Depressed skull fractures: a pattern of abusive head injury in three older children

OBJECTIVE: To describe a pattern of abusive head injury in a series of children older than 4 years of age. METHODS: A hospital chart review of abused children with skull fractures from 1999 to 2001 was carried out. The clinical features, social background, and subsequent outcome and management are described. RESULTS: An 11-year-old girl and a pair of brothers of ages 7 and 9 were identified. The girl was attacked with a hammer during sleep by her stepmother, who committed suicide shortly afterwards. After craniotomy and intensive care, the child survived her multiple depressed fractures, intracranial bleeding, and brain contusion. Two brothers from a second family were attacked from behind with a hammer by their biological father, who was subsequently found to have undiagnosed schizophrenia. A depressed occipital fracture, without intracranial injury, was found in each child. The elder brother also had metacarpal fractures. Both children recovered without surgical intervention. CONCLUSION: A pattern of abusive head injury was described in older children with depressed skull fractures from blunt injury. The abusing parents were seriously mentally disturbed, and the abusive acts closely resembled child homicide.     

The benefits of aggressive traits: A study with current and former street children in Burundi

Aggressive behavior in children and youths is commonly associated with exposure to violence and maltreatment. Consequently, aggressive behavior has often been explained as a form of reactive behavior in response to violence-inflicted mental suffering. However, perpetrating violence can become appealing, fascinating and exciting, i.e., may acquire appetitive, self-rewarding aspects. We postulated that this appetitive form of aggression reduces the vulnerability for developing Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in insecure and violent environments. Furthermore we investigated the extent to which reactive aggression and appetitive aggression account for recent violent behavior in children and youths. We conducted semi-structured interviews in a sample of 112 children and youths (M_age = 15.9 years) recruited from the streets, families and a residential center for vulnerable children in Burundi. We investigated the cumulative exposure to traumatic events and to domestic and community violence, assessed the recently committed offenses, the severity of PTSD symptoms, and the potential for reactive and appetitive aggression. Reactive aggression was positively related to PTSD, whilst appetitive aggression was negatively related to PTSD. Children higher in appetitive aggression were also more likely to display violent behavior. These results suggest that an appetitive perception of violence may be an useful adaption to insecure and violent living conditions reducing the vulnerability of children for trauma-related mental disorders. However, positive feelings experienced through violent or cruel behavior are also an important risk factor for ongoing aggressive behavior and therefore need to be considered in prevention strategies.     

Public Orchestra Funding in Germany – An Empirical Investigation

In this paper, we describe the institutional framework in which heavy subsidization of German classical orchestras takes place and provide figures on the structure and the level of public support. Moreover, we derive and test various hypotheses concerning the political-economic determinants of public orchestra support. We analyze the political support-maximizing calculus of local politicians – the relevant decision-makers for orchestra subsidization in Germany. We find that public funding increases with increasing population; public debt and budget figures exert strong influences on the level of support. In addition, conservative and liberal politicians tend to support classical orchestras more than Social Democratic and Green politicians do.     

Using the structure of overlap between search results to rank retrieval systems without relevance judgments

This paper addresses the problem of how to rank retrieval systems without the need for human relevance judgments, which are very resource intensive to obtain. Using TREC 3, 6, 7 and 8 data, it is shown how the overlap structure between the search results of multiple systems can be used to infer relative performance differences. In particular, the overlap structures for random groupings of five systems are computed, so that each system is selected an equal number of times. It is shown that the average percentage of a system’s documents that are only found by it and no other systems is strongly and negatively correlated with its retrieval performance effectiveness, such as its mean average precision or precision at 1000. The presented method uses the degree of consensus or agreement a retrieval system can generate to infer its quality. This paper also addresses the question of how many documents in a ranked list need to be examined to be able to rank the systems. It is shown that the overlap structure of the top 50 documents can be used to rank the systems, often producing the best results. The presented method significantly improves upon previous attempts to rank retrieval systems without the need for human relevance judgments. This “structure of overlap” method can be of value to communities that need to identify the best experts or rank them, but do not have the resources to evaluate the experts’ recommendations, since it does not require knowledge about the domain being searched or the information being requested.     

