Are Americans Ambivalent Towards Racial Policies?

Few debates, political or academic, are as conflictual as those over racial policy. In this paper, we explore the possibility that individual attitudes are internally conflictual through the use of inferential statistical techniques that estimate variability in individual respondents' considerations about racial policy. We consider six separate core beliefs potentially relevant towards racial policy choice (modern racism, anti-black stereotyping, authoritarianism, individualism, and anti-semitism), for four different policy choices. We evaluate two separate models for the source of individual variance: conflicting values and direct effects of values. Our analysis leads us to conclude that modern racism trumps rival explanatory variables in explanations of racial policy choice, and that variability in attitudes toward racial policy is due to uncertainty, and not to ambivalence

When Core Beliefs Collide: Conflict, Complexity, or Just Plain Confusion?

In this paper, we argue that on many important public policy questions, people may be unsure of their preferences because their underlying principles or values are in conflict. We build a simple model of conflicting core beliefs, building on the work of Heider (1958). Using abortion policies as our test case, we develop a test for our theory using heteroskedastic probit, using data taken from the 1988 General Social Survey. The heteroskedastic probit results confirm our model, and in the last section of the paper, we trace the implications of this model for some of the larger questions in public opinion research

On the equivalence of modes of convergence for log-concave measures

An important theme in recent work in asymptotic geometric analysis is that many classical implications between different types of geometric or functional inequalities can be reversed in the presence of convexity assumptions. In this note, we explore the extent to which different notions of distance between probability measures are comparable for log-concave distributions. Our results imply that weak convergence of isotropic log-concave distributions is equivalent to convergence in total variation, and is further equivalent to convergence in relative entropy when the limit measure is Gaussian.Comment: v3: Minor tweak in exposition. To appear in GAFA seminar note

Interviewing suspects: examining the association between skills, questioning, evidence disclosure, and interview outcomes

The interviewing of suspects is an important element in the investigation of crime. However, studies concerning actual performance of investigators when undertaking such interviews remain sparse. Nevertheless, in England and Wales, since the introduction of a prescribed framework over 20 years ago, field studies have generally shown an improvement in interviewing performance, notwithstanding ongoing concerns largely relating to the more demanding aspects (such as building/maintaining rapport, intermittent summarising and the logical development of topics). Using a sample of 70 real-life interviews, the present study examined questioning and various evidence disclosure strategies (which have also been found demanding), examining their relationships between interview skills and interview outcomes. It was found that when evidence was disclosed gradually (but revealed later), interviews were generally both more skilled and involved the gaining of comprehensive accounts, whereas when evidence was disclosed either early or very late, interviews were found to be both less skilled and less likely to involve this outcome. These findings contribute towards an increased research base for the prescribed framework

Seed predation and dispersal by small mammals in a landscape of fear: effects of personality, predation risk and land-use change

Scatter-hoarding small mammals act as both seed predators and seed dispersers in forest ecosystems. Their choices regarding consuming or caching seeds must balance the risk of predation with the energy rewards gained from immediate or delayed consumption of seeds. Several factors influence their interaction with seeds, including the individual's personality. Little is known about how personality affects foraging decisions in response to predation risk. This missing information is critical because if foraging decisions differ among individuals in response to perceived risk, then varying combinations of personality types in a population (and varying risks of predation across forest types) may have diverse effects on forest regeneration. Further, land-use change may influence the interplay of personality, risk perception and foraging decisions by altering the distribution of personality types in the landscape and the risk perceived by individuals. To contribute to filling these knowledge gaps, we designed a large-scale field experiment to evaluate how personality, perceived predation risk and land-use change affect the interaction of deer mice Peromyscus maniculatus and seeds. Using infrared cameras, we recorded the choices of individuals of known personality at paired experimental sites with high versus low perceived predation risk (n = 2389 observations from 74 individuals). We found that personality influenced multiple foraging decisions, and perceived risk affected how individuals with different personalities responded to those decisions. Specifically, exploration/activity influenced seed choice, boldness affected the number of seeds selected and docility influenced both foraging site selection and whether mice immediately consumed or removed seeds. Since personality only affected foraging microsite selection in unmanaged forests, our results show that land-use change decreased the importance of personality in affecting risk perception. We demonstrate the importance of considering personality on foraging decisions under varying levels of risk, and more generally, underscore the importance of considering individual variation in affecting ecological processes

Technology Needs Assessment of an Atmospheric Observation System for Multidisciplinary Air Quality/Meteorology Missions, Part 2

The technology advancements that will be necessary to implement the atmospheric observation systems are considered. Upper and lower atmospheric air quality and meteorological parameters necessary to support the air quality investigations were included. The technology needs were found predominantly in areas related to sensors and measurements of air quality and meteorological measurements

Editorial: Novel Frontiers in Helminth Genomics

No abstract available

Theory of two-particle excitations and the magnetic susceptibility in high-Tc cuprate superconductors

Two-particle (2-p) excitations such as spin and charge excitations play a key role in high-Tc cuprate superconductors (HTSC). On the basis of a parameter-free theory, which extends the Variational Cluster Approach (a recently developed embedded cluster method) to 2-p excitations, the magnetic excitations of HTSC are shown to be reproduced for a Hubbard model within the relevant strong-coupling regime. In particular, the resonance mode in the underdoped regime, its intensity and "hour-glass" dispersion are in good overall agreement with experiments.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, version as publishe