Humane Education Programs for Youth (Panel Discussion)

Part I - Dr. Virgil S. Hollis Developing the number of school administrators who are increasingly becoming interested in humaneness and the humane society members who are interested in education, I think, means that all of us must keep close touch with each other although we know very little of each other\u27s field. This exposure to you and your programs in meetings such as this will surely result in a united attack on a mutual problem We need your help. And you need our help. You need help from the group that I represent in education because the many programs that are part of your cause for which you struggle will only be realized when you find a way for them to become a part of the educational program in the schools. There is a need for your programs in our curriculums. But just how do we get them there? This is our big question. I do hope that at the conclusion of this session we will arrive at some idea of what we might be able to do. Part II - Sherwood Norman I would like to treat my role in this discussion of humane education from the point of view of preventing delinquency. The prevention of delinquency and youth crime begins with the kind of environment we provide for our children - in homes, school, community, nation and world. It continues with the services available to parents and children on the verge of trouble and in heed of help, and it concludes with the effectiveness of correctional services after court processing. I hope, when you go back to your communities, you will cease to think about the correction of crime as a police problem (once you get them apprehended, put them away and forget about them). This is the general attitude of people who want more and more and more police protection, which is needed, without giving consideration to what happens afterward. Part III - Dr. Jean McClure Kelty I would contend that the basic philosophy of the western world is antithetical to our convictions about animals. We of the humane movement have produced no philosophy to counter it. Therefore, the young people we influence by programs like The Kindness Club must either reject what we have taught them and ultimately be absorbed into the system or they must remain outside the system for life, misfits, and therefore impotent

Multifractal analysis reveals music-like dynamic structure in songbird rhythms

Music is thought to engage its listeners by driving feelings of surprise, tension, and relief through a dynamic mixture of predictable and unpredictable patterns, a property summarized here as “expressiveness”. Birdsong shares with music the goal to attract its listeners’ attention and might use similar strategies to achieve this. We here tested a thrush nightingale’s (Luscinia luscinia) rhythm, as represented by song amplitude envelope (containing information on note timing, duration, and intensity), for evidence of expressiveness. We used multifractal analysis, which is designed to detect in a signal dynamic fluctuations between predictable and unpredictable states on multiple timescales (e.g. notes, subphrases, songs). Results show that rhythm is strongly multifractal, indicating fluctuations between predictable and unpredictable patterns. Moreover, comparing original songs with re-synthesized songs that lack all subtle deviations from the “standard” note envelopes, we find that deviations in note intensity and duration significantly contributed to multifractality. This suggests that birdsong is more dynamic due to subtle note timing patterns, often similar to musical operations like accelerando or crescendo. While different sources of these dynamics are conceivable, this study shows that multi-timescale rhythm fluctuations can be detected in birdsong, paving the path to studying mechanisms and function behind such patterns

Robot life: simulation and participation in the study of evolution and social behavior.

This paper explores the case of using robots to simulate evolution, in particular the case of Hamilton's Law. The uses of robots raises several questions that this paper seeks to address. The first concerns the role of the robots in biological research: do they simulate something (life, evolution, sociality) or do they participate in something? The second question concerns the physicality of the robots: what difference does embodiment make to the role of the robot in these experiments. Thirdly, how do life, embodiment and social behavior relate in contemporary biology and why is it possible for robots to illuminate this relation? These questions are provoked by a strange similarity that has not been noted before: between the problem of simulation in philosophy of science, and Deleuze's reading of Plato on the relationship of ideas, copies and simulacra

Public crises, public futures

This article begins to map out a novel approach to analyzing contemporary contexts of public crisis, relationships between them and possibilities that these scenes hold out for politics. The article illustrates and analyses a small selection of examples of these kinds of contemporary scenes and calls for greater attention to be given to the conditions and consequences of different forms and practices of public and political mediation. In offering a three-fold typology to delineate differences between ‘abject’, ‘audience’ and ‘agentic’ publics the article begins to draw out how political and public futures may be seen as being bound up with how the potentialities, capacities and qualities that publics are imagined to have and resourced to perform. Public action and future publics are therefore analysed here in relation to different versions of contemporary crisis and the political concerns and publics these crises work to articulate, foreground and imaginatively and practically support

