Risk Factors and Precursors to Police Suicide

Police suicide has consistently remained a more likely cause of death for police officers than being killed in the line of duty for the past several years. Understanding the risk factors and precursors associated with suicide is crucial to changing this anomalousness. Prevention, early intervention, treatment, support, and reducing stigma, may help lower the number of police officers committing suicide. Several research studies have found the rate of suicide for police officers to be double that of the general population (Chopko, Palmieri & Facemire, 2013; Violanti, 2010; Lewis, 2014; Charbonneau, 2000). The day-to-day job of policing may be stressful and traumatic, but it is important to remember that police officers must pass physical, medical, and psychological health exams showing them to be in excellent health prior to being hired (Chae & Boyle, 2013). Mental health concerns such as depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and co-occurrence disorders such as alcohol abuse are significantly more prevalent in police officers (Chae & Boyle, 2013; Violanti et al., 2008; Basinska & Wiciak, 2012; Bishopp & Boots, 2014). Chae and Boyle’s (2013) meta-analysis concluded five prominent factors of police work that may affect suicidal ideation. Those factors are organizational stress, critical incident trauma, atypical work hours, relationship problems, and alcohol abuse. Due to atypical work hours being a job requirement known prior to hire, this factor will not be measured. The purpose of this study is to identify common risk factors and behavioral changes of police officers in order to assist with early prevention and intervention of suicide. Through the use of five validated instruments measuring organizational stress, critical incident trauma, relationship problems, and alcohol abuse, these variables will be compared with suicidal ideation in officers at a mid-sized police department in the Northeast region of the United States

Bright radio emission from an ultraluminous stellar-mass microquasar in M 31

A subset of ultraluminous X-ray sources (those with luminosities of less than 10^(40 ) erg s^(−1); ref. 1) are thought to be powered by the accretion of gas onto black holes with masses of ~5–20 M_⊙ , probably by means of an accretion disk. The X-ray and radio emission are coupled in such Galactic sources; the radio emission originates in a relativistic jet thought to be launched from the innermost regions near the black hole, with the most powerful emission occurring when the rate of infalling matter approaches a theoretical maximum (the Eddington limit). Only four such maximal sources are known in the Milky Way, and the absorption of soft X-rays in the interstellar medium hinders the determination of the causal sequence of events that leads to the ejection of the jet. Here we report radio and X-ray observations of a bright new X-ray source in the nearby galaxy M 31, whose peak luminosity exceeded 10^(39) erg s^(−1). The radio luminosity is extremely high and shows variability on a timescale of tens of minutes, arguing that the source is highly compact and powered by accretion close to the Eddington limit onto a black hole of stellar mass. Continued radio and X-ray monitoring of such sources should reveal the causal relationship between the accretion flow and the powerful jet emission

Reconsidering the working waterfront : strategies for the future of New Bedford, Massachusetts

Thesis (M.C.P.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 1996.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 206-213).by J. Matthew Carpenter.M.C.P

Changing patterns in electroweak precision with new color-charged states: Oblique corrections and the WW boson mass

The recent measurement by the CDF Collaboration of the $W$ boson mass is in significant tension with the Standard Model expectation, showing a discrepancy of seven standard deviations. A larger value of $m_W$ affects the global electroweak fit, particularly the best-fit values of the Peskin-Takeuchi parameters $S$, $T$ (and perhaps $U$) that measure oblique corrections from new physics. To meet this challenge, we propose some simple models capable of generating non-negative $S$ and $T$, the latter of which faces the greatest upward pressure from the CDF measurement in scenarios with $U=0$. Our models feature weak multiplets of scalars charged under $\mathrm{SU}(3)_{\text{c}} \times \mathrm{U}(1)_Y$, which cannot attain nonzero vacuum expectation values but nevertheless produce e.g. $T \neq 0$ given some other mechanism to split the electrically charged and neutral scalars. We compute the oblique corrections in these models and identify ample parameter space supporting the CDF value of $m_W$.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figure

Exploring General Gauge Mediation

We explore various aspects of General Gauge Mediation(GGM). We present a reformulation of the correlation functions used in GGM, and further elucidate their IR and UV properties. Additionally we clarify the issue of UV sensitivity in the calculation of the soft masses in the MSSM, highlighting the role of the supertrace over the messenger spectrum. Finally, we present weakly coupled messenger models which fully cover the parameter space of GGM. These examples demonstrate that the full parameter space of GGM is physical and realizable. Thus it should be considered a valid basis for future phenomenological explorations of gauge mediation.Comment: 27 pages, minor changes, typos fixed in appendix

Improving Fermi Orbit Determination and Prediction in an Uncertain Atmospheric Drag Environment

Orbit determination and prediction of the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope trajectory is strongly impacted by the unpredictability and variability of atmospheric density and the spacecraft's ballistic coefficient. Operationally, Global Positioning System point solutions are processed with an extended Kalman filter for orbit determination, and predictions are generated for conjunction assessment with secondary objects. When these predictions are compared to Joint Space Operations Center radar-based solutions, the close approach distance between the two predictions can greatly differ ahead of the conjunction. This work explores strategies for improving prediction accuracy and helps to explain the prediction disparities. Namely, a tuning analysis is performed to determine atmospheric drag modeling and filter parameters that can improve orbit determination as well as prediction accuracy. A 45% improvement in three-day prediction accuracy is realized by tuning the ballistic coefficient and atmospheric density stochastic models, measurement frequency, and other modeling and filter parameters