searchfortruth.info > Articles by: admin > Page 43

admin

Neighborhood Characteristics as Predictors of Male to Female and Female to Male Partner Violence

by

Abstract:   This article examines the association between neighborhood characteristics at the census tract—level, couples’ perceived neighborhood social cohesion and informal social control, and male-to-female (MFPV) and female-to-male (FMPV) partner violence in the United States. Data come from a second wave of interviews (2000) with a national sample of couples 18 years of age and older who were first interviewed in 1995. The path analysis shows that poverty is associated with perceived social cohesion and perceived social control as hypothesized. However, there is no significant mediation effect for social control or social cohesion on any type of violence. In the path analysis, Black ethnicity is associated with social cohesion, which is associated with MFPV. Intimate partner violence (IPV), as a form of domestic violence, may not be as concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods as criminal violence. IPV may be more determined by personal and dyadic characteristics than criminal violence. (Published Abstract)...

Read More!

Ethnicity and Identity in the Caribbean: Decentering a Myth

by

The Caribbean as an unified region that confers a sense of common citizenship and community is a figment of the imagination. To be sure, there is a geographical expression called ‘the Caribbean’ often associated with a site, a sea, and several islands. There are also many people who describe themselves as Caribbean persons, claiming an unique identity which has its own cohering characteristics that distinguish them from others. And there are many tourists and other foreigners who can swear that they went to this Caribbean place and met real Caribbean persons. They will all convincingly attest to a Caribbean reality. The truth, however, is that the Caribbean even as a geographical expression is a very imprecise place that is difficult to define. Some analysts include Florida, the Yucatan, Nicaragua, Colombia, and Venezuela, while others exclude them altogether. It is not only an imaginary region but one that is...

Read More!

Sexual Sadism: Avoiding Its Misuse in Sexually Violent Predator Evaluations

by

Abstract

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), Task Force has recently rejected the proposal to include coercive paraphilia as an official diagnosis, reaffirming that rape is a crime and not a mental disorder. We hope this will discourage what has been the inappropriate practice of giving rapists the made-up diagnosis of paraphilia, NOS, nonconsent, to facilitate their psychiatric commitment under sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes. Losing the paraphilia, NOS, option has tempted some SVP evaluators to overdiagnose sexual sadism, which is an official DSM mental disorder. To prevent this improper application and to clarify those rare instances in which this diagnosis might apply, we present a brief review of the research on sexual sadism; an annotation of its definitions that have been included in the DSM since the Third Edition, published in 1980, and in the International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Edition (ICD-10); and a two-step process...

Read More!

Crime Reduction Through Simulation: An Agent-Based Model Of Burglary

by

Abstract

Traditionally, researchers have employed statistical methods to model crime. However, these approaches are limited by being unable to model individual actions and behaviour. Brantingham and Brantingham (1993) described that in their opinion a useful and productive model for simulating crime would have the ability to model the occurrence of crime and the motivations behind it both temporally and spatially. This paper presents the construction and application of an agent-based model (ABM) for simulating occurrences of residential burglary at an individual level. It presents a novel framework that allows both human and environmental factors to be simulated. Although other agent-based models of crime do exist, this research represents the first working example of integrating a behavioural framework into an ABM for the simulation of crime. An artificial city, loosely based on the real city of Leeds, UK, and an artificial population were constructed, and experiments were run to...

Read More!

Criminal Personality Profiling and Crime Scene Assessment

by

Abstract

Within the justice system, there appears to be a growing demand for experts in the field of behavioral science who can help law enforcement solve bizarre and unusual cases. There are multiple factors and antecedent events that are involved in a violent crime. These factors and events include the intent, the plan, the type of criminal, the type of victim, the crime scene, and the premortem and postmortem interval. The manner in which a violent crime is performed expresses the psychological pattern, makeup, and expression of the individual performing it. Criminal investigative analysis, or criminal personality profiling, examines and identifies the subtle habits, psychological traits, and personality variables associated with criminal activity. These variables and traits are used to develop personality and behavioral descriptors of an offender who often commits heinous crimes such as serial homicide, sex crimes leading to criminal homicide, arson, bombings, ritualistic crimes that include torture, child abduction, kidnapping, child molestation, and bank robbery...

Read More!

From Aristotle To Crime Scene: A Forensics Of The Academic Essay

by

Writing in the academy is almost always about making a claim, or ‘case’, based on evidence, as one does in court: its rhetoric is forensic (L. forensis ‘in open court, public’, from forum), in Aristotle’s sense. Just as forensic rhetoric takes as a given the laws of the polis and is directed at persuading a judge (Aristotle 1991: 80-82), academic writing assumes a set of rules (one must be sincere, demonstrate one’s argument using evidence, and obey a certain decorum) and is written to persuade an assessor, namely a teacher or peer. And, since the Harvard ‘forensic system’ of essay writing in the late 1870s (Russell 2002: 51-63), it has often been taught in the language of forensic rhetoric: in particular, the apocryphal ‘rhetorical triangle’ of persuasion by ethos, logos and pathos (Booth 1963; Kinneavy 1971) and the informal logic of the enthymeme (Toulmin 1958). At its best, academic...

