Behavioural case linkage : linking residential burglary offences in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Psychology at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

This thesis aims to replicate and extend prior research on behavioural case linkage from the United Kingdom and Finland, using a sample of residential burglaries committed in New Zealand. Eighty-two solved residential burglaries, committed by 47 serial burglary offenders in Napier, New Zealand, are sampled from the New Zealand Police National Intelligence Application (NIA) database. Prior research using behavioural case linkage for residential burglary has found support for the usefulness of crime scene behaviours, inter-crime distance and temporal proximity to accurately predict offences committed by the same offender. Inter-crime distance has consistently shown higher degrees of accuracy in determining whether two crimes are linked to the same offender. Using the methodology followed by previous researchers, 41 linked crime pairs (two offences committed by the same offender) and 41 unlinked crime pairs (two offences committed by different offenders) are created. Three behavioural domains of crime scene behaviours, inter-crime distance and temporal proximity of offences committed by the same offender are compared with offences committed by different offenders. Logistic regression analysis and receiver operating curve (ROC) analysis is used to determine the ability of the three behavioural domains to accurately predict whether offences are linked or not. Similar to prior studies, all three behavioural domains showed moderate predictive ability in reliably determining the linked status of crime pairs. Contrary to prior studies inter-crime distance was found to be the least accurate predictor in determining the linked status of crime pairs, with an optimal model combining temporal proximity with crime scene behaviours showing the greatest degree in determining whether crimes were committed by the same offender or not. These results provide support for the use of behavioural case linkage for linking residential burglary offences in New Zealand while caution is required when relying on inter-crime distance alone as a linking feature within small geographic areas

Enhancing GED Instruction to Prepare Students for College and Careers

To better understand how adult education programs might strengthen pathways to college and careers, MDRC, with financial support from the Robin Hood Foundation and MetLife Foundation, partnered with LaGuardia Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY) to launch a small but rigorous study of the GED Bridge to Health and Business program. The GED Bridge program represents a promising new approach to GED instruction, as it aims to better prepare students not only to pass the GED exam, but also to continue on to college and training programs. MDRC has conducted several evaluations of programs that include GED preparation as one among many program components, but this evaluation is one of only a few to focus specifically on GED curriculum, program design, and efforts to forge a stronger link to college and career training

Hybrid gene misregulation in multiple developing tissues within a recent adaptive radiation of Cyprinodon pupfishes.

Genetic incompatibilities constitute the final stages of reproductive isolation and speciation, but little is known about incompatibilities that occur within recent adaptive radiations among closely related diverging populations. Crossing divergent species to form hybrids can break up coadapted variation, resulting in genetic incompatibilities within developmental networks shaping divergent adaptive traits. We crossed two closely related sympatric Cyprinodon pupfish species-a dietary generalist and a specialized molluscivore-and measured expression levels in their F1 hybrids to identify regulatory variation underlying the novel craniofacial morphology found in this recent microendemic adaptive radiation. We extracted mRNA from eight day old whole-larvae tissue and from craniofacial tissues dissected from 17-20 day old larvae to compare gene expression between a total of seven F1 hybrids and 24 individuals from parental species populations. We found 3.9% of genes differentially expressed between generalists and molluscivores in whole-larvae tissues and 0.6% of genes differentially expressed in craniofacial tissue. We found that 2.1% of genes were misregulated in whole-larvae hybrids whereas 19.1% of genes were misregulated in hybrid craniofacial tissues, after correcting for sequencing biases. We also measured allele specific expression across 15,429 heterozygous sites to identify putative compensatory regulatory mechanisms underlying differential expression between generalists and molluscivores. Together, our results highlight the importance of considering misregulation as an early indicator of genetic incompatibilities in the context of rapidly diverging adaptive radiations and suggests that compensatory regulatory divergence drives hybrid gene misregulation in developing tissues that give rise to novel craniofacial traits

Developing research data management services at QUT

QUT Library and the High Performance Computing and Research Support (HPC) Team have been collaborating on developing and delivering a range of research support services, including those designed to assist researchers to manage their data. QUT’s Management of Research Data policy has been available since 2010 and is complemented by the Data Management Guidelines and Checklist. QUT has partnered with the Australian Research Data Service (ANDS) on a number of projects including Seeding the Commons, Metadata Hub (with Griffith University) and the Data Capture program. The HPC Team has also been developing the QUT Research Data Repository based on the Architecta Mediaflux system and have run several pilots with faculties. Library and HPC staff have been trained in the principles of research data management and are providing a range of research data management seminars and workshops for researchers and HDR students

