The Male Gender Empathy Gap: Time for psychology to take action.

Gender is not just an equality issue, but a diversity issue. Although differences are celebrated in every other field, in the social sciences, gender differences are denied or played down. We aren’t supposed to generalize about gender, because – in general – men and women are the same, supposedly. However as human beings, most people intuitively recognise that although men and women share many similarities, we are different in important ways

Time-resolved linewidth measurements of a wavelength switched SG-DBR laser for optical packet switched networks

We report time-resolved linewidth measurements of different sizes of optical packets under wavelength-switching for the first time and show that laser linewidth is significantly broadened during switching transition requiring ~3 mus to attain its minimum value

Characterization of frequency drift of sampled-grating DBR laser module under direct modulation

The authors demonstrate the drift in frequency of a static sampled-grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG DBR) laser module when it is subjected to direct modulation. The magnitude of drift and its settling time is characterized as a function of the index of modulation. Results show that when the directly modulated SG DBR is optically filtered, as in a dense wavelength- division- multiplexed system, a power penalty of 6.7 dB is incurred in comparison to the unfiltered case

Joint Doctrine Ontology: A Benchmark for Military Information Systems Interoperability

When the U.S. conducts warfare, elements of a force are drawn from different services and work together as a single team to accomplish an assigned mission. To achieve such unified action, it is necessary that the doctrines governing the actions of members of specific services be both consistent with and subservient to joint Doctrine. Because warfighting today increasingly involves not only live forces but also automated systems, unified action requires that information technology that is used in joint warfare must be aligned with joint doctrine. It requires also that the separate information systems used by the different elements of a joint force must be interoperable, in the sense that data and information that is generated by each element must be usable (understandable, processable) by all the other elements that need them. Currently, such interoperability is impeded by multiple inconsistencies among the different data and software standards used by warfighters. We describe here the on-going project of creating a Joint Doctrine Ontology (JDO), which uses joint doctrine to provide shared computer-accessible content valid for any field of military endeavor, organization, and information system. JDO addresses the two previously mentioned requirements of unified action by providing a widely applicable benchmark for use by developers of information systems that will both guarantee alignment with joint doctrine and support interoperability

A Bare Desire to Harm: Transgender People and the Equal Protection Clause

The U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges establishing marriage equality for same-sex couples marks a major shift in recognizing gay, lesbian, and bisexual people as a central part of the fabric of American society. Obergefell also marks the passing of the torch from “LGB” to “T”; the next civil rights frontier belongs to transgender people, for whom key barriers still remain. In January 2015, a transgender woman filed an equal protection challenge to a provision of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which explicitly excludes several medical conditions closely associated with transgender people. In support of this challenge, lawyers for the plaintiff (and co-authors of this Article) advance a novel argument: transgender people are a “suspect” or “quasi-suspect” class entitled to heightened scrutiny. The authors further argue that the ADA’s transgender exclusions are unconstitutional no matter what level of scrutiny applies because moral animus against transgender people is not a legitimate basis for lawmaking. This equal protection challenge paves the way for the extension of disability rights protection to transgender people under the Rehabilitation Act, Fair Housing Act, and state anti-disability discrimination laws that mirror the ADA. It also marks a new break for equality law—reaching far beyond disability rights to all laws that single out transgender people for disparate treatment. This challenge also informs the broader theoretical debate over the relationship between identity and impairment, and diagnosis and discrimination

'Reaching the hard to reach' - lessons learned from the VCS (voluntary and community Sector). A qualitative study.

Background The notion 'hard to reach' is a contested and ambiguous term that is commonly used within the spheres of social care and health, especially in discourse around health and social inequalities. There is a need to address health inequalities and to engage in services the marginalized and socially excluded sectors of society. Methods This paper describes a pilot study involving interviews with representatives from eight Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) organisations . The purpose of the study was to explore the notion of 'hard to reach' and perceptions of the barriers and facilitators to accessing services for 'hard to reach' groups from a voluntary and community sector perspective. Results The 'hard to reach' may include drug users, people living with HIV, people from sexual minority communities, asylum seekers, refugees, people from black and ethnic minority communities, and homeless people although defining the notion of the 'hard to reach' is not straight forward. It may be that certain groups resist engaging in treatment services and are deemed hard to reach by a particular service or from a societal stance. There are a number of potential barriers for people who may try and access services, including people having bad experiences in the past; location and opening times of services and how services are funded and managed. A number of areas of commonality are found in terms of how access to services for 'hard to reach' individuals and groups could be improved including: respectful treatment of service users, establishing trust with service users, offering service flexibility, partnership working with other organisations and harnessing service user involvement. Conclusions: If health services are to engage with groups that are deemed 'hard to reach' and marginalised from mainstream health services, the experiences and practices for engagement from within the VCS may serve as useful lessons for service improvement for statutory health services