Search

Estimating organisms' responses to environmental variables and taxon associations across broad spatial scales is vital for predicting their responses to climate change. Macroinvertebrates play a major role in wetland processes, but studies simultaneously exploring both community structure and community trait responses to environmental gradients are still lacking. We compiled a global dataset (six continents) from 756 depressional wetlands, including the occurrence of 96 macroinvertebrate families, their phylogenetic tree, and 19 biological traits. Using Bayesian hierarchical joint species distribution models (JSDMs), we estimated macroinvertebrate associations and compared the influences of local and climatic predictors on both individual macroinvertebrate families and their traits. While macroinvertebrate families were mainly related to broad‐scale factors (maximum temperature and precipitation seasonality), macroinvertebrate traits were strongly related to local wetland hydroperiod. Interestingly, macroinvertebrate families and traits both showed positive and negative associations to the same environmental variables. As expected, many macroinvertebrate family occurrences were positively associated with temperature, but a few showed the opposite pattern and were found in cooler or montane regions. We also found that wetland macroinvertebrate communities would likely be affected by changing climates through alterations in traits related to precipitation seasonality, temperature seasonality, and wetland area. Temperature increases may negatively affect collector and shredder functional groups. A decrease in precipitation could lead to reductions in wetland area benefiting drought‐tolerant macroinvertebrates, but it may negatively affect macroinvertebrates lacking those adaptations. Wetland processes may be compromised through broad‐scale environmental changes altering macroinvertebrate family distributions and local hydroperiod shifts altering organism traits. Our complementary family‐based and trait‐based approaches elucidate the complex effects that climate change may produce on wetland ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leading police scholars and practitioners were asked to reflect on the most urgent issues that need to be addressed on the topic of use of force. Four themes emerged from their contributions: use of force and de‐escalation training needs to improve and be evaluated; new ways of conceptualizing use of force encounters and better use of force response models need to be developed; the inequitable application of force, and how to remediate biases, needs to be more fully understood; and misconceptions about police use of force need to be identified and corrected. The highlighted topics serve as an agenda for future research. Such research should provide greater insight into when, where, and why force is used by police officers, and how it can be applied appropriately. If implemented, the practical recommendations included in the contributions should have a positive impact on police performance, public trust and confidence in the police, and citizen and officer safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of police legitimacy evaluations is a core component of the legal socialization process. Research has identified many factors that impact peoples' perceptions of legitimacy such as social and ethnic identity, but the role of American identity has yet to be examined. This study attempted to gain a deeper understanding of the factors that impact legal socialization by examining the relationship between American identity and police legitimacy evaluations. Using a sample of 2086 adults from the United States, we found that people with a stronger American identity were more likely to believe the police are a legitimate authority after accounting for other known predictors of legitimacy. The results demonstrate that national identity may be play a key role in the legal socialization process and partially shape peoples' evaluations of police legitimacy regardless of the content and quality of interactions they have with the police. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyses of biota at lower latitudes may presage impacts of climate change on biota at higher latitudes. Macroinvertebrate assemblages in depressional wetlands may be especially sensitive to climate change because weather‐related precipitation and evapotranspiration are dominant ecological controls on habitats, and organisms of depressional wetlands are temperature‐sensitive ectotherms. We aimed to better understand how wetland macroinvertebrate assemblages were structured according to geography and climate. To do so, we contrasted aquatic‐macroinvertebrate assemblage structure (family level) between subtropical and temperate depressional wetlands of North and South America using presence–absence data from 264 of these habitats across the continents and more‐detailed relative‐abundance data from 56 depressional wetlands from four case‐study locations (North Dakota and Georgia in North America; southern Brazil and Argentinian Patagonia in South America). Both data sets roughly partitioned wetland numbers equally between the two climatic zones and between the continents. We used ordination methods (PCA and NMDS) and tests of multivariate dispersion (PERMDISP) to assess the distribution and the homogeneity in variation in the composition of macroinvertebrate assemblages across climates and continents, respectively. We found that macroinvertebrate assemblage structures in the subtropical depressional wetlands of North and South America were similar to each other (at the family level), while assemblages in the North and South American temperate wetlands were unique from the subtropics, and from each other. Tests of homogeneity of multivariate dispersion indicated that family‐level assemblage structures were more homogeneous in wetlands from the subtropical than the temperate zones. Our study suggests that ongoing climate change may result in the homogenization of macroinvertebrate assemblage structures in temperate zones of North and South America, with those assemblages becoming enveloped by assemblages from the subtropics. Biotic homogenization, more typically associated with other kinds of anthropogenic factors, may also be affected by climate change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: