Understanding the factors that predict victim retraction in police reported allegations of intimate partner violence

Objective: A large number of victims of intimate partner violence (IPV), who report their victimization to the police, subsequently either retract or disengage from the police investigation. Given that we have a very limited understanding of victim retraction/disengagement in IPV cases, this study addresses this gap by identifying the victim, perpetrator, and offense characteristics that predict retraction/disengagement. Method: Cases of police-reported IPV (n = 524) were analyzed to examine victim, perpetrator, and offense characteristics that may predict retraction or disengagement as well as examining the reasons given for retracting/disengaging from the police investigation. Results: The results indicated a high level of retraction or disengagement from police investigations. Victim and perpetrator characteristics did not predict retraction or disengagement; however, in comparison with cases in which the victims maintain engagement with the case, a number of offense related characteristics (e.g., risk assessment level) did predict retraction and disengagement. Conclusions: Victim retraction and disengagement is a significant issue in the successful prosecution of IPV cases, and the findings suggest that certain offense related characteristics increase the likelihood of victim retraction/disengagement

Evolution of damped Lyman alpha kinematics and the effect of spatial resolution on 21-cm measurements

We have investigated the effect of spatial resolution on determining pencil-beam like velocity widths and column densities in galaxies. Three 21-cm datasets are used, the HIPASS galaxy catalogue, a subset of HIPASS galaxies with ATCA maps and a high-resolution image of the LMC. Velocity widths measured from 21-cm emission in local galaxies are compared with those measured in intermediate redshift Damped Lyman alpha (DLA) absorbers. We conclude that spatial resolution has a severe effect on measuring pencil-beam like velocity widths in galaxies. Spatial smoothing by a factor of 240 is shown to increase the median velocity width by a factor of two. Thus any difference between velocity widths measured from global profiles or low spatial resolution 21-cm maps at z=0 and DLAs at z>1 cannot unambiguously be attributed to galaxy evolution. The effect on column density measurements is less severe and the values of dN/dz from local low-resolution 21-cm measurements are expected to be overestimated by only ~10 per cent.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS letter

Using Disciplinary Literacies to Enhance Adolescents\u27 Engineering Design Activity

This comparative case study describes the literacy practices of two groups of adolescents as they sought to solve authentic problems through engineering design processes. Three types of data were collected as the groups addressed these problems: video- and audio-recordings of their conversations; adolescent-generated products; and pre- and post-challenge interviews. The authors used existing coding schemes of engineering design activity to identify when the adolescents enacted different stages of engineering design, as well as a modified form of constant comparative analysis to identify the literacy practices that corresponded with each stage. The analysis indicates that applications of literacy practices at each stage of the engineering design process enhanced the adolescents\u27 overall design activity, whereas the absence of literacy practices often impeded the viability of their final designs. The authors suggest implications for high school engineering and science teachers who seek to enhance their students\u27 design activity through literacy instruction

Environmentally Sustainable Solvent-based Process Chemistry for Metals in Printed Circuit Boards

This chapter describes the development of several new processes relating to the fabrication, characterisation and recycling of printed circuit board (PCB) metal assemblies in alternative, sustainable solvent technologies based on an emergent class of liquids know as deep eutectic solvents (DES). It has been demonstrated that in many cases, the use of DES technologies can be disruptive to current process thinking and in principle can deliver benefits including increased efficiency,lower costs and better process control. These technologies offer the opportunity to incorporate new ideas into PCB fabrication and assembly that facilitate downstream, end-of-life recovery and separation consistent with a circular economy model. Current PCB manufacturing is carried out using many complex metal deposition processes involving aqueous solutions of toxic metal salts, strong inorganic acids, precious and expensive noble metals, and requires careful process control and monitoring. As a result, these processes are often costly to operate and inefficient. DES-based technologies can: (1) improve the economic and efficient use of essential metals; (2) reduce or eliminate use of precious and expensive metals; (3) reduce the use of complex and difficult to maintain process chemistry; (4) reduce reliance on toxic and noxious materials; and (5) improve recovery, recycling and reuse of PCB metals

Reductions in the dietary niche of southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) from the Holocene to the Anthropocene.

The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) is a marine mammal hunted to near extinction during the 1800s. Despite their well-known modern importance as a keystone species, we know little about historical sea otter ecology. Here, we characterize the ecological niche of ancient southern sea otters (E. lutris nereis) using δ13C analysis and δ15N analysis of bones recovered from archaeological sites spanning ~7,000 to 350 years before present (N = 112 individuals) at five regions along the coast of California. These data are compared with previously published data on modern animals (N = 165) and potential modern prey items. In addition, we analyze the δ15N of individual amino acids for 23 individuals to test for differences in sea otter trophic ecology through time. After correcting for tissue-specific and temporal isotopic effects, we employ nonparametric statistics and Bayesian niche models to quantify differences among ancient and modern animals. We find ancient otters occupied a larger isotopic niche than nearly all modern localities; likely reflecting broader habitat and prey use in prefur trade populations. In addition, ancient sea otters at the most southerly sites occupied an isotopic niche that was more than twice as large as ancient otters from northerly regions. This likely reflects greater invertebrate prey diversity in southern California relative to northern California. Thus, we suggest the potential dietary niche of sea otters in southern California could be larger than in central and northern California. At two sites, Año Nuevo and Monterey Bay, ancient otters had significantly higher δ15N values than modern populations. Amino acid δ15N data indicated this resulted from shifting baseline isotope values, rather than a change in sea otter trophic ecology. Our results help in better understanding the contemporary ecological role of sea otters and exemplify the strength of combing zooarchaeological and biological information to provide baseline data for conservation efforts

