Use Of Force Research Articles

Defeat in Afghanistan: An Autopsy

Policy initiatives in the Trump administration and the Biden-Harris administration significantly accelerated the Taliban victory in Afghanistan. This article supports the conclusion that the major factors in this defeat were the historical difficulty in governing Afghanistan, the Afghan republic’s two inefficient and corrupt governments, an ineffective US strategy, operational shortcomings by US forces, an ineffective Afghan military, Pakistan’s duplicitous policy, and the strength and determination of the Taliban. This article rejects the claim that the United States’ nation-building effort was a major factor in its defeat and concludes with a discussion of lessons encountered.

Tubulins show susceptibility to magnetic nanoparticle interaction.

Low piconewton forces can induce axonal specification and outgrowth in neurons. However, the secondary mechanism underlying force-mediated axon specification is poorly understood. Within the axon shaft, microtubules, composed of α and β tubulin dimers, are stabilized by the protein Tau. These microtubules polymerize toward the axonal tip, where actin provides a tensile force against the membrane to maintain or extend the structure of the tip. We hypothesize that exogenous forces manipulate one or more of these structural proteins, which could induce axonal lineage. Our previous work has shown that hTau40, the brain's most ubiquitous isoform of Tau, can be directly dragged by internalized magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) within primary neurons. Here, we sought to establish whether this direct relationship between the nanoparticles and Tau applied to other axonal structural proteins. We transduced (BacMam) dissociated primary cortical neurons (rat, E18) at the day in vitro two (DIV 2) with one of three vectors containing a gene for a fluorescently labeled structural protein: α-tubulin-mCherry, β-tubulin-GFP, or β-actin-GFP. At DIV 4, the neurons were incubated for 24 h with starch-NH2-coated, far-red fluorescent magnetic nanoparticles (d: 100 nm) at 10 µg/mL. Cells were then washed and imaged using a Leica DMi8 inverted fluorescent microscope to determine whether there was high colocalization, indicating direct interaction, between the MNPs and the fluorescent proteins. Compared to the high-intensity protein spots, α-tubulin-mCherry showed the greatest percentage of correlated MNP clusters (45.7 ± 6.8 %, n = 11 cells), followed by β-tubulin-GFP, with 36.9 ± 11.7 % (n = 6) of high protein spots correlated to MNP clusters. Only 8.27 ± 5.32% (n = 7) of β-actin-GFP spots correlating to MNP clusters. These preliminary data suggest tubulins may be more susceptible to direct nanomagnetic force manipulation (mean ± SEM).

Single-molecule force manipulation facilitated multiple rereads of a drug-bound DNA at specified sites by surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy.

Single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) directly probes the vibrational characteristics of individual molecules to uncover the information inaccessible from ensemble measurements. As a surface-sensitive technique, the amplification of SERS signal occurs upon the excitation of localized surface plasmon resonance in metallic nanostructures, which can overcome optical diffraction limit for spatial detections at a nanometer scale. Complementary to this passive detection technique, optical tweezers-based single-molecule force manipulation method enables the active control of a target molecule with the restricted orientation in three dimensions. By applying a stretching force to the target molecule, it provides high-frequency feedback in sub-milliseconds with sub-piconewton force resolution and sub-nanometer distance sensitivity. Combining the active molecular control and the passive molecular vibrational measurement, we have integrated the dual-traps optical tweezers technique with the Raman spectroscopic detection platform. Under precise single-molecule force manipulations, the real-time SERS readout of the specified sites of a drug-bound DNA are recorded and re-recorded multiple times in a programmable manner. Our results showcase the promise of this correlative molecular manipulation and detection approach for real-time, label-free, and multi-dimensional characterizations of a single target biomacromolecule with both high spatial resolution and high site-specified recognition accuracy.

Geo-Politics of Afghanistan under Taliban Regime:

Abstract
 Taliban seized power in Kabul on 15th August 2021 after the abrupt pulling out of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan. Taliban assured international community about the human rights protection, women education, freedom of media, and no use of Afghan soil by terrorists against any other country. These assurances appraised international community not to oppose their regime. However, after more than a year has passed, future of Afghanistan is still uncertain. This study tries to analyse the geo-politics of Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul to Taliban. It tries to explore the reasons for non-confrontationist policies by the neighboring states as well as regional powers. Qualitative methodology with secondary sources has been used in this research. Findings of the research reveal that despite assurances by Taliban regime, Afghanistan is gradually plunging into the similar situation of 1990s. However, from regional integration perspective, there are high hopes that it can act as bridge between Central and South Asia and China with the Persian Gulf. Regional countries must contribute for the peace and development of Afghanistan by supporting the people of Afghanistan to decide their future. Afghanistan can either be a roundabout or a dead end street for the regional states that depends on the region’s policies towards it.

