Persuasion, Police, and Public Safety: Message Framing, Compliance, and Perceptions of Law Enforcement

In the everyday interactions between law enforcement and the citizens of their communities, officers attempt to gain compliance verbally, before resorting to physical force, if necessary. This dissertation examined the use of persuasive verbal messages by law enforcement officers when encountering citizens. These messages were created to represent a progression of asking, telling, and making, to gain compliance from an individual.;The officers in this study were university police officers, because university police departments are charged with providing a safe learning environment on campus. Due to the visible, community oriented policing in which university police departments tend to engage, it is likely that students would have an interaction with a campus police officer, and that this interaction might call for an officer to make a request or demand of the student. Furthermore, given the ubiquity of communication technology (e.g., social media) on college campuses, it is likely that police and students would communicate not only in-person, but also via computer-mediated channels.;The study in this dissertation utilized a 3 (ask, tell, make) X 2 (emergency, nonemergency) X 2 (face-to-face, computer-mediated communication) experimental design, in which participants (N = 190) were assigned randomly to one of 12 conditions. The measured outcomes were propensity to comply with a police officer, perceptions of the police officer, and perceptions of the officer\u27s conversational appropriateness.;Results indicated a significant main effect for message manipulation, such that participants rated perceptions of officer conversational appropriateness and perceptions of law enforcement more favorably when the hypothetical officer used an ask-framed message, rather than a make-framed message. Furthermore, the results indicated a significant main effect for communication channel, such that participants perceived the police officer to be more conversationally appropriate in the FtF condition than in the CMC condition. Additional post-hoc results, theoretical implications, practical applications, limitations, and future directions for research in this area of communication studies are discussed

Student learning with permissive and restrictive cell phone policies: A classroom experiment

Based on Finn and Ledbetter’s (2013; 2014) work regarding classroom technology policies, this experimental study examined the implementation of a permissive and a restrictive cellular phone policy in two sections of a public speaking course, and the effect of these policies on students’ cognitive and affective learning. College students (N = 31) were assigned to the permissive or restrictive cellular phone policy condition based on the class section of public speaking for which they registered for the Fall, 2016 semester. Results indicated that while there were no differences in cognitive learning, students in the restrictive policy condition reported greater affective learning for the instructor than did students in the permissive policy condition. Theoretical and practical implications, based on this surprising finding, also were discussed

Facing Facts: Facial Injuries from Stand-up Electric Scooters

Background Stand-up electric scooters (SES) are a popular public transportation method. Numerous safety concerns have arisen since their recent introduction. Methods A retrospective chart review was performed to identify patients presenting to the emergency departments in Indianapolis, who sustained SES-related injuries. Results A total of 89 patients were included in our study. The average patient age was 29 ± 12.9 years in a predominantly male cohort (65.2%). No patient was documented as wearing a helmet during the event of injury. Alcohol intoxication was noted in 14.6% of accidents. Falling constituted the leading trauma mechanism (46.1%). Injuries were most common on Saturday (24.7%) from 14h00 to 21h59 (55.1%). Injury types included: abrasions/contusions (33.7%), fractures (31.5%), lacerations (27.0%), or joint injuries (18.0%). The head and neck region (H&N) was the most frequently affected site (42.7%). Operative management under general anesthesia was necessary for 13.5% of injuries. Nonoperative management primarily included conservative orthopedic care (34.8%), pain management with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) (34.8%) and/or opioids (4.5%), bedside laceration repairs (27.0%), and wound dressing (10.1%). Individuals sustaining head and neck injuries were more likely to be older (33.8 vs. 25.7 years, p=0.003), intoxicated by alcohol (29.0% vs. 3.9%, p=0.002), and requiring CT imaging (60.5% vs. 9.8%, p <0.001). Conclusion Although SESs provide a convenient transportation modality, unregulated use raises significant safety concerns. More data need to be collected to guide future safety regulations

Implementation of the page fault frequency replacement algorithm.

This paper investigates the implementation of the page fault frequency (PFF) replacement algorithm as the mechanism for selecting and replacing pages of programs loaded into the main memory of a multiprocessing, multiprogrammed computer system. The frequency at which an executing program requires a page of virtual memory, the PFF, provides a basis for judging the real memory requirements of the program. Operating difficulties of PFF that reduce its usefulness in a time-shared computer system (Michigan Terminal System) are discussed, and a means of implementing the algorithm is proposed.http://archive.org/details/implementationof00lancCaptain, United States Marine CorpsApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Direct measurement of the mechanical work during translocation by the ribosome.

