Improvement of Thematic Classification in Offender Profiling: Classifying Serbian Homicides Using Multiple Correspondence,Cluster, and Discriminant Function Analyses

This paper investigates thematic classification of homicides for the purpose of behavioural investigative analysis (e.g. offender profiling). Previous research has predominantly used smallest space analysis (SSA) to conceptualise and classify offences into thematic groups based on crime scene behaviour data. This paper introduces a combined approach utilising multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), cluster analysis (CA), and discriminant function analysis (DFA) to define and differentiate crime scenes into expressive or instrumental and impersonal or personal crimes. MCA is used to derive the latent structural dimensions in the crime data and produce quantitative scores for each offence along these dimensions. Two‐step CA was then utilised to classify offences. Offence dimensional scores were then used to predict cluster membership under DFA, producing cluster centroids corresponding to MCA dimensions. Centroids were plotted on the MCA correspondence map to simultaneously conceptualise crime classification and the latent structure of the Serbian crime data. Classification of offences based on MCA dimensional scores were 91.5% accurate. This MCA–CA–DFA approach may reduce some of the more subjective aspects of SSA methodology used in classification, whilst producing a product more amenable to objective and cumulative review. Implications for offender profiling research utilising SSA and this approach are discussed. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quantifier comprehension in corticobasal degeneration

In this study, we investigated patients with focal neurodegenerative diseases to examine a formal linguistic distinction between classes of generalized quantifiers, like "some X" and "less than half of X." Our model of quantifier comprehension proposes that number knowledge is required to understand both first-order and higher-order quantifiers. The present results demonstrate that corticobasal degeneration (CBD) patients, who have number knowledge impairments but little evidence for a deficit understanding other aspects of language, are impaired in their comprehension of quantifiers relative to healthy seniors, Alzheimer's disease (AD) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) patients [F(3,77)=4.98; p<.005]. Moreover, our model attempts to honor a distinction in complexity between classes of quantifiers such that working memory is required to comprehend higher-order quantifiers. Our results support this distinction by demonstrating that FTD and AD patients, who have working memory limitations, have greater difficulty understanding higher-order quantifiers relative to first-order quantifiers [F(1,77)=124.29; p<.001]. An important implication of these findings is that the meaning of generalized quantifiers appears to involve two dissociable components, number knowledge and working memory, which are supported by distinct brain regions.     

Hilbert's Inferno: Time Travel for the Damned

Combining time travel with certain kinds of supertask, this paper proposes a novel model for Hell. Temporally‐closed spacetimes allow otherwise impossible opportunities for material kinds of damnation and reveal surprising limitations on metaphysical objections to Hell. Prima facie, eternal damnation requires either infinite amounts of time or time for the damned to speed‐up arbitrarily. However, spatiotemporally finite ‘time travel’ universes can host unending personal torment for infinitely many physical beings, while keeping fixed finite limits on rates of temporal passage. Such ‘Hilbert's Inferno’ spacetimes suggest neither materialism nor the finitude of time and space need forbid Hell. A material Hell can be spatiotemporally finite yet eternal for its inhabitants. Hilbert's Inferno also sheds light on Hell's location and accessibility, and shows that some spacetimes are intrinsically better suited to punishment than reward.     

论人的脆弱性和依赖性

人类所有的脆弱性是人性的一个基本事实。人类的脆弱性与人类的德性需要是内在相关的。但是,在漫长的西方哲学史上,对于人的脆弱性以及人的依赖性这一基本的人性事实却很少有人注意。然而,人类需要承认依赖性的德性。     

Expanding the traditional user versus non‐user dichotomy amongst ecstasy users

Differences in the drug use characteristics and psychosocial variables in the use and non‐use of ecstasy within 845 16–25 year‐olds in the UK was examined. Based on levels of ecstasy use and intentions, two groups of non‐users (resistant and vulnerable), three groups of users (light, moderate and heavy) and an ex‐user group were identified. It was found that there is predictive utility in this way of expanding the widely employed ‘user versus non‐user’ dichotomy. Resistant non‐users were more likely to be younger, female, and were characterized by lower levels of use of four other drugs (amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine and LSD). Those ‘at risk’ of using ecstasy reported more frequent use of amphetamine, LSD, and cannabis than resistant non‐users. Heavy user groups reported using amphetamine, cocaine and LSD more frequently than all the other groups. Having ecstasy using friends increased the odds of being an ‘at risk’ non‐user or an ecstasy user. Normative influence also differentiated between the three user groups (light, moderate, and heavy). Beliefs about ecstasy use being immoral, ecstasy offers being difficult to resist, ecstasy use making one feel guilty and ecstasy being readily available differentiated between user and non‐user groups. These factors could usefully inform the content of health education materials designed to change ecstasy use. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Varying temporal placement during CS of an added stimulus correlated with non-delivery of UCS

