The impact of training and experience on the recovery of evidence in outdoor forensic scenes: implications for human remains recovery

The present study involves a multivariate assessment of the success of evidence recovery by searchers from various backgrounds and skill levels. Volunteers representing four experience levels (civilian volunteers, first year forensic anthropology graduate students, second year forensic anthropology graduate students, and first responders) conducted line searches of mock crime scenes, flagging items of forensic significance with pin flags. The groups were then briefly trained in human skeletal remains recovery, and implemented this training through a second set of mock scene searches. Recovery rates were compared across pre- and post-training trials and across searcher groups in order to determine the influence of searcher training and experience on search success. The results of this study reveal not only the percentage of evidence that was recovered by search teams, but exhibits the degree to which experience and training played a role in evidence recovery

Social Anxiety and Rumination: The Effects of Alcohol

Previous reserach has found a positive relationship between social anxiety and rumination. A positive relationship has also been found between social anxiety and alcohol use in clinical samples. The current study investigated how alcohol affected levels of rumination in socially anxious and non-socially anxious individuals. It was expected that consuming alcohol would decrease levels of rumination in socially anxious individuals. Eighty male participants were recuited (38 high in social anxiety and 42 low in social anxiety). Most participants were White (86%), students (78%), who ranged in age from 19 to 69 (M=22 years). Individuals were randomly assigned to an alcohol or no alcohol condition, and then took part in an anxiety-provoking social interaction with a confederate. One week later, their levels of rumination were measured in response to the social interaction. Results indicated that those high in social anxiety had similar levels of typical alcohol consumption to those low in social anxiety. Main effects were found for anxiety condition, indicating that those high in anxiety had higher levels of state social anxiety during the social interaction and higher levels of rumination after the social interaction. However, no main effects were found for the alcohol condition, indicating that alcohol did not have an effect on state social anxiety as most theories would predict and alcohol did not affect levels of rumination as was hypothesized. This research is applicable to treatment programs aimed at helping individuals with social anxiety and/or alcohol use problems

A MEETING OF MINDS ACROSS THE WORKSPACE: COMMON GROUND IN COLLABORATIVE DESIGN

This thesis reports an exploration of how the use and construction of external representations through methods of signalling and conversational grounding, support the sharing of ideas for spatial design tasks and how that support changes as a function of access to a shared works pace, external representations and memory support. Further aims of the study were to develop a coding scheme to identify the use of language in establishing and maintaining mutual understanding between collaborators. Pilot studies identified appropriate tasks relating to visual problem-solving design tasks for use in the main studies. For the main studies, video recordings were obtained, coded and time-stamped and analysis of the duration of grounding and activity codes, as well as concurrent grounding and activity, was carried on the impact of tasks and constraints on communication. For the first study 36 pairs of participants were used to investigate collaborative problem-solving and visual access to a shared workspace was varied. For the second study, 30 pairs of participants were used to investigate how ‘learned’ solutions are communicated. Again visual access to a shared workspace was varied, together with the manipulation of the opportunity for communicators to have access to external representations and memory support. Evidence was obtained to support the principles of ‘co-operation' and 'least collaborative effort' in conversation. Differences in the use and construction of external representations were discussed in terms of compensations, and changes in dyadic interactivity, made as a function of limitations in the media settings and the purpose of the joint activity. Other issues emerged relating to perceived communication efficacy as a result of a divided workspace focus and competition between problem-solving and grounding resources. These findings have implications for design cognition and communication as well as the technological support offered to support such activities

The present perfect progressive: constraints on its use with numerical object NPs

International audienceThis paper tries to reveal the constraints on the use of the present perfect progressive (PPP) in combination with numerical object NPs. Existing accounts tend to takesituation type classes as a basis for the description of the PPP. It is shown that such an approach does not yield adequate results. (Un)boundedness (Declerck, 1991; Depraetere, 1995) plays an equally important role as (a)telicity in determining whether the progressive can be used or not. (Un)boundedness, as opposed to (a)telicity, is concerned with actual terminal points (of situations referred to) rather than potential (inherent) endpoints. It will be shown in this paper that, in some cases, the conflict between the unboundedness inherent in the progressive form and the boundedness often brought about by numerical object NPs that are used in nonstative sentences results in unacceptability. Considerable attention is first paid to the constraints on the use of the past progressive with numerical object NPs. The second part of the paper focuses on the PPP: apart from (un)boundedness and (a)telicity, the type of perfect and our knowledge of the world also play their part in determining whether or not the PPP is acceptable in sentences with a numerical object NP

