Paws for Progress: The development and evaluation of the first prison based dog training programme in the UK

The most common type of human animal interaction (HAI) programme used in prisons involves prisoners caring for and training unwanted dogs from rescue shelters, to prepare the dogs for rehoming. Such programmes have been previously developed specifically aimed towards male young offenders, and are claimed to improve emotional, social and practical outcomes. Paws for Progress, the first prison based dog training programme in the UK, was introduced to HM YOI Polmont in 2011. By clearly communicating each step of the 5 Step approach (1. Identify the problem; 2. Review the evidence; 3. Develop a logic model; 4. Identify indicators and monitor the logic model; 5. Evaluate the logic model), it has enhanced our understanding of the development processes required for effective prison based dog training programmes. This evaluation provides the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of short, medium and long term outcomes for Scottish young offenders serving custodial sentences (N = 70) following participation. The aims of Paws for Progress are to improve behaviour, increase engagement in education, develop employability skills, and enhance well-being. Using a mixed design with two control groups and triangulating quantitative and qualitative outcomes, the evaluation assesses the efficacy of the programme in meeting these aims. Systematic analyses of semi-structured interviews pre and post participation in the programme support findings from the quantitative analyses. Analyses of institutional behaviour, measured by Disciplinary Reports, educational progress measured by written assessments and qualifications, employability skills measured by psychometric tests, and prisoner well-being all improved for participants, but such improvements were not shown by control groups. Paws for Progress positively impacts short and medium term outcomes and data on longer term outcomes also indicate the benefits are far reaching. By clearly relating programme aims to the outcomes achieved, and considering the contribution of Paws for Progress to future desistance from crime, the value and relevance of these findings are evident. The evaluation contributes to our understanding of effective methodologies in this applied context, which can be utilised to improve research practice in interventions in criminal justice and in human animal interaction

Fast Adaptive Non-Monotone Submodular Maximization Subject to a Knapsack Constraint

Constrained submodular maximization problems encompass a wide variety of applications, including personalized recommendation, team formation, and revenue maximization via viral marketing. The massive instances occurring in modern-day applications can render existing algorithms prohibitively slow. Moreover, frequently those instances are also inherently stochastic. Focusing on these challenges, we revisit the classic problem of maximizing a (possibly non-monotone) submodular function subject to a knapsack constraint. We present a simple randomized greedy algorithm that achieves a 5.83 approximation and runs in O(n log n) time, i.e., at least a factor n faster than other state-of-the-art algorithms. The robustness of our approach allows us to further transfer it to a stochastic version of the problem. There, we obtain a 9-approximation to the best adaptive policy, which is the first constant approximation for non-monotone objectives. Experimental evaluation of our algorithms showcases their improved performance on real and synthetic data

A strategy is necessary. The policy-client conflict within different relational asymmetries: a comparison at the street-level

Purpose:This study aims to investigate the role of relational asymmetries in influencing the coping strategies adopted by frontline workers to deal with the policy-client role conflict. Design/methodology/approach: A comparative analysis of three different services highlights the role of the service relationships characteristics in explaining similarities and differences in the strategies adopted by street-level bureaucrats (SLBs). The research is based on the secondary analysis of three case studies conducted in Italy: the reception system for homeless people, the job brokerage service in the public employment service and the dispute settlement procedure in the labour inspectorate. Findings: The results underline the interaction between the characteristics of the service relationship and the different coping strategies adopted to deal with the policy-client conflict. Originality/value-The contribution of this study is threefold. Firstly, the authors focus on the influence of the characteristics of the service relationship in terms of agency resources over SLBs' strategies to face with users' expectations. Secondly, the authors intend to discuss these issues analysing SLBs not only as agents with individual preferences. Thirdly, the research design allows the authors to return to the street-level bureaucracy theory its comparative essence, proposing a comparative strategy with an explorative intent

Interspecific interactions and welfare implications in mixed species communities of capuchin (sapajus apella) and squirrel monkeys (saimiri sciureus) over 3 years

