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

Topolectrical circuits

Invented by Alessandro Volta and F\'elix Savary in the early 19th century, circuits consisting of resistor, inductor and capacitor (RLC) components are omnipresent in modern technology. The behavior of an RLC circuit is governed by its circuit Laplacian, which is analogous to the Hamiltonian describing the energetics of a physical system. We show that topological semimetal band structures can be realized as admittance bands in a periodic RLC circuit, where we employ the grounding to adjust the spectral position of the bands similar to the chemical potential in a material. Topological boundary resonances (TBRs) appear in the impedance read-out of a topolectrical circuit, providing a robust signal for the presence of topological admittance bands. For experimental illustration, we build the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger circuit, where our impedance measurement detects a TBR related to the midgap state. Due to the versatility of electronic circuits, our topological semimetal construction can be generalized to band structures with arbitrary lattice symmetry. Topolectrical circuits establish a bridge between electrical engineering and topological states of matter, where the accessibility, scalability, and operability of electronics synergizes with the intricate boundary properties of topological phases.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figure

The Structural Diversity of ABS3 Compounds with d0 Electronic Configuration for the B-cation

We use first-principles density functional theory (DFT) within the local density approx- imation (LDA) to ascertain the ground state structure of real and theoretical compounds with the formula ABS3 (A = K, Rb, Cs, Ca, Sr, Ba, Tl, Sn, Pb, and Bi; and B = Sc, Y, Ti, Zr, V, and Nb) under the constraint that B must have a d0 electronic configuration. Our findings indicate that none of these AB combinations prefer a perovskite ground state with corner-sharing BS6 octahedra, but that they prefer phases with either edge- or face-sharing motifs. Further, a simple two-dimensional structure field map created from A and B ionic radii provides a neat demarcation between combinations preferring face-sharing versus edge- sharing phases for most of these combinations. We then show that by modifying the common Goldschmidt tolerance factor with a multiplicative term based on the electronegativity dif- ference between A and S, the demarcation between predicted edge-sharing and face-sharing ground state phases is enhanced. We also demonstrate that, by calculating the free energy contribution of phonons, some of these compounds may assume multiple phases as synthesis temperatures are altered, or as ambient temperatures rise or fall.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figure

The impact of asking intention or self-prediction questions on subsequent behavior: a meta-analysis

The current meta-analysis estimated the magnitude of the impact of asking intention and self-prediction questions on rates of subsequent behavior, and examined mediators and moderators of this question–behavior effect (QBE). Random-effects meta-analysis on 116 published tests of the effect indicated that intention/prediction questions have a small positive effect on behavior (d+ = 0.24). Little support was observed for attitude accessibility, cognitive dissonance, behavioral simulation, or processing fluency explanations of the QBE. Multivariate analyses indicated significant effects of social desirability of behavior/behavior domain (larger effects for more desirable and less risky behaviors), difficulty of behavior (larger effects for easy-to-perform behaviors), and sample type (larger effects among student samples). Although this review controls for co-occurrence of moderators in multivariate analyses, future primary research should systematically vary moderators in fully factorial designs. Further primary research is also needed to unravel the mechanisms underlying different variants of the QBE

The central limit problem for random vectors with symmetries

Motivated by the central limit problem for convex bodies, we study normal approximation of linear functionals of high-dimensional random vectors with various types of symmetries. In particular, we obtain results for distributions which are coordinatewise symmetric, uniform in a regular simplex, or spherically symmetric. Our proofs are based on Stein's method of exchangeable pairs; as far as we know, this approach has not previously been used in convex geometry and we give a brief introduction to the classical method. The spherically symmetric case is treated by a variation of Stein's method which is adapted for continuous symmetries.Comment: AMS-LaTeX, uses xy-pic, 23 pages; v3: added new corollary to Theorem

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

Hamiltonian submanifolds of regular polytopes

We investigate polyhedral $2k$-manifolds as subcomplexes of the boundary complex of a regular polytope. We call such a subcomplex {\it $k$-Hamiltonian} if it contains the full $k$-skeleton of the polytope. Since the case of the cube is well known and since the case of a simplex was also previously studied (these are so-called {\it super-neighborly triangulations}) we focus on the case of the cross polytope and the sporadic regular 4-polytopes. By our results the existence of 1-Hamiltonian surfaces is now decided for all regular polytopes. Furthermore we investigate 2-Hamiltonian 4-manifolds in the $d$-dimensional cross polytope. These are the "regular cases" satisfying equality in Sparla's inequality. In particular, we present a new example with 16 vertices which is highly symmetric with an automorphism group of order 128. Topologically it is homeomorphic to a connected sum of 7 copies of $S^2 \times S^2$. By this example all regular cases of $n$ vertices with $n < 20$ or, equivalently, all cases of regular $d$-polytopes with $d\leq 9$ are now decided.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figure

Phase diagram and single-particle spectrum of CuO2_2 layers within a variational cluster approach to the 3-band Hubbard model

We carry out a detailed numerical study of the three-band Hubbard model in the underdoped region both in the hole- as well as in the electron-doped case by means of the variational cluster approach. Both the phase diagram and the low-energy single-particle spectrum are very similar to recent results for the single-band Hubbard model with next-nearest-neighbor hoppings. In particular, we obtain a mixed antiferromagnetic+superconducting phase at low doping with a first-order transition to a pure superconducting phase accompanied by phase separation. In the single-particle spectrum a clear Zhang-Rice singlet band with an incoherent and a coherent part can be seen, in which holes enter upon doping around $(\pi/2,\pi/2)$. The latter is very similar to the coherent quasi-particle band crossing the Fermi surface in the single-band model. Doped electrons go instead into the upper Hubbard band, first filling the regions of the Brillouin zone around $(\pi,0)$. This fact can be related to the enhanced robustness of the antiferromagnetic phase as a function of electron doping compared to hole doping.Comment: 14 pages, 15 eps figure