138 research outputs found
The pursuit of procedural justice and police legitimacy: A case study of community police officers’ perceptions of the perceived benefits of higher education
This is a case study of suburban community police officers and their perception of benefits of higher education as it relates to outcomes of procedural justice and legitimacy. Acknowledging controversial, high-profile incidents which have caused the police profession to be generalized in a negative manner, this study sought to examine community-policing initiatives as an effective strategy for promoting positive community-police relationships. Community police officers were queried about academic and professional preparation they perceived as necessary for the demands of the 21st century community police officer.
Previous literature on community policing and procedurally just policing has primarily focused on the perceptions of the public. This study hoped to contribute to the literature as the authentic police officer voice. Analysis of the data revealed several themes and found that a redefined model of community policing is a promising answer to restoring trust between the community and the police. This new model shall be referred to as the Procedurally Just Community-Policing Model and concludes that when intentional community-policing efforts are intertwined with procedurally just policing practice, trust is maximized, therefore resulting in legitimac
Bank Runs and Banking Policies: Lessons for African Policymakers
This paper documents and explains the near-permanent banking stress African countries have experienced during the last 20 years. The central hypothesis is that banking stress comes predominantly from unbooked losses and that the level of unbooked losses a banking system can accumulate depends on its information environment and on the effectiveness of government efforts to supervise and guarantee bank solvency. African depositors face high costs for mitigating the loss exposures that banks and regulators impose on them and African regulators have not been made accountable for these costs. We present evidence that over 1980-99 the average length of time an African banking system spent in crisis increased with the level of government corruption.
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Convergence of Cortical, Thalamocortical, and Callosal Pathways during Human Fetal Development Revealed by Diffusion MRI Tractography
There has been evidence that during brain development, emerging thalamocortical (TC) and corticothalamic (CT) pathways converge in some brain regions and follow each other's trajectories to their final destinations. Corpus callosal (CC) pathways also emerge at a similar developmental stage, and are known to converge with TC pathways in specific cortical regions in mature brains. Given the functional relationships between TC and CC pathways, anatomical convergence of the two pathways are likely important for their functional integration. However, it is unknown (1) where TC and CT subcortically converge in the human brain, and (2) where TC and CC converge in the cortex of the human brain, due to the limitations of non-invasive methods. The goals of this study were to describe the spatio-temporal relationships in the development of the TC/CT and CC pathways in the human brain, using high-angular resolution diffusion MR imaging (HARDI) tractography. Emerging cortical, TC and CC pathways were identified in postmortem fetal brains ranging from 17 gestational weeks (GW) to 30 GW, as well as in vivo 34–40 GW newborns. Some pathways from the thalami were found to be converged with pathways from the cerebral cortex as early as 17 GW. Such convergence was observed mainly in anterior and middle regions of the brain until 21 GW. At 22 GW and onwards, posterior pathways from the thalami also converged with cortical pathways. Many CC pathways reached the full length up to the cortical surface as early as 17 GW, while pathways linked to thalami (not only TC axons but also including pathways linked to thalamic neuronal migration) reached the cortical surface at and after 20 GW. These results suggest that CC pathways developed earlier than the TC pathways. The two pathways were widespread at early stages, but by 40 GW they condensed and formed groups of pathways that projected to specific regions of the cortex and overlapped in some brain regions. These results suggest that HARDI tractography has the potential to identify developing TC/CT and CC pathways with the timing and location of their convergence in fetal stages persisting in postnatal development
The Demographics of Terrestrial Planets in the Venus Zone
Understanding the physical characteristics of Venus, including its
atmosphere, interior, and its evolutionary pathway with respect to Earth,
remains a vital component for terrestrial planet evolution models and the
emergence and/or decline of planetary habitability. A statistical strategy for
evaluating the evolutionary pathways of terrestrial planets lies in the
atmospheric characterization of exoplanets, where the sample size provides
sufficient means for determining required runaway greenhouse conditions.
Observations of potential exoVenuses can help confirm hypotheses about Venus'
past, as well as the occurrence rate of Venus-like planets in other systems.
