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Examines, using a qualitative case study of stories printed in "The New York Times," the social construction of "runaway youth" in print media during 1960-1978. Finds that running away was an unconstructed problem (or simmering social condition) in the early 1960s and featured harmless adventures. Contributes to the "runaway" discourse in general; and situates discourse about runaways as predecessor to that of "missing children" documented by other researchers. (SG)

Team HOPE (Help Offering Parents Empowerment) supports parents of missing children by linking victims with trained parent volunteers who have been through the experience of having a missing child. Describes: Team HOPE's compassionate response training; referrals to Team HOPE; and additional avenues to help via Team HOPE's website. Explains how people other than families can benefit from Team HOPE. (SM)

Examines the effects of adding correspondence training to a behavioral skills training package that taught abduction prevention skills to 31 children, ages 4-5 years. Results indicate that correspondence training did not improve correspondence between saying and doing target behaviors. However, both training approaches were equally effective in teaching abduction prevention skills. (RJM)

Explores the situations of "missing" children and discusses sources of information about these children. More than 99% of all missing child cases reported to police in 1996 were successfully resolved, but data suggest that about 150,000 children each year are hurt physically or mentally during the time they are missing. (SLD)

Examines the importance of defining terms in the process of gathering statistical data. Cites the example of the debate over the number of children abducted by strangers. Concludes that statistics are part of the persuasive rhetoric of social problem promotion and have social consequences. (FMW)

It is well documented that children and young people are disproportionately represented in missing person reports, frequently as repeat cases. However, inconsistent definitions around age groupings have compromised our ability to compare across studies, or meaningfully synthesise the available evidence. This study sought to explore the relationship between age at first missing and police contacts in a sample of 2,125 Australian children (0–12 years), adolescents (13–17 years), and young adults (18–25 years) who went missing for the first time in 2005. Individuals were followed-up over a 10-year period using police records. A comparison of justice involvement across the three age groups revealed key differences in missing person episodes and other justice-related involvement. Collectively, the findings offer further insights into the characteristics and justice trajectories of young people who go missing to help inform further evidence-based, risk assessment and related police responses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is devoted to numerical algorithms based on harmonic transformations with two goals: (1) face boundary formulation by blending techniques based on the known characteristic nodes and (2) some challenging examples of face resembling. The formulation of the face boundary is imperative for face recognition, transformation, and combination. Mapping between the source and target face boundaries with constituent pixels is explored by two approaches: cubic spline interpolation and ordinary differential equation (ODE) using Hermite interpolation. The ODE approach is more flexible and suitable for handling different boundary conditions, such as the clamped and simple support conditions. The intrinsic relations between the cubic spline and ODE methods are explored for different face boundaries, and their combinations are developed. Face combination and resembling are performed by employing blending curves for generating the face boundary, and face images are converted by numerical methods for harmonic models, such as the finite difference method (FDM), the finite element method (FEM) and the finite volume method (FVM) for harmonic models, and the splitting–integrating method (SIM) for the resampling of constituent pixels. For the second goal, the age effects of facial appearance are explored to discover that different ages of face images can be produced by integrating the photos and images of the old and the young. Then, the following challenging task is targeted. Based on the photos and images of parents and their children, can we obtain an integrated image to resemble his/her current image as closely as possible? Amazing examples of face combination and resembling are reported in this paper to give a positive answer. Furthermore, an optimal combination of face images of parents and their children in the least-squares sense is introduced to greatly facilitate face resembling. Face combination and resembling may also be used for plastic surgery, finding missing children, and identifying criminals. The boundary and numerical techniques of face images in this paper can be used not only for pattern recognition but also for face morphing, morphing attack detection (MAD), and computer animation as Sora to greatly enhance further developments in AI. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the alarming discovery of a clandestine cremation site near Cancún, Mexico, where families searching for missing loved ones suspect bodies of disappearance victims were incinerated. The families are concerned about authorities covering up a growing problem in Quintana Roo, fueled by the region's tourism industry and the development of the Maya Train. Activists and Maya communities have raised concerns about the increase in violence linked to these developments, prompting families of the disappeared to organize their own search initiatives. The families are calling for thorough treatment of the remains found at the site and are demanding answers from authorities, highlighting the need for justice and accountability in cases of disappearances. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the rise of far-right movements in Argentina and Chile, threatening the memory and justice efforts related to the dictatorships in both countries. In Argentina, President Milei has dismantled key memory sites and investigative units, while in Chile, there has been a surge in vandalism targeting memorials and memory sites. Memory activists in both countries are mobilizing to defend their work against denialist rhetoric and attacks on historical memory. The actions of the far right pose a significant risk to the preservation of the memory of state terrorism and violence, impacting vulnerable communities and future generations. [Extracted from the article]

