scholarly journals Criminal Life Courses in Context

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 30-33
Author(s):  
Sanne Muurling ◽  
Evelien Walhout

The future of the Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) will certainly include the enrichment of the foundational database with additional, new sources of information. In general, the HSN would highly benefit from current mass digitization projects involving citizen science. This essay proposes a pilot in linking 19th- and early 20th-century criminal records to HSN. In spite of the extensive state and parish registration documenting individual and family lives in close systematic detail, life course approaches to historical crime are less common. The large datasets necessary to conduct longitudinal life course research into deviant behaviour will facilitate both the analysis of criminality as an event and the scrutiny of the trajectories of individuals' lives leading up to their involvement in crime.


2008 ◽  
Vol 07 (02) ◽  
pp. A02 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryuma Shineha ◽  
Aiko Hibino ◽  
Kazuto Kato

The rapid spread of technologies involving the application of “Genetic Modification (GM)” raised the need for science communication on this new technology in society. To consider the communication on GM in the society, an understanding of the current mass media is required. This paper shows the whole picture of newspaper discourses on GM in Japan. For the Japanese public, newspapers represent one of the major sources of information on GM. We subjected the two Japanese newspapers with the largest circulation, the Asahi Shimbun and Yomiuri Shimbun, to an analysis of the full text of approximately 4000 articles on GM published over the past to perform an assessment of the change of reportage on GM. As for the most important results, our analysis shows that there are two significant shifts with respect to the major topics addressed in articles on GM by Japanese newspapers.



2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (S367) ◽  
pp. 336-338
Author(s):  
Harufumi Tamazawa

AbstractThe development of astronomy has been developed by the cooperation of amateur astronomers and researchers. Sunspot observation is a good example of Extreme citizen science in early days. Issei YAMAMOTO (1889–1959), organized “Oriental Astronomical Association (OAA),” Yamamoto’s materials (now in Kwasan observatory) include solar observation data sent from many observers in Japan. From the viewpoint of today’s Citizen Science, collaborative observation of sunspot between researchers of solar physics and amateur astronomers in Japan has clearly a context of social mission rather than mere academic interest. From the viewpoint of science communication, we can see that Yamamoto’s call includes a social mission to promote astronomy in Japan, and that amateurs responded to Yamamoto’s call by participating in the observation network. It can be said that this collaboration have not only “cultural” aspect but also “civic”or “practical” aspect.



2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 433-442 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. C. JOYAL ◽  
A. PUTKONEN ◽  
P. PAAVOLA ◽  
J. TIIHONEN

Background. While men with schizophrenia are at higher risk of displaying homicidal behaviours compared with the general population, very little is known about the circumstances related to the triggering of such violent acts among offenders with schizophrenia. The main goal of the present investigation was to describe the surrounding context, psychotic symptoms, target characteristics and other circumstantial factors associated with homicidal acts committed by men with schizophrenia, with or without an additional antisocial personality disorder (APD).Method. Comprehensive clinical and research interviews, as well as multiple sources of information including reports from social workers and police officers, criminal records, witness statements and questionnaires completed by friends, acquaintances and family members were used to determine specific characteristics surrounding the homicidal acts.Results. Overall, a significant majority of homicides were considered as the consequence of psychotic symptoms; they mostly involved someone who knew the offender; and they usually occurred in a private residence. However, the subgroup of offenders with both schizophrenia and APD were less likely to be judged as responding to psychotic symptoms; they assaulted a non-relative more frequently, and they were more likely to have used alcohol and to be involved in an altercation with the victim prior to the incident than offenders without APD.Conclusion. Even for such extreme acts as homicides, the circumstances affecting the occurrence of violence among offenders with schizophrenia may differ when an additional APD diagnosis is present, which would have important implications for prevention and treatment programmes.



2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Diogo Paiva ◽  
Francisco Anguita ◽  
Kees Mandemakers

During the 19th and early 20th century about 220,000 Dutch born persons migrated to the USA. The Historical Sample of the Netherlands (HSN) contains about 85,500 persons born in the Netherlands between 1812 and 1922. In this article we report the way we have matched persons from the HSN with the American censuses from the period 1850 till 1940. For this purpose, a linking process was designed, comprising of three stages: harmonization, matching and validation. The different nature of the two datasets (HSN and the USA Censuses) asked for some harmonization prior to the matching. Once the data had been properly prepared, two strategies were applied in order to link the data sets. The first one, called Similarity Approach, matched individuals from both datasets by comparing on the basis of resemblance of first and last names. The second approach, called Transformation Approach, made use of dictionaries with Anglicized versions of Dutch first and last names and their most common or most likely Dutch original(s). Because of the sample character of the HSN even exact matches showed ambiguity that needs to be resolved. For this reason, a validation process comparing the household context was run to provide a more trustworthy result. In the end we identified 484 individuals present in the HSN database with reliable links to the American censuses. We also evaluated the result in the light of what we know from emigration patterns to the USA over time and period and we concluded that our efforts have produced a reasonable result. Nevertheless, we are aware that we may have missed links. We also found that at least 45% of the emigrants returned to the Netherlands at some point during their life course.



