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High Resolution Mass Spectrometry Drug Screening in Forensic Toxicology: A Cost Benefit Analysis
Get PDFThe proliferation of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in the United States over
the past two decades has significantly changed the landscape of forensic toxicology
investigations. The criminal justice and medicolegal community relies upon effective and reliable toxicological drug screening to identify new threats, ensure the effective and impartial administration of justice, and protect public safety. The emergence of numerous designer drug classes, including synthetic cannabinoids, cathinones, psychedelics, benzodiazepines, novel opioids, and fentanyl analogs, presents a formidable challenge to operational forensic laboratories. As such, the science of forensic toxicology must remain ever-flexible to manage the persistent development of NPS.
Immunoassay (IA) is the most widely used technique for forensic toxicology
screening. Despite the many advantages of this approach, its effectiveness in light of the need to identify an ever-growing number of new and emerging drugs, has been called into question. Hence, it has been suggested that high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) will replace immunoassay-based screening, since it offers flexibility, sensitivity, and improved selectivity. However, operational laboratories have been slow to adopt this new technology because of limited resources, complexity of operation, and training needs associated with its implementation.
In this study, liquid chromatography-quadrupole-time of flight mass spectrometry
(LC-QTOF-MS) was used to develop, optimize, and validate a comprehensive drug
screening procedure that met published standards and recommendations for forensic
investigations. The new method was used to reanalyze adjudicated blood samples from two populations of impaired drivers in Texas and California that were previously tested using immunoassay. Following the direct comparison of IA and HRMS-based screening results, a full cost-benefit analysis was undertaken. The performance and effectiveness of each approach was evaluated in terms of fiscal impact, resource management, training, and technological challenges. This study not only provides new scientific methods for toxicological screening that meet the needs of the criminal justice system, but it also provides valuable insight to operational forensic laboratories who may be considering thistechnological shift
PREDICTORS OF PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR IN YOUTH: ASSOCIATIONS WITH GRATITUDE, PARENTAL SOCIALIZATION MECHANISMS, AND PARENT-CHILD AND SIBLING RELATIONSHIP QUALITY
Get PDFThe development of prosocial behavior in youth has been linked to children’s and adolescents’ well-being, self-esteem, interpersonal relationship quality, and happiness. Most researchers agree that age-specific cognitive, social, and emotional factors are related to prosocial behavior, and that caring relationships significantly impact children’s development. However, underlying factors are not widely understood. In the current study, I examined the associations between aspects of the family context (e.g., parent-child and sibling-child relationship quality, parents’ gratitude socialization mechanisms), children’s and parents’ levels of gratitude, and children’s prosociality. Parent-child dyads (N = 101) completed lab-based assessments at baseline, daily diaries for a week following the baseline assessment, and a follow-up assessment three years later. Results showed that children higher in gratitude and children with parents higher in gratitude exhibited more prosocial behaviors than their peers that were lower in gratitude and their peers with parents who reported less gratitude, respectively. However, contrary to my predictions, the link between children’s gratitude and prosocial behavior was not mediated by parent gratitude socialization style. When considering the family context, there was a significant relationship between prosocial behavior and sibling relationship quality, and results also revealed a positive correlation between children’s prosocial behavior and parental sensitivity. Although age was not associated with children’s prosocial behavior, girls were shown to engage in more prosocial behaviors than boys. The current findings indicate that gratitude may be associated with children’s prosocial behavior and provide evidence for the need to promote effective educational intervention methods for schools and parents. Implications and future directions are discussed
OER Beyond the Freshman Intro Course
No full textMany open educational resources (OER) have been developed to target large freshman-level intro courses, where cost-savings can help the largest numbers of students at once. As a result, some may perceive OER as being only for lower-level courses. But recent years have seen an explosion in OER targeted at much more specialized upper-level courses as well. This session will showcase upper-level works across the disciplines and outline OER support services from the SHSU library. We hope to inspire instructors to seek and discover what is possible
Did I cover that?
No full textHave you ever asked yourself the question "How well did I cover that topic or concept?" Or maybe while creating exam questions or other evaluations you wondered how well the question you are creating aligns with the content you presented. Ever thought about how students may have heard your last rousing lecture? Using the Blackboard Ultra test bank generation AI and a video captioning utility such as in Zoom can help with that. This presentation will demonstrate a technique for recording physical or online course content and then using the Ultra view test AI to analyze key content elements and topics covered. At the conclusion of the presentation, attendees with have a good technique for answering the question, "Did I cover that?
