Human memory systems have been divided into two broad domains, one responsible for 'declarative memory' and the other for 'non-declarative memory'. The evidence for multiple memory systems is reviewed with respect to the human SRT, a sensitive measure of non-declarative memory. A qualitative review of the human SRT literature concludes that damage to extrapyramidal brain systems disrupts SRT performance whereas limbic system neuropathology (LSN) leaves performance intact. However, a meta-analysis of the SRT literature with neuropathological patients revealed unexpectedly that patients with explicit memory disorders are impaired on the SRT task, although less severely than patients with extrapyramidal damage. Other evidence suggested that the apparent SRT impairment in humans with LSN might be due to the additional pathology (eg frontal) often evident in these patients. A brief review of the animal evidence for multiple memory systems concluded that, like humans, animals too have multiple memory systems but none of the animal tasks used to model non-declarative memory make good conceptual or behavioural contact with the corresponding human tasks. Thus a novel animal-analogue of the human-SRT task, the 'fan-maze', was developed. Although rats displayed a reasonable ability to perform the fan-maze SRT task it was abandoned due to technical and conceptual problems in favour of a better design. The second new SRT task used intra-cranial self-stimulation to promote prolonged, rapid and continuous responding. A control study determined that the optimal conditions for sequence learning was a single large (2820 trial) session. Intact rats that experienced a switch from the repeating to a random sequence under these conditions demonstrated a clear interference effect, the primary measure of SRT performance. A lesion study used these optimal conditions and showed that small caudate lesions impaired, whereas small hippocampal lesions facilitated, rat-SRT performance. Hence, this second task has proven to be a valid animal-analogue of the human SRT task, as rats performed it in a manner similar to that shown by humans and relied on the same neural substrate to perform the task as humans. In addition, this second task resolved the discrepancy of the LSN meta-analysis. Quantitative findings are reviewed in light of theories and studies presented earlier in the thesis. Limitations of the thesis are identified and suggestions are made as to future SRT research in animals or humans.

Behavioural case linkage (BCL) is a procedure that can be used to identify linked crime series, which contain two or more crimes committed by the same person, thereby helping the police to detect and prosecute repeat offenders who are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime. However, despite the potential benefits of BCL, there are also damaging consequences if crimes are incorrectly linked. Consequently, research has started to test if and how this procedure can work in the most efficient and reliable way. But, the extant literature has a number of important limitations, particularly in terms of (1) generalisability (i.e., there have been few attempts to replicate findings across geographical locations and time periods), (2) ecological validity (i.e., the methodology used to test BCL is not representative of how the procedure is used in practice), and (3) methodology (i.e., there is a lack of research to systematically compare the various methodological/statistical approaches to BCL). The primary aim of this thesis was to address these three important limitations. In terms of generalisability, this thesis has tested the extent to which previous BCL research on residential burglary, commercial robbery, and car theft can be replicated in new geographical locations and time periods. In terms of ecological validity, a number of new methodologies have been developed and tested that reduce the gap between research and practice in BCL by allowing both non-serial and unsolved offences (as well as solved, serial offences) to be included when testing the principles of BCL, and also for these principles to be tested with crime series that contain several different types of offence. In terms of methodology, novel methodological approaches have been compared with the ‘traditional’, status quo methodology for researching the BCL principles, thereby ensuring that the findings reported in this thesis can be compared with previous work. This thesis, therefore, has important implications for theory, research, and practice and the findings are discussed in the context of these. Future research directions are also outlined.