Insects ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 202
Author(s):  
Marcos Méndez ◽  
Fernando Cortés-Fossati

Reliable distribution maps are in the basis of insect conservation, but detailed chorological information is lacking for many insects of conservation concern (the Wallacean shortfall). Museum collections, entomological publications and citizen science projects can contribute to solve this Wallacean shortfall. Their relative contribution to the knowledge on the distribution of threatened insects has been scarcely explored, but it is important given that each of these three sources of information has its own biases and costs. Here we explore the contribution of museum data, entomological publications and citizen science in delineating the distribution of the European stag beetle in Spain. Citizen science contributed the highest number of records and grid cells occupied, as well as the highest number of grid cells not contributed by any other information source (unique grid cells). Nevertheless, both museum data and publications contributed almost 25% of all unique grid cells. Furthermore, the relative contribution of each source of information differed in importance among Spanish provinces. Given the pros and cons of museum data, publications and citizen science, we advise their combined use in cases, such as the European stag beetle in Spain, in which a broad, heterogeneous, sparsely populated territory has to be prospected.



2019 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 165-218
Author(s):  
Martin Rohde

This article discusses the possibilities which amateur participation offered to the young Shevchenko Scientific Society – limited to the description of the activities of this Society in the years 1892–1914. The Society intended to develop rapidly into an academy of sciences in the Ukrainian language, but lacked the necessary resources. The existing network of Ukrainian associations in Eastern Galicia, which contributed to the development of scientific exchange, was helpful in achieving that status. Before looking into the details of research agendas, the possibilities to use concepts of citizen science are measured for the context of the late 19th and the early 20th century. The relation between ‘scientists’ and ‘amateurs’ is problematized on the basis of biographical examples of engaged scientists and activists, especially Volodymyr Hnatiuk from the Ethnographic Commission and Stanislav Dnistriansky from the Statistical Commission. In order to understand the specific relations of Hnatiuk to his network of folklore collectors, their projects, aims and possibilities, Hnatiuk’s research is contrasted with the statistical surveys initiated by Dnistrians’kyĭ. Based on their archival documentation and published sources, these research projects are analyzed together with the different circumstances between the poles of “national science” and “local knowledge”. The article suggests that Ukrainian amateur researchers contributed intensely to the nation- and region-building in the multinational Empire. Lokalna wiedza i uczestnictwo amatorów. Towarzystwo Naukowe im. Szewczenki w latach 1892–1914 Abstrakt W artykule omówiono, jakie możliwości oferowały amatorskie badania młodemu Towarzystwu Naukowemu im. Szewczenki działającemu w Galicji Wschodniej; ograniczono się do opisu działalności tego Towarzystwa w latach 1892–1914. Towarzystwo zamierzało się szybko rozwinąć w ukraińską akademię nauk, ale brakowało mu do tego niezbędnych zasobów. Pomocą służyła istniejąca już sieć ukraińskich stowarzyszeń, która przyczyniła się do rozwoju wymiany naukowej. Przed rozpatrzeniem szczegółów programów badawczych, przeanalizowano możliwości wykorzystania koncepcji nauki obywatelskiej w kontekście końca XIX i początku XX wieku. Przedstawiono relację między „naukowcami” a „amatorami” na podstawie przykładów z biografii zaangażowanych naukowców i działaczy, zwłaszcza Wołodymyra Hnatiuka działającego w Komisji Etnograficznej i Stanisława Dniestrianskiego działającego w Komisji Statystycznej. Aby zrozumieć specyficzne relacje łączące Hnatiuka z jego siecią kolekcjonerów folkloru, ich projektami, celami oraz możliwościami, badania Hnatiuka zostały porównane z badaniami statystycznymi zainicjowanymi przez Stanisława Dniestrianskiego. W oparciu o dokumentację archiwalną i opublikowane źródła przeanalizowano niektóre projekty badawcze z perspektywy z jednej strony „nauki narodowej”, a z drugiej „wiedzy lokalnej”. Artykuł sugeruje, że ukraińscy badacze amatorzy intensywnie przyczynili się do budowania świadomości narodowej i regionalnej w wielonarodowym imperium.



