Psychosis, Heat of Passion, and Diminished Responsibility

This Article calls for the creation of a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Currently, most jurisdictions recognize only one partial excuse: the common law heat-of-passion defense. Empirical research demonstrates that populations with delusions experience similar impairments to decision-making capacities as people confronted with sudden, objectively adequate provocation. Yet, current law affords significant mitigation only to the latter group, which only applies in murder cases. Adoption of the Model Penal Code’s “extreme mental or emotional disturbance” (EMED) defense could extend mitigation to other forms of diminished responsibility. However, examination of jurisdictions’ adoption and utilization of the EMED defense shows that, of the few states that have adopted it, most have rejected its diminished responsibility potential. Instead, most retain key features of heat of passion such as requiring an external provoking event, rendering the defense inapplicable to many delusion-driven crimes. A better solution would be to create a generic partial excuse for diminished rationality from mental disability. Over the decades, several prominent scholars have offered proposals for generic partial excuses for partial responsibility, but, as of yet, none has inspired legislative action. This Article’s proposal differs from prior proposals in four key respects. First, it limits its purview to rationality impairments from mental disabilities, a traditionally recognized form of diminished blameworthiness. Second, to be workable and attractive to states, this proposal recommends that states draw definitions of partial responsibility from existing statutory frameworks, namely existing insanity or Guilty But Mentally Ill (GBMI) standards. Such an understanding of partial responsibility should carry greater local legitimacy, and the popularity of GBMI verdicts with legislatures and juries may mean that extending those statutes into the realm of partial responsibility would be more palatable to state legislatures than wholly new language. Third, in light of the realities of mental disorder and its lived experience, our proposal does not advocate for a lesser degree of mitigation for defendants who contributed to their irrationality through failure to comply with medical directives. Fourth, our proposal draws from GBMI statutes and partial responsibility standards outside the United States to suggest sentencing, treatment, and post-sentence options to accompany a partial responsibility verdict and respond to any possible threat to public safety. This Article examines the first two distinctive components of the partial excuse; the third and fourth aspects of the proposal will be developed in a future work

Cranial osteology of the ankylosaurian dinosaur formerly known as Minmi sp (Ornithischia: Thyreophora) from the Lower Cretaceous Allaru Mudstone of Richmond, Queensland, Australia

Minmi is the only known genus of ankylosaurian dinosaur from Australia. Seven specimens are known, all from the Lower Cretaceous of Queensland. Only two of these have been described in any detail: the holotype specimenMinmi paravertebra fromthe Bungil Formation near Roma, and a near complete skeleton fromthe Allaru Mudstone onMarathon Station near Richmond, preliminarily referred to a possible new species of Minmi. The Marathon specimen represents one of the world's most complete ankylosaurian skeletons and the best-preserved dinosaurian fossil from eastern Gondwana. Moreover, among ankylosaurians, its skull is one of only a few in which the majority of sutures have not been obliterated by dermal ossifications or surface remodelling. Recent preparation of theMarathon specimen has revealed new details of the palate and narial regions, permitting a comprehensive description and thus providing new insights cranial osteology of a basal ankylosaurian. The skull has also undergone computed tomography, digital segmentation and 3D computer visualisation enabling the reconstruction of its nasal cavity and endocranium. The airways of the Marathon specimen are more complicated than non-ankylosaurian dinosaurs but less so than derived ankylosaurians. The cranial (brain) endocast is superficially similar to those of other ankylosaurians but is strongly divergent in many important respects. The inner ear is extremely large and unlike that of any dinosaur yet known. Based on a high number of diagnostic differences between the skull of theMarathon specimen and other ankylosaurians, we consider it prudent to assign this specimen to a new genus and species of ankylosaurian. Kunbarrasaurus ieversi gen. et sp. nov. represents the second genus of ankylosaurian from Australia and is characterised by an unusual melange of both primitive and derived characters, shedding new light on the evolution of the ankylosaurian skull

Characterizing a scientific elite: the social characteristics of the most highly cited scientists in environmental science and ecology

In science, a relatively small pool of researchers garners a disproportionally large number of citations. Still, very little is known about the social characteristics of highly cited scientists. This is unfortunate as these researchers wield a disproportional impact on their fields, and the study of highly cited scientists can enhance our understanding of the conditions which foster highly cited work, the systematic social inequalities which exist in science, and scientific careers more generally. This study provides information on this understudied subject by examining the social characteristics and opinions of the 0.1% most cited environmental scientists and ecologists. Overall, the social characteristics of these researchers tend to reflect broader patterns of inequality in the global scientific community. However, while the social characteristics of these researchers mirror those of other scientific elites in important ways, they differ in others, revealing findings which are both novel and surprising, perhaps indicating multiple pathways to becoming highly cited