Denna uppsats berör den populära podcasten Serial och den kritik som har riktats mot serien av flertalet journalister både i Sverige och utomlands. Uppsatsen ställer sig frågan vad det är med Serials berättargrepp som har utlöst denna upprördhet inom delar av journalistkåren, bland annat gällande reportern Sarah Koenigs framträdande roll i serien, och undersöker hur serien förhåller sig till den traditionella nyhetsjournalistikens grundprinciper. Uppsatsen drar även paralleller till den litterära journalistiken eftersom delar av kritiken mot Serial påminner om den kritik som riktades mot genren då den slog igenom på 60-talet. Studien av Serial, som bygger på en narrativ analys av materialet, har fokuserats kring hur reportern Sarah Koenigs berättande är utformat. Detta eftersom syftet med uppsatsen är att identifiera huruvida det finns belägg för kritiken som serien tagit emot, och som främst är riktad mot Sarah Koenigs berättargrepp. Utifrån de fynd som görs i analysen dras slutsatsen att det går att identifiera problematiska inslag i serien, framförallt gällande bristen på motiv, men att Serial inte nödvändigtvis behöver dömas ut som ett journalistiskt misslyckande. Istället argumenterar uppsatsen för att Serial snarare bör betraktas som en stapplande stilbildare inom det ännu unga och oreglerade podcast-formatet.

The subject of this diploma thesis is "Methodology of Murder Investigation (Selected Problems)". Because this is a very wide subject, it is not within the diplomate's reach to cover the matter completely enough for a diploma thesis and the thesis therefore focuses on the methodology of the investigation of serial murders. The first chapter is devoted to defining the term "serial murder" and the differentiation between serial, mass and spree killers is explained. The legal classification of serial killing within Czech criminal law is briefly outlined. The second chapter focuses on criminal character. It examines the typical characteristics of serial killers, their biological and social preconditions, the psychology behind a first murder and the profile of the serial killer. Further, the separation of serial killers into the organized and unorganized is shown, including characteristic features. From the perspective of criminal characterization, the work further discusses victims of serial killings, with an emphasis on themes of the methods of perpetration. Within this, differences between the terms ‚modus operandi' and ‚signature' are explained. The individual phases of killing are determined. Murder weapons, as well as classifications of the scenes of crimes and serial killers according to mobility...

Law enforcement agencies regularly collect crime scene information. There exists, however, no detailed, systematic procedure for this. The data collected is affected by the experience or current condition of law enforcement officers. Consequently, the data collected might differ vastly between crime scenes. This is especially problematic when investigating volume crimes. Law enforcement officers regularly do manual comparison on crimes based on the collected data. This is a time-consuming process; especially as the collected crime scene information might not always be comparable. The structuring of data and introduction of automatic comparison systems could benefit the investigation process. This thesis investigates descriptive and predictive models for automatic comparison of crime scene data with the purpose of aiding law enforcement investigations. The thesis first investigates predictive and descriptive methods, with a focus on data structuring, comparison, and evaluation of methods. The knowledge is then applied to the domain of crime scene analysis, with a focus on detecting serial residential burglaries. This thesis introduces a procedure for systematic collection of crime scene information. The thesis also investigates impact and relationship between crime scene characteristics and how to evaluate the descriptive model results. The results suggest that the use of descriptive and predictive models can provide feedback for crime scene analysis that allows a more effective use of law enforcement resources. Using descriptive models based on crime characteristics, including Modus Operandi, allows law enforcement agents to filter cases intelligently. Further, by estimating the link probability between cases, law enforcement agents can focus on cases with higher link likelihood. This would allow a more effective use of law enforcement resources, potentially allowing an increase in clear-up rates.