A detailed understanding of tRNA/mRNA translocation requires measurement of the forces generated by the ribosome during this movement. Such measurements have so far remained elusive and, thus, little is known about the relation between force and translocation and how this reflects on its mechanism and regulation. Here, we address these questions using optical tweezers to follow translation by individual ribosomes along single mRNA molecules, against an applied force. We find that translocation rates depend exponentially on the force, with a characteristic distance close to the one-codon step, ruling out the existence of sub-steps and showing that the ribosome likely functions as a Brownian ratchet. We show that the ribosome generates ∼13 pN of force, barely sufficient to unwind the most stable structures in mRNAs, thus providing a basis for their regulatory role. Our assay opens the way to characterizing the ribosomes full mechano-chemical cycle

High slope efficiency and high refractive index change in direct-written Yb-doped waveguide lasers with depressed claddings

We report the first Yb:ZBLAN and Yb:IOG10 waveguide lasers fabricated by the fs-laser direct-writing technique. Pulses from a Titanium-Sapphire laser oscillator with 5.1 MHz repetition rate were utilized to generate negative refractive index modifications in both glasses. Multiple modifications were aligned in a depressed cladding geometry to create a waveguide. For Yb:ZBLAN we demonstrate high laser slope efficiency of 84% with a maximum output power of 170 mW. By using Yb:IOG10 a laser performance of 25% slope efficiency and 72 mW output power was achieved and we measured a remarkably high refractive index change exceeding Δn = 2.3 × 10(-2).Guido Palmer, Simon Gross, Alexander Fuerbach, David G. Lancaster and Michael J. Withfor

Lagrangian Framework for Systems Composed of High-Loss and Lossless Components

Using a Lagrangian mechanics approach, we construct a framework to study the dissipative properties of systems composed of two components one of which is highly lossy and the other is lossless. We have shown in our previous work that for such a composite system the modes split into two distinct classes, high-loss and low-loss, according to their dissipative behavior. A principal result of this paper is that for any such dissipative Lagrangian system, with losses accounted by a Rayleigh dissipative function, a rather universal phenomenon occurs, namely, selective overdamping: The high-loss modes are all overdamped, i.e., non-oscillatory, as are an equal number of low-loss modes, but the rest of the low-loss modes remain oscillatory each with an extremely high quality factor that actually increases as the loss of the lossy component increases. We prove this result using a new time dynamical characterization of overdamping in terms of a virial theorem for dissipative systems and the breaking of an equipartition of energy.Comment: 53 pages, 1 figure; Revision of our original manuscript to incorporate suggestions from refere

Are We Engaged? A College-level Inventory of Community Engagement

In this study, a team of six faculty members from Weber State University’s Telitha E. Lindquist College of Arts & Humanities tested and applied the Engaged College Rubric as part of a pilot program. Based on this application of the rubric, the committee found that the college tended toward the “Emerging” (i.e., first stage) classification for most items, thus indicating a need to continue developing programs and practices that center on community engagement (CE) within the college. The primary finding from this activity was that fragmentation exists surrounding CE in the college, within its constituent departments, and at the university level. This fragmentation limits the effectiveness of community-engaged learning, teaching, and scholarship. The committee’s findings, and interpretations of the rubric elements, are discussed, as are recommendations for future use of the Engaged College Rubric

Probabilities in the inflationary multiverse

Inflationary cosmology leads to the picture of a "multiverse," involving an infinite number of (spatially infinite) post-inflationary thermalized regions, called pocket universes. In the context of theories with many vacua, such as the landscape of string theory, the effective constants of Nature are randomized by quantum processes during inflation. We discuss an analytic estimate for the volume distribution of the constants within each pocket universe. This is based on the conjecture that the field distribution is approximately ergodic in the diffusion regime, when the dynamics of the fields is dominated by quantum fluctuations (rather than by the classical drift). We then propose a method for determining the relative abundances of different types of pocket universes. Both ingredients are combined into an expression for the distribution of the constants in pocket universes of all types.Comment: 18 pages, RevTeX 4, 2 figures. Discussion of the full probability in Sec.VI is sharpened; the conclusions are strengthened. Note added explaining the relation to recent work by Easther, Lim and Martin. Some references adde

Hydrodynamic motion of guiding elements within a magnetic switchyard in fast ignition conditions

Magnetic collimation via resistivity gradients is an innovative approach to electron beam control for the cone-guided fast ignition variant of inertial confinement fusion. This technique uses a resistivity gradient induced magnetic field to collimate the electron beam produced by the high-intensity laser–plasma interaction within a cone-guided fast ignition cone-tip. A variant of the resistive guiding approach, known as the “magnetic switchyard,” has been proposed which uses shaped guiding elements to direct the electrons toward the compressed fuel. Here, the 1D radiation-hydrodynamics code HYADES is used to investigate and quantify the gross hydrodynamic motion of these magnetic switchyard guiding elements in conditions relevant to their use in fast ignition. Movement of the layers was assessed for a range of two-layer material combinations. Based upon the results of the simulations, a scaling law is found that enables the relative extent of hydrodynamic motion to be predicted based upon the material properties of the switchyard, thereby enabling optimization of material-combination choice on the basis of reducing hydrodynamic motion. A multi-layered configuration, more representative of an actual switchyard, was also simulated in which an outer Au layer is employed to tamp the motion of the outermost guiding element of the switchyard