The anatomy of written scam communications: An empirical analysis

This paper examines the interactional construction of written scam communications. It draws on an empirical corpus of 52 envelopes containing letters and leaflets designed to deceive recipients into parting with their money or personal details, and presents the analysis of eight extracts in illustrating the findings. This research draws on interactional methodologies to provide in-depth insights into the underlying techniques used in scams, and to identify a wider framework that accommodates and facilitates their effect. It explores and exposes what elements of the scammers’ communicative efforts are enlisted and directed towards the performance of particular acts such as inferring legitimacy and credibility, and inspiring urgency and secrecy. These elements combine to perform a range of highly effective communicative acts that, although the communication is mass-produced with no knowledge of the recipient other than a name and address, result in the exploitation of their individual vulnerability in a highly personalised manner

Crowd behaviour in chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) emergencies: behavioural and psychological responses to incidents involving emergency decontamination

Planning for incidents involving mass decontamination has focused almost exclusively on technical aspects of decontamination, with little attempt to understand public experiences and behaviour. This thesis aimed to examine relevant theory and research, in order to understand public behaviour during incidents involving mass decontamination, and to develop theoretically-derived recommendations for emergency responders. As these incidents involve groups, it was expected that social identity processes would play an important role in public responses. A review of small-scale incidents involving decontamination is presented, along with a review of decontamination guidance documents for emergency responders. This literature shows that responder communication strategies play an important role in public experiences and behaviour, but that the importance of communication is not reflected in guidance documents. Theories of mass emergency behaviour, in particular the social identity approach, are reviewed, in order to generate hypotheses and recommendations for the management of incidents involving mass decontamination. It is hypothesised that effective responder communication will increase public compliance and cooperation, and reduce anxiety, mediated by social identity variables (e.g. perceptions of responder legitimacy, identification with emergency responders and other members of public, and collective agency). The empirical research presented in this thesis tests the hypotheses and recommendations derived from the social identity approach. The research includes: a responder interview study; three studies of volunteer feedback from field exercises; a visualisation experiment; and a mass decontamination field experiment. Findings show that effective responder communication consistently results in increased willingness to comply with decontamination, and increased public cooperation; this relationship is mediated by social identity variables. Results support the hypotheses, and show that an understanding of the social identity approach facilitates the development of effective responder communication strategies for incidents involving mass decontamination. Four theoretically-derived, and evidence-based, recommendations for emergency responders are generated as a result of this thesis

Guide to Participatory Scenario Planning (PSP): Experiences from the Agro-Climate Information Services for women and ethnic minority farmers in South-East Asia (ACIS) project in Ha Tinh and Dien Bien province, Vietnam

The Participatory scenario planning (PSP) workshop is a valuable knowledge-sharing platform through which stakeholders, including those who support the implementation of PSP (i.e., meteorological and agricultural services) and those who access and use the climate information (i.e., technical experts, and farmers) meet to discuss adaptation actions within the context of climate information. The PSP approach was developed under CARE International’s Adaptation Learning Programme (ALP). It was then adapted to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia under the Agro-Climate Information Services for women and ethnic minority farmers in South-East Asia (ACIS) project by CARE International in Vietnam and World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Vietnam

Dracula: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and Urban Life in Victorian England

Often, scholars examine Dracula through the lens of sexual dangers and exploits; however, there is another avenue that deserves investigation. Dracula: The Anti-Vaccination Movement and Urban Life in Victorian England examines the relationship between Bram Stoker\u27s Dracula and the anti-vaccination movement in Victorian England. In particular, this paper focuses on Stoker\u27s commentary on Victorian England\u27s vaccination movement throughout the pages of his work

Census-derived migration data as a tool for informing malaria elimination policy

Background: Numerous countries around the world are approaching malaria elimination. Until global eradication is achieved, countries that successfully eliminate the disease will contend with parasite reintroduction through international movement of infected people. Human-mediated parasite mobility is also important within countries near elimination, as it drives parasite flows that affect disease transmission on a subnational scale.Methods: Movement patterns exhibited in census-based migration data are compared with patterns exhibited in a mobile phone data set from Haiti to quantify how well migration data predict short-term movement patterns. Because short-term movement data were unavailable for Mesoamerica, a logistic regression model fit to migration data from three countries in Mesoamerica is used to predict flows of infected people between subnational administrative units throughout the region.Results: Population flows predicted using census-based migration data correlated strongly with mobile phone-derived movements when used as a measure of relative connectivity. Relative population flows are therefore predicted using census data across Mesoamerica, informing the areas that are likely exporters and importers of infected people. Relative population flows are used to identify community structure, useful for coordinating interventions and elimination efforts to minimize importation risk. Finally, the ability of census microdata inform future intervention planning is discussed in a country-specific setting using Costa Rica as an example.Conclusions: These results show long-term migration data can effectively predict the relative flows of infected people to direct malaria elimination policy, a particularly relevant result because migration data are generally easier to obtain than short-term movement data such as mobile phone records. Further, predicted relative flows highlight policy-relevant population dynamics, such as major exporters across the region, and Nicaragua and Costa Rica’s strong connection by movement of infected people, suggesting close coordination of their elimination efforts. Country-specific applications are discussed as well, such as predicting areas at relatively high risk of importation, which could inform surveillance and treatment strategies.<br/

