Historical Criminology: Australian and New Zealand Perspectives

The time has never been more appropriate than now for a discussion about the integration of history and criminology in Australia and New Zealand. Throughout 2020 and 2021, the people of both countries were subject to extraordinary government interventions into their daily lives to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. Given a respiratory pandemic of the same scale had not occurred for 100 years, we watched in real time as policymakers fumbled for guidance for the benefits and likely social consequences of imposing police-enforced legal restrictions on otherwise normal behaviours like freedom of movement and gathering with friends. Whether these were ultimately the correct decisions for controlling the disease is perhaps a question for others. Indeed, analysis of the interactions between the public and the state have always been the purview of criminologists and historians, yet we ceded this ground to epidemiologists who have little expertise in key issues of criminalisation and offending, or justice and policing, which are central to any system of state control

Nelson Spencer (1918–2002)

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95451/1/eost14121.pd

Recent advances in model calculations of the Venus ionosphere

Our understanding of the physical and chemical processes which control the behavior of the Venus ionosphere has advanced significantly during the last few years. These advances are the result of a still growing data base and a variety of evolving theoretical models. This review summarizes some of these recent studies, especially those concerning the dynamics of the ionosphere, the maintenance of the nightside ionosphere, the energetics of the nightside ionosphere, and the time evolution of magnetic fields in the dayside ionosphere.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25850/1/0000413.pd

Model calculations of the dayside ionosphere of Venus

Model calculations of the dayside ionosphere of Venus are presented. The coupled continuity and momentum equations were solved for O2+, O+, CO2+, C+, N+, He+, and H+ density distributions, which are compared with measurements from the Pioneer Venus ion mass spectrometer. The agreement between the model results and the measurements is good for some species, such as O+, and rather poor for others, such as N+, indicating that our understanding of the dayside ion composition of Venus is incomplete. The coupled heat conduction equations for ions and electrons were solved and the calculated temperatures compared with Pioneer Venus measurements. It is shown that fluctuations in the magnetic field have a significant effect on the energy balance of the ionosphere.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/24490/1/0000766.pd

Enrichment and aggregation of topological motifs are independent organizational principles of integrated interaction networks

Topological network motifs represent functional relationships within and between regulatory and protein-protein interaction networks. Enriched motifs often aggregate into self-contained units forming functional modules. Theoretical models for network evolution by duplication-divergence mechanisms and for network topology by hierarchical scale-free networks have suggested a one-to-one relation between network motif enrichment and aggregation, but this relation has never been tested quantitatively in real biological interaction networks. Here we introduce a novel method for assessing the statistical significance of network motif aggregation and for identifying clusters of overlapping network motifs. Using an integrated network of transcriptional, posttranslational and protein-protein interactions in yeast we show that network motif aggregation reflects a local modularity property which is independent of network motif enrichment. In particular our method identified novel functional network themes for a set of motifs which are not enriched yet aggregate significantly and challenges the conventional view that network motif enrichment is the most basic organizational principle of complex networks.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figure

Next-to-leading order QCD predictions for W+W+jj production at the LHC

Because the LHC is a proton-proton collider, sizable production of two positively charged W-bosons in association with two jets is possible. This process leads to a distinct signature of same sign high-pt leptons, missing energy and jets. We compute the NLO QCD corrections to the QCD-mediated part of pp -> W+W+jj. These corrections reduce the dependence of the production cross-section on the renormalization and factorization scale to about +- 10 percent. We find that a large number of W+W+jj events contain a relatively hard third jet. The presence of this jet should help to either pick up the W+W+jj signal or to reject it as an unwanted background.Comment: 15 pages, 5 (lovely) figures, v3 accepted for publication in JHEP, corrects tables in appendi

Some Comments on the Entropy-Based Criteria for Piping

This paper is an extension of previous work which characterises soil behaviours using the grading entropy diagram. The present work looks at the piping process in granular soils, by considering some new data from flood-protection dikes. The piping process is divided into three parts here: particle movement at the micro scale to segregate free water; sand boil development (which is the initiation of the pipe), and pipe growth. In the first part of the process, which occurs during the rising flood, the increase in shear stress along the dike base may cause segregation of water into micro pipes if the subsoil in the dike base is relatively loose. This occurs at the maximum dike base shear stress level (ratio of shear stress and strength) zone which is close to the toe. In the second part of the process, the shear strain increment causes a sudden, asymmetric slide and cracking of the dike leading to the localized excess pore pressure, liquefaction and the formation of a sand boil. In the third part of the process, the soil erosion initiated through the sand boil continues, and the pipe grows. The piping in the Hungarian dikes often occurs in a two-layer system; where the base layer is coarser with higher permeability and the cover layer is finer with lower permeability. The new data presented here show that the soils ejected from the sand boils are generally silty sands and sands, which are prone to both erosion (on the basis of the entropy criterion) and liquefaction. They originate from the cover layer which is basically identical to the soil used in the Dutch backward erosion experiments

