Beyond violence, victimisation and the penal state: empowerment pathways for female incarcerated students

Incarceration rates are on the rise in Australia, particularly for women. For female prisoners, issues of class, gender and race intersect to compound disadvantage and create cycles of victimization, incarceration and isolation. Strategies for facilitating the successful reintegration of female prisoners need to acknowledge that women’s experience of incarceration is bound up with their experiences of both interpersonal and structural patriarchal violence. The University of Southern Queensland’s digital education projects in Australian correctional centres aim to reduce recidivism and break the cycle of victimization through education and tailored tertiary and pre-tertiary programs for incarcerated students. For 25 years USQ has been the largest provider of higher education in Australian correctional centres. Driven by a strong equity and social justice agenda we are particularly focused on meeting the needs of LSES (low socio-economic status), CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse), Indigenous and female incarcerated students through holistic approaches that recognise learners in social, political and cultural contexts. This includes recognising the barriers to social inclusion, successful reintegration and equitable participation in education faced by victims of gender-specific violence. This paper reports on the particular and complex challenges currently faced by female incarcerated students, and our attempts to provide empowering alternatives through tertiary and pre-tertiary education. It address the gap in feminist literature on the link between domestic violence, incarceration and educational disadvantage, employing a poststructuralist feminist analysis to unpack the false dichotomy between female ‘victim’ and female ‘offender’ in mainstream criminal justice discourses

Direct measurement of neon production rates by (α,n) reactions in minerals

The production of nucleogenic neon from alpha particle capture by ^(18)O and ^(19)F offers a potential chronometer sensitive to temperatures higher than the more widely used (U-Th)/He chronometer. The accuracy depends on the cross sections and the calculated stopping power for alpha particles in the mineral being studied. Published ^(18)O(α,n)^(21)Ne production rates are in poor agreement and were calculated from contradictory cross sections, and therefore demand experimental verification. Similarly, the stopping powers for alpha particles are calculated from SRIM (Stopping Range of Ions in Matter software) based on a limited experimental dataset. To address these issues we used a particle accelerator to implant alpha particles at precisely known energies into slabs of synthetic quartz (SiO_2) and barium tungstate (BaWO_4) to measure ^(21)Ne production from capture by ^(18)O. Within experimental uncertainties the observed ^(21)Ne production rates compare favorably to our predictions using published cross sections and stopping powers, indicating that ages calculated using these quantities are accurate at the ∼3% level. In addition, we measured the ^(22)Ne/^(21)Ne ratio and (U-Th)/He and (U-Th)/Ne ages of Durango fluorapatite, which is an important model system for this work because it contains both oxygen and fluorine. Finally, we present ^(21)Ne/^4He production rate ratios for a variety of minerals of geochemical interest along with software for calculating neon production rates and (U-Th)/Ne ages

Hydrogeochemistry of a buried preglacial channel in southeast Marshall County, Kansas

Call number: LD2668 .T4 GEOL 1987 F37Master of ScienceGeolog

Non-Equilibrium Dynamics Contribute to Ion Selectivity in the KcsA Channel

The ability of biological ion channels to conduct selected ions across cell membranes is critical for the survival of both animal and bacterial cells. Numerous investigations of ion selectivity have been conducted over more than 50 years, yet the mechanisms whereby the channels select certain ions and reject others are not well understood. Here we report a new application of Jarzynski’s Equality to investigate the mechanism of ion selectivity using non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations of Na+ and K+ ions moving through the KcsA channel. The simulations show that the selectivity filter of KcsA adapts and responds to the presence of the ions with structural rearrangements that are different for Na+ and K+. These structural rearrangements facilitate entry of K+ ions into the selectivity filter and permeation through the channel, and rejection of Na+ ions. A mechanistic model of ion selectivity by this channel based on the results of the simulations relates the structural rearrangement of the selectivity filter to the differential dehydration of ions and multiple-ion occupancy and describes a mechanism to efficiently select and conduct K+. Estimates of the K+/Na+ selectivity ratio and steady state ion conductance for KcsA from the simulations are in good quantitative agreement with experimental measurements. This model also accurately describes experimental observations of channel block by cytoplasmic Na+ ions, the “punch through” relief of channel block by cytoplasmic positive voltages, and is consistent with the knock-on mechanism of ion permeation

