Stochastic transition model for pedestrian dynamics

The proposed stochastic model for pedestrian dynamics is based on existing approaches using cellular automata, combined with substantial extensions, to compensate the deficiencies resulting of the discrete grid structure. This agent motion model is extended by both a grid-based path planning and mid-range agent interaction component. The stochastic model proves its capabilities for a quantitative reproduction of the characteristic shape of the common fundamental diagram of pedestrian dynamics. Moreover, effects of self-organizing behavior are successfully reproduced. The stochastic cellular automata approach is found to be adequate with respect to uncertainties in human motion patterns, a feature previously held by artificial noise terms alone.Comment: preprint for Pedestrian and Evacuation Conference (PED2012) contributio

The Stigmatization of Individuals Convicted of Sex Offenses: Labeling Theory and The Sex Offense Registry

The sex offender registry currently lists over half a million U.S. citizens as sex offenders. Modern day legislation directed toward sex offenders was born in an era of public fear and rash decision-making. Terrible consequences have since been identified as resulting from the labeling of sex offenders via the registry. These unintended consequences socially, economically, and psychologically influence the lives of sex offenders. Labeling theory states that individuals who are given a label eventually subscribe to that label; in other words, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. In the case of sex offenders, this can only mean more damage to society. This paper examines how the registry reproduces labeling and how sex offenders are consequently damaged by their given label. GPS tracking and treatment through the Good Lives Model are offered as contemporary solutions to the ever-growing problem

The Language and Affect of Belief

Research on emotion in anthropology has been supplanted by an ethnographic turn toward ‘subjectivity’, ‘embodiment’, ‘personhood’, and ‘experience’. In this article, I explore how these interrelated modes of analysis can help ethnographers to better understand the cultural processes that constitute how people feel. I show that among my Christian Dusun interlocutors in Ranau, Malaysian Borneo, the interactive engagement between subjects and their environment determined the vectors of emotional possibility in terms of belief. The intersection of religious objects (God, the Holy Spirit, Satan) and mutual obligations in the community produce what I refer to as the ‘faith network’. I trace these collective attachments to consider how ‘believing in’ regulates feeling in relation to situations of crisis, impasse, and tragedy. The combined efforts of my interlocutors, I suggest, created an active commitment that pulsated through the faith network, which sustained an intensive and defining mode of their relational experience

Plesippus francescana (Frick) from the late Pliocene, Coso Mountains, California, with a review of the genus Plesippus

Two mammalian types, occurring in a late Pliocene fauna from the Coso Mountains, California, have already been described. Among the more abundant forms in this assemblage are the horses of the genus Plesippus. These are of particular interest not only for purposes of correlation of the geologic horizon in which they occur, but also because of their phylogenetic relationships. Opportunity is taken therefore to make a comparative study of characters of the species from the Coso Mountains with reference to nearly related forms found in beds of similar age and to define more clearly, than has been previously attempted, the position of Plesippus in the lineage of the horse group