Unicorns or Tiger Woods: Are Lie Detection Experts Myths or Rarities? A Response to On Lie Detection “Wizards” by Bond and Uysal

Bond and Uysal (this issue) complain that expert lie detectors identified by O'Sullivan and Ekman (2004) are statistical flukes. They ignore one class of experts we have identified and misrepresent the procedures we use to identify the others. They also question the psychometric validity of the measures and protocol used. Many of their points are addressed in the chapter they criticize. The fruitfulness of the O'Sullivan-Ekman protocol is illustrated with respect to improved identification of expert lie detectors, as well as a replicated pattern of errors made by experts from different professional groups. The statistical arguments offered confuse the theoretical use of the binomial with the empirical use of the normal distribution. Data are provided that may clarify this distinction.     

Enhancing judicial skills in domestic violence cases: the development,implementation, and preliminary evaluation of a model US programme

ABSTRACT

The overwhelming number and complexity of domestic violence cases in criminal and family courts has resulted in the development of education programmes to assist judges. There is limited research on judicial education in this area. This paper reviews one such initiative entitled ‘Enhancing Judicial Skills in Domestic Violence Cases’ (EJS) that has been developed and implemented over the last 20 years by the National Judicial Institute on Domestic Violence, a partnership of the US Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women, National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and Futures Without Violence. We present findings of a preliminary evaluation of the programme based on the self-reports of 480 judges who had taken the four-day workshop between 2006 and 2010. Overall, judges reported the programme to be engaging and effective. At a six-month follow‐up, most of the judges identified specific benefits and behavior changes in the areas of access to justice, judicial leadership, victim safety, and abuser accountability as a result of participating in the programme. Critical issues in judicial education are highlighted based on the authors’ experiences in the development and implementation of this programme.     

Analysis and Discrimination of Single‐Layer White Architectural Paint Samples,

Comparative analyses of 50 single‐layer white architectural paints were conducted to determine the discrimination power using standard techniques and to provide a basis for assessing significance when paints with limited features are not discriminated. Utilizing Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), 68 undifferentiated pairs resulted, yielding a discrimination of 94.45%. Adding stereomicroscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) with energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS) and backscatter electron (BSE) imaging, and pyrolysis‐gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (Py‐GC/MS), the overall discrimination was 99.35%. The study included blind verification replicates, which resulted in the only pairs without indications of physical or chemical differences. The remaining groups of undifferentiated samples contained subtle differences by at least one technique, but were considered undifferentiated for the discrimination power evaluations. This study demonstrates a high degree of discrimination of single‐layer white architectural paints using methods of analysis often encountered in forensic science laboratories.     

Information systems and organizational development: Meeting the demands of information resource management in the twenty-first century

The central thesis of this article is that organizations in the twenty-first century will pursue the full benefits of information system technology by moving beyond a narrow focus on the technological dimensions to consider attendant managerial and policy issues. The challenges to establishing and implementing a coherent philosophy to guide information resource management are novel and difficult, but not unyielding. The application of organizational development techniques holds great potential to surmount these obstacles and may provide organizations with significant advantages from developments in computing technology in the twenty-first century. Evidence suggests that leading edge organizations are turning toward an integrated approach to Information Resource Management.

The benefits that advances in computer and information system technology offer to organizations in the twenty-first century seem indisputable, but whether organizations will actually achieve them, however, seems very much in question. The thesis of this article is that if organizations of the future are to garner full benefits from dramatic improvements in computing technology, they must develop a coherent philosophy for Information Resource Management (IRM). While the foundation for this philosophy rests on a strategy for integrating useful changes in computing technology into organizations, IRM must also encompass managerial and policy components. Yet, the field has been dominated by technological concerns, with only limited attention devoted to the other key dimensions.

In this article we propose a tripartite approach to information system adoption and implementation focusing on the technical, managerial, and policy dimensions. For Information System (IS) advantages to be fully realized, organizations must find ways to balance the demands of each of these components. Though these challenges should not be minimized, the article concludes that proven techniques from the field of organizational development can be brought to bear to deal with them constructively. Organizations that do so will very likely be rewarded with the substantial benefits that changes in computing and information system technology promise for the twenty-first century.     

Big Data,intelligence, and analyst privacy: investigating information dissemination at an NSA-funded research lab

The Laboratory for Analytic Sciences (LAS) at North Carolina State University, funded by the National Security Agency, is a collaborative, long-term research enterprise focused on improving intelligence analysis using Big Data. In its work, LAS has recently begun dealing with the trade-off between the collection, storage, and use of large unclassified data-sets and analyst privacy. We discuss particular privacy challenges at LAS, analyze privacy principles in the life cycle of LAS unclassified data-sets, what intelligence analysts themselves think about these privacy concerns, and recommend possible best practices potentially applicable to LAS, as well as future Big Data laboratories and research centers that collaborate with intelligence communities.     

Writing suffragette history: the contending autobiographical narratives of the pankhursts

On 10 October 1903 Emmeline Pankhurst founded the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), an organisation that was to become the most notorious of the groupings campaigning for the parliamentary vote for women in Edwardian England. Their militant campaign was led by Emmeline and her eldest daughter, Christabel, the WSPU's Chief Organiser, the two younger Pankhurst daughters, Sylvia and Adela, also becaming active in the movement. While all four women wrote accounts of the campaign, the focus here is on the published autobiographical narratives of the three elder Pankhurst women – Emmeline's My Own Story (1914), Sylvia's The Suffragette Movement (1931) and Christabel's Unshackled (1959). In particular, the ways in which these women presented themselves and each other, and how they related the story of their private family relationships as mother, daughters and siblings, is explored     

Electronic Funds and Benefits Transfers,E‐Government,and the Winter Commission

This article examines how electronic funds transfers and electronic benefit transfers have become integral components of digital government. These technologies have forwarded many of the principles of the Winter Commission, including the development of lean, responsive government. The greater efficiency and cost savings for the federal and most state governments have not been achieved without encountering and dealing with serious matters related to customer service, contracting, collaboration, management, and implementation. These issues arise in the normal daily use of electronic payment technologies, but they are magnified in crisis situations, as demonstrated by disaster relief operations during Hurricane Katrina.     

Does Welfare Provision Promote Democratic State Legitimacy? Evidence from Brazil's Bolsa Família Program

Conditional cash transfer programs may boost the electoral fortunes of incumbents among beneficiary groups, but do they also influence recipient attitudes toward state legitimacy? This article examines the relationship between Brazil's Bolsa Família program and recipients’ sense of the Brazilian state's political legitimacy, from 2007 to 2014. Using AmericasBarometer data and propensity score matching, this study provides evidence that targeted cash benefits correlate with citizens’ views of the state, but that this relationship is limited to increasing trust in core state institutions, local government, and incumbent political actors. Diffuse dimensions of regime legitimacy, including recipients’ sense of political community, support for regime principles, and retrospective perceptions of national economic performance, are largely unaffected by the receipt of targeted benefits. Over time, the evidence also suggests that the impact of program receipt on these measures of support remains largely unchanged.