Dual positive and negative regulation of GPCR signaling by GTP hydrolysis

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) regulate a variety of intracellular pathways through their ability to promote the binding of GTP to heterotrimeric G proteins. Regulator of G protein signaling (RGS) proteins increase the intrinsic GTPase activity of G-subunits and are widely regarded as negative regulators of G protein signaling. Using yeast we demonstrate that GTP hydrolysis is not only required for desensitization, but is essential for achieving a high maximal (saturated level) response. Thus RGS-mediated GTP hydrolysis acts as both a negative (low stimulation) and positive (high stimulation) regulator of signaling. To account for this we generated a new kinetic model of the G protein cycle where GGTP enters an inactive GTP-bound state following effector activation. Furthermore, in vivo and in silico experimentation demonstrates that maximum signaling output first increases and then decreases with RGS concentration. This unimodal, non-monotone dependence on RGS concentration is novel. Analysis of the kinetic model has revealed a dynamic network motif that shows precisely how inclusion of the inactive GTP-bound state for the G produces this unimodal relationship

Towards on-farm pig face recognition using convolutional neural networks

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. Identification of individual livestock such as pigs and cows has become a pressing issue in recent years as intensification practices continue to be adopted and precise objective measurements are required (e.g. weight). Current best practice involves the use of RFID tags which are time-consuming for the farmer and distressing for the animal to fit. To overcome this, non-invasive biometrics are proposed by using the face of the animal. We test this in a farm environment, on 10 individual pigs using three techniques adopted from the human face recognition literature: Fisherfaces, the VGG-Face pre-trained face convolutional neural network (CNN) model and our own CNN model that we train using an artificially augmented data set. Our results show that accurate individual pig recognition is possible with accuracy rates of 96.7% on 1553 images. Class Activated Mapping using Grad-CAM is used to show the regions that our network uses to discriminate between pigs

Differential gene expression in multiple neurological, inflammatory and connective tissue pathways in a spontaneous model of human small vessel stroke

Aims: Cerebral small vessel disease (SVD) causes a fifth of all strokes plus diffuse brain damage leading to cognitive decline, physical disabilities and dementia. The aetiology and pathogenesis of SVD are unknown, but largely attributed to hypertension or microatheroma. Methods: We used the spontaneously hypertensive stroke-prone rat (SHRSP), the closest spontaneous experimental model of human SVD, and age-matched control rats kept under identical, non-salt-loaded conditions, to perform a blinded analysis of mRNA microarray, qRT-PCRand pathway analysis in two brain regions (frontal and midcoronal) commonly affected by SVD in the SHRSP at age five, 16 and 21 weeks. Results: We found gene expression abnormalities, with fold changes ranging from 2.5 to 59 for the 10 most differentially expressed genes, related to endothelial tight junctions (reduced), nitric oxide bioavailability (reduced), myelination (impaired), glial and microglial activity (increased), matrix proteins (impaired), vascular reactivity (impaired) and albumin (reduced), consistent with protein expression defects in the same rats. All were present at age 5 weeks thus pre-dating blood pressure elevation. ‘Neurological’ and ‘inflammatory’ pathways were more affected than ‘vascular’ functional pathways. Conclusions: This set of defects, although individually modest, when acting in combination could explain the SHRSP's susceptibility to microvascular and brain injury, compared with control rats. Similar combined, individually modest, but multiple neurovascular unit defects, could explain susceptibility to spontaneous human SVD

A cross-scale worldwide analysis of coastal adaptation planning

The Paris Agreement requires measurement of the progress made on adaptation. Tracking the progress made by governments through analysis of policies provides insight into the goals and means to achieve adaptation targets. Here we show the current state-of-the-art in public adaptation planning affecting 136 of the largest coastal port urban agglomerations, covering 68 countries. We identify 226 adaptation policies: 88 at national level, 57 at regional/state level and 81 at city/metropolitan level. This set of adaptation policies can be considered the latest, most up-to-date database of governmental and public-led adaptations. Our analyses show that (1) in one half of cases, there is no evidence of policy implementation, (2) in almost 85% of cases, planned adaptation actions are not driven by present or future climatic impacts or risks, and (3) formal adaptation planning is relatively recent and is concentrated in more developed areas and countries.This study is part of the project CLIC (Are cities prepared for climate change? http://clic.bc3research.org/) supported by AXA Research Fund (Grant Agreement No. 4771) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) (Grant Agreement No. IJCI-2016-28835). KV and RS acknowledge the support of the European Union programme Erasmus+