Tuesday 28 January 2014

The British Hitman: 1974–2013

The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice
Early View (Online Version of Record published before inclusion in an issue)
DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12063

Donal MacIntyre, Visiting Professor
David Wilson, Professor of Criminology
Elizabeth Yardley, Director
Liam Brolan, Research Assistant

Centre for Applied Criminology, Birmingham City University

Abstract

This exploratory article presents a typology of British ‘hitmen’ as identified within newspaper reports about contract killing. Demographic and criminological data related to these hitmen and their victims are analysed and, on the basis of this analysis, a typology of British hitmen is developed. Our typology suggests that British hitmen are: ‘Novices’; ‘Dilettantes’; ‘Journeymen’; or ‘Masters’. It is hoped that this typology will be of use to law enforcement.

Conclusion

The dearth of academic research about hitmen is to be regretted, no matter the all-too-real difficulties of researching this particular form of violent crime. Even so, this exploratory article has only attempted to sketch in the broad contours of the phenomenon and in doing so we hope to prompt greater interest in this subject area, and its various cultures and subcultures. Further research is clearly needed and, if it were possible, these broad contours would benefit from the finer detail that might come through interviews with hitmen themselves. So, too, we hope that others will test our suggested typology and our broader conclusions that British hitmen do not exist solely or perhaps even primarily, within some secret, criminal underworld. Rather they are usually part of that community in which their hits takes place. Indeed, this simple reality is one of the major reasons why they are eventually apprehended.

Nor were all of the hits in our sample particularly professionally carried out. ‘Dilettante’ British hitmen, in particular, changed their minds; they got cold feet and could, in extreme circumstances, become the victims of their intended targets themselves. Even so, the ‘Journeyman’ hitman could be successful over a long period of time, although he was, thankfully, eventually caught – largely due to the intelligence that was built up about his activities and through developments in forensic science. Here, too, the importance of police informants cannot be underestimated.

Finally, the sites of British hits were not usually bars, clubs, or casinos but were far more likely to be the shopping centre, or the suburb in which the intended target lived. As a result, members of the public were all too often witnesses to a hit. Hits in this respect were not unusual and extraordinary, but rather commonplace and ordinary. So, too, the motives for a hit being contracted were mundane. Frankly, the motivations to pay a hitman the relatively small amount to carry out a murder were depressingly banal. Husbands and wives fell out with each other, or wanted to gain early access to life assurance policies; business partners decided to go, or wanted to go, their separate ways; business deals fell apart; and young gang members wanted to impress other, older, gang members with their bravado. All of this is far removed from the media portrayal of the fictional hitman who, on the evidence presented here, has little, or no connection, to his British reality.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/hojo.12063/

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Tuesday 7 January 2014

Perceived sexual receptivity and fashionableness: Separate paths linking red and black to perceived attractiveness

Color Research & Application
Volume 39, Issue 2, pages 208–212, April 2014
Issue published online: 7 JAN 2014

Adam D. Pazda [1], Andrew J. Elliot [1] and Tobias Greitemeyer [2]

1 Department of Clinical and Social Sciences in Psychology, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY
2 Department of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Austria

Keywords:
psychology; red; black; color; receptivity; fashionableness; attractiveness

Abstract:
Previous research has documented that the colors red and black influence perceptions of attractiveness for men viewing women. Perceived sexual receptivity has been identified as a mediator for the red-attraction link, but there has been no research to date on the mechanism linking black to attractiveness. We conducted an experiment to test whether separate, unique mediators were responsible for color effects on attractiveness. We hypothesized that red would lead to attractiveness via perceived sexual receptivity, and that black would lead to attractiveness via perceived fashionableness. The data supported our central hypotheses, suggesting that color stimuli can lead to similar outcomes, but through different psychological processes.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/col.21804/abstract

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Wednesday 1 January 2014

The Plunging Tip: Illusion and Reality

Aesthetic Surgery Journal
January 2014 vol. 34 no. 1 45-55
doi: 10.1177/1090820X13515482

Aaron M. Kosins, MD, MBA, Val Lambros, MD, Rollin K. Daniel, MD

Dr Kosins is a Volunteer Clinical Assistant Professor WOS and Dr Daniel is a Clinical Professor, University of California, Irvine Medical Center, 1441 Avocado Dr, Suite 308, Newport Beach, CA 92660, USA
Dr Kosins and Dr Daniel are in private practice in Newport Beach, California
Dr Lambros is a plastic surgeon in private practice in Newport Beach, California

Background:

The plunging tip is defined as a nasal deformity where the nasal tip descends or “plunges” during smiling.

Objective:

The authors prospectively measure a series of 25 patients with a focus on the anatomic changes of the nose before and after the patient smiles.

Methods:

Twenty-five women who presented for cosmetic primary rhinoplasty and complained of a plunging tip were included in the study. Three angles were measured on lateral view (tip angle, nasolabial angle, and columella inclination angle), along with changes in tip, subnasale, and alar crease. The Simon tip rotation angle (STRA) measured tip position in relation to the static tragus. The alar rim angle measured the angle of the alar rim at the nostril. Changes in static and smiling positions were compared.

Results:

Tip, nasolabial, and the columella inclination angles decreased between static and smiling positions by 10.9, 11.8, and 11.9 degrees, respectively. Tip position dropped by 0.9 mm, while the subnasale and alar crease junction elevated by 1.3 and 3.7 mm, respectively. The STRA, an angle independent of alar base movement, decreased by less than 1 degree. The alar rim angle increased by 9.9 degrees.

