China and the global environment: learning from the past, anticipating the future

China's environmental problems are now at the forefront of domestic and international concern. In this new Lowy Institute Paper, 'China and the global environment: learning from the past, anticipating the future', Dr Katherine Morton examines the potential for China's system of environmental governance to respond effectively to the crises, both within and beyond territorial boundaries

Alien Registration- Vaughan, Katherine A. (Gorham, Cumberland County)

https://digitalmaine.com/alien_docs/31595/thumbnail.jp

The Rights and Responsibilities of Disagreement

As part of the robust engagement of the People's Republic of China with media and academic opinion internationally, outspoken interventions, pointed critiques as well as rambunctious declamations are increasingly common. This should be the cause of celebration: multiple voices from China on topics of moment will surely enrich our understanding of that important country and the variety of professional and public opinion

Policy analysis and policy analytics

Working from a description of what policy analysis entails, we review the emergence of the recent field of analytics and how it may impact public policy making. In particular, we seek to expose current applications of, and future possibilities for, new analytic methods that can be used to support public policy problem-solving and decision processes, which we term policy analytics. We then review key contributions to this special volume, which seek to support policy making or delivery in the areas of energy planning, urban transportation planning, medical emergency planning, healthcare, social services, national security, defence, government finance allocation, understanding public opinion, and fire and police services. An identified challenge, which is specific to policy analytics, is to recognize that public sector applications must balance the need for robust and convincing analysis with the need for satisfying legitimate public expectations about transparency and opportunities for participation. This opens up a range of forms of analysis relevant to public policy distinct from those most common in business, including those that can support democratization and mediation of value conflicts within policy processes. We conclude by identifying some potential research and development issues for the emerging field of policy analytics

Speech synthesis in dialogue systems

ABSTRACT This paper deals with the need for speech synthesis in dialogue systems to incorporate tone of voice for cueing in the listener feelings concerning the attitude of the computerspeaker. Dialogue systems intended for different purposes require different global tones of voice to sound completely convincing. But in addition the synthetic speech needs local tones of voice to signify changing and adapting attitudes during the course of the dialogue with the human user of the system. We discuss the format of a tone of voice model, and provide an example using intonation declination. Keywords: dialogue systems, speech synthesis, pragmatics, intonation, declination. INTRODUCTION In dialogue systems where human users and a computer interact for the purposes of information exchange it is essential that the voice input and output interface be of high quality to gain lay user acceptability. An inquiry system operating over a telephone network is a good example of dialogue based interaction for requesting information. Current speech synthesis systems are proving inadequate for high quality voice output in such systems. Failure to provide a quality acceptable for general use lies not with the acoustic model incorporated into good synthesisers This information is always present in human speech, but is lacking in synthetic speech. Users of dialogue systems feel uneasy if such information is absent. Our paper argues that for good quality natural sounding (and therefore convincing) output synthetic speech systems need to capture mood and attitude through adequate prosodic rendering. We see incorporating these effects in the language model which forms the basis of the voice output system as essential for this purpose

Anti-Ageing and Women's Bodies: Spaces, Practices, and Knowledges of Cosmetic Intervention

This thesis examines women’s responses to ageing through cosmetic intervention, as part of broader practices of health and wellbeing. The thesis identifies a lack of geographical attention to the embodied and emotional dimensions of the ageing process and the management and modification of bodies through anti-ageing body-work. In response to this the thesis contributes to existing feminist geographical approaches to embodied experience by addressing the multiple ways that women respond to, and negotiate, the pressures of gendered socio-cultural norms and expectations associated with the body. The embodied methodological approach I take focuses primarily on semi-structured in-depth interviews with practitioners and consumers of anti-ageing technologies and techniques, and participant observation in anti-ageing ‘treatment’ sites, including aesthetic clinics and beauty salons. Informed by corporeal feminism (Grosz, 1994) I use these approaches to engage with the fluidity and ‘fleshy materiality’ of bodies (Longhurst, 2001). In doing so I contribute to existing knowledges of gendered body-work and self-care practices, both empirically and theoretically. The thesis contributes significant new empirical data to the study of the ageing body, enabling reflexive discussion of theoretical approaches, as well as offering new perspectives on theoretical questions on the body and cosmetic intervention. Through analysis of the spaces, practices, and knowledges of anti-ageing body-work the thesis extends existing geographical approaches to emotion and embodiment, gender and identity, and health and wellbeing. I identify contradictions between the medical and therapeutic rationales of anti-ageing body-work, and the ways that such tensions are enacted through the spaces, practices and professional identities associated with ‘aesthetic health’ (Edmonds, 2010). I also develop analysis of anti-ageing body-work in terms of the ‘reframing’ and ‘realignment’ of corporeal temporalities, ‘anticipatory’ biopolitical frameworks of bodily futures, and the emotional context and consequences of the materialisation of time on the body. I also consider such practices in terms of regulation and control, highlighting the growing normalisation of cosmetic intervention as implicated in disciplinary frameworks of corporeal anxiety in relation to gendered framings of body image, risk and responsibility. Finally, I draw attention to a number of future directions in which this research could be developed

