The benefit of context for facial-composite construction

Purpose - The aim of this study was to investigate whether the presence of a whole-face context during facial composite production facilitates construction of facial composite images. Design/Methodology - In Experiment 1, constructors viewed a celebrity face and then developed a facial composite using PRO-fit software in one of two conditions: either the full-face was visible while facial features were selected, or only the feature currently being selected. The composites were named by different participants. We then replicated the study using a more forensically-valid procedure: In Experiment 2 non-football fans viewed an image of a premiership footballer and 24 hours later constructed a composite of the face with a trained software operator. The resulting composites were named by football fans. Findings - In both studies, the presence of the facial context promoted more identifiable facial composites. Research limitations/implications - Current composite software was deployed in a conventional and unconventional way to demonstrate the importance of facial context. Practical implications - Results confirm that composite software should have the whole-face context visible to witnesses throughout construction. Although some software systems do this, there remain others that present features in isolation and these findings show that these systems are unlikely to be optimal. Originality/value - This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of a full-face context for the construction of facial composite images. Results are valuable to police forces and developers of composite software

Do children utilize motion when recognizing faces?

Previous research indicates that unfamiliar faces may be recognised better if they are viewed in motion. This study utilised a three trial learning paradigm to investigate whether unfamiliar faces are learnt more quickly from moving clips than from static images. Children aged 6-7 years and 10-11 years were shown a series of faces as either static images or dynamic clips, followed by either by a static or dynamic recognition test. Faces were recognised more accurately when presented in motion, but there was no advantage for testing in motion. Although older children were more accurate overall, younger females performed as well as older children for faces presented in motion, suggesting that females’ face processing skills develop more quickly than those of males. Results are discussed in terms of the motion advantage arising due to additional structural information enhancing the internal representation of the face

The Impact of COVID-19 on the Justice Voluntary Sector

Executive summaryThis report presents findings from two research projects exploring the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on third sector justice organisations and workers in Scotland. This work has been funded by the Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector Forum in partnership with Community Justice Scotland, and the Scottish Funding Council COVID-19 Response Scheme. Qualitative individual semi-structured interviews and a group interview explored the impacts of the pandemic on third sector justice organisations, the added value of the sector during the pandemic, efficiencies and good practice that should continue, and key challenges facing the sector. Key findings• The sector has adapted to the pandemic with agility and flexibility, continuing to support their service users despite increasing demand and increasing complexity of service users’ vulnerabilities. They have additionally filled gaps due to statutory organisations in particular failing to adapt or being unable to keep up with demand.• Face-to-face working is essential for building and maintaining relationships that underpin effective service provision, as well as reducing isolation, and it is imperative that this be retained.• Despite difficulties of working remotely, there have been notable positives and good practice that organisations are keen to share and retain. • Organisations are still reactive rather than being able to develop preventative approaches facilitating early intervention. This was the case prior to the pandemic but has been exacerbated by the events of the last two years. • The justice voluntary sector faces a staffing crisis resulting from the loss of experienced and dedicated staff, as well as far fewer applicants to vacant posts. • As is well documented, the precarious funding and short-term funding cycles pose significant challenges to sustainability of the sector in terms of service provision and staffing.• Though the pandemic has for some facilitated the development of valuable partnerships, third sector organisations are still largely excluded from discussions and decisions impacting them. Their value needs to be more clearly recognised outside of the sector. Local authorities need to genuinely partner with the justice voluntary sector to ensure that the needs of their local populations are met

Witness Interviews: Does recall of relational information improve identifiability of a facial composite?

Facial composites are used by Police to generate lines of enquiry; unfortunately composites made by traditional ‘feature’ systems are not often accurately named. One reason could be that these systems tend to rely on descriptions of the criminal’s facial features, when it has been shown that relationships and distances between facial features—the relational information—is of importance for face recognition. Here, we present two experiments to investigate the usefulness of probing for relational information within witness interviews. Participant-witnesses underwent a typical cognitive interview (CI), an interview in which featural information was probed for before relational information (FR), or an interview in which probing for relational information preceded probing for featural detail (RF). Composites constructed of familiar targets with no delay were recognised better in the former two interviews than the latter, suggesting that relational information interferes with subsequent recall of featural information. However, after a 24 hour delay composites constructed of unfamiliar targets did not differ significantly for naming rates by interview type. This indicates no naming benefit for recalling relational information. However, RF composites were rated as significantly better likenesses to target images after a 24-hour delay, and so future work could explore this further to assess what aspect of the image is improved by recall of relational information

The benefit of context for facial composite construction.