Conclusions:

Our data demonstrate that the nasal tip changes its position less than 1 mm with a full smile. The concept of a “plunging tip” is an optical illusion. In reality, the alar crease and subnasale elevate and the alar rim straightens, while the tip position changes minimally. Objectively, the tip moves less than 1 mm and less than 1 degree using the STRA.

http://aes.sagepub.com/content/34/1/45.abstract

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Virgin ant queens mate with their own sons to avoid failure at colony foundation

Naturwissenschaften
January 2014, Volume 101, Issue 1, pp 69-72
Cover Date 2014-01-01
DOI 10.1007/s00114-013-1126-2

Christine Vanessa Schmidt, Sabine Frohschammer, Alexandra Schrempf, Jürgen Heinze

Biologie I, Universität Regensburg, Universitätsstraße 31, 93040, Regensburg, Germany

Abstract

Mother–son mating (oedipal mating) is practically non-existent in social Hymenoptera, as queens typically avoid inbreeding, mate only early in life and do not mate again after having begun to lay eggs. In the ant genus Cardiocondyla mating occurs among sib in the natal nests. Sex ratios are extremely female-biased and young queens face the risk of remaining without mating partners. Here, we show that virgin queens of Cardiocondyla argyrotricha produce sons from their own unfertilized eggs and later mate with them to produce female offspring from fertilized eggs. Oedipal mating may allow C. argyrotricha queens to found new colonies when no mating partners are available and thus maintains their unusual life history combining monogyny, mating in the nest, and low male production. Our result indicates that a trait that sporadically occurs in solitary haplodiploid animals may evolve also in social Hymenoptera under appropriate ecological and social conditions.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00114-013-1126-2

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The Creation of the World’s First Peanut Butter and Jellyfish

Drum and Croaker
vol. 45, January 2014, pp. 14-18

P. Zelda Montoya and Barrett L. Christie

The Dallas Zoo and Children’s Aquarium at Fair Park
650 S. RL Thornton Freeway
Dallas, Texas 75203

“Man cannot live by bread alone, he must have peanut butter”
-Bill Cosby


The science and art of aquaculture has advanced tremendously in the past few decades. Nowhere is this more evident than in the production of the most delicate of invertebrates, now commonplace at zoos and aquaria worldwide. The aquarium maintenance and culture of zooplankton, especially gelatinous zooplankton, has always been notoriously challenging (Baker, 1963), but great strides have been made in the husbandry of these delicate animals in recent decades (see Caughlan, 1984; Norton, 1993; Gershwin-Nelson and Schaadt, 1995; Raskoff et. al. 2003; Widmer, 2008; and AZA, 2013).

[...]

It has been increasingly evident in recent years that the use of many fish or shrimp-based protein sources in aquaculture is a wholly unsustainable practice (Naylor et. al., 2000, Naylor et. al., 2009) which begs the need for novel solutions.

That having been said, we would love to claim  we  conducted this trial with noble purpose, but the truth is that we just wanted to make peanut butter and jellyfish simply to see if it could be done. Whether or not it  should  be done is a question no doubt to be debated by philosophers for the ages (or at least by some aquarists over beers). We herein report on what we believe to be the first known unholy amalgamation of America’s favorite lunchtime treat and live cnidarians. The success of our trial group of  Aurelia on this experimental diet was surprising, and we hope this ridiculous experiment illustrates that unconventional approaches in husbandry are at the very least, worth trying once.

[...]

In closing, moon jellies have seen a storied past. They have delighted children at aquaria worldwide, captivated researchers with their elegant simplicity and functionality, and even traveled into space (Spangenberg, 1994); but we feel that becoming one with peanut butter helps them fulfill their ultimate destiny as a species – to become peanut butter and jellyfish!

Acknowledgements:

The authors wish to thank Julia Davis Chandler, who introduced America to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich in 1901. Thanks to Mr. Peanut are of course in order, as well as our undying gratitude to that dancing banana on the internet. Yes dancing banana, it is indeed peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time. Finally, we  wish to thank Harold Burnett Reese, without whom the world would have been a darker, more inhospitable place.

http://www.columbuszoo.org/drumcroaker/pdf/2014.pdf

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Holy bonsai wolves: Chihuahuas and the Paris Hilton syndrome

International Journal of Cultural Studies
January 2014 vol. 17 no. 1 93-109
doi: 10.1177/1367877912464539

David Redmalm

Department of Sociology
Örebro University
Örebro, 701 82
Sweden

Abstract

This article examines the reasons for the Chihuahua breed’s popularity in contemporary western society by looking at two sets of data: Chihuahua handbooks and The Simple Life show, starring Paris Hilton and her Chihuahua Tinkerbell. The article argues that the Chihuahua is a holy anomaly: a creature which can be used in myths and rituals to temporarily alleviate the tension-filled binary oppositions and stereotypes inherent in a particular culture, in order to celebrate and reinforce that culture’s categories and social order. The Chihuahua – or the bonsai wolf – transcends two binary oppositions fundamental to contemporary westerners: subject/object and nature/culture. Although the Chihuahua challenges a number of related binary oppositions, it is generally dismissed as a matter for humor, low-brow entertainment or expressions of sentimentality, rendering ritual encounters with Chihuahuas harmless. The article concludes by asking: what would happen if humans actually started listening to what the Chihuahua is telling them?

http://ics.sagepub.com/content/17/1/93.abstract

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