This experiment extends Pavlov’s method of contrasts for training a stimulus discrimination to the case of the cardiac conditional response in the rhesus monkey. It explores the parameter of temporal placement of an additional stimulus (“CS₂”) within a 10-sec CS (or “CS₁”), with the appearance of the former stimulus on any trial signalling the absence of UCS (electric shock) on that trial. This experimental paradigm is a parallel to that of the “intruded stimulus” studies in operant conditioning. In both cases, several ways of describing the function of the added stimulus are possible, but all seem reducible to the same operational terms. Data were taken in the present study with respect to the form and latency of the cardiac rate changes produced by intrusion of CS₂ (light), across a range of placements varying from simultaneity with CS₁ (a different light) onset to two sec before UCS would have been delivered. The control of CS₂ over the cardiac rate CR was occasionally exhibited with a latency as short as three beats after stimulus onset. The order of CS₂ temporal placements to which a subject was exposed was a factor in determining the form of the conditioned cardiac rate response to CS₁.     

Why Doomsday Arguments are Better than Simulation Arguments

Inspired by anthropic reasoning behind Doomsday arguments, Nick Bostrom's Simulation Argument says: people who think advanced civilisations would run many fully‐conscious simulated minds should also think they're probably simulated minds themselves. However, Bostrom's conclusions can (and should) be resisted, especially by sympathisers with Doomsday or anthropic reasoning. This paper initially offers a posterior‐probabilistic ‘Doomsday lottery’ argument against Bostrom's conclusions. Suggestions are then offered for deriving anti‐simulation conclusions using weaker assumptions. Anti‐simulation arguments herein use more (epistemically and metaphysically) robust reference classes than Bostrom's argument, require no Principles of Indifference, abide better by the total evidence requirement, and yet use empirically plausible priors and likelihoods. However, while Doomsday arguments are probabilistically, epistemically and metaphysically stronger than the Simulation Argument, anthropic reasoning can (and should) refrain from embracing either.     

The Role of Women's Relationships With Their Partners in Their Adjustment Following Prenatal Genetic Testing1

This study explored how aspects of the couple relationship contributed to the adjustment of 95 women who underwent prenatal diagnostic (PND) testing because of advanced maternal age (AMA). Participants completed self‐report measures prior to genetic counseling (T1), during the waiting period for PND test results (T2), and after normal results were received (T3). At T2, distress was predicted by the degree to which women approached the PND decision jointly with their partners, and marital adjustment was predicted by women's satisfaction with the support received from their partners. Marital adjustment at T3 was predicted by earlier levels of partner agreement about PND‐related issues. Results suggest that the couple relationship has the potential to facilitate or hinder women's experience of PND testing.     

Line-bisectioning and obstacle avoidance: Evidence for separate strategies

Previous studies have frequently applied a combination of line-bisection tasks (in which participants indicate the middle of a line) and obstacle avoidance tasks (in which participants move their hand between two obstacles) with the aim of revealing perception–action dissociations in certain neurological disorders, such as visual form agnosia and optic ataxia. However, valid conclusions about the underlying processing pathways can only be drawn if participants apply the same strategy in both tasks (i.e. finding the middle between the obstacles). Yet, this assumption has never been tested directly. In this experiment, we investigated whether participants perform obstacle avoidance and line-bisectioning using similar strategies by manipulating the position of the obstacles and the start position of the hand relative to the obstacles. Our results indicate that the lateral hand position during obstacle avoidance does not only vary as a function of obstacle location but also strongly depends on the start position. Moreover, participants showed increased sensitivity to obstacle shifts occurring closer to the hand's start position. In contrast, during line-bisectioning the sensitivity to obstacles shifts was unaffected by the hand's start position. The findings suggest that during obstacle-avoidance the need to keep a safe distance from the obstacles is balanced with the requirement to minimise energetic demands. In contrast, the main intention during line-bisectioning is to move to the perceived midpoint as accurately as possible. The fact that very different constraints underlie trajectory planning in both tasks implies that caution has to be taken when interpreting differences in performance levels.