Using brain MERMER testing to detect knowledge despite efforts to conceal

This experiment examined the accuracy and reliability of the memory and encoding related multifaceted electroencephalographic response (MERMER) technique for detecting information related to events subjects have experienced, despite subjects' efforts to conceal that knowledge. Information obtained through interviews was used to develop stimulus sets consisting of words and phrases presented to subjects visually by computer. Sets were composed of three types of stimuli: life experience-related (Probes), stimuli the subject was asked to memorize and respond to (Targets), and irrelevant information (Irrelevants). Each set of stimuli was tested on two individuals: (1) one individual who had participated in the event in question--and thus had the relevant information stored in his/her brain, and (2) one who had not. Six subjects were tested. Electrical brain responses to the stimuli were recorded non-invasively from the scalp and analyzed. MERMERs, (memory and encoding related multifaceted electroencephalographic responses), of which the P300 is a sub-component, were used to determine whether the subject had the relevant information stored in his brain (information present) or not (information absent), thus indicating whether or not each subject had participated in the real-life event in question. Bootstrapping was used to analyze and compare the responses to the three types of stimuli. As predicted, MERMERs were elicited by Probe stimuli only in the subjects who had participated in the investigated event, by Target stimuli in all subjects, and in no case by Irrelevant stimuli. For each of the six subjects, brain MERMER testing correctly determined whether the subject had participated in and consequently knew about the event in question (information present) or had not participated (information absent). The statistical confidence for this determination was 99.9% in five cases and 90.0% in one case. The article concludes with a discussion of areas of future research and the potential for using this new technology as an investigative tool in criminal cases.     

Accuracy of comparison decisions by forensic firearms examiners

This black box study assessed the performance of forensic firearms examiners in the United States. It involved three different types of firearms and 173 volunteers who performed a total of 8640 comparisons of both bullets and cartridge cases. The overall false-positive error rate was estimated as 0.656% and 0.933% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, while the rate of false negatives was estimated as 2.87% and 1.87% for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The majority of errors were made by a limited number of examiners. Because chi-square tests of independence strongly suggest that error probabilities are not the same for each examiner, these are maximum-likelihood estimates based on the beta-binomial probability model and do not depend on an assumption of equal examiner-specific error rates. Corresponding 95% confidence intervals are (0.305%, 1.42%) and (0.548%, 1.57%) for false positives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively, and (1.89%, 4.26%) and (1.16%, 2.99%) for false negatives for bullets and cartridge cases, respectively. The results of this study are consistent with prior studies, despite its comprehensive design and challenging specimens.     

Establishing Identity: How Direct‐to‐Consumer Genetic Testing Challenges the Assumption of Donor Anonymity

The rise of direct‐to‐consumer genetic testing is challenging the rules and expectations of the fertility industry concerning donor anonymity. While ethicists debate whose rights should prevail, many donor conceived people, recipient parents and donors are currently sharing their genetic information, along with methods to identify genetic links, in vast online communities, invalidating donor anonymity and providing a platform for those who advocate globally for legislative change to support donor‐linking practices. This article looks at why it is important to access this information in relation to identity and kinship formation and how the Family Court Community can apply this knowledge in order to achieve better outcomes for children and families.     

Financial performance studies of university spin-off companies (USOs) in the West Midlands

The Journal of Technology Transfer - Doubts remain over the true impact of university spin-offs (USOs), particularly those created outside elite research universities. This paper examines the...     

Mid Staffordshire: a Case Study of Failed Governance and Leadership?

The public inquiry chaired by Robert Francis QC into failings of care at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust made 290 recommendations about matters including: standards of patient care in the National Health Service (NHS); organisational culture and leadership; the use of data and information; the need for greater openness; and compassionate and committed nursing. In this paper, we argue that Mid Staffordshire represented a profound failure of governance and leadership. We use findings from a national research study to analyse the response made by the boards and leadership of NHS hospitals to the inquiry recommendations, setting out the repertoire of board roles and behaviours required for the governance of safe and effective care.     