Transit Timing Observations from Kepler: VII. Confirmation of 27 planets in 13 multiplanet systems via Transit Timing Variations and orbital stability

We confirm 27 planets in 13 planetary systems by showing the existence of statistically significant anti-correlated transit timing variations (TTVs), which demonstrates that the planet candidates are in the same system, and long-term dynamical stability, which places limits on the masses of the candidates---showing that they are planetary. %This overall method of planet confirmation was first applied to \kepler systems 23 through 32. All of these newly confirmed planetary systems have orbital periods that place them near first-order mean motion resonances (MMRs), including 6 systems near the 2:1 MMR, 5 near 3:2, and one each near 4:3, 5:4, and 6:5. In addition, several unconfirmed planet candidates exist in some systems (that cannot be confirmed with this method at this time). A few of these candidates would also be near first order MMRs with either the confirmed planets or with other candidates. One system of particular interest, Kepler-56 (KOI-1241), is a pair of planets orbiting a 12th magnitude, giant star with radius over three times that of the Sun and effective temperature of 4900 K---among the largest stars known to host a transiting exoplanetary system.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figures, 5 tables. Submitted to MNRA

The Transit Ingress and the Tilted Orbit of the Extraordinarily Eccentric Exoplanet HD 80606b

We present the results of a transcontinental campaign to observe the 2009 June 5 transit of the exoplanet HD 80606b. We report the first detection of the transit ingress, revealing the transit duration to be 11.64 +/- 0.25 hr and allowing more robust determinations of the system parameters. Keck spectra obtained at midtransit exhibit an anomalous blueshift, giving definitive evidence that the stellar spin axis and planetary orbital axis are misaligned. The Keck data show that the projected spin-orbit angle is between 32-87 deg with 68.3% confidence and between 14-142 deg with 99.73% confidence. Thus the orbit of this planet is not only highly eccentric (e=0.93), but is also tilted away from the equatorial plane of its parent star. A large tilt had been predicted, based on the idea that the planet's eccentric orbit was caused by the Kozai mechanism. Independently of the theory, it is noteworthy that all 3 exoplanetary systems with known spin-orbit misalignments have massive planets on eccentric orbits, suggesting that those systems migrate differently than lower-mass planets on circular orbits.Comment: ApJ, in press [13 pg

Masters v Cameron – Again!

Since 1986 many Australian courts have accepted that there exists a fourth category of Masters v Cameron. In 2004 the authors published an article criticising this development. That article was the subject of a reply by David McLauchlan in which he defended the fourth category on the basis that it allowed for the enforcement of an agreement to agree which he thought was a welcome development. This present article is a comment on Professor McLauchlan's paper and argues that the adoption of the fourth category has conflated an issue of construction – the meaning of 'subject to contract' when used in an agreement – with an issue of fact, namely, whether the parties intend to be bound

A rocky planet transiting a nearby low-mass star

M-dwarf stars -- hydrogen-burning stars that are smaller than 60 per cent of the size of the Sun -- are the most common class of star in our Galaxy and outnumber Sun-like stars by a ratio of 12:1. Recent results have shown that M dwarfs host Earth-sized planets in great numbers: the average number of M-dwarf planets that are between 0.5 to 1.5 times the size of Earth is at least 1.4 per star. The nearest such planets known to transit their star are 39 parsecs away, too distant for detailed follow-up observations to measure the planetary masses or to study their atmospheres. Here we report observations of GJ 1132b, a planet with a size of 1.2 Earth radii that is transiting a small star 12 parsecs away. Our Doppler mass measurement of GJ 1132b yields a density consistent with an Earth-like bulk composition, similar to the compositions of the six known exoplanets with masses less than six times that of the Earth and precisely measured densities. Receiving 19 times more stellar radiation than the Earth, the planet is too hot to be habitable but is cool enough to support a substantial atmosphere, one that has probably been considerably depleted of hydrogen. Because the host star is nearby and only 21 per cent the radius of the Sun, existing and upcoming telescopes will be able to observe the composition and dynamics of the planetary atmosphere.Comment: Published in Nature on 12 November 2015, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature15762. This is the authors' version of the manuscrip

When is a lie not a lie? When it’s divergent: Examining lies and deceptive responses in a police interview

Using UK police interviews as data, this empirical work seeks to explore and explain the interactional phenomena that accompany, distinguish, and are drawn upon by suspects in performing deceptive talk. It explores the effects of the myriad and often conflicting interactional requirements of turntaking, preference organisation and conversational maxims on the suspect’s talk, alongside the practical interactional choices of a suspect attempting to avoid revealing his guilt. This paper reveals a close link between the officer’s and suspect’s interaction and the patterned organisation of an assortment of divergent utterances produced in response to probing questions that follow a lie. The findings expose a hierarchical interactional order that explains the diverse and conflicting accounts of cues to deception in this field, suggesting that interactional phenomena are systematically enlisted in the orientating to, and the violation of interactional organisation which enables the suspect to produce utterances that protect his position, and can also be directed towards the performance of wider objectives such as reinforcing a claim of innocence or supporting a version of events