Academic team formation as evolving hypergraphs

This paper quantitatively explores the social and socio-semantic patterns of constitution of academic collaboration teams. To this end, we broadly underline two critical features of social networks of knowledge-based collaboration: first, they essentially consist of group-level interactions which call for team-centered approaches. Formally, this induces the use of hypergraphs and n-adic interactions, rather than traditional dyadic frameworks of interaction such as graphs, binding only pairs of agents. Second, we advocate the joint consideration of structural and semantic features, as collaborations are allegedly constrained by both of them. Considering these provisions, we propose a framework which principally enables us to empirically test a series of hypotheses related to academic team formation patterns. In particular, we exhibit and characterize the influence of an implicit group structure driving recurrent team formation processes. On the whole, innovative production does not appear to be correlated with more original teams, while a polarization appears between groups composed of experts only or non-experts only, altogether corresponding to collectives with a high rate of repeated interactions

Do synthesis centers synthesize? A semantic analysis of topical diversity in research

Synthesis centers are a form of scientific organization that catalyzes and supports research that integrates diverse theories, methods and data across spatial or temporal scales to increase the generality, parsimony, applicability, or empirical soundness of scientific explanations. Synthesis working groups are a distinctive form of scientific collaboration that produce consequential, high-impact publications. But no one has asked if synthesis working groups synthesize: are their publications substantially more diverse than others, and if so, in what ways and with what effect? We investigate these questions by using Latent Dirichlet Analysis to compare the topical diversity of papers published by synthesis center collaborations with that of papers in a reference corpus. Topical diversity was operationalized and measured in several ways, both to reflect aggregate diversity and to emphasize particular aspects of diversity (such as variety, evenness, and balance). Synthesis center publications have greater topical variety and evenness, but less disparity, than do papers in the reference corpus. The influence of synthesis center origins on aspects of diversity is only partly mediated by the size and heterogeneity of collaborations: when taking into account the numbers of authors, distinct institutions, and references, synthesis center origins retain a significant direct effect on diversity measures. Controlling for the size and heterogeneity of collaborative groups, synthesis center origins and diversity measures significantly influence the visibility of publications, as indicated by citation measures. We conclude by suggesting social processes within collaborations that might account for the observed effects, by inviting further exploration of what this novel textual analysis approach might reveal about interdisciplinary research, and by offering some practical implications of our results.publishedVersio

Personalization Paradox in Behavior Change Apps:Lessons from a Social Comparison-Based Personalized App for Physical Activity

Social comparison-based features are widely used in social computing apps. However, most existing apps are not grounded in social comparison theories and do not consider individual differences in social comparison preferences and reactions. This paper is among the first to automatically personalize social comparison targets. In the context of an m-health app for physical activity, we use artificial intelligence (AI) techniques of multi-armed bandits. Results from our user study (n=53) indicate that there is some evidence that motivation can be increased using the AI-based personalization of social comparison. The detected effects achieved small-to-moderate effect sizes, illustrating the real-world implications of the intervention for enhancing motivation and physical activity. In addition to design implications for social comparison features in social apps, this paper identified the personalization paradox, the conflict between user modeling and adaptation, as a key design challenge of personalized applications for behavior change. Additionally, we propose research directions to mitigate this Personalization Paradox

Why Operationism Doesn't Go Away: Extrascientific Incentives of Social-Psychological Research

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/69038/2/10.1177_004839318601600302.pd

The development of a body comparison measure: the CoSS

Purpose This study reports on the development and validation of a brief and widely applicable measure of body comparison (the Comparison of Self-Scale—CoSS), which is a maintaining feature of eating disorders. Methods A sample of 412 adults completed the CoSS, an existing measure of aspects of body comparison, and eating pathology and associated states. Test–retest reliability was examined over 2 weeks. Results Exploratory factor analysis showed that 22 CoSS items loaded onto two factors, resulting in two scales—Appearance Comparison and Social Comparison—with strong internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Conclusions In clinical terms, the CoSS was superior to the existing measure of body comparison in accounting for depression and anxiety. Given that it is a relatively brief measure, the CoSS could be useful in the routine assessment of body comparison, and in formulating and treating individuals with body image concerns. However, the measure awaits full clinical validation