Neutrino Mixing Discriminates Geo-reactor Models

Geo-reactor models suggest the existence of natural nuclear reactors at different deep-earth locations with loosely defined output power. Reactor fission products undergo beta decay with the emission of electron antineutrinos, which routinely escape the earth. Neutrino mixing distorts the energy spectrum of the electron antineutrinos. Characteristics of the distorted spectrum observed at the earth's surface could specify the location of a geo-reactor, discriminating the models and facilitating more precise power measurement. The existence of a geo-reactor with known position could enable a precision measurement of the neutrino oscillation parameter delta-mass-squared.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, minor revisions, submitted to PR

Open knowledge commons versus privatized gain in a fractured information ecology: Lessons from COVID-19 for the future of sustainability

COVID-19 has shone a bright light on a number of failings and weaknesses in how current economic models handle information and knowledge. Some of these are familiar issues that have long been understood but not acted upon effectively – for example, the danger that current systems of intellectual property and patent protection are actually inimical to delivering a cost-effective vaccine available to all, whereas treating knowledge as a commons and a public good is much more likely to deliver efficient outcomes for the entire global population. But COVID-19 has also demonstrated that traditional models of knowledge production and dissemination are failing us; scientific knowledge is becoming weaponized and hyper-partisan, and confidence in this knowledge is falling. We believe that the challenges that COVID-19 has exposed in the information economy and ecology will be of increasing applicability across the whole spectrum of sustainability; sustainability scholars and policymakers need to understand and grasp them now if we are to avoid contagion into other sectors due to the preventable errors that have marred the global response to COVID-19. Social media summary COVID-19 highlights both the failures of privatized knowledge and worrying fractures in the wider information ecology

Keeping prisoners out of prison: the role of higher education in keeping Aboriginal Australians out of our prison system

An effective way to keep people out of prison is to stop prisoners from reoffending. In Australia, 77% of Aboriginal prisoners have been under sentence previously, as compared to around 50% for non-Aboriginal Australians. Many who end up in prison have had little opportunity to engage with education or have had negative schooling experiences. This is particularly true of Aboriginal prisoners who are half as likely to finish year 12 as non-Aboriginal Australians. With encouragement and support, these people may take the opportunity to engage with education during incarceration. This paper reports on an Australian-government-funded project, Making the Connection which facilitates participation in digital higher education in prisons with a view to reducing recidivism, particularly for Aboriginal Australians. Participation in education can help those incarcerated to develop critical thinking skills, digital literacies and the capacity for self-reflection. In addition, it promotes the prospects for employment on release and promotes positive connection to community and families. This helps reduce the risk of reoffending upon release, by equipping people with the cognitive tools to engage constructively with families, communities and an increasingly digital society. Most correctional jurisdictions prohibit the use of the internet by prisoners, yet most universities are increasingly reliant on the online provision of programs. This often results in the further marginalisation of those who are already marginalised, including prisoners. The Making the Connection project is developing internet-independent digital technologies and a suite of higher education programs that will enable Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal prisoners to engage with higher education

Megagauss Magnetic Field Sensors Based on Ag2Te

Pulsed power machines capable of producing tremendous energy face various diagnostic and characterizing challenges. Such devices, which may produce 10 - 100MAs, have traditionally relied on Faraday rotation and Rogowski coil technology for time-varying current measurements. Faraday rotation requires a host of costly optical components, including fibers, polarizers, retarders, lasers, and detectors, as well as setup, alignment, and time-consuming post-processing to unwrap the time-dependent current signal. Rogowski coils face potential problems such as physical distortion to the sensor itself due to the tremendous strain caused by magnetically induced pressures, which is proportional to the magnetic field squared (B2). Electrical breakdown in the intense field region is also a major concern. Other related challenges include, but are not limited to, bandwidth and inductance limitations and susceptibility issues related to electrical magnetic interference (EMI)