Finding the perfect match: Fingerprint expertise facilitates statistical learning and visual comparison decision-making.

Forensic feature-comparison examiners compare-or "match"-evidence samples (e.g., fingerprints) to provide judgments about the source of the evidence. Research demonstrates that examiners in select disciplines possess expertise in this task by outperforming novices-yet the psychological mechanisms underpinning this expertise are unclear. This article investigates one implicated mechanism: statistical learning, the ability to learn how often things occur in the environment. This ability is likely important in forensic decision-making as samples sharing rarer statistical information are more likely to come from the same source than those sharing more common information. We investigated 46 fingerprint examiners' and 52 novices' statistical learning of fingerprint categories and application of this knowledge in a source-likelihood judgment task. Participants completed four measures of their statistical learning (frequency discrimination judgments, bounded and unbounded frequency estimates, and source-likelihood judgments) before and after familiarization to the "ground-truth" category frequencies. Compared to novices, fingerprint examiners had superior domain-specific statistical learning across all measures-both before and after familiarization. This suggests that fingerprint expertise facilitates domain-specific statistical learning-something that has important theoretical and applied implications for the development of training programs and statistical databases in forensic science. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).

Statistical feature training improves fingerprint-matching accuracy in novices and professional fingerprint examiners.

Forensic science practitioners compare visual evidence samples (e.g. fingerprints) and decide if they originate from the same person or different people (i.e. fingerprint 'matching'). These tasks are perceptually and cognitively complex-even practising professionals can make errors-and what limited research exists suggests that existing professional training is ineffective. This paper presents three experiments that demonstrate the benefit of perceptual training derived from mathematical theories that suggest statistically rare features have diagnostic utility in visual comparison tasks. Across three studies (N = 551), we demonstrate that a brief module training participants to focus on statistically rare fingerprint features improves fingerprint-matching performance in both novices and experienced fingerprint examiners. These results have applied importance for improving the professional performance of practising fingerprint examiners, and even other domains where this technique may also be helpful (e.g. radiology or banknote security).

Can neuroimaging prove pain and suffering?: The influence of pain assessment techniques on legal judgments of physical versus emotional pain.

OBJECTIVES: It is difficult to "prove" pain and suffering-particularly emotional suffering. Neuroimaging technology might bolster pain claims in civil cases by making pain seem less subjective. We examined how neuroimaging of physical and emotional pain influences judgments of pain and suffering across nonlegal and legal contexts. HYPOTHESES: We hypothesized that participants would rate pain assessed using neuroimaging as more severe and award higher compensation than pain assessed using self-report measures. We also hypothesized that participants would rate physical (vs. emotional) pain as more severe, except when the pain claim was bolstered by a neuroimaging assessment. METHOD: In two experiments, we tested how pain assessment techniques influence perceptions of pain severity and monetary compensation differently for physical or emotional pain. Using a within-subjects design, participants (Experiment 1, N = 411, 59% male, 80% White) read 6 vignettes that described a person's chronic physical or emotional pain, evaluated using a clinical assessment, neuropsychological assessment, or neuroimaging assessment. We conceptually replicated Experiment 1 in a legal context (Experiment 2, N = 353, 42% male; 80% White) and tested whether the neuroimaging effect was due to knowing that the pain was assessed by neuroimaging or also required the inclusion of a neuroimage. RESULTS: When pain was assessed using neuroimaging (vs. non-neuroimaging assessments), participants rated the pain as more severe and gave larger monetary awards. When a person alleged physical (vs. emotional) pain, participants rated the pain as more severe and gave larger monetary awards. We conceptually replicated these findings in Experiment 2 and found that the neuroimaging effect was due to hearing about neuroimaging assessment and did not necessitate the inclusion of a neuroimage. CONCLUSION: Neuroimaging technology could be extremely useful for plaintiffs trying to overcome the difficult hurdle of proving their pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Closing with emotion: The differential impact of male versus female attorneys expressing anger in court.