Early Voting Changes and Voter Turnout: North Carolina in the 2016 General Election

North Carolina offers its residents the opportunity to cast early in-person (EIP) ballots prior to Election Day, a practice known locally as “One-Stop” voting. Following a successful legal challenge to the state’s controversial 2013 Voter Information and Verification Act, North Carolina’s 100 counties were given wide discretion over the hours and locations of EIP voting for the 2016 General Election. This discretion yielded a patchwork of election practices across the state, providing us with a set of natural experiments to study the effect of changes in early voting hours on voter turnout. Drawing on individual-level voting records from the North Carolina State Board of Elections, our research design matches voters on race, party, and geography. We find little evidence that changes to early opportunities in North Carolina had uniform effects on voter turnout. Nonetheless, we do identify areas in the presidential battleground state where voters appear to have reacted to local changes in early voting availability, albeit not always in directions consistent with the existing literature. We suspect that effects of changes to early voting rules are conditional on local conditions, and future research on the effects of election law changes on turnout should explore these conditions in detail.

     

The Motivational Effects of Mission Matching: A Lab‐Experimental Test of a Moderated Mediation Model

Scholarly literature finds positive motivational effects of matching workers and missions. However, the psychological mechanisms behind this matching effect have not been explored. This article develops and tests a moderated mediation model of mission matching in which meaningfulness serves as an intervening mechanism that explains the association between mission matching and effort. It also considers how individual differences in prosocial motivation influence the intervening role of meaningfulness. Using a real‐effort laboratory experiment with monetary incentives, the article shows that matched subjects exert more effort than mismatched subjects, that this effect is mediated by increases in meaningfulness, that prosociality moderates the effect of a match on meaningfulness, and that the indirect effect of a match on effort through increases in meaningfulness varies as a function of prosociality. These results contribute to a more nuanced understanding of mission matching and suggest that matching may be particularly important for certain types of workers.     

The Westminster Model and the “Indivisibility of the Political and Administrative Elite”: A Convenient Myth Whose Time Is Up?

This article argues that the principle of indivisibility in the relationship between political and administrative elites acted as a central convention of the Westminster system for much of the twentieth century. It explores how in more recent decades this principle has been challenged by the shift to a principal–agent approach. It considers the extent to which this shift diminishes the traditional Westminster model's understanding of the minister–civil servant relationship as one based on a symbiotic interdependent partnership. In its place has emerged a more universal command and control relationship that is seen as necessary to meet the demands of modern accountability and transparency. Such a change has fundamentally altered a long‐established power‐bargain between ministers and civil servants and undermined a core tenet of the Westminster model.     

Mediated political masculinities: the commander-in-chief vs. the new man

The media play a very influential role in our perceptions of our political leaders, irrespective of where in the world they appear. Since the latter part of the twentieth century, our leaders’ personalities came to play an increasing role in their appeal, in particularly their gendered performances. As Barack Obama's presidency draws to the end of its second term, this paper will examine the representation of his persona in the context of the election in 2008 when he became the first Black US president. Much has been written of him being the first Black president of the USA, however, if we explore his campaign through a gendered lens, we can see that he is equally revolutionary. This contrasts with the gendered construction of male political leaders in other parts of the world, particularly that of Vladimir Putin in Russia. Building on work carried out in relation to the mediatisation and personalisation of politics in the last 50 years, this article shows how gendered performances can be seen to mirror changes in society.     

The Transformation of Labor Party Immigration Policy, 1901–1945

ABSTRACT

The Commonwealth Labor government’s introduction of a program of mass immigration after the Second World War was a pivotal moment in the nation’s history. The program itself and the experiences of those who settled in Australia have been studied closely by historians and social scientists. Less attention has been given to the fact that the postwar policy represented a transformation of Labor’s traditional attitude to immigration. Since its foundation in the 1890s, the Australian Labor Party had been suspicious of immigration and opposed to programs of assisted immigration on the basis that migrant labour threatened the wages and conditions of Australian workers. This article traces Labor’s attitudes to migration before the Second World War and shows how economic and security exigencies compelled the party to repudiate its decades-long opposition to assisted immigration. The article suggests that the reason that the postwar immigration program does not receive greater prominence in histories of the Labor Party is because the policy and its chief architect, Arthur Calwell, are diminished by their association with the White Australia policy.