In the wake of ever more occurring and evident consequences brought by climate change such as droughts and an increasing world population, a responsible use and handling of freshwater has never been as important as before. Stormwater is more than often not treated and simply released back in nature with any kind of pollution it has collected on its way, one of which being heavy metals. By treating stormwater not only would this underutilised resource be made use of, creating a new source of freshwater, but environmental pollution caused by untreated stormwater could be potentially decreased, as it can be converted into a potential resource rather than a waste caused by nature. There are a number of already established methods to lower the concentration of heavy metals in water, however there are inherent economical and practical disadvantages with each of them. A method that has shown promising results with potential to challenge these contemporary solutions is biosorption. This study has explored the use of fungal biomass of Rhizopus oryzae for heavy metal biosorption in conjuncture with an organic filler material. The metals investigated were Zn, Cu and Fe. Moreover, the effects of pre-treating the fungal biomass with primarily NaOH were also investigated together with the optimal ratio between biomass and filler material and retention time, in order to maximise biosorption.Pre-treating the fungal biomass with NaOH resulted in a considerable increase in biosorption. Moreover, the presence of the filler material had a positive impact on biosorption by further enhancing it. The best effect was obtained at a 4:1 ratio between biomass and filler material. Finally, the best retention time was determined to be around 2 hours, slowly levelling off at higher retention times. However, the use of pre-treated R. oryzae with filler material did not prove to be efficient regarding the removal of heavy metal ions in stormwater at very low concentration of metals, between approximately 4 to 10 ppb. In the future, it would be worthwhile to investigate the viability of this method on stormwater with higher metal concentrations as well as looking into the effects of pH and temperature. / Som en påföljd av de konsekvenser som klimatförändringen har orsakat, som till exempel svåra torkor tillsammans med en ökande världsbefolkning, har det blivit av allt större vikt att hanteringen av sötvatten sker på ett mer ansvarsfullt och hållbart sätt. Stormvatten brukar inte behandlas överhuvudtaget utan släpps tillbaka i miljön tillsammans med föroreningarna som det samlat på sig under sin väg, bland annat tungmetaller.Det finns redan ett antal metoder för att minska koncentrationen av tungmetaller i vatten, dock inte utan ekonomiska och praktiska svårigheter. Hur som helst så har det forskats en del kring en relativt ny metod som har tidigare visat goda resultat och skulle kunna konkurrera med befintliga lösningar, nämligen biosorption. I denna studie har man utforskat möjligheten att använda svampen Rhizopus oryzae tillsammans med ett organiskt fyllmedelsmaterial för biosorptionen av tungmetaller i stormvatten. De tungmetaller som undersöktes var Zn, Cu och Fe. Dessutom har man undersökt effekterna av ett förbehandlingssteg hos biomassan med NaOH tillsammans med det optimala förhållandet mellan biomassan och fyllemedelsmaterialet och retentionstiden för att maximera biosorptionen. Förbehandlingssteget visade en markant förbättring av biosorptionen. Fyllemedelsmaterialet hade för övrigt också en positiv inverkan genom att ytterligare öka biosorptionen. Ett 4:1 förhållande mellan biomassan och fyllemedelsmaterialet resulterade i det optimala förhållandet för komponenterna med tanke på biosorptionen. För retentionstiden visade det sig de bästa resultaten erhålles vid 2 timmar i lösningen. Emellertid visade det sig att användningen av den förbehandlade svampen tillsammans med fyllemedelsmaterialet inte var effektivt på stormvatten med en väldig låg tungmetallkoncentration, ungefär mellan 4 till 10 ppb. I framtiden skulle det vara intressant att undersöka inte bara metodens genomförbarhet på stormvatten med högre metallkoncentrationer, utan även hur pH-värde samt temperatur kan påverka resultaten.

Homeownership may be the American Dream, but renting is the American reality for nearly half of Portland, Oregon’s residents. In Oregon, where I conducted fieldwork from 2014 to 2017, a statewide ban on rent control, the prevalent use of no-cause evictions, and the lack of renters’ protections pushed Portland residents, especially renters, into a Housing State of Emergency. Many renters in this housing crisis are forced to rent and face the threat of being repeatedly displaced as their apartment units change hands from investor-to-investor. These investor landlords used no-cause evictions to remove tenants from their homes and to quickly empty entire apartment buildings, flip the buildings, and increase their rate of return. As gentrification increased the rent in Portland, it also push low-income people and communities of color as they moved to the suburbs in search of scarce low-income rental housing. Employing ethnographic methods of participant observation and in-depth interviewing, this dissertation explores the inequalities built into the rental housing system for different groups of vulnerable tenants in Portland. A qualitative analysis revealed that families of color and low-income residents not only experience serial displacement as renters, but also serial segregation. / 2020-09-06