Towards a more explicit taxonomy of root possibility

The aim of this paper is to improve the description of root (or non-epistemic) possibility meanings. In previous accounts, the defining criteria are not applied systematically; there is a tendency towards definition by exemplification (especially when it comes to meanings that are 'not permission' and 'not ability') and certain categories (permission, for instance) tend to be defined in a circular way. We will argue that there are three criteria which are necessary and sufficient to distinguish five subclasses of root possibility meaning. The three criteria are: (a) the scope of the modal meaning, (b) the source of the modality and (c) the notion of potential barrier; the five meanings are: (a) ability, (b) opportunity, (c) permission, (d) general situation possibility (GSP) and (e) situation permissibility. The paper offers an in-depth analysis of the three defining criteria and the root possibility meanings that their systematic application gives rise to. This approach clearly brings out the similarities and the dissimilarities between the different subcategories of root possibility meaning in English and in this way it results in a more explicit taxonomy

Chicago\u27s Home for the Aged and Infirm Colored People: a paradigm for examining community viability among African-Americans in 20th century Chicago

For decades. African Americans, faced with enortnoiis exclusion by the majority population, built hundreds of social institutions to provide basic services for their commutiities. The history of the Chicago\u27s Home for Aged and Infirm Colored People illustrates changes in African American leadership in community institutions that coincided with shifting demographic patterns and the rise of the Civil Rights movement. Middle class leaders retnaitied committed to the home after migration accelerated and decreasing membership in women s social clubs diminished available resources. Implications for the historical role of the Black middle-class in sustaining comtnunity institutions are discussed

Monitoring Direct Blood Pressure Algorithm Enhancements

Conference PaperBiomedical Informatic

Do Shareholders' Preferences Affect their Funds' Management? Evidence from the Cross Section of Shareholders and Funds

We consider how fund managers respond to the conflicting preferences of their investors. We focus on the conflict between the taxable and retirement accounts of international funds, which face different tradeoffs between dividends and capital gains. In principle, managers could resolve this conflict through dividend arbitrage, but a proprietary database of dividend-arbitrage transactions shows that in practice they cannot. Thus, managers must resolve it through their investment policies, and we find robust evidence that managers with more retirement money favor the preferences of retirement investors. We find additional evidence in the difference between U.S. and Canadian funds' portfolio weights. Nous étudions comment les gestionnaires de fonds réagissent aux préférences contradictoires de leurs investisseurs. Notre étude se concentre principalement sur les conflits entre les comptes taxés et les comptes de retraite des fonds internationaux qui font l'objet de compromis différents entre les gains en dividendes et les gains de capital. En théorie, les gestionnaires peuvent résoudre ces conflits par des opérations d'arbitrage sur les dividendes, mais une base de données privée d'opérations d'arbitrage fait apparaître qu'en pratique ils ne peuvent pas. Les gestionnaires doivent alors résoudre ces conflits à travers leurs politiques d'investissement, et nous trouvons des résultats significatifs montrant que ceux dont le capital est issu majoritairement des retraites favorisent les investisseurs de fonds de pension. Nous trouvons également des différences entre les poids des portefeuilles de fonds américains et canadiens.Dividend arbitrage, tax efficiency, agency issues, mutual funds, arbitrage sur les dividendes, taxes sur les rendements, placements pour compte, fonds commun de placement

How and Why do Investors Trade Votes, and What Does it Mean?

The standard analysis of corporate governance is that shareholders vote in the ratios that firms choose, such as one-share-one-vote. But if the cost of unbundling and trading votes is sufficiently low, then shareholders vote in the ratios that they themselves choose. We document an active market for votes within the equity-loan market, where we find that the average vote sells for zero. We hypothesize that asymmetric information motivates these vote reallocations, and we find support for this view in the cross section of votes: there is more trade for higher-spread firms and more for poor performers, especially when the vote is close. We also find that the vote reallocations correspond to support for shareholder proposals and opposition to management proposals. L'analyse classique de la gouvernance d'entreprise suppose que les actionnaires votent selon les modalités choisies par la firme, par exemple un vote par action. Mais si les coûts associés à la séparation et à l'échange des votes sont suffisamment faibles, alors les actionnaires votent selon les modalités qu'ils ont eux-mêmes choisies. Nous présentons le cas d'un marché actif de votes au sein du marché des mises de fonds sous forme d'emprunts (equity loans), où nous constatons qu'en moyenne les votes se vendent pour rien. Nous supposons que l'asymétrie d'information provoque cette réallocation des votes, et nous étayons cette hypothèse à travers l'étude transversale des votes : le nombre d'opérations est plus important pour les compagnies dont l'écart acheteur-vendeur est plus élevé ainsi que pour celles dont les résultats sont plus faibles, particulièrement lorsque le vote est clos. Cette étude montre aussi que la réallocation des votes permet de soutenir les propositions des actionnaires et de s'opposer à celles des gestionnaires.vote trading, corporate governance, equity lending, information asymmetry, transaction de votes, gouvernance d'entreprise, prêt d'actions, asymétrie d'information