Is Indonesian Police Violence Excessive? The Dynamics of Police Shootings, 2005–2014

In Indonesia, debates about police use of force occur in the absence of data, with empirical and theoretical consequences for how the problem of police shootings is framed and understood. This article makes a first contribution to addressing that absence by analysing the National Violence Monitoring System dataset for spatial and temporal patterns in police shooting rates across provinces from 2005 to 2014, the nine years prior to the first term of President Joko Widodo. It assesses the causal relationship between police shootings and officer perceptions of threat in the environments where they operated threat. For the period surveyed, it is found that while police shooting rates were comparatively low, police officers had a significant monopoly on firearm-related violence and operated in environments of low perceived threat. No causal relationship is found between police shootings and police perceptions of threat.

Prevalence and Correlates of Police Contact Anxiety among Male and Female Black Emerging Adults in St. Louis, Missouri

AbstractAnxiety disorders are among the most prevalent disorders for Black emerging adults ages 18 to 29 in America. Moreover, some Black emerging adults with a history of exposure to police use of force may experience police contact anxiety (PCA) symptoms during (e.g., unable to relax) or in anticipation of future police contacts (e.g., urge to avoid police), which may develop into an anxiety disorder. To explore this phenomenon, the current study assessed the prevalence and correlates of PCA symptoms for Black emerging adults. Data were collected from a sample of Black emerging adults (N = 300). Univariate, bivariate, and ordinary least square regression analyses were done to estimate prevalence rates and correlates of PCA symptoms. PCA symptoms were moderately high for the sample, and participants who worked full-time were significantly less likely to have higher PCA symptoms because of seeing a video of police use of force in the media than those who were unemployed. Findings from the current study provide direction for future analyses focusing prospectively on prevalence, severity, and correlates of PCA symptoms. In addition, results suggest the importance of social work clinicians/practitioners assessing for PCA symptoms among their patients with a history of exposure to police use of force.

Pathways to TASER discharge: Qualitative comparative analysis of police use of force

Abstract We used a crisp-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (csQCA) to analyse of how key conditions interact within police use of force incidents to contribute to Conducted Energy Devices (CED), commonly known by the brand name TASER, being drawn and red-dotted (0), or drawn, red-dotted, and fired (1). Our sample is 22 incidents (11 red-dotted, 11 red-dotted and fired) between one officer and one person subjected to force recorded in the Use of Force Monitoring Forms for CED incidents from one of the 43 police forces in England and Wales. We identify the most parsimonious causal recipes for both outcomes using five causal conditions –i.e. Intoxication, Intelligence, Prior Knowledge, Weapon Possession, and Aggression. We found three different pathways to CED being red-dotted (0) and five distinct pathways to CED being red-dotted and fired (1). Our findings show that reported intelligence and prior knowledge play central roles in shaping causal recipes, and reported aggression by the member of the public is critical to CED firing decisions.

Accurate Perception of Manipulation Force Makes Vascular Intervention Safer

Manipulation force plays an important role in ensuring the safety of vascular intervention. Due to its extreme slightness, few studies have achieved accurate perception. In this study, a vision-based perception system is developed to obtain the manipulation force during guidewire delivery. In the system, an analysis framework is designed with the Hough transform and a fully connected neural network to establish the accurate transformation from visual image to haptic force. Experimental results indicate that the perception system achieves a minimal error (less than 0.1 N) in predicting the true force. It provides an effective solution for realtime monitoring dynamic manipulation in the context of vascular intervention. The proposed method also holds great potential for applications that require accurate force perception and control in various fields.

Supplemental Material for Examining the Consequences of Dehumanization and Adultification in Justification of Police Use of Force Against Black Girls and Boys

Supplemental Material for Examining the Consequences of Dehumanization and Adultification in Justification of Police Use of Force Against Black Girls and Boys

Supplemental Material for The Influence of Race on Jurors’ Perceptions of Lethal Police Use of Force

Supplemental Material for The Influence of Race on Jurors’ Perceptions of Lethal Police Use of Force

Male Police involved Intimate Partner Violence: Is it more Dangerous than Abuse by Civilians? An Argumentative Analysis

In the wake of the killing of George Floyd, Canadian and US policing has received mass scrutiny. These violent police behavior is currently prompting questions about the appropriate use of force by police officers. Police use of force usually focuses on police officer’s brutality in their official capacity, but there is a lack of empirical data on brutality and abuse perpetrated by police against their intimate partners in their private family lives. Although police officers are more likely than civilians to abuse their partners, the power and training provided to police officers by the state make them significantly more dangerous as domestic violence perpetrators. “Feminist theory” and “Hegemonic Masculinity theory” have been applied to understand the power and control that police officers have due to their training, which causes them to be considered more violent and dangerous for their families, especially for their intimate partners. To support the argument, three key themes have emerged: police abusers are skilled abusers; victims face a tremendous struggle to report the abuse; and available support systems for the victims of police abusers sometimes not adequate for them. Finally, some policy implications have been provided to address this problematic and potentially more dangerous issue.