Emotion expression is a key part of trial advocacy. Attorneys are advised to gain credibility with juries by demonstrating conviction through anger expression. In 3 experiments, we tested whether expressing anger in court makes attorneys more effective and whether this depends on their gender. We randomly assigned participants (n = 120 undergraduates) to view a male or female attorney presenting the same closing argument in either a neutral or angry tone (Experiment 1). They reported their impressions of the attorney and how likely they would be to hire the attorney. People used the positive aspects of anger (e.g., conviction, power), to justify hiring an angry male attorney. Yet, they used the negative aspects of anger (e.g., shrill, obnoxious), to justify not hiring a female attorney. We replicated this effect in Experiment 2 with a community sample (n = 294). Experiment 3 (n = 273) demonstrated that the attorney anger by gender interaction generalized to perceptions of effectiveness across a set of additional attorney targets. Finally, a high-powered analysis collapsing across experiments confirmed that when expressing anger relative to when calm, female attorneys were seen as significantly less effective, while angry male attorneys were seen as significantly more effective. Women might not be able to harness the persuasive power of expressing anger in the courtroom, which might prevent female attorneys from advancing in their careers. (PsycINFO Database Record

Making sense of research on the neuroimage bias.

Both academic and legal communities have cautioned that laypersons may be unduly persuaded by images of the brain and may fail to interpret them appropriately. While early studies confirmed this concern, a second wave of research was repeatedly unable to find evidence of such a bias. The newest wave of studies paints a more nuanced picture in which, under certain circumstances, a neuroimage bias reemerges. To help make sense of this discordant body of research, we highlight the contextual significance of understanding how laypersons' decision making is or is not impacted by neuroimages, provide an overview of findings from all sides of the neuroimage bias question, and discuss what these findings mean to public use and understanding of neuroimages.

Systemic therapy of cholangiocarcinoma: From chemotherapy to targeted therapies.

Cholangiocarcinomas (CCA) are rare tumors of the liver with poor prognosis. The standard of care in patients with unresectable tumors or metastatic disease is combination chemotherapy (CT) with gemcitabine and cisplatin. Targeted therapies inhibiting EGFR, VEGF, MEK and others are broadly tested in CCA but to date, the existing data from randomized and nonrandomized trials do not justify the application of small molecules outside of clinical trials. In clinical practice, many patients receive second-line CT after failure of gemcitabine/cisplatin, although there is so far no evidence to support second-line CT. This review summarizes current chemotherapy protocols and ongoing studies, including conventional chemotherapy and targeted therapies.

Histone deacetylase inhibitors induce apoptosis in myeloid leukemia by suppressing autophagy.

Histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitors (HDACis) are well-characterized anti-cancer agents with promising results in clinical trials. However, mechanistically little is known regarding their selectivity in killing malignant cells while sparing normal cells. Gene expression-based chemical genomics identified HDACis as being particularly potent against Down syndrome-associated myeloid leukemia (DS-AMKL) blasts. Investigating the antileukemic function of HDACis revealed their transcriptional and post-translational regulation of key autophagic proteins, including ATG7. This leads to suppression of autophagy, a lysosomal degradation process that can protect cells against damaged or unnecessary organelles and protein aggregates. DS-AMKL cells exhibit low baseline autophagy due to mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) activation. Consequently, HDAC inhibition repressed autophagy below a critical threshold, which resulted in accumulation of mitochondria, production of reactive oxygen species, DNA damage and apoptosis. Those HDACi-mediated effects could be reverted upon autophagy activation or aggravated upon further pharmacological or genetic inhibition. Our findings were further extended to other major acute myeloid leukemia subgroups with low basal level autophagy. The constitutive suppression of autophagy due to mTOR activation represents an inherent difference between cancer and normal cells. Thus, via autophagy suppression, HDACis deprive cells of an essential pro-survival mechanism, which translates into an attractive strategy to specifically target cancer cells.