The number of missing children and kidnapping is on the rise in recent years. Every parent wills definitely going through an agonizing experience to have their children missing. Therefore there are many safety measurements to prevent this incident from happening. The help of modern technologies is one of the ways to reduce children missing and kidnapping. A child can be tracked by using the GPS (Global Positioning System) and GSM (Global System for Mobile communication) technology. Study models a fuzzy system that fuses sensors and ESP8285 controller to determine fire probability output. It sends an alert to users via a send algorithm having monitored environment conditions as they quickly change. Previous systems used were often found to have provided false alarms owing to their configuration logic. The experimental design that yielded the proposed ensemble however notifies both the residents and the nearest fire department of fire outbreak, source and location using a shortest distance algorithm. The proposed ensemble is efficient, reliable and can handle dynamic changes as in the send algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of missing child reports exceed police investigative capacity, yet some incidents are linked with harm, making effective risk assessment essential for safeguarding. Police data likely underrepresents harm to missing children due to harm being undisclosed, and missing incidents going unreported. A better understanding of harm associated with missing children could help to develop appropriate interventions to reduce missing incidents and prevent harm. This study examined 18 months of published Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews across England – a previously overlooked resource for understanding harm to missing children – to identify the intersecting characteristics, vulnerabilities, harm types, indicators, and issues with formal guardianship (safeguarding by carers, schools, local authorities, police and health professionals). Results revealed that children were missing, vulnerable, harmed, and showed indicators of exploitation in numerous and intersecting ways. Of the missing from home or care (MFHC) cases, all but two mentioned repeat missing incidents, all mentioned missing school, 75% mentioned exclusion, and over half mentioned going missing from both home and care. All MFHC cases mentioned multiple vulnerabilities and multiple harm types. All but one of the MFHC cases mentioned multiple exploitation indicators. This highlights opportunities for guardianship including extending the police Philomena Protocol to schools for children at risk of exclusion. The constraints of formal guardians, when combined with the risks faced by some vulnerable children, can lead to inadequate supervision and support – paradoxically leaving those children simultaneously overexposed to harm yet under-served by protective services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Emergency calls may help law enforcement determine the proper response and provide investigative leads. Time may be wasted and appropriate resources misallocated if callers provide untruthful information. However, human ability to detect deception is generally weak. Objectives: We compared the abilities of law enforcement officers and nonlaw enforcement staff abilities to correctly identify truthful or deceptive emergency calls reporting missing children using Grice's maxims of communication (quantity, manner, relation, and quality of information). Method: Forty participants listened to 32 emergency calls reporting a missing child. Sixteen callers truthfully reported not knowing the child's whereabouts, and sixteen were responsible for killing the child before falsely reporting the child missing. Participants rated the quantity (insufficient, appropriate, excessive), manner (clear/orderly, unclear/disorderly), relation (relevant, irrelevant), and quality (truthful, deceptive) of information. Participants also provided a written narrative of their impressions of the call. Results: Accuracy in identifying truthful and deceptive callers was consistent with prior research, with sworn law enforcement slightly outperforming non-sworn staff. Participant agreement on Grice's maxims was poor. Ratings of quantity, manner, and relation of information predicted judgments of call quality, but were not associated with accurately identifying calls. Participant narratives describing reasons for judging a call to be truthful or deceptive were also not associated with accurate identification. Conclusions: Our findings do not support the use of Grice's maxims for determining deception in emergency calls. Although law enforcement officers outperformed non-sworn staff, both groups showed inconsistent rationales to support veracity judgments and relied on cues not associated with accuracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the reasons behind Joseph's failure to send a message to his father, Jacob, while he was in Egypt. It dismisses popular theories such as revenge or the pursuit of his dreams, arguing that Joseph's actions were driven by righteousness and love for his family. The author suggests that Joseph's analytical thinking led him to believe that his father was dead, and it was only through Judah's speech that he realized his mistake. Ultimately, both Joseph and Jacob mistakenly believed the other was dead, resulting in the absence of a message. [Extracted from the article]