(Ill-Legal) Lust is a battle field: HIV risk, socio-sexuality and criminality

This paper examines the criminalisation of HIV infection. HIV transmission offences exist in all Australian states and territories, but the bulk of prosecutions have occurred in Victoria. This paper outlines criminal legal responses to the virus in that state with an overview of the legislation and case law. Victoria has several HIV specific and nonspecific offences which may be applied to situations of HIV infection risk. It is the HIV non-specific offences which have been successfully used to prosecute HIV infection risks. The case law outlines several instances where HIV positive bodies have been charged with offences for placing others at risk of HIV infection. These charges have been applied in several cases regardless of whether the complainants seroconvert. Those charged have been same-sex desiring men or African-born men who engaged in sex with Caucasian women. There are marked differences in the sentences which have been applied to these defendants, which are based on the sexuality of the defendant and complainant. This demonstrates the heterosexist and Eurocentric character of the performance of these laws. These offences do not operate in isolation to sociality, rather this area of law embodies many cultural panics about the Other. HIV transmission offences signal socio-legal panics about sexuality, race/ethnicity and disease, situating certain bodies at greater risk of crimino-legal punishment.This conference has been generously sponsored by the School of Social and Political Sciences and the Sydney Law School, University of Sydney, in collaboration with the School of Law, University of Western Sydne

Comparing the Performance of Two Road Weather Models in the Netherlands

High-quality road condition forecasts are a prerequisite for road authorities to ensure wintertime road safety. Harsh winter conditions can cause problems for traffic not only in countries where snowy winters are common but also in regions where the temperature drops below the freezing point occasionally. This study reports on the evaluation of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute's (KNMI) new road weather forecasting model by comparing it with the Finnish Meteorological Institute's (FMI) road weather model, both run for 321 Dutch road weather stations, four times daily (0300, 0900, 1500, and 2100 UTC) during the test period, 15 January-28 February 2015. Road surface temperature forecasts by both models were evaluated against observations. The KNMI model produced slightly more accurate forecasts than the FMI model. The main reason for the difference is probably due to the optimization of the physical properties of the KNMI model for the Netherlands, whereas the FMI model is designed for quite different Finnish wintertime meteorological conditions. However, in general the road surface temperature forecasts were of quite comparable quality.Peer reviewe

Modelling sea breeze climatologies and interactions on coasts in the southern North Sea: Implications for offshore wind energy

Current understanding of the behaviour of sea breezes in the offshore environment is limited but rapidly requires improvement due, not least, to the expansion of the offshore wind energy industry. Here we report on contrasting characteristics of three sea-breeze types on five coastlines around the southern North Sea from an 11 year model-simulated climatology. We present and test an identification method which distinguishes sea-breeze types which can, in principle, be adapted for other coastlines around the world. The coherence of the composite results for each type demonstrates that the method is very effective in resolving and distinguishing characteristics and features. Some features, such as jets and calm zones, are shown to influence offshore wind farm development areas, including the sites of the proposed wind farms up to 200 km offshore. A large variability in sea-breeze frequency between neighbouring coastlines of up to a factor of 3 is revealed. Additionally, there is a strong association between sea-breeze type on one coastline and that which may form coincidentally on another nearby. This association can be as high as 86% between, for example, the North Norfolk and East Norfolk coasts. We show, through associations between sea-breeze events on coastlines with contrasting orientations, that each coastline can be important for influencing the wind climate of another. Furthermore, we highlight that each sea-breeze type needs separate consideration in wind power resource assessment and that future larger turbines will be more sensitive to sea-breeze impacts

Attentional modulation of neural sound tracking in children with and without dyslexia

Auditory selective attention forms an important foundation of children's learning by enabling the prioritisation and encoding of relevant stimuli. It may also influence reading development, which relies on metalinguistic skills including the awareness of the sound structure of spoken language. Reports of attentional impairments and speech perception difficulties in noisy environments in dyslexic readers are also suggestive of the putative contribution of auditory attention to reading development. To date, it is unclear whether non-speech selective attention and its underlying neural mechanisms are impaired in children with dyslexia and to which extent these deficits relate to individual reading and speech perception abilities in suboptimal listening conditions. In this EEG study, we assessed non-speech sustained auditory selective attention in 106 7-to-12-year-old children with and without dyslexia. Children attended to one of two tone streams, detecting occasional sequence repeats in the attended stream, and performed a speech-in-speech perception task. Results show that when children directed their attention to one stream, inter-trial-phase-coherence at the attended rate increased in fronto-central sites; this, in turn, was associated with better target detection. Behavioural and neural indices of attention did not systematically differ as a function of dyslexia diagnosis. However, behavioural indices of attention did explain individual differences in reading fluency and speech-in-speech perception abilities: both these skills were impaired in dyslexic readers. Taken together, our results show that children with dyslexia do not show group-level auditory attention deficits but these deficits may represent a risk for developing reading impairments and problems with speech perception in complex acoustic environments

The HARMONIE–AROME Model Configuration in the ALADIN–HIRLAM NWP System

The aim of this article is to describe the reference configuration of the convection-permitting numerical weather prediction (NWP) model HARMONIE-AROME, which is used for operational short-range weather forecasts in Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, and Sweden. It is developed, maintained, and validated as part of the shared ALADIN–HIRLAM system by a collaboration of 26 countries in Europe and northern Africa on short-range mesoscale NWP. HARMONIE–AROME is based on the model AROME developed within the ALADIN consortium. Along with the joint modeling framework, AROME was implemented and utilized in both northern and southern European conditions by the above listed countries, and this activity has led to extensive updates to themodel’s physical parameterizations. In this paper the authors present the differences inmodel dynamics and physical parameterizations compared with AROME, as well as important configuration choices of the reference, such as lateral boundary conditions, model levels, horizontal resolution, model time step, as well as topography, physiography, and aerosol databases used. Separate documentation will be provided for the atmospheric and surface data-assimilation algorithms and observation types used, as well as a separate description of the ensemble prediction system based on HARMONIE–AROME, which is called HarmonEPS

Observed and Parameterized Roughness Lengths for Momentum and Heat Over Rough Ice Surfaces

Turbulent heat fluxes, that is, the sensible heat flux and latent heat flux, are important sources/sinks of energy for surface melt over glaciers and ice sheets. Therefore, credible simulations of for example, future Greenland Ice Sheet mass loss need an accurate description of these fluxes. However, the parameterization of surface turbulent heat fluxes in climate models requires knowledge about the surface roughness lengths for momentum, heat and moisture, which are currently either unknown or tuned to indirect observations. In this study we take advantage of a large data set of eddy covariance observations acquired during multiple years and at multiple sites over the Greenland Ice Sheet. These in-situ observations are used to develop an improved parameterization for the roughness length for momentum, and update the parameterization for the roughness lengths for heat and moisture over rough ice surfaces. The newly derived parameterizations are implemented in a surface energy balance model that is used to compute surface melt. Sensitivity experiments confirm the high sensitivity of surface melt to the chosen roughness length models. The new parameterization models the sensible heat flux to within 10 W m−2, and the cumulative ice ablation within 10% at three out of four sites. Two case studies demonstrate the important contribution of the turbulent heat fluxes to surface ablation. The presented roughness parameterizations can be implemented in climate models to improve the physical representation of surface roughness over rough snow and ice surfaces, which is expected to improve the modeled turbulent heat fluxes and thus surface melt