Species have complex relationships with others in the wild, and some such as capuchin (Sapajus apella) and squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) naturally choose to associate with each other. There are a number of benefits of exhibiting such species in correspondingly mixed communities in captivity to enhance welfare through increased social complexity, which is potentially environmentally enriching in restricted captive enclosures. Monitoring the interactions between species is critical, however, particularly when members of one species are considerably larger and potentially more aggressive than the other. We report on the frequency and nature of interspecific interactions between S. apella and S. sciureus during four time periods over 3 years (2008-2010) following the formation of two mixed species groups at the ‘Living Links to Human Evolution' Research Centre in Edinburgh Zoo, Scotland. Both the rate and the distribution of interspecific interactions among aggressive, affiliative and neutral categories of behaviour varied over time (P < 0.05). We predicted that S. apella would engage in more interspecific, particularly aggressive, interactions than S. sciureus than vice versa, as they are the larger, more social species and have a more pugnacious temperament. This was the case overall (P < 0.05), and particularly in 2009 and 2010. We predicted that affiliative interactions would increase over time as the number of youngsters increased and as the youngsters grew up together, establishing equable relationships and "territorial" boundaries. The data did not support this prediction. Both the most affiliative and least aggressive interspecific interactions were observed following internal enclosure refurbishment in 2008 and hence we argue that good enclosure design and husbandry is the most important factor in promoting positive interactions between individuals in mixed species groups. We conclude that long-term monitoring is important, and when combined with appropriate husbandry and enclosure upkeep, the welfare of individuals is enhanced in mixed species groups by the presence of other species

Decision support for risk prioritisation of environmental health hazards in a UK city.

BACKGROUND: There is increasing appreciation of the proportion of the health burden that is attributed to modifiable population exposure to environmental health hazards. To manage this avoidable burden in the United Kingdom (UK), government policies and interventions are implemented. In practice, this procedure is interdisciplinary in action and multi-dimensional in context. Here, we demonstrate how Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) can be used as a decision support tool to facilitate priority setting for environmental public health interventions within local authorities. We combine modelling and expert elicitation to gather evidence on the impacts and ranking of interventions. METHODS: To present the methodology, we consider a hypothetical scenario in a UK city. We use MCDA to evaluate and compare the impact of interventions to reduce the health burden associated with four environmental health hazards and rank them in terms of their overall performance across several criteria. For illustrative purposes, we focus on heavy goods vehicle controls to reduce outdoor air pollution, remediation to control levels of indoor radon, carbon monoxide and fitting alarms, and encouraging cycling to target the obesogenic environment. Regional data was included as model evidence to construct a ratings matrix for the city. RESULTS: When MCDA is performed with uniform weights, the intervention of heavy goods vehicle controls to reduce outdoor air pollution is ranked the highest. Cycling and the obesogenic environment is ranked second. CONCLUSIONS: We argue that a MCDA based approach provides a framework to guide environmental public health decision makers. This is demonstrated through an online interactive MCDA tool. We conclude that MCDA is a transparent tool that can be used to compare the impact of alternative interventions on a set of pre-defined criteria. In our illustrative example, we ranked the best intervention across the equally weighted selected criteria out of the four alternatives. Further work is needed to test the tool with decision makers and stakeholders

Participation in a prison-based training programme is beneficial for rescue dogs

Dogs are often relinquished because of behavioural issues which may be exacerbated in rehoming centres. Prison-based dog training programmes (DTPs) may enhance outcomes for rescue dogs by providing socialisation and training opportunities to improve behaviour, welfare and likelihood of rehoming. We assessed whether dogs benefitted from participation, 1-3 times per week, in a prison-based DTP in which male young offenders learn how to train and care for dogs waiting to be rehomed. Within DTP sessions, there was significant improvement on a range of training tasks (n=42 dogs). Analyses of videos (n=17 dogs) in the kennels and a training barn pre- and post-DTP participation showed improvement in some positive behaviours, but no significant change in other behaviours. Subjective ratings by staff of the dogs’ behaviour were made (n=20 dogs). Desirable behaviours (e.g. playful/friendly) increased, and most undesirable behaviours (e.g. frustrated and noisy) decreased. Participation in the DTP did not mitigate all negative behaviours. However, improvements are consistent with enhanced welfare and likelihood of successful rehoming. Prison-based DTPs can be effective in supporting the work of animal rescue organisations to improve outcomes for dogs, while offering people in custody an opportunity to engage in purposeful activity and provide a community service

