Knowledge Production from Social Networks Sites. Using Social Media Evidence in the Criminal Procedure

This thesis focuses on the interaction between social network sites (SNS) and the legal system, trying to answer a specific question, that is, through introducing social media evidence, whether there is a change of finding facts and identifying the truth in criminal proceedings. To achieve the research objectives, three sub-topics should be discussed in turn; first, how can we transform information on social network sites to valuable evidence in court? In this part, the research will explore the proceedings of extracting information on SNS, such as posts, photos, check-in on Facebook etc., in order to use as evidence in the courtroom from the perspectives of law and internet forensic. Second, considering characteristics of these social media evidence, e.g. easy to be copied, deleted, tampered and transmitted, is it necessary to separate from evidence obtained through other technology or forensic science? Should the legal system need a new set of regulation on social media evidence? Third, how can we conquer challenges to core values in legal system, such as the privilege against self-incrimination or expectation of innocent in this digital era? As the positive contribution, this research tries to answer whether social network sites are a convenient tool for criminal prosecution, and whether internet forensics is useful to assist the investigational authority accusing the crime and finding the truth more accurately, to achieve the ultimate goal of the criminal procedure

Hands-on Science. Advancing Science. Improving Education

The book herein aims to contribute to the advancement of Science to the improvement of Science Education and to an effective implementation of a sound widespread scientific literacy at all levels of society. Its chapters reunite a variety of diverse and valuable works presented in this line of thought at the 15th International Conference on Hands-on Science “Advancing Science. Improving Education

AUTHOR VERIFICATION OF ELECTRONIC MESSAGING SYSTEMS

Messaging systems have become a hugely popular new paradigm for sending and delivering text messages; however, online messaging platforms have also become an ideal place for criminals due to their anonymity, ease of use and low cost. Therefore, the ability to verify the identity of individuals involved in criminal activity is becoming increasingly important. The majority of research in this area has focused on traditional authorship problems that deal with single-domain datasets and large bodies of text. Few research studies have sought to explore multi-platform author verification as a possible solution to problems around forensics and security. Therefore, this research has investigated the ability to identify individuals on messaging systems, and has applied this to the modern messaging platforms of Email, Twitter, Facebook and Text messages, using different single-domain datasets for population-based and user-based verification approaches. Through a novel technique of cross-domain research using real scenarios, the domain incompatibilities of profiles from different distributions has been assessed, based on real-life corpora using data from 50 authors who use each of the aforementioned domains. The results show that the use of linguistics is likely be similar between platforms, on average, for a population-based approach. The best corpus experimental result achieved a low EER of 7.97% for Text messages, showing the usefulness of single-domain platforms where the use of linguistics is likely be similar, such as Text messages and Emails. For the user-based approach, there is very little evidence of a strong correlation of stylometry between platforms. It has been shown that linguistic features on some individual platforms have features in common with other platforms, and lexical features play a crucial role in the similarities between users’ modern platforms. Therefore, this research shows that the ability to identify individuals on messaging platforms may provide a viable solution to problems around forensics and security, and help against a range of criminal activities, such as sending spam texts, grooming children, and encouraging violence and terrorism.Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia, Londo

How interviewing techniques and temperament affect children as eyewitnesses and jurors' perceptions

The aim of this research was to better understand how the temperament of a child witness may affect their eyewitness performance and the perception of mock-jurors during different interview conditions. In Study One, a new self-report method (the Temperament Assessment Tool for Children; TATC) was developed for assessing temperament traits in 4- to 8-year-old children. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability was found to be satisfactory overall with 202 participants. In Study Two, the same 4- to 8-year-old children watched a video of a theft and were interviewed using open, closed, or misleading questions about what they remembered. The children also completed the TATC. Witnesses in the open-ended condition were significantly more accurate overall than those in the other interview conditions. Temperament characteristics that limit attention (i.e., distractibility) predicted an overall higher number of errors during the interview, while misleading questions were particularly detrimental to the accuracy of less adaptable and less persistent children. In Study Three, a sample of 82 mock-jurors read transcripts of interviews with child witnesses (6 to 8 years old) from the previous study. Mock-jurors were randomly assigned to one of three interview conditions (open-ended, closed-ended, or misleading). The child witnesses varied in levels of shyness (i.e., high, moderate, and low) according to self-reports, gathered in the previous study. Contrary to the researcher's hypothesis, the findings indicated that interview condition had no impact on the mock-jurors’ perceived reliability of witnesses. Furthermore, the shyness of the child witness overall did not affect the perception of mock-jurors. Mock-juror perceptions were, however, influenced by their own personality traits. For example, those higher in withdrawal, an aspect of neuroticism, were more likely to rate child witnesses favourably. Overall, the results of this research provide some support for the assertion that certain temperament traits can impact the eyewitness performance of child witnesses and that closed-ended and misleading questions are unwise due to an overall decrease in accuracy

I Kill, Therefore I Am: The Expressive/Transformative Process of Violence

Before the late-Industrial age, a minority of murderers posed their victims’ corpses to convey a message. With the rise of mass media, such offenders also began sending verbal communications to journalists and the authorities. Unsurprisingly, the 21st century has seen alienated killers promote their violent actions and homicidal identities through online communications: from VLOGs to manifestos, even videos depicting murder and corpse mutilation. Though the decentralization of media has provided an easily-accessible platform for violent offenders, such communications also afford law enforcement the opportunity to better understand the make-up of such criminals. To this end, qualitative research was conducted on a sample of 10 such offenders. The results revealed that they suffer from a chronically volatile self-concept with resulting negative-emotionality owing to deficient childhood socialization and strains related to sexuality, gender, and vocation. As the psychologist, Higgins, and sociologist, Mead, have shown that our self-concept arises and is negotiated through communication, these homicidal expressions provide the killer with a tenable identity, temporarily or permanently eliminating their emotional turmoil. Far from mere attention-seeking, these killers are desperately striving for a self. Their malaise is exacerbated by our increasingly anomic and isolating society—the mid-stages of Baudrillard's 'hyperreality'—where the 'real' and 'unreal' are becoming indistinguishable. Together, these observations form the bedrock of the expressive/transformative process of violence (ETV). By highlighting the link between semiotics and psychology in the context of our media-saturated society, ETV provides a methodology for interpreting homicidal communications, allowing law enforcement and mental health professionals to strengthen criminal profiles, link crimes, aid in pre- and post-homicidal risk assessment, and devise clinical treatment strategies

Harvard Dataverse

AGGA (Academic Guidelines for Generative AIs) is a dataset of 80 academic guidelines for the usage of generative AIs and large language models in academia, selected systematically and collected from official university websites across six continents. Comprising 181,225 words, the dataset supports natural language processing tasks such as language modeling, sentiment and semantic analysis, model synthesis, classification, and topic labeling. It can also serve as a benchmark for ambiguity detection and requirements categorization. This resource aims to facilitate research on AI governance in educational contexts, promoting a deeper understanding of the integration of AI technologies in academia