Police Uniforms and Load-Bearing Vests
No full textSince the beginning of modern policing, the police uniform has been a symbol that easily identifies an officer. Front-line officers are easily identified by the uniforms they wear. They wear traditional uniforms that have changed little over time. Modern police departments have worked to update other equipment that allows officers to be more efficient, but many have fallen short when it comes to the police uniform. This has caused some officers to be uncomfortable while in uniform, aggravating injuries, and lowering morale. Police departments should issue modern equipment to officers. Issuing modern equipment to officers in the form of load-bearing vests (LVBs) would help departments address these issues while still serving the public. Concerns about public perception and cost can be addressed by having a long-term vision instead of looking at the short-term effects of LVBs. Studies have shown the public places a higher value on how confidence-inspiring an officer looks in uniform over the perceived intimidation level (Blaskovits, et al., 2022).LEMI
Motherhood Incarcerated: A Comparative Analysis of Mother's V Non-Mother's Adjustments to Prison
No full textIn the last several decades, women have become the fastest-growing portion of incarcerated persons. Regardless of this increasing population, incarcerated women continue to be under-researched and –consequently—misunderstood as research conducted on males tends to be reflected upon women. Frustration lies however, in the simple fact that a multitude of prior research has identified gender-based differences in terms of pre-prison characteristics, institutional transgressions, and prison adaptation. Differences also include extreme social stigmas. Aside from the stigma of being a female who commits a crime, even more stigmatizing is being a mother who commits a crime. Currently, it is estimated that 80% of women incarcerated in the United States are mothers. However, like female-centered research, mother-centered research is sparse. Both motherhood and incarceration are grossly individualistic experiences that impact a woman’s relationships and overall wellbeing—both while in prison and post-release. When these experiences are combined, incarcerated mothers cannot be expected to adjust seamlessly to the need to balance these roles; however, little research exists on how mothers may do this, especially in regards to their support systems.
The current dissertation used several T-tests and ANOVAs to answer two main research questions: whether incarcerated mothers differ from incarcerated women without children in terms of their support systems and whether having children moderates the impact of support systems on psychological adjustment for these incarcerated women. Unfortunately, the power of the current sample was very low, and results indicate no practical differences between women’s support systems. The only significant interaction proved to be between motherhood and inside support systems when assessed with distressed-based adjustment, finding that as inside prison support quality increased, mothers reported increased adjustment, but nonmothers reported decreased adjustment. Other than this finding, a few other nuanced patterns of difference emerged that should be replicated with a more powerful sample. Female incarceration—and accordingly maternal incarceration—are on the rise in American prison system. It is no longer enough to assume that women react to the prison environment the same as men and more research must be done to further explore these differences and better inform carceral policy
Establishing “Fat criminology:” Assessing the impact of body size on criminal court outcomes
No full textObesity is a growing public health crisis, with projections suggesting that over half of the global population will be overweight or obese by 2035. Individuals who are overweight or obese often experience significant social stigma and “anti-fat bias,” which leads to detrimental consequences across healthcare, employment, interpersonal relationships, education, and socioeconomic status. Despite well-documented “anti-fat bias” elsewhere, its influence within the criminal legal system (CLS) remains largely unexamined.
Limited research, however, has examined anti-fat bias in some CLS contexts, such as how overweight or obese victims are treated by the CLS and how obesity affects police decisions to stop, search, and/or arrest. Yet, no study to date has examined anti-fat bias in criminal sentencing. Therefore, this dissertation addresses this gap by investigating whether defendant body size (BMI) affects criminal sentencing (i.e., the incarceration (in/out) and sentence length decisions). It also assesses whether gender or race and ethnicity moderate the relationship between body size (BMI) and criminal sentencing.
Data for this study were obtained from the Harris County Justice Data Warehouse, which is a relational database that compiles data from the district attorney’s office, 16 County Courts at Law, 23 District Courts, and the Sheriff’s office. The data for this dissertation include official court records and proceedings from the 16 Criminal Courts at Law and 23 District Courts, containing misdemeanor and felony cases filed between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2021 (643,708 cases total).
The findings from this dissertation run counter to prior research on the consequences of anti-fat bias. The results indicate that defendant body size (BMI) inversely impacts criminal sentencing, so as body size (BMI) increases, criminal sentencing becomes more lenient. The findings also show that gender, and certain racial and ethnic groups, moderate the relationship between body size (BMI) and criminal sentencing. Overall, these results lend support and extend traditional theories on judicial decision-making and emphasize the importance of examining anti-fat bias through an intersectional framework, placing the fat body at the center of criminological inquiry engaging in “Fat Criminology.
