Improving the Accuracy of Firearm Identification in a Dynamic Use of Force Scenario

Law enforcement officers are sometimes required to make split-second use of force decisions. One factor that can impact their decision-making process is the presence of a weapon. This experiment sought to improve the speed and accuracy of weapon identification in a dynamic use of force scenario through the principles of deliberate practice. This research utilized randomized control trial with random assignment to either a control or test condition. Eighty-seven participants completed the pretest, intervention, and posttest. Participants’ vision was recorded via a mobile vision-tracker. With only 20 minutes of training, the test group made 1/3 the amount of decision errors as the control group (Cohen’s d = 0.95). The test group was about 16% faster than the control group at visually finding the object in the suspect’s hand and determining if it was a gun or not (Cohen’s d = 0.91).

Improving Expertise in Local Law Enforcement: Utilizing Virtual Environments to Assess Officer Performance and Standardize Training Procedures

Training for non-federal law enforcement agencies is subject to little regulation—training academies and education requirements often vary between departments—resulting in new officers with varying abilities and on-job proficiencies. The role of expertise can be evaluated in law enforcement and assessed to determine best practices for ideal on-job performance, especially in incidents requiring officers to make potentially lethal, rapid critical decisions (e.g., a use-of-force scenario). Training in a virtual environment has successfully been utilized to maximize management decision-making performance and accelerate the training process. A supplementation of cognitive skills training to existing law enforcement training procedures is proposed along with a recommendation on utilizing virtual environments to enhance expert training and develop a safer community environment.

Dynamical behavior of the universe: An entropic force scenario

Entropic force originates in the assumption that there is a horizon for the universe. This horizon gives rise to additional terms in the equations of motion. Using dynamical system calculations, our results show that in the presence of dark energy for certain conditions, the last attractor of this theory will be dark energy epoch, but in the absence of dark energy, entropic force energy portion will have the lead role in the late time universe and is responsible for accelerated expansion of that. Interestingly, assuming both entropic force terms and dark energy to have their share of energy density of the universe, we have found that, in certain conditions entropic force dominated epoch is a stable fixed point while the dark energy epoch is a saddle point.

Personality Factors as Determinants of Coping Resources among Indian Air Force Officers

Officers personality traits define he/she will respond in different situations. Officers in the Indian Air force face a variety of hazards in day to day life. To face these hazards they use different coping styles which in turn influence their performance. No studies have been conducted in the Indian Air force scenario on coping styles of officers. Indian Airforce officers (N=303) undergoing course at Institute of flight safety took part in this study. They were administered CRI (coping resource inventory) of 60 items and NEO-PIR of 260 items by the first author. The present study revealed a significant correlation between personality factors and coping styles of officers. Regression analysis predicted Extraversion and Neuroticism affected the coping resources among the officers.

Using money metaphors in banking discourse

Drawing on the theory of conceptual metaphors and on its socially and discursively oriented developments, this paper investigates the conceptualisation of money (and related notions like income, repayments, fees, interest rates or profit) in Romanian banking discourse. By analysing corpora composed of 74 documents issued by the National Bank of Romania (BNR) and by three other commercial banks, before and during the recent financial crisis, it aims to show how apparently unrelated metaphoric expressions (with source domains such as medicine, army or water) are in fact connected, giving rise to three coherent scenarios: a caring scenario, a physical force scenario and a river scenario. The article also highlights the role of (money) metaphor in persuading customers, creating identities and transferring ideologies.

Source apportionment using LOTOS-EUROS: module description and evaluation

To design effective mitigation strategies the origin of air pollutants needs to be known. Chemistry transport models can be used to assess the origin of air pollution across a large domain. However, in traditional simulations the information on origin is lost and brute force scenario studies are performed to assess the origin. Alternatively, one can trace the origin of air pollutants throughout a simulation using a labeling approach. In this paper we document and demonstrate a newly developed labeling module for the chemistry transport model LOTOS-EUROS which tracks the source allocation for all particulate matter components and precursor gases. Dedicated simulations confirmed that the new module functions correctly. The new module provides more accurate information about the source contributions than using a brute force approach with scenario runs as the chemical regime remains unchanged. An important advantage of the new module is the reduction of computation costs and analysis work associated with the calculations. The new module was applied to assess the origin of particulate nitrate across the Netherlands. Averaged across the Dutch territory the main contributions to nitrate derive from road and non-road transport as well as power plants. Overall, only one-fifth of the concentration derived from sources located inside the country. The new technology enables new research directions as improved information on pollution origin is desired for policy support as well as scientific applications.