Purpose - The aim of this study was to investigate whether the presence of a whole-face context during facial composite production facilitates construction of facial composite images.Design/Methodology - In Experiment 1, constructors viewed a celebrity face and then developed a facial composite using PRO-fit in one of two conditions: either the full-face was visible while facial features were selected, or only the feature currently being selected was visible. The composites were named by different participants. We then replicated the study using a more forensically-valid procedure: In Experiment 2 non-football fans viewed an image of a premiership footballer and 24 hours later constructed a composite of the face with a trained software operator. The resulting composites were named by football fans.Findings - In both studies we found that presence of the facial context promoted more identifiable facial composite images.Research limitations/implications – Though this study uses current software in an unconventional way, this was necessary to avoid error arising from between-system differences.Practical implications - Results confirm that composite software should have the whole-face context visible to witnesses throughout construction. Though some software systems do this, there remain others that present features in isolation and these findings show that these systems are unlikely to be optimal. Originality/value - This is the first study to demonstrate the importance of a full-face context for the construction of facial composite images. Results are valuable to police forces and developers of composite software

Phenotypic and transcriptomic analysis of peripheral blood plasmacytoid and conventional dendritic cells in early drug naïve rheumatoid arthritis

Objective: Dendritic cells (DCs) are key orchestrators of immune function. To date, rheumatoid arthritis (RA) researchers have predominantly focused on a potential pathogenic role for CD1c+ DCs. In contrast, CD141+ DCs and plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) have not been systematically examined, at least in early RA. In established RA, the role of pDCs is ambiguous and, since disease duration and treatment both impact RA pathophysiology, we examined pDCs, and CD1c+ and CD141+ conventional DCs (cDCs), in early, drug-naïve RA (eRA) patients. Methods: We analyzed the frequency and phenotype of pDCs, CD1c+, and CD141+ DCs from eRA patients and compared findings with healthy controls. In parallel, we performed transcriptional analysis of >600 immunology-related genes (Nanostring) from peripheral blood pDCs, CD1c+ DCs, B cells, T cells, and monocytes. Results: All DC subsets were reduced in eRA (n = 44) compared with healthy controls (n = 30) and, for pDCs, this was most marked in seropositive patients. CD141+ and CD1c+ DCs, but not pDCs, had a comparatively activated phenotype at baseline (increased CD86) and CD1c+ DC frequency inversely associated with disease activity. All DC frequencies remained static 12 months after initiation of immunomodulatory therapy despite a fall in activation markers (e.g., HLA-DR, CD40). There was no association between the whole blood interferon gene signature (IGS) and pDC or CD1c+ DC parameters but an inverse association between CD141+ DC frequency and IGS was noted. Furthermore, IFN-I and IFN-III mRNA transcripts were comparable between eRA pDC and other leukocyte subsets (B cells, CD4+, and CD8+ T cells and monocytes) with no obvious circulating cellular source of IFN-I or IFN-III. Transcriptomic analysis suggested increased pDC and CD1c+ DC proliferation in eRA; pDC differentially expressed genes also suggested enhanced tolerogenic function, whereas for CD1c+ DCs, pro-inflammatory transcripts were upregulated. Discussion: This is the first detailed examination of DC subsets in eRA peripheral blood. Compared with CD1c+ DCs, pDCs are less activated and may be skewed toward tolerogenic functions. CD141+ DCs may be implicated in RA pathophysiology. Our findings justify further investigation of early RA DC biology

Familiarity effects in the construction of facial composite images using modern software systems.

