A study of women rough sleepers in four European countries

This paper details the findings of a two year empirical study, funded by the Daphne III Programme of the European Commission, which investigated the issue of women’s rough sleeping in four EU countries. The objectives of the research were to increase the knowledge base relating specifically to women rough sleepers who had suffered domestic abuse and to enhance knowledge and expertise in this field, thus informing future pan European policy. The research revealed specific findings about the context and nature of women’s homelessness, including the fact that many of the current issues that prevail in relation to this social problem have common themes across Europe

ERISA and Arbitration: How Safe Is Your 401(k)?

Over the past twenty years, the Supreme Court has repeatedly held that arbitration agreements and class action waivers, when entered into without fraud or misrepresentation, are legally enforceable. This results in many consumers giving up their right to sue individually and on a class-wide basis. In a vast number of form contracts, consumers give up their rights to be heard in court and obtain relief should such a contract be breached. ERISA governs retirement plans and applies to most American workers with employer-sponsored pension plans. As the law currently stands, it is unknown whether arbitration clauses and class action waivers used in complicated plan agreements are legally enforceable. Supreme Court precedent suggests that contracts containing these clauses are enforceable. However, this Comment argues that there are legal elements unique to ERISA, such as privity concerns and built-in fiduciary duties, which cut against the enforcement of clauses and waivers. This Comment argues that if arbitration agreements and class action waivers become routinely used in ERISA documents, a huge number of consumers will be unable to sue retirement plan providers for breaches of ERISA contracts, causing the plan providers to engage in behavior that harms both the consumers and the American economy as a whole

Margaret Atwood’s Divided Self

―Margaret Atwood‘s Divided Self‖ explores four novels by celebrated Canadian author, Margaret Atwood: Lady Oracle, Surfacing, Alias Grace, and The Robber Bride. Although others have discussed the reoccurring themes of disunity and duality in Atwood‘s work, these explorations have not addressed some of her newest novels and have taken a very limited approach to reading and understanding Atwood‘s theme of the divided self. This study opens up a literary ―conversation‖ about Atwood‘s theme of the divided self by examining the protagonists of these select novels by using different branches of theory and thought to fully explore this issue. To conquer their double or multiple identities Atwood‘s protagonists in these novels must take two actions: 1) Accept their double/multiple identities as a part of themselves and 2) transcend this position and the resulting ―hauntings‖ by their mothers (or their decision to choose a replacement female ―mother‖ figure) by becoming mothers themselves. The introduction chapter ―The Author as ‗Slippery Double‘‖ explores Atwood‘s position as a ―slippery (divided) subject‖ between her writing/social and interior selves. Chapter one, ―Canadian Women: Nature, Place, and the Divided Other in Atwood‘s Works‖ explores the role of nature, place, and femininity in Atwood‘s divided protagonists. Chapter two, ―The Uncanny Double: Haunting Entities and the Divided Self in Atwood‘s Fiction‖ contains the main argument and explores the role of the uncanny in Atwood‘s works. Although I explore these four novels most thoroughly explored, this theme runs throughout Atwood‘s entire body of work. Although I mostly use close readings of the primary texts, I also ground my argument in the work of theorists in several fields of thought including Sigmund Freud, Louis Althusser, George H. Mead, and Jacques Lacan

Pupillometric Investigation of Spontaneous Action and Intention Awareness

The neuroscience of volition, to a large extent, investigates the neural precursors of conscious decision-making and action. Pupillometry is a powerful tool for investigating conscious and attentional processing, partly because of its connection to the locus coeruleus (Josh et al., 2016). For instance, in an attentional blink paradigm, differences in pupil dilations were associated with conscious versus nonconscious stimuli (Wierda et al., 2012). Nevertheless, this technique received little attention in the study of volition. We collected pupil data during a spontaneous action paradigm, where subjects freely pressed a button at a time of their choosing, sometimes reporting their onset of movement or of intention using a clock (Libet et al., 1983). Preliminary analysis (N=12) demonstrated significant differences in baseline pupil size between conditions, potentially indicating cognitive load differences. Furthermore, replicating Richer and Beatty (1985), we found significant dilations before spontaneous movements. There were also indications that larger, pre-movement pupil dilations occur before reporting movement compared to before intention timing. These results support arguments that task demands, such as monitoring awareness, may affect the underlying neural activity leading to action and impact recorded signals—e.g., the readiness potential (Trevana and Miller, 2011). Moreover, these results offer a starting point for the use of pupillometry in studying conscious action production

iRESM INITIATIVE UNDERSTANDING DECISION SUPPORT NEEDS FOR CLIMATE CHANGE MITIGATION AND ADAPTATION --US Midwest Region?

The impacts of climate change are already affecting human and environmental systems worldwide, yet many uncertainties persist in the prediction of future climate changes and impacts due to limitations in scientific understanding of relevant causal factors. In particular, there is mounting urgency to efforts to improve models of human and environmental systems at the regional scale, and to integrate climate, ecosystem and energy-economic models to support policy, investment, and risk management decisions related to climate change mitigation (i.e., reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and adaptation (i.e., responding to climate change impacts). The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) is developing a modeling framework, the integrated Regional Earth System Model (iRESM), to address regional human-environmental system interactions in response to climate change and the uncertainties therein. The framework will consist of a suite of integrated models representing regional climate change, regional climate policy, and the regional economy, with a focus on simulating the mitigation and adaptation decisions made over time in the energy, transportation, agriculture, and natural resource management sectors

The importance of understanding the behavioural phenotypes of genetic syndromes associated with intellectual disability

Behavioural phenotype research is of benefit to a large number of children with genetic syndromes and associated developmental delay. This article presents an overview of this research area and demonstrates how understanding pathways between gene disorders and behaviour can inform our understanding of the difficulties individuals with genetic syndromes and developmental delay experience, including self-injurious behaviour, social exploitation, social anxiety, social skills deficits, sensory differences, temper outbursts and repetitive behaviours. In addition, physical health difficulties and their interaction with behaviour are considered. The article demonstrates the complexity involved in assessing a child with a rare genetic syndrome