Dollars are a girl's best friend? Female tourists' sexual behaviour in the Caribbean

Though increasingly a focus of both political concern and academic research, ‘sex tourism’ is a difficult term to define. This article presents both quantitative and qualitative data on the sexual behaviour and attitudes of single and/or unaccompanied heterosexual female tourists in the Dominican Republic and Jamaica. In so doing it aims to contribute to the body of research evidence on the phenomenon, as well as to highlight some of the conceptual problems associated with existing analyses of both ‘sex tourism’ and ‘romance tourism’. It calls for the development of a theoretical model of sex tourism which can accommodate both the diversity of tourist-related sexual-economic exchanges which take place in economically underdeveloped countries and the complexity of the power relations that underpin them

AGN observations with a less than 100 GeV threshold using H.E.S.S. II

The recent addition of the 28 m Cherenkov telescope (CT5) to the H.E.S.S. array extended the experiment's sensitivity towards low energies. The lowest energy threshold is obtained using monoscopic observations with CT5, providing access to gamma-ray energies below 100 GeV. This is particularly beneficial for studies of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) with soft spectra and located at redshifts >= 0.5. Stereoscopic measurements with the full array (CT1-5) provide a better background rejection than CT5 Mono, at a cost of a higher threshold. We report on the analysis employing the CT5 data for AGN observations with a < 100 GeV threshold. In particular, the spectra of PKS 2155-304 and PG 1553+113 are presented.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland

Missing, Presumed Trafficked: Towards non-binary understandings of ‘wayward’ youth in Jamaica

Boys and LGBTQ youth, especially those who go missing from home, have recently started to appear in mainstream anti-trafficking discourse as a group of children who are peculiarly vulnerable to human trafficking. This paper reports findings from research with Jamaicans who experienced various forms of violence and exploitation as children. Our data is consistent with the claim that boys and LGBTQ Jamaicans are amongst those who experience forms of violence and exploitation that policy makers often discuss under the heading ‘sex trafficking’. However, the same data also challenges the conceptual binaries used to frame assumptions about ‘sex trafficking’ as a significant threat to Jamaican youth and informs assumptions about missing children as victims of trafficking. In this way, the paper provides empirical support for criticisms of the turn towards including boys and LGBTQ youth as victims of ‘sex trafficking’, and of dominant discourse on ‘child trafficking’ more generally

Control of hydraulically–actuated manipulators with dead–band and time–delay uncertainties

The research behind this article is motivated by robotic operations in radiologically contaminated environments, notably for nuclear decommissioning. However, the experiments reported within are based on a recently reconfigured, hydraulically-actuated, dual manipulator robot that is being used for R&D into both tele-operation and autonomy in a non-active laboratory setting. One element of this research concerns the development of novel control systems to address time-delay and deadband uncertainties. The article briefly discusses some preliminary results and plans in this regard. Recent improvements to the hardware demonstrator are also described

Proposal for an Advanced Structural Elective Pertaining to Fire Protection

ARCE 401 Fire Protection is a class that will finally give ARCE students an introduction to fire-resilience and its major importance in the structural and planning spheres. The class would have a structural emphasis along with interdisciplinary qualities, unlike the graduate classes offered in the CE and ME departments. ARCE 401 covers a broad spectrum of topics and is meant to bring ARCE students closer to a comprehensive understanding of the overall work environment

Analyses of space environment effects on active fiber optic links orbited aboard the LDEF

The results of the 'Preliminary Analysis of WL Experiment no. 701, Space Environment Effects on Operating Fiber Optic Systems,' is correlated with space simulated post retrieval terrestrial studies performed on the M0004 experiment. Temperature cycling measurements were performed on the active optical data links for the purpose of assessing link signal to noise ratio and bit error rate performance some 69 months following the experiment deployment in low Earth orbit. The early results indicate a high correlation between pre-orbit, orbit, and post-orbit functionality of the first known and longest space demonstration of operating fiber optic systems

Older People’s Attitudes and Perspectives of Welfare Technology in Norway.

Background: In Norway, as in other European countries, the ageing population is increasing rapidly. Governments seek to enable older people stay in their homes for as long as possible, and welfare technology (WT) has been proposed as a possible solution. Human behaviour modelling (HBM) is a welfare technology that identifies an individual’s behaviour patterns and detects abnormal behaviours, including falls and early signs of dementia. However, the successful development of HBM WT requires the consideration of the older people’s attitudes on this. Aim: The present study sought to explore attitudes and perspectives about welfare technology among older people living alone in Norway. Methods: We used an exploratory, qualitative approach in which semi-structured, in-depth interviews were conducted with five women and four men between the ages of 79 and 91. The interviews were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: Two categories and four subcategories were identified: 1) preferences and concerns of welfare technology (i) feeling confident-proactive approach of future technology, (ii) concerns and dilemmas, and 2) reflections of today and tomorrow- awareness of own health (i) feeling healthy, independent, self-sufficient and safe, (ii) facing own ageing- preparedness on unpredictable scenarios. The main theme, welfare technology - a valuable addition to tomorrow’s homes, represents how the participants held positive and proactive attitudes towards the use of WT in their homes. Conclusion: Participants trusted the Norwegian healthcare system and did not rely on their families for care. Independence, autonomy, and feeling safe were essential for all participants, and most participants regarded welfare technology as empowering them to remain in their homes for as long as possible. Participants already confidently used various technologies in their daily lives. Surprisingly, they expressed no concerns about privacy, but some mention concerns about loss of autonomy and dignity. We conclude that a person-centred approach to integrating new WT is necessarypublishedVersio