Read More!

Gesture Based Interface for Crime Scene Analysis: A Proposal

by

Abstract.

Within crime scene analysis, a framework providing interactive visualization and gesture based manipulation of virtual objects, while still seeing the real environment, seems a useful approach for the interpretation of cues and for instructional purposes as well. This paper presents a framework providing a collection of techniques to enhance reliability, accuracy and overall effectiveness of gesture-based interaction, applied to an interactive interpretation and evaluation of a crime scene in an augmented reality environment. The interface layout is visualized via a stereoscopic see-through capable Head Mounted Display (HMD), projecting graphics in the central region of the user’s field of view, floating in a close-at-hand volume. The interaction paradigm concurrently exploits both hands to perform precise manipulation of 3D models of objects, eventually present on the crime scene, or even distance/angular measurements, allowing to formulate visual hypothesis with the lowest interaction effort. A real-time adaptation of interaction to the user’s...

Read More!

The Homicide Scene Exception to the Fourth Amendment Warrant Requirement: A Dead Issue

by

The Supreme Court traditionally has used very narrow language in cases involving warrantless searches. The Court has stated that "searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are unreasonable per se under the fourth amendment-subject only to a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions."' Notwithstanding this precise language, the exceptions recognized by the Court have been neither "few" nor "well-delineated." Rather than adopt a narrow construction of the fourth amendment, the Court has liberally interpreted the amendment and expanded its exceptions in order to avoid inequitable results. During the past ten years some lower federal and state courts, responding more to the practical results of Supreme Court warrantless search cases than to the Court's rhetoric, have recognized a significant new exception to the fourth amendments warrant requirement: the "homicide scene" exception. This exception allows police officers, who make a legitimate...

Read More!

Rhetoric vs Reality Investigating the Skills and Accuracy of Criminal Profiling

by

INTRODUCTION

Arguably, the most fundamental question underpinning criminal profiling is whether the technique actually works, or more specifically, whether the predictions of profilers in describing the characteristics of an unknown offender are accurate. Despite the seemingly obvious nature of this question, rigorous empirical data to answer it has been in short supply. This observation, however, should not be interpreted as implying that the development of criminal profiling has occurred within a total vacuum. On the contrary, much material in the form of anecdotal accounts attesting to the merits of criminal profiles has been promulgated in support of their accuracy. Unfortunately, these anecdotal examples seldom appear in publications that are subject to the rigors of independent scientific review. Instead, they frequently originate from true crime novels often co-authored by retired profilers (1–3). Furthermore, although such anecdotal examples may illustrate the application of a criminal profile, the various studies...

Read More!

Longitudinal Examination of the Relation Between Co-Offending With Violent Accomplices and Violent Crime

by

Abstract:

The study tested whether violence "spreads" from violent offenders to those inexperienced in violence. Data for the study were originally collected from "Delinquent Networks in Philadelphia: Co-Offending and Gangs." The random sample of offenders was identified through random selection from all official records of arrest (n=60,821) for offenders under age 18 in Philadelphia during 1987. A random number generator was used to pull names of arrested people until 200 offenders who committed a crime alone and 200 offenders who committed a crime with an accomplice had been identified. All crimes committed by offenders between January 1976 to December 1994 were reviewed. The sample for the current study included 235 subjects from the original sample of 400. Members of the accomplice sample included only those 510 co-offenders involved in the target offenders' first co-offense. Crime data for the target offenders and the identifiable accomplices were collected from Philadelphia court records...

Read More!

Court Case: Official Recognition Of James Walbert’s Case+support From Missouri Rep.jim Guest

by

Wichita, KS April 20, 2009

A Wichita inventor who claims he is being attacked by directed high energy microwave weapons, victimized by covert organized stalking and targeted by highly advanced forms of electronic harassment was granted an order of protection against one of his assailants, according to a Sedgwick County District Court ruling. After reviewing a petition filed by victim James Walbert, Judge Terry Pullman determined the case should be weighed on its merits and a hearing was scheduled before Judge James Beasley. In the end, Walbert prevailed.

Walbert’s evidence included declassified government documents, photos and scientific data attesting to the authenticity of land-based and satellite-based directed microwave weaponry. His proof also included a radiation forensics report concluding Walbert is being targeted with obscure microwave frequencies. And, to show he is not the only victim of these crimes, Walbert provided a letter from Missouri State Representative James O. Guest corroborating that his office has...

Read More!