Direct Numerical Simulation of decaying two-dimensional turbulence in a no-slip square box using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics

This paper explores the application of SPH to a Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS) of decaying turbulence in a two-dimensional no-slip wall-bounded domain. In this bounded domain, the inverse energy cascade, and a net torque exerted by the boundary, result in a spontaneous spin up of the fluid, leading to a typical end state of a large monopole vortex that fills the domain. The SPH simulations were compared against published results using a high accuracy pseudo-spectral code. Ensemble averages of the kinetic energy, enstrophy and average vortex wavenumber compared well against the pseudo-spectral results, as did the evolution of the total angular momentum of the fluid. However, while the pseudo-spectral results emphasised the importance of the no-slip boundaries as generators of long lived coherent vortices in the flow, no such generation was seen in the SPH results. Vorticity filaments produced at the boundary were always dissipated by the flow shortly after separating from the boundary layer. The kinetic energy spectrum of the SPH results was calculated using a SPH Fourier transform that operates directly on the disordered particles. The ensemble kinetic energy spectrum showed the expected k-3 scaling over most of the inertial range. However, the spectrum flattened at smaller length scales (initially less than 7.5 particle spacings and growing in size over time), indicating an excess of small-scale kinetic energy

Building eResearch Services, Capabilities and Capacity

The Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is known for several flagship eResearch centres. It also has a number of mature, centralised research support services that address a several of areas of eResearch. The university has openly stated its aspiration to be an institution with a strongly embedded eResearch capability and to this end it has expressed the desire to establish a university-wide eResearch support service. However, articulating this desire is much easier than realising it. During 2008 QUT undertook a major review into eResearch that made recommendations on the development of university-wide eResearch support service and the building of eResearch capabilities and capacity throughout the university. The results of this review were reported last year at this conference. In 2009, QUT is progressing a second, follow-on project – Building eResearch Support Capability and Capacity. It has been designed to build upon existing strengths in HPC, repositories, data management, and the delivery of integrated skills for eresearch. The purpose of this presentation is to give an update on QUT’s journey, one year on from its first major report into eResearch. It will outline how the university is approaching this challenge, the current work being carried out and the strategies being employed. We will also discuss the lessons learned

Saddlepath Learning

Saddlepath learning occurs when agents know the form but not the coefficients of the sad?dlepath relationship defining rational expectations equilibrium. Under saddlepath learning, we obtain a completely general relationship between determinacy and e-stability, and generalise Min?imum State Variable results previously derived only under full information. When the system is determinate, we show that a learning process based on the saddlepath is always e-stable. When the system is indeterminate, we find there is a unique MSV solution that is iteratively e-stable. However, in this case there is a sunspot solution that is learnable as well. We conclude by demon?strating that our results hold for any information set.e-stability, determinacy, learning, saddlepath stability.

AGN in dwarf galaxies: frequency, triggering processes and the plausibility of AGN feedback

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical SocietyWhile active galactic nuclei (AGN) are considered to be key drivers of the evolution of massive galaxies, their potentially significant role in the dwarf-galaxy regime (M ∗ < 10 9 M ⊙) remains largely unexplored. We combine optical and infrared data, from the Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) and the Wide-field Infrared Explorer, respectively, to explore the properties of ∼800 AGN in dwarfs at low redshift (z < 0.3). Infrared-selected AGN fractions are ∼10-30 per cent in dwarfs, which, for reasonable duty cycles, indicates a high black hole (BH)-occupation fraction. Visual inspection of the deep HSC images indicates that the merger fraction in dwarf AGN (∼6 per cent) shows no excess compared to a control sample of non-AGN, suggesting that the AGN-triggering processes are secular in nature. Energetic arguments indicate that, in both dwarfs and massive galaxies, bolometric AGN luminosities (L AGN) are significantly greater than supernova luminosities (L SN). L AGN/L SN is, in fact, higher in dwarfs, with predictions from simulations suggesting that this ratio only increases with redshift. Together with the potentially high BH-occupation fraction, this suggests that if AGN feedback is an important driver of massive-galaxy evolution, the same is likely to be true in the dwarf regime, contrary to our classical thinking.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio