Abstract:The reconciliation of skeletal and chronological age is of paramount concern in the context of criminal proceedings involving living individuals, who frequently lack any associated identification documentation, and are referred to the criminal justice system. It is important to appreciate that skeletal and chronological ages are not the same measurement of time-since-birth, and depending on the analytical approaches applied, there will be an inherent source of variation between estimated (biological: skeletal, physical, and psychological) and actual (legal) age. Given the evidentiary value attached to the estimation of age based on the subjective assessment of biological and psychological developmental attributes, it is timely to consider current approaches toward achieving the latter. The aim of this review is to first explore a selection of circumstances that result in requests for forensic age assessment in living individuals. Issues pertaining to competency to perform an assessment, sources of error that may be introduced, and how to accordingly quantify the level of uncertainty in the final estimation are then considered. This logically leads into discussions of the necessity for population-specific statistical biological data. Current methods based on psychological development, dental status, and skeletal maturation are then reviewed. The review concludes by exploring future research and practical directions in the context of medico-legal practice and social consequences.
Objective: Getting a good night's sleep is important to ensure we function most effectively in our waking lives. One area that is particularly compromised when adequate sleep is not achieved is affect regulation, which has implications for subjective well-being (SWB). Through the lens of homeostasis theory, an investigation into the relationship between self-reported sleep quality, stress, and SWB was undertaken in an Australian sample, with the primary aim to further understanding of the importance of sleep and its role with regard to affect regulation. Method: The study included 488 Australian participants (77% female) with a mean age of 28.71 (standard deviation = 10.61) who were recruited via advertisements on social media websites. Participants completed measures of SWB, sleep quality, dreaming, and stress. Results: Using a bootstrapped mediation analysis, sleep quality was found to partially mediate the relationship between stress and SWB. These results were further explored using a two-way analysis of variance, which revealed significant main effects for sleep and stress on SWB, but no significant interaction effect. Finally, those who had nightmares or bad dreams reported higher stress than those who had no bad dreams or nightmares. Conclusion: These findings provide preliminary evidence to suggest that the impact of stress on SWB may be reduced when adequate sleep quality is achieved, and contribute to the growing field of literature exploring the function of dreams. The findings provide new insight that can inform therapeutic approaches to sleep disorders and stress management and guide clinical interventions.
Recent excavations undertaken by the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (AAKSA) project have recovered significant skeletal material, evidence for funerary offerings, including jewelry, and the earliest chronometrically dated domestic dog in the Arabian Peninsula. Despite being heavily disturbed by recent looting, these monumental funerary structures were found to be collective burials dating to the 5th and 4th millennia B.C. The evidence recovered from these graves provides new insight into the social and funerary landscapes of northwestern Arabia during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, shedding light upon issues of social memory, territoriality, and monumentality in the Middle Holocene of the Arabian Peninsula.
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