The publics of public health in Africa

How do we understand the public character of public health in contemporary Africa? What are the parameters of community engagement in health care delivery, medical research and disease control programmes? To what extent is public health in Africa a project led by African Governments? Through what political processes and deliberative practices can African publics influence the priorities of research in health sciences and interventions which aim in broad terms to improve the health of such publics? Drawing insight from empirical research conducted with African scientists, nurses, community members, clinical trialists and policy-makers, this special section examines the multiple ways in which the public comes into being around public health provisioning and investigation in sub-Saharan Africa, its role and political reach. Collectively, these papers show how contestation and negotiation around different ideas about who the public is and what being public means can lead to the emergence of conflicting understandings, with implications for who and what is seen to represent the public interest, and for the acceptance of research and other interventions

Differing Perception of DNA Evidence and Intelligence Capabilities in Criminal Investigations

The ability to predict physical characteristics from DNA presents significant opportunities for forensic science. Giving scientists an ability to make predictions about the donor of genetic material at a crime scene can then give investigators new intelligence leads for cold cases where DNA evidence has not identified any person of interest. However, the interpretation of this new form of intelligence requires careful analysis. The responses to an online survey, conducted in 2018-19, were used to examine how actors in the criminal justice system assess and interpret different types of DNA evidence and intelligence. The groups of focus for the survey were investigators, legal practitioners and the general public (as potential jurors). Several statistically significant effects were identified based on occupation and whether an individual had prior exposure to new DNA technology. Monitoring how those involved in interpreting reports from different types of DNA evidence and intelligence interpret them helps to ensure that decisions are made based on a sound understanding of their capabilities and limitations and may inform broader training and awareness strategies

Generating Real-World Evidence on the Quality Use, Benefits and Safety of Medicines in Australia: History, Challenges and a Roadmap for the Future.

Australia spends more than $20 billion annually on medicines, delivering significant health benefits for the population. However, inappropriate prescribing and medicine use also result in harm to individuals and populations, and waste of precious health resources. Medication data linked with other routine collections enable evidence generation in pharmacoepidemiology; the science of quantifying the use, effectiveness and safety of medicines in real-world clinical practice. This review details the history of medicines policy and data access in Australia, the strengths of existing data sources, and the infrastructure and governance enabling and impeding evidence generation in the field. Currently, substantial gaps persist with respect to cohesive, contemporary linked data sources supporting quality use of medicines, effectiveness and safety research; exemplified by Australia's limited capacity to contribute to the global effort in real-world studies of vaccine and disease-modifying treatments for COVID-19. We propose a roadmap to bolster the discipline, and population health more broadly, underpinned by a distinct capability governing and streamlining access to linked data assets for accredited researchers. Robust real-world evidence generation requires current data roadblocks to be remedied as a matter of urgency to deliver efficient and equitable health care and improve the health and well-being of all Australians

The moral technical imaginaries of internet convergence in an American television network

How emergent technologies are imagined, discussed, and implemented reveals social morality about how society, politics, and economics should be organized. For the television industry in the United States, for instance, the development of internet “convergence” provoked the rise of a new discourse about participatory democracy as well as the hopes for lucrative business opportunities. The simultaneity of technical, moral, and social ordering defines the “moral technical imaginary.” Populating this concept with ethnographic and historical detail, this article expands the theory of the moral technical imaginary with information from six years of participant observation, interviews, and employment with Current TV, an American-based television news network founded by Vice President Al Gore to democratize television production. This chapter explores the limits of political participation and morality when faced with neoliberal capitalism