Long-lasting tumour response to sorafenib therapy in advanced hepatocellular carcinoma.

The multi-kinase inhibitor sorafenib still remains the only approved agent for advanced HCC. Its benefits typically involve disease stabilisation, whereas an induction of response is rare. We report a series of five cases with extraordinary response to sorafenib. For two patients complete response to sorafenib was reported with a recurrence-free survival of 51 and 21 months. In another HCC patient pretreated with transarterial chemoembolisation (TACE) sorafenib treatment resulted in a complete response with no evidence of disease 18 months after first diagnosis. In patient 4 with unresectable HCC and sorafenib therapy secondary resectability and subsequent liver transplantation was achieved. Patient 5 had stabilised disease for 48 months after TACE and sorafenib treatment. Sorafenib may be very potent in individual patients. Excellent interdisciplinary strategies are required to achieve best results. There is an urgent need of predictive biomarkers to identify HCC patients that will benefit the most.

Visual attention and the neuroimage bias.

Several highly-cited experiments have presented evidence suggesting that neuroimages may unduly bias laypeople's judgments of scientific research. This finding has been especially worrisome to the legal community in which neuroimage techniques may be used to produce evidence of a person's mental state. However, a more recent body of work that has looked directly at the independent impact of neuroimages on layperson decision-making (both in legal and more general arenas), and has failed to find evidence of bias. To help resolve these conflicting findings, this research uses eye tracking technology to provide a measure of attention to different visual representations of neuroscientific data. Finding an effect of neuroimages on the distribution of attention would provide a potential mechanism for the influence of neuroimages on higher-level decisions. In the present experiment, a sample of laypeople viewed a vignette that briefly described a court case in which the defendant's actions might have been explained by a neurological defect. Accompanying these vignettes was either an MRI image of the defendant's brain, or a bar graph depicting levels of brain activity-two competing visualizations that have been the focus of much of the previous research on the neuroimage bias. We found that, while laypeople differentially attended to neuroimagery relative to the bar graph, this did not translate into differential judgments in a way that would support the idea of a neuroimage bias.

Fooled by the brain: re-examining the influence of neuroimages.

A series of highly-cited experiments published in 2008 demonstrated a biasing effect of neuroimages on lay perceptions of scientific research. More recent work, however, has questioned this bias, particularly within legal contexts in which neuroscientific evidence is proffered by one of the parties. The present research moves away from the legal framework and describes five experiments that re-examine this effect. Experiments 1 through 4 present conceptual and direct replications of some of the original 2008 experiments, and find no evidence of a neuroimage bias. A fifth experiment is reported that confirms that, when laypeople are allowed multiple points of reference (e.g., when directly comparing neuroimagery to other graphical depictions of neurological data), a neuroimage bias can be observed. Together these results suggest that, under the right conditions, a neuroimage might be able to bias judgments of scientific information, but the scope of this effect may be limited to certain contexts.

Neuroimages in court: less biasing than feared.

Neuroscience is increasingly poised to play a role in legal proceedings. One persistent concern, however, is the intuition that brain images may bias, mislead, or confuse jurors. Initially, empirical research seemed to support this intuition. New findings contradict those expectations, prompting a rethinking of the 'threat' of neuroscience in the courtroom.

Neuroimage evidence and the insanity defense.

The introduction of neuroscientific evidence in criminal trials has given rise to fears that neuroimagery presented by an expert witness might inordinately influence jurors' evaluations of the defendant. In this experiment, a diverse sample of 1,170 community members from throughout the U.S. evaluated a written mock trial in which psychological, neuropsychological, neuroscientific, and neuroimage-based expert evidence was presented in support of a not guilty by reason of insanity (NGRI) defense. No evidence of an independent influence of neuroimagery was found. Overall, neuroscience-based evidence was found to be more persuasive than psychological and anecdotal family history evidence. These effects were consistent across different insanity standards. Despite the non-influence of neuroimagery, however, jurors who were not provided with a neuroimage indicated that they believed neuroimagery would have been the most helpful kind of evidence in their evaluations of the defendant.

