The rolling problem: overview and challenges

In the present paper we give a historical account -ranging from classical to modern results- of the problem of rolling two Riemannian manifolds one on the other, with the restrictions that they cannot instantaneously slip or spin one with respect to the other. On the way we show how this problem has profited from the development of intrinsic Riemannian geometry, from geometric control theory and sub-Riemannian geometry. We also mention how other areas -such as robotics and interpolation theory- have employed the rolling model.Comment: 20 page

Social Capital and Housing Tenure in an Adelaide Neighbourhood

Author version made available in accordance with publisher copyright policy.In this paper we compare and contrast elements of social capital across different housing tenures in an Adelaide neighbourhood. Using the results of 530 self-completion questionnaires and in-depth qualitative interviews with 16 people we assess perceptions of conflict across housing tenures and between socioeconomic groups, feelings of acceptance and belonging in the local neighbourhood, and levels of involvement in local formal and informal networks. While only a small number of questionnaire respondents reported negative views of socioeconomic diversity in the area a common theme emerging in the qualitative data indicated that housing tenure was relevant to some of these negative perceptions. Respondents from across different tenure types also reported differences in feelings of acceptance in the neighbourhood, and involvement in formal and informal networks. The study findings suggest that housing tenure is relevant to the development of neighbourhood-based social capital, and that this factor needs to be considered by social planners, housing policy makers and others involved in implementing social mix policies. In addition, the findings indicate the need to consider the community housing and public housing tenures in their own right, given the different models of housing provision, rather than collectively under the common banner of social housing as most research studies do. It is recommended that the full diversity of housing tenure is considered in any future analysis

Predictive use of the Maximum Entropy Production principle for Past and Present Climates

In this paper, we show how the MEP hypothesis may be used to build simple climate models without representing explicitly the energy transport by the atmosphere. The purpose is twofold. First, we assess the performance of the MEP hypothesis by comparing a simple model with minimal input data to a complex, state-of-the-art General Circulation Model. Next, we show how to improve the realism of MEP climate models by including climate feedbacks, focusing on the case of the water-vapour feedback. We also discuss the dependence of the entropy production rate and predicted surface temperature on the resolution of the model

Young people, crime and school exclusion: a case of some surprises

During the 1990s the number of young people being permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales increased dramatically from 2,910 (1990/91) to a peak of 12,700 (1996/97). Coinciding with this rise was a resurgence of the debate centring on lawless and delinquent youth. With the publication of Young People and Crime (Graham and Bowling 1995) and Misspent Youth (Audit Commission 1996) the 'common sense assumption' that exclusion from school inexorably promoted crime received wide support, with the school excludee portrayed as another latter day 'folk devil'. This article explores the link between school exclusion and juvenile crime, and offers some key findings from a research study undertaken with 56 young people who had experience of being excluded from school. Self-report interview questions reveal that whilst 40 of the young people had offended, 90% (36) reported that the onset of their offending commenced prior to their first exclusion. Moreover, 50 (89.2% of the total number of young people in the sample), stated that they were no more likely to offend subsequent to being excluded and 31 (55.4%) stated that they were less likely to offend during their exclusion period. Often, this was because on being excluded, they were 'grounded' by their parents

Exploring concepts of health with male prisoners in three category-C English prisons

Lay understandings of health and illness have a well established track record and a plethora of research now exists which has examined these issues. However, there is a dearth of research which has examined the perspectives of those who are imprisoned. This paper attempts to address this research gap. The paper is timely given that calls have been made to examine lay perspectives in different geographical locations and a need to re-examine health promotion approaches in prison settings. Qualitative data from thirty-six male sentenced prisoners from three prisons in England were collected. The data was analysed in accordance with Attride-Stirling's (2001) thematic network approach. Although the men's perceptions of health were broadly similar to the general population, some interesting findings emerged which were directly related to prison life and its associated structures. These included access to the outdoors and time out of their prison cell, as well as maintaining relationships with family members through visits. The paper proposes that prisoners' lay views should be given higher priority given that prison health has traditionally been associated with medical treatment and the bio-medical paradigm more generally. It also suggests that in order to fulfil the World Health Organization's (WHO) vision of viewing prisons as health promoting settings, lay views should be recognised to shape future health promotion policy and practice

'Is your city pretty anyway?' Perspectives on graffiti and the urban landscape

Drawing on survey and focus group research completed in New Zealand in 2009 this article examines young peoples’ perspectives on graffiti and tagging. The results further demonstrate that graffiti writing is an activity invested with considerable cultural meaning by many of those engaged in it and that their understanding of graffiti is considerably at odds with prevailing political, media and policy discourse that sees it purely in terms of criminal damage and antisocial behaviour. While graffiti can be conceptualised as an alternative way of ‘reading’ urban space, the results of this study show that writers recognised that graffiti had damaging consequences and was inappropriate in some contexts. Graffiti was not simply nihilistic destructive behaviour but one in which perceptions of criminality were leavened by aesthetic judgements and the allure and excitement of potential local celebrity

