Theology, News and Notes - Vol. 56, No. 02

Theology News & Notes was a theological journal published by Fuller Theological Seminary from 1954 through 2014.https://digitalcommons.fuller.edu/tnn/1165/thumbnail.jp

Benchmarking crime in London against other global cities

This report compares serious crime recorded by police in London to serious crime in 19 other global cities – large cities in developed countries around the world – to better understand changing patterns of serious crime

Multi-sensory storytelling: a tool for teaching or an intervention technique

This article reports on research undertaken to investigate how multisensory storytelling (MSST) was being used within schools for students with profound and multiple learning difficulties and other special educational needs. Semi-structured interviews (n=27) and observations (n=18) were undertaken in five schools in the East Midlands and south-east of England. The study identified that MSST was considered to contribute to the curriculum access, assessment, learning and socialisation of students across a wide range of special educational needs. Key opportunities, applications and barriers to use were identified. Findings from this study indicated that the way these teachers used MSST differed from extant research in this area with regard to both design and delivery. It is suggested that the desire to develop a quantitative evidence base may present unnecessary restrictions which inhibit the recognition of pedagogic issues; and that a more fluid conceptualisation of MSST would be reflective of real-world practice

Welfare impacts of the illegal wildlife trade in a cohort of confiscated greater slow lorises, Nycticebus coucang

Illegal harvesting and trade are major forces behind population declines of wild slow lorises (genus Nycticebus). The impacts of the wildlife trade on individual slow lorises have not been as well described. In this article, we describe quantitatively the consequences of the wildlife trade for 77 greater slow lorises, N. coucang, who were confiscated en masse and brought to Cikananga Wildlife Center in Indonesia. Medical records indicated that in total, 28.6% of the slow lorises died within the first 6 months, mostly due to traumatic injury, and all the infants died. The greatest sources of morbidity were external wounds (33.1% of 166 total medical events) and dental problems (19.3%). Of the surviving individuals, 25.4% displayed abnormal behavior. Behavioral observations indicated that healthy adults (n = 3) spent 48.2% of their active period performing stereotypies. These data illustrate the physical and behavioral impacts of the illegal wildlife trade on the welfare of slow lorises. We suggest that sharing these individual stories may help generate empathy and educate the public about the impacts of the exotic companion-animal (pet) trade on nonhuman animal welfare

What are the benefits of interacting with nature?

There is mounting empirical evidence that interacting with nature delivers measurable benefits to people. Reviews of this topic have generally focused on a specific type of benefit, been limited to a single discipline, or covered the benefits delivered from a particular type of interaction. Here we construct novel typologies of the settings, interactions and potential benefits of people-nature experiences, and use these to organise an assessment of the benefits of interacting with nature. We discover that evidence for the benefits of interacting with nature is geographically biased towards high latitudes and Western societies, potentially contributing to a focus on certain types of settings and benefits. Social scientists have been the most active researchers in this field. Contributions from ecologists are few in number, perhaps hindering the identification of key ecological features of the natural environment that deliver human benefits. Although many types of benefits have been studied, benefits to physical health, cognitive performance and psychological well-being have received much more attention than the social or spiritual benefits of interacting with nature, despite the potential for important consequences arising from the latter. The evidence for most benefits is correlational, and although there are several experimental studies, little as yet is known about the mechanisms that are important for delivering these benefits. For example, we do not know which characteristics of natural settings (e.g., biodiversity, level of disturbance, proximity, accessibility) are most important for triggering a beneficial interaction, and how these characteristics vary in importance among cultures, geographic regions and socio-economic groups. These are key directions for future research if we are to design landscapes that promote high quality interactions between people and nature in a rapidly urbanising world

Corrected score methods for estimating Bayesian networks with error-prone nodes

Motivated by inferring cellular signaling networks using noisy flow cytometry data, we develop procedures to draw inference for Bayesian networks based on error-prone data. Two methods for inferring causal relationships between nodes in a network are proposed based on penalized estimation methods that account for measurement error and encourage sparsity. We discuss consistency of the proposed network estimators and develop an approach for selecting the tuning parameter in the penalized estimation methods. Empirical studies are carried out to compare the proposed methods and a naive method that ignores measurement error with applications to synthetic data and to single cell flow cytometry data

Assessment of animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) vulnerability in cattle-owning communities of sub-Saharan Africa

Background: Animal African trypanosomiasis (AAT) is one of the biggest constraints to livestock production and a threat to food security in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to optimise the allocation of resources for AAT control, decision makers need to target geographic areas where control programmes are most likely to be successful and sustainable and select control methods that will maximise the benefits obtained from resources invested. Methods: The overall approach to classifying cattle-owning communities in terms of AAT vulnerability was based on the selection of key variables collected through field surveys in five sub-Saharan Africa countries followed by a formal Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) to identify factors explaining the variations between areas. To categorise the communities in terms of AAT vulnerability profiles, Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA) was performed. Results: Three clusters of community vulnerability profiles were identified based on farmers’ beliefs with respect to trypanosomiasis control within the five countries studied. Cluster 1 communities, mainly identified in Cameroon, reported constant AAT burden, had large trypanosensitive (average herd size = 57) communal grazing cattle herds. Livestock (cattle and small ruminants) were reportedly the primary source of income in the majority of these cattle-owning households (87.0 %). Cluster 2 communities identified mainly in Burkina Faso and Zambia, with some Ethiopian communities had moderate herd sizes (average = 16) and some trypanotolerant breeds (31.7 %) practicing communal grazing. In these communities there were some concerns regarding the development of trypanocide resistance. Crops were the primary income source while communities in this cluster incurred some financial losses due to diminished draft power. The third cluster contained mainly Ugandan and Ethiopian communities which were mixed farmers with smaller herd sizes (average = 8). The costs spent diagnosing and treating AAT were moderate here. Conclusions: Understanding how cattle-owners are affected by AAT and their efforts to manage the disease is critical to the design of suitable locally-adapted control programmes. It is expected that the results could inform priority setting and the development of tailored recommendations for AAT control strategies

Healthcare, the Environment and Biomedicine

The final SSIR project aim: To better understand the factors that impact student well-being at the University of Richmond, with a focus on those that raise happiness and reduce stress.Goals and questions included: ● To find statistically significant data that correlates to who the happiest spidURs are ● Tried to separate student groups to identify individual factors ● Sought out students who had lowest stress, highest happinesshttps://scholarship.richmond.edu/ssir-presentations-2019/1000/thumbnail.jp