Resisting Industrial Food Systems on the Web: How Non-Profit Organizations Use Digital Technology for Sustainability Education

This thesis examines the link between how community-based organizations use digital tools with the fundamentally resistance-based philosophy that these organizations have at the core of their mission. It aims to uncover how non-profit organizations (NPOs) that work in community development through food and agriculture use digital tools, and how their digital communication strategies relate to issues of resistance to neoliberalism and industrialization in the food and agriculture sectors. Using a foundation of existing literature on food and agriculture, climate change and waste management, critical theory, and technology in pedagogy, this thesis will contextualize how non-profits resist neoliberal regimes of de-traditionalization through community development. This thesis will utilize primary research on the digital strategy of an NPO that supports public schools attempting to incorporate vegetable gardens into their curriculum. The research provides insights into how NPOs make use of the benefits of digital technologies, and how they choose a strategy for employing these affordances in ways that are compatible with their core organizational philosophy

Confirmation Bias in Simulated CSA Interviews: How Abuse Assumption Influences Interviewing and Decision‐Making Processes?

CC BY 4.0Purpose: Research has shown that confirmation bias plays a role in legal and forensic decision-making processes and, more specifically, child interviews. However, previous studies often examine confirmation bias in child interviews using non-abuse-related events. We enrich the literature by examining interviewers’ behaviours in simulated child sexual abuse (CSA) cases.Method: In the present study, we used data from a series of experiments in which participants interviewed child avatars to examine how an assumption of abuse based on preliminary information influenced decision-making and inter-viewing style. Interview training data (Ninterview = 2084) from eight studies with students, psychologists and police officers (N = 377) were included in the analyses. Method: In the present study, we used data from a series of experiments in which participants interviewed child avatars to examine how an assumption of abuse based on preliminary information influenced decision-making and inter-viewing style. Interview training data (Ninterview = 2084) from eight studies with students, psychologists and police officers (N = 377) were included in the analyses.Results: We found that interviewers’ preliminary assumption of sexual abuse having taken place predicted 1) a conclusion of abuse by the interviewers after the interview; 2) higher confidence in their judgement; 3) more frequent use of not recommended question types and 4) a decreased likelihood of reaching a correct conclusion given the same number of available relevant details. Conclusion: The importance of considering how preliminary assumptions of abuse affect interview behaviour and outcomes and the implications for the training of investigative interviewers were discussed

Confirmation bias in simulated CSA interviews: How abuse assumption influences interviewing and decision‐making processes?

Purpose Research has shown that confirmation bias plays a role in legal and forensic decision-making processes and, more specifically, child interviews. However, previous studies often examine confirmation bias in child interviews using non-abuse-related events. We enrich the literature by examining interviewers’ behaviours in simulated child sexual abuse (CSA) cases. Method In the present study, we used data from a series of experiments in which participants interviewed child avatars to examine how an assumption of abuse based on preliminary information influenced decision-making and interviewing style. Interview training data (N interview = 2084) from eight studies with students, psychologists and police officers (N = 377) were included in the analyses. Results We found that interviewers’ preliminary assumption of sexual abuse having taken place predicted 1) a conclusion of abuse by the interviewers after the interview; 2) higher confidence in their judgement; 3) more frequent use of not recommended question types and 4) a decreased likelihood of reaching a correct conclusion given the same number of available relevant details. Conclusion The importance of considering how preliminary assumptions of abuse affect interview behaviour and outcomes and the implications for the training of investigative interviewers were discussed

Associations between emotions and psychophysiological states and confirmation bias in question formulation in ongoing simulated investigative interviews of child sexual abuse

Introduction: In forensic settings interviewers are advised to ask as many open-ended questions as possible. However, even experts may have difficulty following this advice potentially negatively impacting an investigation. Here, we sought to investigate how emotions and psychophysiological parameters are associated with question formulation in real time in an ongoing (simulated) child sexual abuse (CSA) interview. Method: In a experimental study, psychology students (N = 60, Mage = 22.75) conducted two interviews with child avatars, while their emotions (anger, sadness, disgust, surprise and relief), GSR and heart rate (HR) were registered. Results: First, we found that general emotionality related to CSA and perceived realness of the avatars was associated with stronger overall emotional reactions. Second, we found that closed (vs. open) questions were preceded by more facially observable anger, but not disgust, sadness, surprise or relief. Third, closed (vs. open) questions were preceded by higher GSR resistance and lower heart rate. Discussion: Results suggest for the first time that emotions and psychophysiological states can drive confirmation bias in question formulation in real time in CSA

In-depth characterisation of the serum antibody epitope repertoire in Inflammatory Bowel Disease by high-throughput phage-displayed immunoprecipitation sequencing

BackgroundPatients with IBD show distinct antibody responses, particularly against microbiota. However, a comprehensive overview of the antibody epitope repertoire in IBD is lacking. Here, we characterized serum antibody responses in patients with IBD and population controls using a high-throughput phage-displayed immunoprecipitation sequencing (PhIP-seq) workflow and associated these to disease phenotypes and the faecal microbiome.MethodsPhIP-seq was leveraged to characterise antibody responses against 344,000 rationally selected peptide antigens in 497 patients with IBD which were compared with 1,326 individuals from a population-based cohort (Fig. 1A-B). Antibody profiles were linked to 23 IBD-specific clinical features such as disease location and surgical history and to faecal microbiota composition (Fig. 1C).ResultsPatients with IBD demonstrated distinct antibody epitope repertoires compared with individuals from the general population, with 373 differentially abundant antibody-bound peptides (202 overrepresented, 171 underrepresented) belonging to bacterial flagellins (69), virulence factors (102), other antigens of both commensal and pathogenic bacteria (90) as well as viruses (67) and food proteins (24) (Figure 2). In particular, antibody responses against bacterial flagellins, many of which belong to Lachnospiraceae bacteria (e.g. Roseburia spp.), but also Eubacterium spp. and pathogens (e.g. Legionella, Clostridium, Burkholderia) dominated in patients with Crohn’s disease (CD), and were associated with ileal disease involvement and more complicated disease behaviour (e.g. fibrostenotic disease, surgical history) as well as anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibody positivity. Furthermore, many other antigens were newly identified, e.g. decreased responses to E. coli virulence factors and genome polyproteins of enteroviruses, and increased responses to food antigens (wheat, barley) and autoantigens (particularly collagen type I and VI). Antibody epitope repertoires were able to accurately discriminate CD from population controls (area under the curve [AUC]=0.88, test set evaluation), showing very high discriminative performance (positive and negative predictive value of 72% and 93%, respectively, representing predicted classes in test set) (Fig. 3A-C), which was less accurate for ulcerative colitis (UC) (Fig. 3D-F).ConclusionThis study demonstrates the size, diversity and complexity of systemic antibody epitope repertoires in patients with IBD compared to controls, showing that distinct clinical phenotypes of IBD are characterized by unique antibody signatures. PhIP-seq is a powerful tool for identifying systemic immune-based biomarkers and exposing novel immunological targets in immune-mediated inflammatory diseases like IBD

Phage-display immunoprecipitation sequencing of the antibody epitope repertoire in inflammatory bowel disease reveals distinct antibody signatures

Inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs), e.g., Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC), are chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases. A comprehensive overview of an IBD-specific antibody epitope repertoire is, however, lacking. Using high-throughput phage-display immunoprecipitation sequencing (PhIP-Seq), we identified antibodies against 344,000 antimicrobial, immune, and food antigens in 497 individuals with IBD compared with 1,326 controls. IBD was characterized by 373 differentially abundant antibody responses (202 overrepresented and 171 underrepresented), with 17% shared by both IBDs, 55% unique to CD, and 28% unique to UC. Antibody reactivities against bacterial flagellins dominated in CD and were associated with ileal involvement, fibrostenotic disease, and anti-Saccharomyces cerevisiae antibody positivity, but not with fecal microbiome composition. Antibody epitope repertoires accurately discriminated CD from controls (area under the curve [AUC] = 0.89), and similar discrimination was achieved when using only ten antibodies (AUC = 0.87). Individuals with IBD thus show a distinct antibody repertoire against selected peptides, allowing clinical stratification and discovery of immunological targets.</p

Factors influencing the quality of juvenile testimony: a systematic analysis of qualitative research literature

Unreliable testimony from an underage child might become grounds for a judge to make a wrong decision towards the accused. Globally, interviewers fail to support best interview practice recommendations (Cederborg, 2004; Korkman, Santtila, Drzewiecki & Sandnabba, 2008; Sternberg, Lamb, Orbach, Esplin & Mitchell, 2001), thus it is possible that juvenile’s testimony quality might be questionable. In 2018, with the entry into force of the law on the participation of psychologists in juvenile interviews in Lithuania, the need to study the factors influencing the quality of juvenile testimonies is only increasing. A systematic analysis of the qualitative data literature was conducted to better understand what factors and how influence the quality of juvenile testimony. Object of the study – factors influencing the quality of juvenile testimony. The aim of this systematic analysis of qualitative data is to look at the interview process from a child`s perspective and have a systematic understanding what factors and how can impact the quality of child`s statements. Insights from qualitative methodology can be useful for practitioners and scientists, who are working on problems related to child interviewing. Systematic literature analysis focused on factors that impact the quality of children`s testimony was conducted in 5 steps: 1) choosing the database, 2) choosing appropriate keywords, 3) formulating appropriate inclusion and exclusion criterias, 4) creating a map of factors, 5) synthesising of qualitative data. Scientific articles for this study were extracted from these databases: PsychARTICLES, ERIC, Academic Search Complete and Web of Science. Latest studies from the field of legal and criminal psychology are published in these bibliographic databases.In order to identify the most suitable articles for this study a set of keywords was used in Bull`s logic ((child* OR pupil* OR student* OR adolescent* OR youth*) AND (ability* OR compet*) AND (testif* OR witness*)). This algorithm was used in each database search engine. Also, where it was possible, additional filter criteria’s were added: full text English articles ranging from 1990.01.01 till 2017.12.31. According to the chosen search criteria’s electronical databases provided 1294 publications. All the search results were added to ZOTERO (an open-source tool for collecting and organizing research publications). The program automatically deleted 229 duplicates, leaving 1065 publications for further analysis. 814 publications were excluded at the title screening stage because the titles didn`t mention nothing related to the child competence to testify. Then 214 publications excluded at the abstract reading stage due to either: 1) quantitative or experimental methodology or 2) the focus of the publication was not related to child`s competence to testify or 3) the participants of the study were older than 18 years or 4) the participants of the study were of atypical development or 5) the publication was theoretical or a review. After the abstract screening stage, a total of 37 articles were left for full analysis. At this stage 34 articles were excluded because studies were: 1) of quantitative methodology or 2) theoretical or a review. Only 3 publications were included into this systematic analysis. In the stage of the data synthesis (Seers, 2015; Snelgrove and Liossi, 2013) the goal is to unite all important findings into one map of factors and purify meta-topics that relate to juvenile’s competence to testify.During synthesis process all distinguished factors were extracted and reassembled into one logical map of factors according to the nature of their impact (positive or negative) on the juveniles’ statements. Results of the analysis show that the quality of juvenile testimony might be influenced by such factors as: 1) the interviewer`s ability to assess the interviewee`s cognitive abilities, 2) and language skills, 3) the interviewer`s communication, 4) the interviewer`s contact with the minor. The map of factors (Table 3) allows to systematically look at the factors that affect the quality of a juvenile›s testimony. In principle, it can be understood that the quality of the testimony depends on how the child`s interview will be constructed and whether the interviewer will make crucial mistakes that will adversely affect juvenile›s testimony. Researchers specializing in child interviewing agree that the majority of the interview training programs are ineffective and do not substantially contribute to higher quality and standards for the child interviewing (Cederborg, Lamb, Sternberg & Lamb, 2000; Korkman et al., 2008; Sternberg et al., 2001). Following this analysis, the idea arises that not only theoretical knowledge that might impact the quality of juvenile›s testimony is important but also the skill of interviewing. The map of factors resembles not only factors that in theory are important to extract good quality statements from a child but also main components of the skill that the interviewer should master. Qualitative research analysing the factors that affect the quality of a juvenile`s testimony is extremely limited. Knowledge, understanding and integration of the identified factors influencing the ability of a juvenile to give evidence into a practical skill is the basis for obtaining reliable and high-quality testimony from a juvenile. [...]

Iterative Local Model Selection for tracking and mapping

The past decade has seen great progress in research on large scale mapping and perception in static environments. Real world perception requires handling uncertain situations with multiple possible interpretations: e.g. changing appearances, dynamic objects, and varying motion models. These aspects of perception have been largely avoided through the use of heuristics and preprocessing. This thesis is motivated by the challenge of including discrete reasoning directly into the estimation process. We approach the problem by using Conditional Linear Gaussian Networks (CLGNs) as a generalization of least-squares estimation which allows the inclusion of discrete model selection variables. CLGNs are a powerful framework for modeling sparse multi-modal inference problems, but are difficult to solve efficiently. We propose the Iterative Local Model Selection (ILMS) algorithm as a general approximation strategy specifically geared towards the large scale problems encountered in tracking and mapping. Chapter 4 introduces the ILMS algorithm and compares its performance to traditional approximate inference techniques for Switching Linear Dynamical Systems (SLDSs). These evaluations validate the characteristics of the algorithm which make it particularly attractive for applications in robot perception. Chief among these is reliability of convergence, consistent performance, and a reasonable trade off between accuracy and efficiency. In Chapter 5, we show how the data association problem in multi-target tracking can be formulated as an SLDS and effectively solved using ILMS. The SLDS formulation allows the addition of additional discrete variables which model outliers and clutter in the scene. Evaluations on standard pedestrian tracking sequences demonstrates performance competitive with the state of the art. Chapter 6 applies the ILMS algorithm to robust pose graph estimation. A non-linear CLGN is constructed by introducing outlier indicator variables for all loop closures. The standard Gauss-Newton optimization algorithm is modified to use ILMS as an inference algorithm in between linearizations. Experiments demonstrate a large improvement over state-of-the-art robust techniques. The ILMS strategy presented in this thesis is simple and general, but still works surprisingly well. We argue that these properties are encouraging for wider applicability to problems in robot perception.</p

The problem of delimitation in child sexual abuse cases involving children under the age of sixteen in Lithuanian court practice

CC BY-NC-ND 4.0This study explores the delimitation criteria in child sexual abuse (CSA) cases with children under the age of sixteen formed by Lithuanian court practice. The main focus was on the elements of the offences of sexual assault and the molestation of a person under the age of 16 (the gratification of sexual passion by other forms of physical contact and the offence of molestation by physical contact) as the basis for distinguishing between these offences. This study reveals that, in reality, Lithuanian courts rely on the nature of sexual contact. Sexual assault is typically acknowl-edged when penetrative contact has occurred and molestation is acknowledged when non-penetrative contact has occurred. Psychological research does not unambiguously support the idea that penetrative contact has significantly stronger negative outcomes than non-penetrative contact. Thus, this research leads to a recommendation for the courts to reconsider the criteria for distinguishing between child sexual assault and child molestation