Using the Results from Rigorous Multisite Evaluations to Inform Local Policy Decisions

Evidence‐based policy at the local level requires predicting the impact of an intervention to inform whether it should be adopted. Increasingly, local policymakers have access to published research evaluating the effectiveness of policy interventions from national research clearinghouses that review and disseminate evidence from program evaluations. Through these evaluations, local policymakers have a wealth of evidence describing what works, but not necessarily where. Multisite evaluations may produce unbiased estimates of the average impact of an intervention in the study sample and still produce inaccurate predictions of the impact for localities outside the sample for two reasons: (1) the impact of the intervention may vary across localities, and (2) the evaluation estimate is subject to sampling error. Unfortunately, there is relatively little evidence on how much the impacts of policy interventions vary from one locality to another and almost no evidence on the implications of this variation for the accuracy with which the local impact of adopting an intervention can be predicted using findings from an evaluation in other localities. In this paper, we present a set of methods for quantifying the accuracy of the local predictions that can be obtained using the results of multisite randomized trials and for assessing the likelihood that prediction errors will lead to errors in local policy decisions. We demonstrate these methods using three evaluations of educational interventions, providing the first empirical evidence of the ability to use multisite evaluations to predict impacts in individual localities—i.e., the ability of “evidence‐based policy” to improve local policy.     

Prediction and preliminary standardization of fire debris constituents with the advanced distillation curve method

The recent National Academy of Sciences report on forensic sciences states that the study of fire patterns and debris in arson fires is in need of additional work and eventual standardization. We discuss a recently introduced method that can provide predicted evaporation patterns for ignitable liquids as a function of temperature. The method is a complex fluid analysis protocol, the advanced distillation curve approach, featuring a composition explicit data channel for each distillate fraction (for qualitative, quantitative, and trace analysis), low uncertainty temperature measurements that are thermodynamic state points that can be modeled with an equation of state, consistency with a century of historical data, and an assessment of the energy content of each distillate fraction. We discuss the application of the method to kerosenes and gasolines and outline how expansion of the scope of fluids to other ignitable liquids can benefit the criminalist in the analysis of fire debris for arson.     

Foreign Aid Shocks as a Cause of Violent Armed Conflict

In this study we resolve part of the confusion over how foreign aid affects armed conflict. We argue that aid shocks—severe decreases in aid revenues—inadvertently shift the domestic balance of power and potentially induce violence. During aid shocks, potential rebels gain bargaining strength vis‐à‐vis the government. To appease the rebels, the government must promise future resource transfers, but the government has no incentive to continue its promised transfers if the aid shock proves to be temporary. With the government unable to credibly commit to future resource transfers, violence breaks out. Using AidData's comprehensive dataset of bilateral and multilateral aid from 1981 to 2005, we evaluate the effects of foreign aid on violent armed conflict. In addition to rare‐event logit analysis, we employ matching methods to account for the possibility that aid donors anticipate conflict. The results show that negative aid shocks significantly increase the probability of armed conflict onset.     

Defining a Moment in History: Parent Communication with Adolescents About September 11, 2001

Parents play an important role in helping their children process and interpret significant sociohistorical events. However, little is known about how parents frame these experiences or the specific social, cultural, and civic messages they may communicate about the event. In this study, we examined self-reported communication of parents from six communities in the United States with their adolescents about the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Parents’ (N = 972) open-ended responses about September 11th were analyzed to assess whether communication with their adolescents occurred and for thematic content. Results revealed marked variability in parents’ communication and suggest that many parents used September 11th as an opportunity to impart sociocultural, emotional, and civic messages. Identifying the diversity in parents’ responses aligns with the tenets of Terror Management Theory and provides insights into the roles of parents in translating pivotal historical moments. Collectively, these findings yield important implications for civic socialization.     

Recent Iowa trends in sudden unexpected infant deaths: the importance of public health collaboration with medical examiners' offices

During the winter in 2008, Iowa experienced an increase in sudden unexplained infant deaths (SUIDs). SUIDs and infectious causes of infant deaths generally average 3 monthly (SD = 1.0) in Iowa. However, in January 2008, 9 infant deaths were reported to the Iowa Department of Public Health and the Iowa Office of the State Medical Examiner. Between January and March of 2008, joint investigation of 22 SUIDs was conducted. The investigations required the involvement of multiple medical examiners from various jurisdictions, testing for pathogens at the University Hygienic Laboratory, epidemiologic support from the Iowa Department of Public Health, and consultation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The preliminary hypotheses for the increase in the infant mortality included viral respiratory disease and/or possible novel respiratory viral infections being the cause. Collaboration between public health and the medical examiner offices resulted in timely assessment of the cases. While no single causative agent was responsible for the increase seen in the number of infant deaths, respiratory pathogens played a role in the deaths of 15 of 22 children.     

Don’t Occupy This Movement: Thinking Law in Social Movements

Reflecting on the Occupy movement, particularly Occupy Wall Street, this article begins by addressing two major questions: how are social movements understood by legal academics; and how do social movements engage with law? Our aim is to present an alternative frame to understanding law and social movements. We draw on the work of Jean-Luc Nancy to explore law as both present and constituted in the coming together of persons in common which occurs in social movements. While the Occupy movement does engage with a form of law that is legislated and enacted through the government and legal system of a nation-state, the movement also forms and enacts law as part of its own processes. In this article we shift perspectives and attempt to think law within social movements. This involves a critical reading of some dominant approaches that explore social movements and law. Rather than situate our discussion within boundaries that seek to identify what is inside or outside a law and legal system that is determined and enforced by a nation-state (government and judicial system), our discussion of law involves a re-thinking of law. This law is part of a constant negotiation and it is involved in the dynamic processes of movements. Law involves establishing a limit and tracing this limit, but this limit is un-working itself as soon as it is constituted. The Occupy movements live law by existing not outside the law, but by rethinking the role and function of law in the movement and processes of community.     

Population genetics of the STR loci HUMCSF1PO, HUMF13A01, HUMFES/FPS and D12S391 in Asturias (northern Spain)

In order to use genetic loci in forensic identity testing, some population data are needed. This paper presents a report of allele frequency data for the loci HUMCSF1PO, HUMF13A01, HUMFES/FPS and D12S391 in a population sample from Asturias (northern Spain).No deviation from the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium was detected in any of the four markers investigated and there was no evidence of association between the alleles of these loci. Statistical analysis was also carried out to obtain some parameters of medico-legal interest and comparative studies were carried out with other populations studied to date for these loci. The Asturian sample does not differ substantially from other Caucasian and Spanish populations.