The impact of a management protocol on the outcomes of child abuse in hospitalized children in Hong Kong

OBJECTIVE: To study the outcomes of children hospitalized for suspected child abuse before and after the implementation of a management protocol in a hospital in Hong Kong. STUDY PERIOD: Two 2-year periods before (1994-1995) and after (2002-2003) the implementation of the protocol in 1998. METHODS: This is a retrospective hospital chart review in which the patients' characteristics, the use of laboratory and radiological examination, abuse substantiation and official registrations are compared between the two study periods. RESULTS: There were 109 and 320 patients admitted for evaluation of child abuse for the periods 1994-1995 and 2002-2003, respectively. Children in both periods were similar in sex ratio, proportion of severe forms of child abuse, rates of abuse substantiation and inclusion in the Child Protection Registry. After the implementation of a management protocol, there has been a significant drop in the proportion of children subjected to investigations such as blood counts (86% vs. 16%, p<.001), clotting study (75% vs. 9%, p<.001), and skeletal survey (78% vs. 6%, p<.001). The average length of hospital stay also dropped from 15.3 days to 6.1 days (p<.001). CONCLUSIONS: There has been an almost threefold rise in the number of child abuse cases handled at the hospital during the 10-year interval. With the implementation of a management protocol, only a small proportion of children need laboratory investigations or skeletal survey without any drop in abuse substantiation and official registration. The length of hospital stay has also been significantly reduced.     

Limits to database protection: Fair use and scientific research exemptions

A trend running diametrically opposed to the expansion of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) is the increasing awareness that dominant positions sustained by IPR may be mitigated through exemptions and statutory or compulsory licences. It is argued that there are compelling economic reasons to protect valuable assets that are prone to copying, but that there are equally compelling reasons to limit monopolistic claims and stimulate cross-licensing practices. Compulsory licensing may serve as a stimulus to the bargaining process with private parties and research institutions alike. Another important category of information is public sector information. Access to information has become a concern and the European Commission has followed up on its Green Paper on Public Sector Information in the Information Society, with a Directive implementing its vision on affordable access for all and exploitation potential. The right of access to information may be enforced through the European Convention on Human Rights. It not only guarantees the freedom of speech, it also recognises the freedom to receive information.     

Examining the Authority and Ranking Effects as the result list depth used in data fusion is varied

The Authority and Ranking Effects play a key role in data fusion. The former refers to the fact that the potential relevance of a document increases exponentially as the number of systems retrieving it increases and the latter to the phenomena that documents higher up in ranked lists and found by more systems are more likely to be relevant. Data fusion methods commonly use all the documents returned by the different retrieval systems being compared. Yet, as documents further down in the result lists are considered, a document’s probability of being relevant decreases significantly and a major source of noise is introduced. This paper presents a systematic examination of the Authority and Ranking Effects as the number of documents in the result lists, called the list depth, is varied. Using TREC 3, 7, 8, 12 and 13 data, it is shown that the Authority and Ranking Effects are present at all list depths. However, if the systems in the same TREC track retrieve a large number of relevant documents, then the Ranking Effect only begins to emerge as more systems have found the same document and/or the list depth increases. It is also shown that the Authority and Ranking Effects are not an artifact of how the TREC test collections have been constructed.     

eSport und der blinde Fleck: Ein Diskussionsbeitrag vor dem Hintergrund von Manfred Franz’ und Detlef Köpkes <Emphasis Type="Italic">Neuen Denkwegen im Sport </Emphasis>(2017)

The ongoing e-sports debate exemplifies an urgent problem regarding the scientific denial of a valid definiton of sport. Focusing on current contributions to the e-sports discussion and a publication by Manfred Franz and Detlef Köpke (“Neue Denkwege im Sport”), the given paper emphasizes the need for a basic discussion about the definition of sport itself.