Update on Geospatial Patterns of Antecedent Behavior among Perpetrators in the American Terrorism Study (ATS)

As part of the Terrorism and Extremist Violence in the United States (TEVUS) database integration effort, researchers at the Terrorism Research Center in Fulbright College at the University of Arkansas and the University of Oklahoma have been adding: 1) federal terrorism court cases and associated data and 2) incident and antecedent geospatial data from these court cases to the American Terrorism Study (ATS). The goal of the project is to examine geospatial patterns in perpetrator behavior and determine if the patterns identified in earlier studies have changed significantly. The ATS allows examination of a number of different units of analysis. Analyses may examine: (1) characteristics of federal terrorism court cases; (2) the characteristics of persons indicted in each court case or involved in incidents, otherwise referred to as indictees; (3) characteristics of incidents and planned incidents; and (4) antecedent activities that lead up to the incident and are necessary to carry it out and/or achieve the goals of the persons or groups

Patterns of Lone Actor Terrorism in the United States

This research explores the differences in geospatial and temporal patterns between lone actor and group-based terrorists in the United States. These include differences in demographics, precursor activities, proximity to the terrorism incidents, and longevity of conducting terrorist activities. Data for this analysis were derived from the American Terrorism Study (ATS). The ATS includes information on federal criminal cases resulting from FBI investigations for “terrorism or terrorism-related activities.” The analysis includes data from 264 prevented or completed terrorism incidents in the United States from 1980-present. These incidents involved 314 indictees charged with over 3,000 federal criminal counts. They were responsible for 1,788 recorded precursor activities that occurred at over 1,100 geocoded addresses

Changes in Producers’ Perceptions of Within-field Yield Variability Following Adoption of Cotton Yield Monitors

Precision Farming, Risk, Yield Monitor, Yield Variability, Yield Perceptions, Spatial Yield Distributions, Within Field Variability, Farm Management, Production Economics, Risk and Uncertainty, Q12, Q16,

The Longevity of American Terrorists: Factors Affecting Sustainability

This project was an outgrowth of two previous NIJ projects being conducted under NIJ’s Research and Evaluation on Domestic Radicalization to Violent Extremism program area. The first of these projects, which ended in 2015, focused upon testing one of the most prominent theoretical models of extremist radicalization -- identity and framing theory. One of the findings from examination of this theoretical model is consistent with the notion that “people want to be associated with a winner.” Recruitment and commitment, crucial to the lifespan of any terrorist movement, improve when the movement has been able to commit successful terrorist incidents (Freilich, Chermak, and Caspi, 2009), particularly if the offenders escaped unscathed. In the second project, which focused upon the temporal sequencing of terrorists’ precursor behaviors,2 a somewhat serendipitous finding emerged to crystalize the current issue. A preliminary analysis of the differences between “lone actors” and members of “cells or groups” revealed that lone actors “survived” substantially longer than members of cells or groups before being arrested or indicted. Although we later found this relationship to be spurious, it was worthy of further examination

Visually activating pathogen disgust: A new instrument for studying the behavioral immune system

The emotion of disgust plays a key role in the behavioral immune system, a set of disease-avoidance processes constituting a frontline defense against pathogenic threats. In the context of growing research interest in disgust, as well as recognition of its role in several psychiatric disorders, there is need for an improved understanding of behavioral triggers of disgust and for adequate techniques to both induce disgust in experimental settings and to measure individual variability in disgust sensitivity. In this study, we sought to address these issues using a multi-stage, bottom-up approach that aimed first to determine the most widespread and effective elicitors of disgust across several cultures. Based on exploratory factor analysis of these triggers, revealing four main components of pathogen-related disgust, we then generated a novel visual stimulus set of 20 images depicting scenes of highly salient pathogen risk, along with paired control images that are visually comparable but lack the disgust trigger. We present a series of validation analyses comparing our new stimulus set (the Culpepper Disgust Image Set, C-DIS) with the most commonly used pre-existing set, a series of 7 images devised by Curtis et al. (2004). Disgust scores from participants who rated the two image sets were positively correlated, indicating cross-test concordance, but results also showed that our pathogen-salient images elicited higher levels of disgust and our control images elicited lower levels of disgust. These findings suggest that the novel image set is a useful and effective tool for use in future research, both in terms of priming disgust and for measuring individual differences in disgust sensitivity

Factors Influencing Adoption of Remotely Sensed Imagery for Site-Specific Management in Cotton Production

This research evaluated the factors that influenced cotton producers to adopt remote sensing for variable rate application of inputs. Farmers who were younger, more highly educated, had a larger farm operation, and were more technologically savvy were more likely to have adopted remote sensing.Crop Production/Industries, Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies,

Adoption of Conservation-Tillage Practices in Cotton Production

Replaced with revised version of paper 10/23/07.conservation tillage, cotton, genetically modified seed, herbicide-resistant cotton, stacked-gene cotton, simultaneous logit model, single-equation logit model, technology adoption, Crop Production/Industries,

A Binary Logit Estimation of Factors Affecting Adoption of GPS Guidance Systems by Cotton Producers

Binary logit analysis was used to identify the factors influencing adoption of Global Positioning System (GPS) guidance systems by cotton farmers in 11 Mid-south and Southeastern states. Results indicate that adoption was more likely by those who had already adopted other precision-farming practices and had used computers for farm management. In addition, younger and more affluent farmers were more likely to adopt. Farmers with larger farms and with relatively high yields were also more likely to adopt. Education was not a significant factor in a farmer’s decision to adopt GPS guidance systems.binary logit, cotton, GPS guidance system, marginal effect, precision farming, technology adoption, Agribusiness, Crop Production/Industries, Q2, Q16, Q19, Q20, Q24,

Sequencing Terrorists\u27 Precursor Behaviors: A Crime Specific Analysis

Recently completed research (Smith et al., 2016) suggests that radicalization toward violence is best viewed as a process – a journey that begins with a less-radical identity and moves toward a more radical identity and corresponding orientation. Efforts to test this theoretical assertion revealed that the process of identity construction involves a variety of behaviors that David Snow has referred to as “identify work” (Snow and Machalek, 1983; Snow and McAdam, 2000; Snow, 2004; Cross and Snow, 2011). One type of identity work –demonstration events – appeared to be particularly relevant to our ability to predict radicalization toward violence and subsequent terrorism. The commission of acts in preparation for a terrorism incident serves to “demonstrate” the individual participant’s commitment to the cause as well as solidifying their radicalization to violence. The number and type of these demonstration events were significantly related to the terrorists’ rank or status in the cell or group, the severity of preparatory crimes they committed, and the number of terrorism incidents in which the individual was involved (Smith et al., 2016)

Adoption and Abandonment of Precision Soil Sampling in Cotton Production

Technology adoption in precision agriculture has received considerable attention, while abandonment has received little. Our objective was to identify factors motivating adoption and abandonment of precision soil sampling in cotton. Results indicate younger producers who farmed more cotton area, owned more of their cropland, planted more non-cotton area, used a computer, or used a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) were more likely to adopt precision soil sampling. Those with more cotton area or who owned livestock were more likely to abandon, while those who used precision soil sampling longer, used a PDA, or used variable-rate fertilizer application were less likely to abandon.Crop Production/Industries,