The ability to obtain deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) profiles is generally considered a powerful tool when examining evidence associated with a crime scene. However, variability in peak heights associated with short tandem repeats (STR) signal complicates DNA interpretation; particularly, low-template complex mixtures, which are regularly encountered during evidentiary analysis. In order to elucidate the sources that cause peak height variability a dynamic model, which simulates; 1) the serial dilution process; 2) polymerase chain reaction (PCR); and 3) capillary electrophoresis (CE) was built and used to generate simulated DNA evidentiary profiles. In order to develop the dynamic model, PCR efficiencies were characterized. This was accomplished using empirical quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) data. Specifically, the ratios of fluorescent readings of two consecutive cycles were evaluated. It was observed that the efficiency fluctuated at early cycles; stabilized during the middle cycles; and plateaued during later cycles. The relationship between the change in efficiency and the concentration of amplicons was modeled as an exponential function. Subsequently, this exponential relationship was incorporated into the dynamic model as a part of the PCR module. Using the dynamic laboratory model, the effect of serially diluting a concentrated DNA extract to a low-template concentration was assessed in an effort to determine whether serially diluted samples are a good representation of evidence samples which contain low copy number of cells. To accomplish this, peak height variances and the frequency of drop-out between serially and non-serially diluted samples were compared. The results showed that diluting the sample had a substantial influence on allelic drop-out. However, the distributions of the observed peak heights did not consistently change; though, changes in peak height distributions became more pronounced with samples at lower targets. The peak height equivalency (PHE) was also used to aid in the determination of the effect of serial dilutions on reproducibility. There was not a major change in PHE between serially and non-serially diluted samples.

This thesis explores hardware command capture as a viable means of analyzing real world hard drive usage. Hardware command capture provides insight into the IO stack where current tools fail to reach. A software platform is presented which provides trace conversion and analysis capabilities. This platform is written in Python and designed to handle traces of arbitrary size while being easily extensible for future projects to build upon. A novel Sequential Stream Detection algorithm built upon the software platform is then presented. This algorithm detects application level sequential streams and provides interesting insight into the sequential nature of the applications analyzed. The software platform and Sequential Stream Detector were validated and run against a range of workloads including video playback, large project compilations, and synthetic benchmarks. Where applicable, each workload was run on multiple file systems (ext2, ext3, ext4, Btrfs) to compare the effects of stream allocation across file systems. It is shown that stream allocation is consistent across file systems suggesting stream detection may be a valuable workload identification tool.

The focus of this thesis is the examination of whiteness as a dominant identity and subject position. Whiteness has conventionally assumed a normative, monolithic status as the template of humanity. Recent theorising has attempted to specify and denaturalise whiteness. In order to participate in this fracturing of whiteness, I analyse examples in which it functions as a site of contested and ambiguous contradiction. To this end, I use contemporary monstrosity to examine whiteness. Monstrosity is a malleable and culturally specific category of difference that measures alterity, and by displaying discursive functions in an extreme form offers insight into the ways in which deviance and normativity operate. I argue that the conjunction of whiteness and monstrosity, through displaying whiteness in a negative register, depicts some of the discursive operations that enable whiteness to attain such hegemonic dominance. I deploy theories of marginalisation and subjectivation drawn from a variety of feminist, critical race, and philosophical perspectives in order to further an understanding of the discursive operations of hegemonic and normative subject positions. I offer a brief history and overview of both the history and prior conceptualisations of monstrosity and whiteness, and then focus on two particular examples of contemporary white monstrosity. I closely examine the representation of monstrosity in serial killer films. The figure of the serial killer is typically a white, heterosexual, middle class male whose monstrosity is implicitly reliant upon these elements. In my discussion of the recent phenomenon of fatal shootings at high schools in North America, I investigate the way the massacre at Columbine High School functions as the public face of the phenomenon and for the unique interest it generated in the mass media. I focus on a Time magazine cover that featured a photograph of the adolescent perpetrators under the heading The Monsters Next Door, which condensed and emblematised the tension that they generated. It is through the perpetrators uneasy occupation of dual subject positions???namely the unassuming all American boy and the contemporary face of evil???that their simultaneous representation as average and alien undermines the notion of whiteness as neutral and invisible.