Resolving Civilian-Police Complaints in New York City: Reflections on Mediation in the Real World

The Civilian Complaint Review Board mediation program associated with the New York City Police Department appears to be an attractive alternative to the investigative process offered to complainants, offering the possibility of a higher level of satisfaction for both the civilian and the police officer. According to the scheme devised by the agency and the NYPD, cases that meet mediation guidelines should move smoothly from investigations through the approval process, coming to a scheduled mediation in a timely manner. Complaints containing some factor making them inappropriate for mediation should be able to be identified during that approval process, thus ensuring that the cases that actually make it to the mediation table have a good chance of resolving successfully. In reality, the mediation process does have some features that work extremely well, but has other components that do not. And, the expectations of the entities with a stake in the mediation process have the abilities to enhance or weaken the program. Like a chemical reaction in equilibrium, the degree to which the mediation process appears to be working well or poorly is influenced by any changes that occur to the reactants, the parties, management, and staff of the CCRB, and the board itself - and the environment where it takes place

Synthesis of siloxane-containing epoxy polymers Patent

Synthesis of siloxane containing epoxy polymers with low dielectric propertie

Improved printed-wiring boards for high-reliability circuits

Experimental board includes three layers of special tridirectionally woven fabric. Alumina particles play major role in reducing coefficient of expansion. They also serve as heat sink for heat-generating components

Experiments and other methods for developing expertise with design of experiments in a classroom setting

The only way to gain genuine expertise in Statistical Process Control (SPC) and the design of experiments (DOX) is with repeated practice, but not on canned problems with dead data sets. Rather, one must negotiate a wide variety of problems each with its own peculiarities and its own constantly changing data. The problems should not be of the type for which there is a single, well-defined answer that can be looked up in a fraternity file or in some text. The problems should match as closely as possible the open-ended types for which there is always an abundance of uncertainty. These are the only kinds that arise in real research, whether that be basic research in academe or engineering research in industry. To gain this kind of experience, either as a professional consultant or as an industrial employee, takes years. Vast amounts of money, not to mention careers, must be put at risk. The purpose here is to outline some realistic simulation-type lab exercises that are so simple and inexpensive to run that the students can repeat them as often as desired at virtually no cost. Simulations also allow the instructor to design problems whose outcomes are as noisy as desired but still predictable within limits. Also the instructor and the students can learn a great deal more from the postmortum conducted after the exercise is completed. One never knows for sure what the true data should have been when dealing only with real life experiments. To add a bit more realism to the exercises, it is sometimes desirable to make the students pay for each experimental result from a make-believe budget allocation for the problem

Polymerizable disilanols having in-chain perfluoroalkyl groups

Disilanols containing in-chain perfluoroalkyl and aromatic groups and the process by which they were prepared are discussed. The disilanols, when reacted with a diaminosilane and cured, produce polymeric material resistant to hydrocarbon fuels and stable at elevated temperatures

Phylogenetic multi-locus codon models and molecular clocks reveal the monophyly of haematophagous reduviid bugs and their evolution at the formation of South America.

We previously constructed a single molecular clock to date insect evolution that remains a cornerstone within entomological dating. The insect clock predicts that triatomine bugs, the vectors of South American trypanosomiasis, originated with the formation of South America. We addressed this hypothesis using the insectivorous reduviid bugs and their phylogenetic relationship with the haematophagous reduviid bugs, as well as their biogeographic distribution. Putative paraphyly or monophyly of Triatominae, by non-haematophagous reduviids, have both previously been hypothesized and identified. We sampled a broad range of predatory reduviids, viz. Ectrichodiinae, Emesinae, Hammacerinae, Harpactorinae, Reduviinae, Salyavatinae, Steniopodainae and Vesciinae, including both New World and Old World representatives and sequenced the nuclear 28S ribosomal gene locus and the mitochondrial loci 5' cytochrome oxidase 1 (cox1 [COI]), cox1 3', cytochrome oxidase 2 (cox2 [COII]) and cytochrome oxidase b (cob [cytb]). Robust evidence for the monophyly of Triatominae was observed in 5/5 loci using codon/nucleotide (28S) based maximum likelihood phylogenies, 3/5 loci using codon-based Bayesian phylogenies and in cox2 using amino acid Bayesian phylogenies. Several South American members of the Reduviinae, that are morphologically and phylogenetically a sister group to triatomine bugs, have a modal divergence date with the Triatominae of 109-107 million years ago (MYA). This creates a scenario where the closest (non-haematophagous) ancestor to triatomine bugs evolved immediately prior to the breakup of Gondwanaland whilst the triatomine bugs evolved 95MYA, putatively linking the origin of haematophagous behaviour to the origin of South America and in particular infers a delayed onset to the evolution of haematophagy. The placement of the enigmatic tribe Bolboderini as an ingroup to the Triatominae monophyly, confirms the 95MYA node as the most ancient in the subfamily

Evaluating human performance modeling for system assessment: Promise and problems

The development and evaluation of computational human performance models is examined. An intention is to develop models which can be used to interact with system prototypes and simulations to perform system assessment. Currently LR is working on a set of models emulating cognitive, psychomotor, auditory, and visual activity for multiple operator positions of a command and control simulation system. These models, developed in conjunction with BBN Systems and Technologies, function within the simulation environment and allow for both unmanned system assessment and manned (human-in-loop) assessment of system interface and team interactions. These are relatively generic models with built-in flexibility which allows modification of some model parameters. These models have great potential for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of system design, test, and evaluation. However, the extent of the practical utility of these models is unclear. Initial verification efforts comparing model performance within the simulation to actual human operators on a similar, independent simulation have been performed and current efforts are directed at comparing human and model performance within the same simulation environment

Apollo oxygen tank stratification analysis, volume 2

An analysis of flight performance of the Apollo 15 cryogenic oxygen tanks was conducted with the variable grid stratification math model developed earlier in the program. Flight conditions investigated were the CMP-EVA and one passive thermal control period which exhibited heater temperature characteristics not previously observed. Heater temperatures for these periods were simulated with the math model using flight acceleration data. Simulation results (heater temperature and tank pressure) compared favorably with the Apollo 15 flight data, and it was concluded that tank performance was nominal. Math model modifications were also made to improve the simulation accuracy. The modifications included the addition of the effects of the tank wall thermal mass and an improved system flow distribution model. The modifications improved the accuracy of simulated pressure response based on comparisons with flight data