We conducted a randomized‐controlled trial (RCT) of a social interaction training program to determine its effectiveness in improving attitudes and behaviors among police officers. Survey data and a series of difference‐in‐difference tests found that participating in the training program improved attitudes with treatment group officers placing higher priorities on procedurally fair communication during a hypothetical officer–citizen encounter. An interrupted time‐series analysis of official use‐of‐force reports provided no evidence that the training program altered officer behavior. Policy Implications: Policing scholars and reformers have increasingly called for improvements to police training that emphasize communication and de‐escalation skills. Although many programs addressing these issues exist, evidence of their effectiveness has been scarce. Our findings provide evidence that such training may improve police officer attitudes but perhaps not behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compared projective mapping (PM) with check‐all‐that apply (CATA) with 24 consumers to traditional preference mapping with 257 consumers for evaluation of drivers of liking for brewed black coffees. For the PM exercise, black coffee consumers (n = 24) evaluated 11 coffees and placed them on a two‐dimensional plane based on similarities and then selected attributes from a provided list (PMCATA) to describe each coffee. These consumers also scored liking of each coffee. PMCATA and liking evaluations were completed in duplicate. A trained descriptive analysis (DA) panel (n = 8) documented properties of the coffees in quadruplicate and black coffee consumers (n = 257) were recruited for traditional consumer acceptance testing. Landscape segmentation analysis (LSA) was applied to trained panel data and consumer acceptance scores. Data from the PMCATA exercise was analyzed using multiple factor analysis (MFA). Consumer groups from the PMCATA exercise were differentiated by preferences for light or dark roast attributes. Similarly, determination of ideal points by LSA revealed that consumer groups were defined primarily by differences in preference for different roast types and roast‐related attributes. Based on the similarities in regard to product characterization and consumer segmentation, these results demonstrate that PMCATA can be an effective preliminary alternative to traditional methods for profiling and consumer preferences of complex products like coffee. Practical application Descriptive analysis (DA) and consumer acceptance testing for preference mapping can be time and cost intensive. This study demonstrates that projective mapping, combined with check‐all‐that‐apply (PMCATA) profiling by consumers, can be used as a rapid method for understanding a product landscape and acceptability of products with particular attributes. It is unlikely that PMCATA will replace preference mapping practices; however, it might serve as an effective alternative for researchers and developers when time or budget is constrained, or as an initial screening step for understanding a product category. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Alternative stable states are nontransitory states within which communities can exist. However, even highly dynamic communities can be viewed within the framework of stable‐state theory if an appropriate "ecologically relevant" time scale is identified. The ecologically relevant time scale for dynamic systems needs to conform to the amount of time needed for a system's community to complete an entire cycle through its normal range of variation. For some systems, the ecologically relevant period can be relatively short (eg, tidal systems), for others it can be decadal (eg, prairie wetlands). We explore the concept of alternative stable states in unstable systems using the highly dynamic wetland ecosystems of North America's Prairie Pothole Region. The communities in these wetland ecosystems transition through multiple states in response to decadal‐long climate oscillations that cyclically influence ponded‐water depth, permanence, and chemistry. The perspective gained by considering dynamic systems in the context of stable‐state theory allows for an increased understanding of how these systems respond to changing drivers that can push them past tipping points into alternative states. Incorporation of concepts inherent to stable‐state theory has been suggested as a key scientific element upon which to base sustainable environmental management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the authors' views about police body-worn camera (BWC) programs in America as of 2018, and it mentions the history of BWC usage in the country, as well as the need to identify the measurable goals of BWC programs. BWC video quality and privacy concerns are addressed, along with an effort to reduce police misconduct. It states that reducing the use of force by the police is a key goal of many law enforcement leaders. Police shootings are assessed.

This paper is concerned with strategic optimization of a typical industrial chemical supply chain, which involves a material purchase and transportation network, several manufacturing plants with on-site material and product inventories, a product transportation network, and several regional markets. In order to address large uncertainties in customer demands at the different regional markets, a novel robust scenario formulation, which has been recently developed by the authors, is tailored and applied for strategic optimization. Case study results show that the robust scenario formulation works well for this real industrial supply chain system, and it outperforms the deterministic formulation and the classical scenario-based stochastic programming formulation by generating better expected economic performance and solutions that are guaranteed to be feasible for all uncertainty realizations. The robust scenario problem exhibits a decomposable structure that can be taken advantage of by Benders decomposition for efficient solution, so the application of Benders decomposition to the solution of the strategic optimization is also discussed. The case study results show that Benders decomposition can reduce the solution time by almost an order of magnitude when the number of scenarios in the problem is large. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]