Exploring Alternative Terrain in the Rehabilitation and Treatment of Offenders: Findings from a Prison-based Music Project

The arts in prison settings have provided an alternative or complimentary component to rehabilitation. Despite increased interest, studies capturing the voice of offenders participating in projects and the long-term impact are limited. Data from semistructured interviews with 18 men who had taken part in a music-based project while incarcerated, including one group of five participants who were tracked for 18 months with supplemented data from correctional staff and official documentation, is presented. Participants of the art-based projects comment on changes they believe to have derived from participating in the project, particularly relating to emotions, self-esteem, self-confidence, communication and social skills. An exoffender sample of participants reported that participation in art projects provide experiences that promote beneficial skills that have been useful for post prison life

Examining Landscape Factors Influencing Relative Distribution of Mosquito Genera and Frequency of Virus Infection

Mosquito-borne infections cause some of the most debilitating human diseases, including yellow fever and malaria, yet we lack an understanding of how disease risk scales with human-driven habitat changes. We present an approach to study variation in mosquito distribution and concomitant viral infections on the landscape level. In a pilot study we analyzed mosquito distribution along a 10-km transect of a West African rainforest area, which included primary forest, secondary forest, plantations, and human settlements. Variation was observed in the abundance of Anopheles, Aedes,Culex, and Uranotaenia mosquitoes between the different habitat types. Screening of trapped mosquitoes from the different habitats led to the isolation of five uncharacterized viruses of the families Bunyaviridae, Coronaviridae, Flaviviridae, and Rhabdoviridae, as well as an unclassified virus. Polymerase chain reaction screening for these five viruses in individual mosquitoes indicated a trend toward infection with specific viruses in specific mosquito genera that differed by habitat. Based on these initial analyses, we believe that further work is indicated to investigate the impact of anthropogenic landscape changes on mosquito distribution and accompanying arbovirus infection

Proceedings of a Sickle Cell Disease Ontology workshop - Towards the first comprehensive ontology for Sickle Cell Disease

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a debilitating single gene disorder caused by a single point mutation that results in physical deformation (i.e. sickling) of erythrocytes at reduced oxygen tensions. Up to 75% of SCD in newborns world-wide occurs in sub-Saharan Africa, where neonatal and childhood mortality from sickle cell related complications is high. While SCD research across the globe is tackling the disease on multiple fronts, advances have yet to significantly impact on the health and quality of life of SCD patients, due to lack of coordination of these disparate efforts. Ensuring data across studies is directly comparable through standardization is a necessary step towards realizing this goal. Such a standardization requires the development and implementation of a disease-specific ontology for SCD that is applicable globally. Ontology development is best achieved by bringing together experts in the domain to contribute their knowledge. The SCD community and H3ABioNet members joined forces at a recent SCD Ontology workshop to develop an ontology covering aspects of SCD under the classes: phenotype, diagnostics, therapeutics, quality of life, disease modifiers and disease stage. The aim of the workshop was for participants to contribute their expertise to development of the structure and contents of the SCD ontology. Here we describe the proceedings of the Sickle Cell Disease Ontology Workshop held in Cape Town South Africa in February 2016 and its outcomes. The objective of the workshop was to bring together experts in SCD from around the world to contribute their expertise to the development of various aspects of the SCD ontology

Probabilistic downscaling of remote sensing data with applications for multi-scale biogeochemical flux modeling

Upscaling ecological information to larger scales in space and downscaling remote sensing observations or model simulations to finer scales remain grand challenges in Earth system science. Downscaling often involves inferring subgrid information from coarse-scale data, and such ill-posed problems are classically addressed using regularization. Here, we apply two-dimensional Tikhonov Regularization (2DTR) to simulate subgrid surface patterns for ecological applications. Specifically, we test the ability of 2DTR to simulate the spatial statistics of high-resolution (4 m) remote sensing observations of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in a tundra landscape. We find that the 2DTR approach as applied here can capture the major mode of spatial variability of the high-resolution information, but not multiple modes of spatial variability, and that the Lagrange multiplier (γ) used to impose the condition of smoothness across space is related to the range of the experimental semivariogram. We used observed and 2DTR-simulated maps of NDVI to estimate landscape-level leaf area index (LAI) and gross primary productivity (GPP). NDVI maps simulated using a γ value that approximates the range of observed NDVI result in a landscape-level GPP estimate that differs by ca 2% from those created using observed NDVI. Following findings that GPP per unit LAI is lower near vegetation patch edges, we simulated vegetation patch edges using multiple approaches and found that simulated GPP declined by up to 12% as a result. 2DTR can generate random landscapes rapidly and can be applied to disaggregate ecological information and compare of spatial observations against simulated landscapes