Participation in a prison-based training programme is beneficial for rescue dogs

Dogs are often relinquished because of behavioural issues which may be exacerbated in rehoming centres. Prison-based dog training programmes (DTPs) may enhance outcomes for rescue dogs by providing socialisation and training opportunities to improve behaviour, welfare and likelihood of rehoming. We assessed whether dogs benefitted from participation, 1-3 times per week, in a prison-based DTP in which male young offenders learn how to train and care for dogs waiting to be rehomed. Within DTP sessions, there was significant improvement on a range of training tasks (n=42 dogs). Analyses of videos (n=17 dogs) in the kennels and a training barn pre- and post-DTP participation showed improvement in some positive behaviours, but no significant change in other behaviours. Subjective ratings by staff of the dogs’ behaviour were made (n=20 dogs). Desirable behaviours (e.g. playful/friendly) increased, and most undesirable behaviours (e.g. frustrated and noisy) decreased. Participation in the DTP did not mitigate all negative behaviours. However, improvements are consistent with enhanced welfare and likelihood of successful rehoming. Prison-based DTPs can be effective in supporting the work of animal rescue organisations to improve outcomes for dogs, while offering people in custody an opportunity to engage in purposeful activity and provide a community service

Round-Robin Beyond Additive Agents: Existence and Fairness of Approximate Equilibria

Fair allocation of indivisible goods has attracted extensive attention over the last two decades, yielding numerous elegant algorithmic results and producing challenging open questions. The problem becomes much harder in the presence of strategic agents. Ideally, one would want to design truthful mechanisms that produce allocations with fairness guarantees. However, in the standard setting without monetary transfers, it is generally impossible to have truthful mechanisms that provide non-trivial fairness guarantees. Recently, Amanatidis et al. [5] suggested the study of mechanisms that produce fair allocations in their equilibria. Specifically, when the agents have additive valuation functions, the simple Round-Robin algorithm always has pure Nash equilibria and the corresponding allocations are envy-free up to one good (EF1) with respect to the agents’ true valuation functions. Following this agenda, we show that this outstanding property of the Round-Robin mechanism extends much beyond the above default assumption of additivity. In particular, we prove that for agents with cancelable valuation functions (a natural class that contains, e.g., additive and budget-additive functions), this simple mechanism always has equilibria and even its approximate equilibria correspond to approximately EF1 allocations with respect to the agents’ true valuation functions. Further, we show that the approximate EF1 fairness of approximate equilibria surprisingly holds for the important class of submodular valuation functions as well, even though exact equilibria fail to exis

Fast Adaptive Non-Monotone Submodular Maximization Subject to a Knapsack Constraint

Constrained submodular maximization problems encompass a wide variety of applications, including personalized recommendation, team formation, and revenue maximization via viral marketing. The massive instances occurring in modern-day applications can render existing algorithms prohibitively slow. Moreover, frequently those instances are also inherently stochastic. Focusing on these challenges, we revisit the classic problem of maximizing a (possibly non-monotone) submodular function subject to a knapsack constraint. We present a simple randomized greedy algorithm that achieves a 5.83-approximation and runs in O(n log n) time, i.e., at least a factor n faster than other state-of-the-art algorithms. The versatility of our approach allows us to further transfer it to a stochastic version of the problem. There, we obtain a (9 + ε)-approximation to the best adaptive policy, which is the first constant approximation for non-monotone objectives. Experimental evaluation of our algorithms showcases their improved performance on real and synthetic data