Exploring Bias in Restraint Use: Four Strategies to Mitigate Bias in Care of the Agitated Patient in the Emergency Department.

Agitation is a routine and increasingly common presentation to the emergency department (ED). In the wake of a national examination into racism and police use of force, this article aims to extend that reflection into emergency medicine in the management of patients presenting with acute agitation. Through an overview of ethicolegal considerations in restraint use and current literature on implicit bias in medicine, this article provides a discussion on how bias may impact care of the agitated patient. Concrete strategies are offered at an individual, institutional, and health system level to help mitigate bias and improve care. Reprinted from Acad Emerg Med 2021; 28:1061-1066, with permission from John Wiley & Sons. Copyright © 2021.

A Mobile Natural Interactive Technique With Bare Hand Manipulation and Unrestricted Force Feedback for Virtual Assembly Tasks

Most existing virtual assembly technologies cannot effectively unify the operating and the feedback areas in both visualization and haptics with a large mobile workspace. Therefore, it is difficult to ensure high interactive naturalness and operational efficiency in a large assembly space. To address these problems, we propose a natural mobile interactive virtual assembly method with bare hand manipulation and unrestricted force feedback (MIVAM-BHM-UFF), covering a mobile interaction method, an unrestricted force feedback method, and a bare hand manipulation method. The mobile interaction method is developed to automatically track and capture the operator’s gestures in a moving way, expanding the interactive space. An unrestricted force feedback method is designed to provide a non-contact electromagnetic feedback force, eliminating the limitation of the traditional force feedback device and improving the interactive naturalness. A bare hand manipulation method is proposed to improve interactive efficiency by unifying the operational area and feedback area. To verify the effectiveness of MIVAM-BHM-UFF, five assembly experiments were performed. Experimental results indicate that compared with four assembly techniques, MIVAM-BHM-UFF show better user experiences in the virtual assembly processes.

Disorganized Political Violence: A Demonstration Case of Temperature and Insurgency

AbstractAny act of battlefield violence results from a combination of organizational strategy and a combatant's personal motives. To measure the relative contribution of each, our research design leverages the predictable effect of ambient temperature on human aggression. Using fine-grained data collected by US forces during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts, we test whether temperature and violence are linked for attacks that can be initiated by individual combatants, but not for those requiring organizational coordination. To distinguish alternative explanations involving temperature effects on target movements, we examine situations where targets are stationary. We find that when individual combatants have discretion over the initiation of violence, ambient temperature does shape battlefield outcomes. There is no such effect when organizational coordination is necessary. We also find that ambient temperature affects combat-age males’ endorsement of insurgent violence in a survey taken during the conflict in Iraq. Our findings caution against attributing strategic causes to violence and encourage research into how strategic and individual-level motivations interact in conflict.

Nonlinear tracking differentiator and PD controller for piezoelectric actuators in a robotic hand

This article deals with the modeling and control design for piezoelectric actuators of a micro-robotic system. Piezoelectric actuators generally exhibit complex and nonlinear behavior due to their inherent asymmetric hysteresis phenomenon, creep nonlinearity, and oscillatory characteristics. Moreover, these actuators are subject to an external disturbance force caused by the interaction with the manipulated objects. It has been shown in practice that these characteristics have a negative and significant impact on the performance of piezoelectric actuators, which increases the difficulty of their control. The main objective of this paper is to account simultaneously for all undesired and complex characteristics outlined above. To this end, our main idea is to lump the hysteresis and creep phenomena, as well as the disturbing manipulation force together as one total disturbance term. The total disturbance is first estimated in real-time via a nonlinear tracking differentiator, then feedback control law is designed to compensate for the disturbance and achieve a good transient profile. To validate and demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach, experiments are conducted, and results obtained are discussed.