Effect of ration level and dietary docosahexaenoic acid content on the requirements for long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids by juvenile barramundi (Lates calcarifer)

Juvenile barramundi were fed one of six diets containing differing docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) levels. Fish were restricted fed on a pair-fed feeding regime to eliminate variability in feed intake, with two diets fed to satiety to examine the effects of fixed or variable feed rations on EFA requirements. Weight gain, feed intake, feed utilisation, and physical clinical signs were monitored. No effect of dietary DHA and EPA concentration, DHA:EPA ratio or total LC-PUFA level was observed on weight gain, growth rate, feed conversion ratio (FCR), survival or physical clinical health signs (P>0.05). Satiety fed fish had higher feed intake, final weight, weight gain and growth rate compared to their respective restrictively fed treatments (P<0.05). No effect of ration level on the responses to DHA concentration was observed. Body fatty acid composition was affected by diet, increasing dietary DHA resulted in higher body tissue DHA concentration, and a similar relationship was observed for EPA. Plasma haemoglobin increased with increasing DHA+EPA levels (P<0.05) while glutamate dehydrogenase increased for fish fed DHA+EPA in a 1:1 ratio, regardless of total dietary LC-PUFA (P<0.05). Juvenile barramundi may be fed diets containing as low as 1gkg-1 DHA without compromising growth or health status.&nbsp

Extended impacts of climate change on health and wellbeing

Anthropogenic climate change is progressively transforming the environment despite political and technological attempts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to tackle global warming. Here we propose that greater insight and understanding of the health-related impacts of climate change can be gained by integrating the positivist approaches used in public health and epidemiology, with holistic social science perspectives on health in which the concept of ‘wellbeing’ is more explicitly recognised. Such an approach enables us to acknowledge and explore a wide range of more subtle, yet important health-related outcomes of climate change. At the same time, incorporating notions of wellbeing enables recognition of both the health co-benefits and dis-benefits of climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies across different population groups and geographical contexts. The paper recommends that future adaptation and mitigation policies seek to ensure that benefits are available for all since current evidence suggests that they are spatially and socially differentiated, and their accessibility is dependent on a range of contextually specific socio-cultural factors.<br/

The de Morton Mobility Index (DEMMI) provides a valid method for measuring and monitoring the mobility of patients making the transition from hospital to the community: an observational study

QuestionIsthe de Morton Mobility Index (DEMMI) valid for measuring the mobility of patients making the transition from hospital to the community?DesignObservational cohort study.Participants696 consecutive patients admitted to 11 Transition Care Programs for multidisciplinary care in Victoria and Tasmania during a 6-month period. The DEMMI and Modified Barthel Index were administered within 5 working days of admission and discharge from the Transition Care Program.Outcome measuresThe DEMMI and Modified Barthel Index.ResultsNeither the DEMMI nor the Modified Barthel Index had a floor or ceiling effect. Similar evidence of convergent, discriminant and known-groups validity were obtained for each instrument. The DEMMI was significantly more responsive to change than the Modified Barthel Index using criterion- and distribution-based methods. The minimum clinically important difference estimates represented similar proportions of the scale width for the DEMMI and Modified Barthel Index and were similar using criterion- and distribution-based estimates. Rasch analysis identified the DEMMI as essentially unidimensional in a Transition Care Program cohort and therefore can be applied to obtain interval level measurement. Rasch analysis demonstrated that the DEMMI was administered similarly by physiotherapists and allied health assistants under the direction of a physiotherapist.ConclusionThe DEMMI and Modified Barthel Index are both valid measures of activity limitation for Transition Care Program patients. The DEMMI has a broader scale width, provides interval level measurement, and is significantly more responsive to change than the Modified Barthel Index for measuring the mobility of Transition Care Program patient