We investigate the effect of target familiarity on the construction of facial composites, as used by law-enforcement to locate criminal suspects. Two popular software construction methods were investigated. Participants were shown a target face that was either familiar or unfamiliar to them and constructed a composite of it from memory using a typical ‘feature’ system, involving selection of individual facial-features, or one of the newer ‘holistic’ types, involving repeated selection and breeding from arrays of whole faces. The study found that composites constructed of a familiar face were named more successfully than composites of an unfamiliar face; also, naming of composites of internal and external features were equivalent for unfamiliar targets, but internal features were better named than external features for familiar targets. These findings applied to both systems, although benefit emerged for the holistic type due to more accurate construction of internal features and evidence for a whole-face advantage

Student Belonging Good Practice Guide

This Good Practice Guide offers a toolkit and a conversation starter for anyone working in higher education (HE) who is thinking about embarking on a student belonging project. As well as sharing hints and tips, it draws upon student belonging insights via case studies, an extended literature review and student voice. We aim to provide those of you working within student partnerships or with a professional interest in student engagement easy access to key definitions and debates in the field of student belonging. As this guide provides a shorthand to the contexts of student belonging, we anticipate readers may wish to use the ideas presented here during your curriculum planning or project setting phase, to ensure student voice, orientation and partnership working are at the core of your academic lifecycles and institutional activity preparations. We hope this guide will help you to facilitate communication, influence policy and encourage focus and investment in student engagement in your institution. We believe in being inclusive so much of what you read below will describe student belonging and engagement through this lens. Through our case studies this guide will touch on key themes aligned to student belonging and engagement: student voice, student-staff collaborative working, transitions and orientation, the student journey/lifecycle. These cases are a work in progress – we don’t have all the answers (yet) but we do hope it will be useful to those of you who are looking to explore methods to gain further insights into student mattering, engagement and identity. We will discuss initial findings and the next steps that the partner institutions have adopted but in the main these case studies will set the scene for others wishing to follow suit. Throughout the case studies we offer tools for colleagues in higher education institutions (HEI) to use – these include pre-arrival survey questions, and activities to harness self-perceived student identity and attachment to the university. However, these are not prescriptive; we recognise that each institution will need – and should, in the name of good practice – use these as conversation starters or prompts for approaches that are specific and tailored to your institution and its unique student body.This guide is the output of a RAISE Network-funded project, in partnership with Teesside University, Edinburgh Napier University and Nottingham Trent University. Researching Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement (RAISE) is a worldwide network of staff and students in HE who work or have an interest in the research and promotion of student engagemen

The impact of external facial features on the construction of facial composites

Witnesses may construct a composite face of a perpetrator using a computerised interface. Police practitioners guide witnesses through this unusual process, the goal being to produce an identifiable image. However, any changes a perpetrator makes to their external facial-features may interfere with this process. In Experiment 1, participants constructed a composite using a holistic interface one day after target encoding. Target faces were unaltered, or had altered external-features: (i) changed hair, (ii) external-features removed or (iii) naturally-concealed external-features (hair, ears, face-shape occluded by a hooded top). These manipulations produced composites with more error-prone internal-features: participants’ familiar with a target’s unaltered appearance less often provided a correct name. Experiment 2 applied external-feature alterations to composites of unaltered targets; although whole-face composites contained less error-prone internal-features, identification was impaired. Experiment 3 replicated negative effects of changing target hair on construction and tested a practical solution: selectively concealing hair and eyes improved identification

Recovering faces from memory: the distracting influence of external facial features.

Recognition memory for unfamiliar faces is facilitated when contextual cues (e.g. head pose, background environment, hair and clothing) are consistent between study and test. By contrast, inconsistencies in external features, especially hair, promote errors in unfamiliar face-matching tasks. For the construction of facial composites, as carried out by witnesses and victims of crime, the role of external features (hair, ears and neck) is less clear, although research does suggest their involvement. Here, over three experiments, we investigate the impact of external features for recovering facial memories using a modern, recognition-based composite system, EvoFIT. Participant-constructors inspected an unfamiliar target face and, one day later, repeatedly selected items from arrays of whole faces, with ‘breeding’, to ‘evolve’ a composite with EvoFIT; further participants (evaluators) named the resulting composites. In Experiment 1, the important internal-features (eyes, brows, nose and mouth) were constructed more identifiably when the visual presence of external features was decreased by Gaussian blur during construction: higher blur yielded more identifiable internal-features. In Experiment 2, increasing the visible extent of external features (to match the target’s) in the presented face-arrays also improved internal-features quality, although less so than when external features were masked throughout construction. Experiment 3 demonstrated that masking external-features promoted substantially more identifiable images than using the previous method of blurring external-features. Overall, the research indicates that external features are a distractive rather than a beneficial cue for face construction; the results also provide a much better method to construct composites, one that should dramatically increase identification of offenders