Author(s):  
Marc Blecher

Workers’ politics in China has attracted a great deal of academic attention since the country’s structural reforms went into high gear in the mid-1990s, producing a drumbeat of protest that could potentially threaten to derail not just the country’s breathless development, but also, conceivably, the very future of the state. By contrast, in scholarship on Chinese popular politics before the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 and during the Maoist period, ending in 1976, workers attracted less scholarly attention than farmers—a product of the rural basis of the revolution and the country’s predominantly rural character for four decades thereafter. Yet, workers have been politically active ever since the country’s proletariat was born in the early 20th century, tracked by a small but significant literature. The burst of new scholarship, while not always locating its subject historically, is nonetheless broad in disciplinary, thematic, and geographic terms and has grown deeper and more nuanced as new sources of information have opened and the political constraints on research on workers have begun gradually to soften. And, in a most encouraging development, as comparative politics has become more theoretically sophisticated, scholarship on Chinese workers has followed suit with a still small number of studies that systematically tease out differences within China and that compare it with other countries. Thanks to Julian Kessell for outstanding research assistance.



2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Darch

Citizen Cyberscience Projects (CCPs) that recruit members of the public as volunteers to process and produce large datasets promise a great deal of benefits to scientists and science. However, if this promise is to be realised, and citizen science-produced datasets are to be widely used by scientists, it is essential that these datasets win the trust of the scientific community. This task of securing credibility involves, in part, applying standard scientific procedures to clean up datasets formed by volunteer contributions. However, the management of volunteers’ behaviour in terms of how they contribute also plays a significant role in improving both the quality of individual contributions and the overall robustness of the resultant datasets. This can assist CCPs in securing a reputation for producing trustworthy datasets. Through a case study of Galaxy Zoo, a CCP set up to generate datasets based on volunteer classifications of galaxy morphologies, this paper explores how those involved in running the project manage volunteers. In particular, it focuses on how methods for crediting volunteer contributions motivate volunteers to provide higher quality contributions and to behave in a way that better corresponds to statistical assumptions made when combining volunteer contributions into datasets. These methods have made a significant contribution to the success of the project in securing trust in these datasets, which have been well used by other scientists. Implications for practice are then presented for CCPs, providing a list of considerations to guide choices regarding how to credit volunteer contributions to improve the quality and trustworthiness of citizen science-produced datasets.



2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Marisa Ponti ◽  
Laure Kloetzer‬ ◽  
Grant Miller ◽  
Frank O. Ostermann ◽  
Sven Schade

  Responding to the continued and accelerating rise of Machine Learning (ML) in citizen science, we organized a discussion panel at the 3rd European Citizen Science 2020 Conference to initiate a dialogue on how citizen scientists interact and collaborate with algorithms. This brief summarizes a presentation about two Zooniverse projects which illustrated the impact that new developments in ML are having on citizen science projects which involve visual inspection of large datasets. We also share the results of a poll to elicit opinions and ideas from the audience on two statements, one positive and one critical of using ML in CS. The discussion with the participants raised several issues that we grouped into four main themes: a) democracy and participation; b) skill-biased technological change; c) data ownership vs public domain/digital commons, and d) transparency. All these issues warrant further research for those who are concerned about ML in citizen science.  



2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 33-47
Author(s):  
Tatev Karen Aslanyan ◽  
Flavius Frasincar

Most of the existing recommender systems are based only on the rating data, and they ignore other sources of information that might increase the quality of recommendations, such as textual reviews, or user and item characteristics. Moreover, the majority of those systems are applicable only on small datasets (with thousands of observations) and are unable to handle large datasets (with millions of observations). We propose a recommender algorithm that combines a rating modeling technique (i.e., Latent Factor Model) with a topic modeling method based on textual reviews (i.e., Latent Dirichlet Allocation), and we extend the algorithm such that it allows adding extra user- and item-specific information to the system. We evaluate the performance of the algorithm using Amazon.com datasets with different sizes, corresponding to 23 product categories. After comparing the built model to four other models, we found that combining textual reviews with ratings leads to better recommendations. Moreover, we found that adding extra user and item features to the model increases its prediction accuracy, which is especially true for medium and large datasets.



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