Peripapillary duodenal varices as a rare cause of severe bleeding in a patient with no other signs of portal hypertension--successful endoscopic treatment with cyanoacrylate injection.

Duodenal varices (DVs) are a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal bleeding and rather suspected in patients with portal hypertension. Bleeding DVs are difficult to manage and often fatal due to delayed diagnosis. We report on a 71-year-old patient with massive upper gastrointestinal haemorrhage, who did not show any clinical signs of portal hypertension; however, he had a history of duodenal segmental resection 8 years before. The source of bleeding could not be detected with different imaging methods such as angiography and computed tomography. Upper gastrointestinal endoscopy finally revealed DVs, which were located just adjacent to the papilla. After endoscopic injection therapy with n-butyl 2-cyanoacrylate the bleeding stopped immediately and the patient soon stabilised. Despite the peripapillar localisation no signs of pancreatitis or cholestasis occurred; during 10-month follow-up a marked regression of the varices without further signs of variceal bleeding was observed.

Wide-angle narrow-bandpass optical detection system optimally designed to have a large signal-to-noise ratio.

A method for achieving optimal design of a wide-angle narrow-bandpass optical detection system composed of a spherical interference filter and a circular photodetector is introduced. It was found that there is an optimal photodetector diameter that maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) for a given filter configuration. We show how to optimize optical detection systems based on spherical interference filters for all the important parameters simultaneously. The SNR values of these systems are compared with the SNR values of spherical-step-filter-based detection systems. When large silicon photodetectors are used, the two systems have equal SNR values so that the more economical step-filter systems are preferable. The results given here in the near-infrared region can be used for the optimization of any configuration of a detection system based on a spherical interference filter and a silicon photodetector working at the same wavelength range, without further calculations.

Stability of systems of plane reflecting surfaces.

A general rule for the stability of plane reflecting surface systems is derived by use of the features of the reflection matrix. It is proved that only two directions can be stable: the forward direction and the backward direction (retroreflection). Examples for the application of this rule in the design of stable reflecting systems for optical communication are given.

Classification of stable configurations of plane mirrors.

We have studied the stability of systems of plane mirrors by using a new way to describe ray transformations caused by such systems. All stable systems comprising as many as three mirrors are described and classified. Besides the well-known corner cube, infinitely many stable retroreflecting and direction-preserving three-mirror systems have been found.

B lymphocytes can be competent antigen-presenting cells for priming CD4+ T cells to protein antigens in vivo.

The potential role of different subsets of APCs to stimulate naive CD4+ T cells to peptide and protein Ags in vivo was examined. Mice lacking B cells (microMT knockout mice) were impaired in their priming to protein but not peptide Ags, suggesting a requirement for B cells in priming to protein Ags in vivo. Experiments designed to determine the ability of splenic dendritic cells (DCs) and B lymphocytes to take up peptide or protein Ags in vivo demonstrated that peptide Ags were taken up preferentially by DCs, whereas proteins were taken up by Ag-specific B cells in vivo. A further examination of the Ag-specific B cells pulsed in vivo with protein Ags revealed a marked up-regulation in surface expression of B7-2 costimulatory molecules, detectable as early as 4 h after Ag administration. Based on their potency in the uptake and processing of protein Ags as well as their ability to up-regulate costimulatory molecules through Ag internalization, we suggest that Ag-specific B cells will be an important APC in priming naive CD4+ T cells to protein Ags in vivo.

Helminths, immunology and equations.

Although the immune system is becoming better characterized, it is by no means becoming easier to predict the outcome of activation given the many potential influences upon the ultimate expression of an immune response. In this article, Nicky Schweitzer and Roy Anderson investigate the application of mathematics to this highly nonlinear system, and show how it can complement experimentation from both a predictive and interpretative point of view.