度提出了优化公共决蓑主体体系并提升其能力的途径与方法,以期实现科学的公共决策多元参与,提升公共决策体系整体能力,实现公共决策主体体系总体功能的最大化。     

党的十七届三中全会召开的时代背景

十七届三中全会的召开具有其特定的时代背景,是破解农村发展现状和应对当前复杂的国际国内形势的需要。     

微博：政府档案信息资源公开的新平台——基于政务微博的价值分析

微博作为“第五媒体”的新成员，拥有媒体、社交、平台三大属性和双向开放的基因，在信息公开和传播方面具有独特优势。政府开通微博并将其作为信息公开的一个新渠道，具有经济、政治、社会和微环境等多方面的价值。政府档案信息资源选择微博作为公开信息的平台具有可行性。     

行政法视角下我国县级政府决策模式改革研究

我国县级政府决策模式具有管制色彩重、封闭性强、民主参与程度弱、决策权力缺乏有效监督等特点,围绕县级政府决策模式改革涉及的决策主体、权限、程序、法律责任等行政法问题,未来改革方向包括强化决策与执行的适度分离、增强参与性决策与技术理性决策的比重等。法治视野下的政府权力结构和运行机制研究课题组设计了县级政府决策模式改革的几种方案,并对中央与地方公务员进行认同度调查。调查结果反映出不同府级与地区公务员对改革方案存在较大意见分歧。在进行政府决策模式改革过程中,应当以法治方式推动改革,重点围绕决策权力配置、决策程序、决策的法律责任进行,并充分考虑县级政府的特殊性、不同地区之间的差异性、地方真实信息与地方合理利益等因素。     

以商谈求共识:行政决策听证中公共意愿的形成

在当前利益主体多元化、利益矛盾加剧的背景下,推进和完善行政决策听证需要解决的一个关键性问题,在于如何协调差异和矛盾,聚集民意,以便为政府决策提供价值前提。协商共识理论为深化行政决策听证的研究提供了新的指向;行政决策听证的功能在于为理性论辩提供建制化空间以集结民意,制约行政决策;在听证议题的形成、听证代表的遴选、话语规范的确立及其制度保障等主要环节中,通过制度程序的建构,排除权力和金钱的侵入,在平等协商对话中整合利益,集结公共意愿。