NASP program technology: An example of transfer benefit for the medical industry and spinback benefit for the government

Technology developed in the National Aero-Space Plane (NASP) program is finding its way into a variety of applications ranging from aerospace to automotive to medical. The NASP Technology Applications Integrated Product Team (IPT) is pursuing technology transfer opportunities to promote the wide use of NASP-developed or-inspired materials in these and other industries. While product innovations and enhancements serve the commercial sector well, they also spin back to the government in the form of cheaper, higher-performing systems and components.     

Can information change public opinion? Another test of the Marshall hypotheses

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall offered his opinion regarding the utility of public opinion polls as a tool for assessing the “evolving standards of decency” regarding capital punishment. His arguments became known as the Marshall hypotheses and spawned a considerable body of empirical testing. The three Marshall hypotheses are: (1) support for capital punishment is inversely associated with knowledge about it, (2) exposure to information about capital punishment produces sentiments in opposition to capital punishment, but (3) exposure to information about capital punishment will have no impact on those who support it for retributive reasons. The results of previous tests of these hypotheses were somewhat mixed but supportive. None of these studies, however, examined the effects of change in knowledge levels with changes, if any, in death penalty attitudes and beliefs as needed for a more complete test of the Marshall hypotheses. The present study addressed this shortcoming. The results provided mixed support for these three hypotheses. That is, death penalty supporters were somewhat less informed than death penalty opponents; exposure to death penalty information and knowledge gains tended to be associated with attitudinal change in a directions suggested by these hypotheses; but, retributivists' attitudes toward and beliefs about capital punishment were not any more resistant to change than were the attitudes and beliefs of non-retributivists.     

An experimental study of a therapeutic boot camp: Impact on impulses, attitudes and recidivism

Two hundred thirty four adult male inmates entering prison were randomly assigned to an early release program in either a correctional boot camp or a large, traditional prison in the Maryland state correctional system. Boot camp releasees had marginally lower recidivism compared to those released from the traditional prison. A pre-test, post-test self report survey indicated the boot camp program had little impact on criminogenic characteristics except for a lowering of self control. In contrast, inmates in prison became more antisocial, lower in self control, worse in anger management, and reported more criminal tendencies by the end of their time in prison. Criminogenic attitudes and impulses were significantly associated with recidivism. The impact of the boot camp diminished to non-significance when antisocial attitudes or anger management problems were added to the models predicting recidivism. Implications for jurisdictions considering whether to operate correctional boot camps are discussed.     

Turf wars: Using social media network analysis to examine the suspected astroturfing campaign for the Adani Carmichael Coal mine on Twitter

This article uses social media network analysis (SMNA) to examine whether there was an astroturfing campaign on Twitter in support of the Adani Carmichael coal mine in 2017. It shows that SMNA can be used to visualize and analyze outsider lobbying activity in issue arenas and is capable of identifying networks of fake opinion. This study found that in April 2017, there was a small network of accounts that made a series of suspiciously similar pro‐Adani tweets that could be considered a form of duplicitous lobbying. However, this study concludes that these posts were likely a weak influence on public opinion in Australia and largely ineffectual as a lobbying tactic. Nevertheless, this analysis shows how communitas public interests can be subverted by covert social media campaigns used in support of corporatas goals, as well as the role digital research methods can play in protecting the integrity on public debates by exposing disingenuous actors.     

Reflections on mentoring experiences for evidence-informed decision-making in South Africa and Malawi

This article is based on the consensus that the availability and utilisation of research enhances policy discussions. The article reflects on the experiences within one approach: capacity building through mentoring. The UJ-BCURE programme aimed to increase the capacity of decision-makers to use evidence in decision-making via mentoring models. Mentoring is described as an interactive, facilitated process that promotes learning. The features of the models that have contributed to the programme’s success are orientation workshops with mentees combined with participatory, needs-led, and flexible approaches. UJ-BCURE experiences are relevant to the field of evidence-informed decision-making in an African government context.