Microwave Frequency Electromagnetic Fields (Emfs) Produce Widespread Neuropsychiatric Effects Including Depression

by

Abstract

Non-thermal microwave/lower frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) act via voltage-gated calcium channel (VGCC) activation. Calcium channel blockers block EMF effects and several types of additional evidence confirm this mechanism. Low intensity microwave EMFs have been proposed to produce neuropsychiatric effects, sometimes called microwave syndrome, and the focus of this review is whether these are indeed well documented and consistent with the known mechanism(s) of action of such EMFs. VGCCs occur in very high densities throughout the nervous system and have near universal roles in release of neurotransmitters and neuroendocrine hormones. Soviet and Western literature shows that much of the impact of non-thermal microwave exposures in experimental animals occurs in the brain and peripheral nervous system, such that nervous system histology and function show diverse and substantial changes. These may be generated through roles of VGCC activation, producing excessive neurotransmitter/neuroendocrine release as well as oxidative/nitrosative stress and other responses...

Read More!

Effect Of Electromagnetic Field On Endocytosis Of Cationic Solid Lipid Nanoparticles By Human Brain-Microvascular Endothelial Cells.

by

Abstract

This study investigates the electromagnetic field (EMF)-regulated transport of cationic solid lipid nanoparticles (CSLNs) across human brain-microvascular endothelial cells (HBMECs). The positive charge of CSLNs was from dioctadecyldimethyl ammonium bromide and stearylamine, and radiofrequency EMF was applied to HBMECs for promoting uptake of CSLNs. Immunochemical staining revealed that the expression of clathrin on the membrane of HBMECs enhanced during vesicular endocytosis of CSLNs. However, CSLNs and EMF slightly affected the expression of P-glycoprotein on the membrane of HBMECs. An exposure to EMF yielded negligible increase in the permeability of free saquinavir (SQV) across the HBMEC monolayer. Nevertheless, the permeability of SQV across the HBMEC monolayer increased about 17-fold when SQV was entrapped in CSLNs. Moreover, the permeability of SQV across the HBMEC monolayer increased about 22-fold by applying the CSLN encapsulation and EMF exposure. CSLNs and EMF could produce synergistic effect on improving the brain-targeting delivery.

Read More!

Antihistamines

by

Histamine is an important mediator of immediate hypersensitivity reactions acting locally and causing smooth muscle contraction, vasodilation, increased vascular permeability, edema and inflammation.  Histamine acts through specific cellular receptors which have been categorized into four types, H1 through H4.  Antihistamines represent a class of medications that block the histamine type 1 (H1) receptors.  Importantly, antihistamines do not block or decrease the release of histamine, but rather ameliorate its local actions.  Agents that specially block other H2 receptors are generally referred to as H2 blockers rather than antihistamines.

H1 receptors are widely distributed and are particularly common on smooth muscle of the bronchi, gastrointestinal tract, uterus and large blood vessels.  H1 receptors are also found in the central nervous system.  The antihistamines are widely used to treat symptoms of allergic conditions including itching, nasal stuffiness, runny nose, teary eyes, urticaria, dizziness, nausea and cough...

Read More!

Histamine and Antihistamines

by

Abstract

Histamine is one of the most extensively studied biological amines in medicine. It stimulates smooth muscle contraction and gastric acid secretion, increases vascular permeability, functions as a neurotransmitter, and plays various roles in immunomodulation, allergy, inflammation, haematopoiesis and cell proliferation. Histamine exerts its effects through four receptors, designated H1–H4. H1 and H2 receptors are widely distributed, H3 receptors are mainly presynaptic, and H4 receptors are mainly haematopoietic. H1 antihistamines are classified as first- and second-generation compounds. First-generation compounds lack specificity and cross the blood–brain barrier causing sedation. Second-generation compounds are less sedating and highly specific. H1 antihistamines have well-documented anti-allergic and anti-inflammatory effects and are well established in the treatment of a variety of allergic disorders. First-generation antihistamines are also used in the treatment of vestibular disorders and can be used as sedatives, sleeping aids and anti-emetics. H2 antihistamines are widely used in the treatment of gastric acid-related disorders;...

See Also: Histamine and Antihistamines

Read More!

Symptoms Of Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder

by

Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder

A large number of toxic or psychoactive substances can cause psychotic reactions. Such substance-induced psychosis can occur in multiple ways. First, people may inadvertently ingest toxic substances by accident, either because they don't know any better (as is the case when a child eats lead paint chips, or mercury in tuna fish), or by mistake (such as when someone eats a poison mushroom they thought was safe, or gets food poisoning from mishandled food). Alternatively, people may take too much of a legitimately prescribed medicine, medicines may interact in unforeseen ways, or doctors may miscalculate the effects of medicines they prescribe. Finally, people may overdose on recreational drugs they commonly use (such as cocaine), or become dependent on drugs or alcohol and experience psychotic symptoms while in withdrawal from those substances. While the substance induced psychosis is triggered and then sustained by intoxication or withdrawal,...

Read More!