INDIAN ENGAGEMENT WITH TALIBAN-LED AFGHANISTAN AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PAKISTAN

Establishing a liberal government in post-Taliban Afghanistan allowed India to fulfil its foreign policy goal, i.e., investment in Afghanistan to acquire leverage for its anti-Pakistan agenda. However, the twenty-year war ended with the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, resulting in the Taliban’s rise to power, diminishing Indian influence and reversion of its interests. India halted its investment and diplomatic engagement with the Taliban government due to its previous position, which led India to compromise on its strategic interests outlined in the presence of US forces. To safeguard its strategic interests, India has resumed its diplomatic and economic engagement with the Taliban government at a critical time when other regional states are analysing the US’ future course of action towards the war-torn country. Therefore, this paper examines how India evaluates the newly structured regional environment while finding a new role in Afghanistan. It also analyses the implications of India-Afghanistan re-engagement for Pakistan. Bibliography Entry Farooq, Muhammad. 2022. "Indian Engagement with Taliban-Led Afghanistan and Implications for Pakistan." Margalla Papers 26 (2): 87-95.

Measurement of Force and Intramuscular Pressure Changes Related to Thrust Spinal Manipulation in an In Vivo Animal Model.

Current knowledge regarding biomechanical in vivo deep tissue measures related to spinal manipulation remain somewhat limited. More in vivo animal studies are needed to better understand the effects viscoelastic tissue properties (i.e., dampening) have on applied spinal manipulation forces. This new knowledge may eventually help to determine whether positive clinical outcomes are associated with particular force thresholds reaching superficial and/or deep spinal tissues. A computer-controlled feedback motor and a modified Activator V device with a dynamic load cell attached were used to deliver thrust spinal manipulations at various magnitudes to the L7 spinous process in deeply anesthetized animals. Miniature pressure catheters (Millar SPR-1000) were inserted unilaterally into superficial and deep multifidi muscles. Measurements of applied mechanical forces and superficial/deep multifidi intramuscular pressure changes were recorded during spinal manipulations delivered in vivo. Manipulative forces and net changes in intramuscular pressures reaching deep spinal tissues are greatly diminished by viscoelastic properties of in vivo tissues, which could have possible clinical safety and/or mechanistic implications.

Using natural language processing to measure cognitive load during use-of-force decision-making training

PurposeFew studies have tested the efficacy of instruction based on cognitive load theory in police use-of-force (UoF) training due to limitations of existing cognitive load measures. Although linguistic measures of cognitive load address these limitations, they have yet to be applied to police UoF training. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.Design/methodology/approachOfficers’ verbal behavioral data from two UoF de-escalation projects were used to calculate cognitive load and assess how it varied with officer experience level (less-experienced, experienced). The verbal data were further analyzed to examine specific thinking patterns that contributed to heightened cognitive load across officer experience levels.FindingsAcross both studies, responses from less-experienced officers contained greater usage of cognitive language than responses from experienced officers. Specific cognitive processes that contribute to cognitive load in specific situations were also identified.Originality/valueThis paper enables police trainers to facilitate the development of adaptive training strategies to improve police UoF training via the reduction of cognitive load, and also contributes to the collective understanding of how less-experienced and experienced officers differ in their UoF decision-making.

Photoelectrochemical imaging of single cardiomyocytes and monitoring of their action potentials through contact force manipulation of organoids

Accurate monitoring of cardiomyocyte action potentials (APs) is essential to understand disease propagation and for trials of novel therapeutics. Patch clamp techniques offer ‘gold standard’ measurements in this field, but are notoriously difficult to operate and only provide measurements of a single cell. Here we propose photoelectrochemical imaging (PEI) with light-addressable potentiometric sensors (LAPS) in conjunction with a setup for controlling the contact force between the cardiomyocyte organoids and the sensor surface for measuring APs with high sensitivity. The method was validated through measuring the responses to drugs, and the results successfully visualized the expected electrophysiological changes to the APs. PEI allows for several cells to be monitored simultaneously, opening further research to the electrophysiological interactions of adjoining cells. This method expands the applications of PEI to three-dimensional geometries and provides the fields of stem cell research, drug trials and heart disease modelling with an invaluable tool to further investigate the role of APs.

Single-Molecule Human Nucleosome Spontaneously Ruptures under the Stress of Compressive Force: A New Perspective on Gene Stability and Epigenetic Pathways.

Force manipulation on the biological entities from living cells to protein molecules has revealed many mechanical details of cell biology from resolving folding and unfolding pathways to finding molecular interaction forces. A nucleosome is the basic repeating unit of chromatin where the histone octamer is wrapped by DNA, important for gene stability and regulation. How the inner side of the DNA gets accessed by other DNA binding molecules has been a puzzle that has been intensively studied and debated, important to epigenetics, gene stability, and regulations. Here we report our observation of spontaneous ruptures of human nucleosomes under pico-Newton (pN) compressive force. The amplitude of the compressive force, a squeezing rather than pulling force, involved in our experiment is tens of pN, which can be thermally available by biological force fluctuation at room temperature and under physiological conditions. This kind of structural rupture can loosen up the DNA around the histone, which in turn makes the DNA accessible to transcription and epigenetic modifications.