Morality and Marijuana: Understanding Comparative Self-Appraisal and Cannabis Use
No full textThis study examines the influence of political allegiance, frequency of religious engagement, and state legal status on the acceptability of cannabis use. Using archival data from 1,734 participants (Mage = 19, SD = 1.26, range = 18-24) from various American universities, the sample comprised 1,304 women, 398 men, 31 genderqueer individuals, and one participant with missing gender identity data. Participants completed a demographic survey, a modified Drinking Norms Rating Form (DNRF; Baer et al., 1991; Neighbors et al., 2006), and the Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test (CUDIT), adapted from the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) (Adamson & Sellman, 2003). Correlational analyses revealed a small but significant effect of political allegiance (F(1,1093) = 23.385, p < .001) and a weak positive correlation between religious service attendance and cannabis use norms (F(1,944) = 19.666, p < .001). PROCESS Model analysis indicated that state legal status significantly moderated the relationship between religious engagement (F(3,939) = 10.113, p < .001) but did not moderate the influence of political allegiance (F(3,1096) = 2.216, p =.085). These findings suggest that political allegiance and religious engagement independently shape attitudes toward cannabis use, while state legal status significantly impacts religious individuals' views. These insights can guide the development of targeted public health campaigns and educational programs tailored to diverse populations
Enhancing Fraud Detection in Financial Transactions Using Random Forest and Graph Convolutional Neural Networks
Get PDFAbstract Global financial crimes in 2023 resulted in an estimated $31 trillion in losses, according to the latest report from the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP). These crimes, including money laundering, embezzlement, tax evasion, and illicit trading, pose a significant threat to the stability and fairness of the global economy. Despite efforts by governments and financial institutions to curb these activities, criminals continue to exploit complex financial networks and emerging technologies, such as cryptocurrencies, to evade detection. In this study, we employ both Random Forest and Graph Convolutional Neural Network (GCN) models to detect fraudulent financial transactions. Our findings indicate that the Random Forest model consistently outperforms the GCN across various metrics in two distinct datasets. Specifically, Random Forest achieves higher and more stable ROC-AUC scores, precision, and recall, making it a more dependable model for these datasets. While the GCN demonstrates potential in capturing intricate relationships within graph-structured data, its performance is less consistent, showing a greater tendency towards false positives, particularly at certain values of k. This variability suggests that GCN may benefit from more refined tuning and alternative approaches to feature engineering or graph construction to enhance its performance. Based on the experimental results, Random Forest emerges as the preferred model for these datasets, offering superior overall performance, stability, and reliability. However, GCN remains a viable option in scenarios where complex interrelationships between data points are crucial, albeit with the need for further optimization
ASSESSING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CHILDHOOD MALTREATMENT, PERSONALITY DYSFUNCTION, AND EXTERNALIZING BEHAVIOR
Get PDFResearch has established a relationship between childhood maltreatment, personality psychopathology, and externalizing behavior, particularly highlighting the detrimental outcomes of exposure to adverse childhood events on inter- and intrapersonal functioning. Most of the current literature has examined these relationships in male samples and focused on non-specific personality dysfunction constructs. Therefore, the current study aimed to replicate these relationships using specific PD measures (trait and non-trait-based) in a sample of 200 female incarcerated offenders and 187 female undergraduate students. First, Pearson’s correlations were conducted to determine the strength and direction of the association between childhood maltreatment, personality psychopathology (BPD and ASPD/psychopathy), and externalizing behaviors. Second, we conducted Steiger’s z tests to assess for significant association differences across contexts (i.e., correctional vs. undergraduate) and personality disorder constructs (BPD vs. ASPD/psychopathy). Last, we conducted path analyses to determine whether there are significant paths from childhood maltreatment to externalizing behaviors via severe personality psychopathology (BPD vs. ASPD/psychopathy). Results were mostly consistent with the existing literature and our hypotheses. We found broad associations between childhood trauma, personality psychopathology (i.e., BPD and ASPD/psychopathy), and externalizing behavior among women. Additionally, correlations were generally consistent between the inmate and undergraduate samples, and across BPD and ASPD/psychopathy measures. Last, findings demonstrated a mediation pathway from childhood trauma to BPD and ASPD/psychopathy – separately – to externalizing behavior. Limitations and implications will be discussed