Venus mesosphere and thermosphere : II. Global circulation, temperature, and density variations

Recent Pioneer Venus observations have prompted a return to comprehensive hydrodynamical modeling of the thermosphere of Venus. Our approach has been to reexamine the circulation and structure of the thermosphere using the framework of the [Dickinson and Ridley, 1977], symmetric two-dimensional model. Sensitivity tests were conducted to see how large-scale winds, eddy diffusion and conduction, and strong 15-[mu]m cooling affect day-night contrasts of densities and temperatures. The calculated densities and temperatures are compared to symmetric empirical model fields constructed from the Pioneer Venus data base. We find that the observed day-to-night variation of composition and temperatures can be derived largely by a wave-drag parameterization that gives a circulation system weaker than predicted prior to Pioneer Venus. The calculated mesospheric winds are consistent with Earth-based observations near 115 km. Our studies also suggest that eddy diffusion is only a minor contributor to the maintenance of observed day and nightside densities, and that eddy coefficients are smaller than values used by previous one-dimensional composition models. The mixing that occurs in the Venus thermosphere results from small-scale and large-scale motions. Strong CO2 15-[mu]m cooling buffers solar perturbation such that the response by the general circulation to solar cycle variation is relatively weak.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25994/1/0000060.pd

DASSL “Data Access Sharing Storage & Linkage” Proof-of-Concept: Health and Related Data Linkage in Ireland.

Objective The DASSL Model, conceived by the Health Research Board, aims to overcome challenges to linking data in Ireland including lack of unique patient identifiers, inconsistent application of legislation and siloed data. The objective of the Proof-of-Concept is to develop and test a demonstrator technical infrastructure to support this model. Approach A stakeholder committee of representatives from government, health services, data controllers, patients/public and researchers was established. National and international data sharing and linkage landscapes were reviewed via interviews, scientific papers and grey literature. Five case studies were developed to demonstrate different linkages, data and research purposes, with synthetic data mimicking real health/social datasets generated using data dictionaries, data controller input, national statistics and Synthpop, Synthetic Data Vault and General Adversarial Networks. The technical infrastructure remains under development with linkage software being evaluated. Stakeholders will test this infrastructure and a final report will outline considerations for a national solution. Results Synthetic versions of administrative data, patient registries, electronic patient records, longitudinal cohorts, imaging and genomics are being generated. Matching variables and content data will be split and securely shared respectively with the Trusted Third Party (TTP) and Health Data Hub (HDH) on a project-by-project basis and at regular intervals. The selected linkage software will be used to match both unique identifiers and personally-identifiable data using probabilistic and deterministic techniques between datasets and with a population spine. The encrypted linkage key will be shared with the HDH, where the data view for each case study will be created by the Research Support Unit using the content data. A locked down virtual Safe Haven will support researcher access with disclosure control check on any outputs. Conclusion A DASSL infrastructure could support sharing, linking and analysis of health and social data in Ireland. However, high quality data including matching variables need to be collected to produce beneficial findings. A national rollout requires a governance and legislative model, improvements in data collection, further public engagement and significant resourcing

Successful conservation of global waterbird populations depends on effective governance

Understanding global patterns of biodiversity change is crucial for conservation research, policies and practices. However, the lack of systematically collected data at a global level has limited our understanding of biodiversity changes and their local-scale drivers in most ecosystems. We address this challenge by focusing on wetlands, which are among the most biodiverse and productive environments providing essential ecosystem services, but are also amongst the most seriously threatened ecosystems. Using birds as an indicator taxon of wetland biodiversity, we model time-series abundance data for 461 waterbird species at 25,769 survey sites across the globe. We show that countries’ effective governance is the strongest predictor of waterbird abundance changes as well as benefits of conservation efforts. Waterbirds are declining especially where governance is, on average, less effective, such as Western/Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and South America. Higher protected area coverage facilitates waterbird increases, but only in countries with more effective governance. Our findings highlight that sociopolitical instability can lead to biodiversity loss and also undermine the benefit of existing conservation efforts, such as the expansion of protected area coverage. Data deficiency in areas with less effective governance could cause an underestimation of the extent of biodiversity crisis. Alternative language abstracts are in Supplementary Information