Risk and resilience:Crime and violence prevention in Aboriginal communities

Developmental prevention involves the manipulation of multiple risk and protective factors early in developmental pathways that lead to offending, often at transition points between life phases. The emphasis is not just on individuals but also their social contexts. Risk and protective factors for crime and violence in Aboriginal communities include such standard factors as child abuse, school failure and supportive family environments, but additional factors arise from unique aspects of Aboriginal history, culture and social structure. This paper draws on existing literature, interviews with urban Aboriginal community workers, and data from the Sibling Study to delineate those interrelated risk factors (forced removals, dependence, institutionalised racism, cultural features and substance use) and the equally interrelated protective factors (cultural resilience, personal controls and family control measures). These are 'meta factors' that provide a lens through which the standard lists can be interpreted, and are a starting point for the understanding of indigenous developmental pathways.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of Criminology and Criminal JusticeFull Tex

Physiological Speculation and Social Patterning in a Pahlavi Text

Belgium Herbarium image of Meise Botanic Garden

From Artaxerxes to Abu Ghraib: on religion and the pornography of imperial violence

In the wake of September 11, 2001, much has been written about religious groups commonly called ‘terrorist’, building on an older literature whose equally tendentious buzzwords were ‘cult’ and ‘fundamentalism’. In general, the conclusions advanced within such works tilt sometimes in the direction of alarm, and sometimes in that of reassurance. The amount of academic attention devoted to a given threat ought reflect its seriousness, based on calculations of the likelihood that threat will be realized and the destruction it can unleash. Among the most dangerous of situations is that in which an extremely powerful state bent on conquest finds and deploys religious arguments that encourage its aggressive tendencies and imperial ambitions. Believing that it may be useful to consider data sufficiently removed from the present to afford some critical distance, I have devoted much of my research in recent years to the role played by religion in Achaemenid Persia (550–330 bce), the largest, wealthiest, most powerful empire of antiquity before the emergence of Rome. As a convenient summary of that research, I propose to discuss two Achaemenian data, each of which can assume emblematic status. Only after that exercise will I return to contemporary materials and issues

Comparing policy gradient and value function based reinforcement learning methods in simulated electrical power trade

In electrical power engineering, reinforcement learning algorithms can be used to model the strategies of electricity market participants. However, traditional value function based reinforcement learning algorithms suffer from convergence issues when used with value function approximators. Function approximation is required in this domain to capture the characteristics of the complex and continuous multivariate problem space. The contribution of this paper is the comparison of policy gradient reinforcement learning methods, using artificial neural networks for policy function approximation, with traditional value function based methods in simulations of electricity trade. The methods are compared using an AC optimal power flow based power exchange auction market model and a reference electric power system model

Building Local Capacity to Respond to Environmental Change: Lessons and Case Studies from New York State

CaRDI Reports Issue 1

Regulation of intraocular pressure by soluble and membrane guanylate cyclases and their role in glaucoma

Glaucoma is a progressive optic neuropathy characterized by visual field defects that ultimately lead to irreversible blindness (Alward, 2000; Anderson et al., 2006). By the year 2020, an estimated 80 million people will have glaucoma, 11 million of which will be bilaterally blind. Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is the most common type of glaucoma. Elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) is currently the only risk factor amenable to treatment. How IOP is regulated and can be modulated remains a topic of active investigation. Available therapies, mostly geared toward lowering IOP, offer incomplete protection, and POAG often goes undetected until irreparable damage has been done, highlighting the need for novel therapeutic approaches, drug targets, and biomarkers (Heijl et al., 2002; Quigley, 2011). In this review, the role of soluble (nitric oxide (NO)-activated) and membrane-bound, natriuretic peptide (NP)-activated guanylate cyclases that generate the secondary signaling molecule cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP) in the regulation of IOP and in the pathophysiology of POAG will be discussed