Additionally, the data from future Venus missions, such as DAVINCI, EnVision,
and VERITAS, will provide valuable information regarding Venus, and the study
of exoVenuses will be complimentary to these missions. To facilitate studies of
exoVenus candidates, we provide a catalog of all confirmed terrestrial planets
in the Venus Zone, including transiting and non-transiting cases, and quantify
their potential for follow-up observations. We examine the demographics of the
exoVenus population with relation to stellar and planetary properties, such as
the planetary radius gap. We highlight specific high-priority exoVenus targets
for follow-up observations including: TOI-2285 b, LTT 1445 A c, TOI-1266 c, LHS
1140 c, and L98-59 d. We also discuss follow-up observations that may yield
further insight into the Venus/Earth divergence in atmospheric properties.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journa
Revised Properties and Dynamical History for the HD 17156 System
From the thousands of known exoplanets, those that transit bright host stars
provide the greatest accessibility toward detailed system characterization. The
first known such planets were generally discovered using the radial velocity
technique, then later found to transit. HD 17156b is particularly notable among
these initial discoveries because it diverged from the typical hot Jupiter
population, occupying a 21.2 day eccentric () orbit, offering
preliminary insights into the evolution of planets in extreme orbits. Here we
present new data for this system, including ground and space-based photometry,
radial velocities, and speckle imaging, that further constrain the system
properties and stellar/planetary multiplicity. These data include photometry
from the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) that cover five transits
of the known planet. We show that the system does not harbor any additional
giant planets interior to 10 AU. The lack of stellar companions and the age of
the system indicate that the eccentricity of the known planet may have resulted
from a previous planet-planet scattering event. We provide the results from
dynamical simulations that suggest possible properties of an additional planet
that culminated in ejection from the system, leaving a legacy of the observed
high eccentricity for HD 17156b.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in the Astronomical
Journa
Visible-light Phase Curves from the Second Year of the TESS Primary Mission
We carried out a systematic study of full-orbit phase curves for known transiting systems in the northern ecliptic sky that were observed during Year 2 of the TESS primary mission. We applied the same methodology for target selection, data processing, and light-curve fitting as we did in our Year 1 study. Out of the 15 transiting systems selected for analysis, seven—HAT-P-7, KELT-1, KELT-9, KELT-16, KELT-20, Kepler-13A, and WASP-12—show statistically significant secondary eclipses and day–night atmospheric brightness modulations. Small eastward dayside hot-spot offsets were measured for KELT-9b and WASP-12b. KELT-1, Kepler-13A, and WASP-12 show additional phase-curve variability attributed to the tidal distortion of the host star; the amplitudes of these signals are consistent with theoretical predictions. We combined occultation measurements from TESS and Spitzer to compute dayside brightness temperatures, TESS-band geometric albedos, Bond albedos, and phase integrals for several systems. The new albedo values solidify the previously reported trend between dayside temperature and geometric albedo for planets with 1500 K < Tday < 3000 K. For Kepler-13Ab, we carried out an atmospheric retrieval of the full secondary eclipse spectrum, which revealed a noninverted temperature–pressure profile, significant H2O and K absorption in the near-infrared, evidence for strong optical atmospheric opacity due to sodium, and a confirmation of the high geometric albedo inferred from our simpler analysis. We explore the implications of the phase integrals (ratios of Bond to geometric albedos) for understanding exoplanet clouds. We also report updated transit ephemerides for all of the systems studied in this work
Exercise and manual physiotherapy arthritis research trial (EMPART) for osteoarthritis of the hip: a multicenter randomized controlled trial.
OBJECTIVES: To determine the effectiveness of exercise therapy (ET) compared with ET with adjunctive manual therapy (MT) for people with hip osteoarthritis (OA); and to identify if immediate commencement of treatment (ET or ET+MT) was more beneficial than a 9-week waiting period for either intervention.
DESIGN: Assessor-blind randomized controlled trial with a 9-week and 18-week follow-up.
SETTING: Four academic teaching hospitals in Dublin, Ireland.
PARTICIPANTS: Patients (N=131) with hip OA recruited from general practitioners, rheumatologists, orthopedic surgeons, and other hospital consultants were randomized to 1 of 3 groups: ET (n=45), ET+MT (n=43), and waitlist controls (n=43).
INTERVENTIONS: Participants in both the ET and ET+MT groups received up to 8 treatments over 8 weeks. Control group participants were rerandomized into either ET or ET+MT groups after 9 week follow-up. Their data were pooled with original treatment group data: ET (n=66) and ET+MT (n=65).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The primary outcome was the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) physical function (PF) subscale. Secondary outcomes included physical performance, pain severity, hip range of motion (ROM), anxiety/depression, quality of life, medication usage, patient-perceived change, and patient satisfaction.
RESULTS: There was no significant difference in WOMAC PF between the ET (n=66) and ET+MT (n=65) groups at 9 weeks (mean difference, .09; 95% confidence interval [CI] -2.93 to 3.11) or 18 weeks (mean difference, .42; 95% CI, -4.41 to 5.25), or between other outcomes, except patient satisfaction with outcomes, which was higher in the ET+MT group (P=.02). Improvements in WOMAC, hip ROM, and patient-perceived change occurred in both treatment groups compared with the control group.
CONCLUSIONS: Self-reported function, hip ROM, and patient-perceived improvement occurred after an 8-week program of ET for patients with OA of the hip. MT as an adjunct to exercise provided no further benefit, except for higher patient satisfaction with outcome
Variability Catalog of Stars Observed During the TESS Prime Mission
During its 2-year Prime Mission, TESS observed over 232,000 stars at a 2-min
cadence across ~70% of the sky. These data provide a record of photometric
variability across a range of astrophysically interesting time scales, probing
stellar rotation, stellar binarity, and pulsations. We have analyzed the TESS
2-min light curves to identify periodic variability on timescales 0.01-13 days,
and explored the results across various stellar properties. We have identified
over 46,000 periodic variables with high confidence, and another 38,000 with
moderate confidence. These light curves show differences in variability type
across the HR diagram, with distinct groupings of rotational, eclipsing, and
pulsational variables. We also see interesting patterns across
period-luminosity space, with clear correlations between period and luminosity
for high-mass pulsators, evolved stars, and contact binary systems, a
discontinuity corresponding to the Kraft break, and a lower occurrence of
periodic variability in main-sequence stars on timescales of 1.5 to 2 days. The
variable stars identified in this work are cross-identified with several other
variability catalogs, from which we find good agreement between the measured
periods of variability. There are ~65,000 variable stars that are newly
identified in this work, which includes rotation rates of low-mass stars,
high-frequency pulsation periods for high-mass stars, and a variety of giant
star variability.Comment: 29 pages, 17 figures, accepted to ApJS, catalog available:
https://archive.stsci.edu/hlsp/tess-svc, data visualization tool:
https://filtergraph.com/tessvariabilit
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