A Primal-Dual Augmented Lagrangian

Nonlinearly constrained optimization problems can be solved by minimizing a sequence of simpler unconstrained or linearly constrained subproblems. In this paper, we discuss the formulation of subproblems in which the objective is a primal-dual generalization of the Hestenes-Powell augmented Lagrangian function. This generalization has the crucial feature that it is minimized with respect to both the primal and the dual variables simultaneously. A benefit of this approach is that the quality of the dual variables is monitored explicitly during the solution of the subproblem. Moreover, each subproblem may be regularized by imposing explicit bounds on the dual variables. Two primal-dual variants of conventional primal methods are proposed: a primal-dual bound constrained Lagrangian (pdBCL) method and a primal-dual $\ell$1 linearly constrained Lagrangian (pd$\ell$1-LCL) method

Framing bovine tuberculosis: a ‘political ecology of health’ approach to circulation of knowledge(s) about animal disease control

Bovine tuberculosis (bTB) remains a significant animal health problem with a global distribution. In addition to the ecological complexities, socio‐economic and socio‐cultural factors also affect efforts to control and eliminate the disease. Interrogating bTB from the author's positionality of being both a veterinary epidemiologist and a human geographer, this interdisciplinary engagement in the political ecology of health investigates the experiences and opinions of the actors involved in disease control. The findings of this research in one part of the United Kingdom – Northern Ireland – demonstrate gaps between expert scientific discourse and circulating on‐the‐ground perceptions and lay knowledges of the disease. bTB is therefore known and framed in multiple, often antithetical, ways by those who meet and experience the disease on farms. The paper concludes that farmers, vets and state policy‐makers must accept the heterogeneity of the disease; make it visible again; and create new imaginaries for a future where bTB is no longer an everyday ubiquity

Performativity and a microbe: exploring Mycobacterium bovis and the political ecologies of bovine tuberculosis

Mycobacterium bovis, the bacterium responsible for causing bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in cattle, displays what I call ‘microbial performativity’. Like many other lively disease-causing microorganisms, it has an agency which is difficult to contain, and there is a need for fresh thinking on the challenges of dealing with this slippery and indeterminate microbe. As a practising veterinary scientist who side-stepped mid-career into a parallel training in the social sciences to view bTB from an alternative perspective, I create an interdisciplinary coming-together where veterinary science converges with a political ecology of (animal) health influenced by science and technology studies (STS) and social science and humanities scholarship on performativity. This suitably hybridized nexus creates a place to consider the ecologies of a pathogen which could be considered as life out of control. I consider what this means for efforts to eradicate this disease through combining understandings from the published scientific literature with qualitative interview-based fieldwork with farmers, veterinarians and others involved in the statutory bTB eradication programme in a high incidence region of the UK. This study demonstrates the value of life scientists turning to the social sciences to re-view their familiar professional habitus—challenging assumptions, and offering alternative perspectives on complex problems

ALCOHOL ON U.S. NAVAL VESSELS: AN ASSESSMENT OF POLICIES TO ADOPT TO BEST PROMOTE RESPONSIBLE ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION

This thesis surveys the preferences and views of U.S. naval officers regarding different alcohol policies and what they believe would best promote responsible alcohol consumption among U.S. sailors. Using a mixed method of qualitative and quantitative approaches, I document the background of alcohol in the U.S. Navy in conjunction with identifying the preferences and views of U.S. naval officers at Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). The qualitative analysis stems from a literature review of alcohol misuse, culture, and history of alcohol policies in the U.S. Navy. Through a survey of 154 U.S. naval officers at NPS, the quantitative analysis reports the preferences and views regarding current alcohol policy on U.S. naval vessels from officers, who will rotate into increased leadership roles and potentially command of such vessels. Moreover, the survey identifies other factors to consider when incorporating an effective alcohol policy. Three alternatives considered to maintaining the status quo are: allow alcohol consumption onboard U.S. naval vessels while in port only, allow alcohol consumption onboard U.S. naval vessels while in port and underway, and revert to total alcohol prohibition. The primary finding is 81.81% of survey participants prefer an alcohol policy that would allow alcohol on U.S. naval vessels to a greater extent than presently. This finding and the remaining survey results may be beneficial to consider when conducting further policy evaluation and research.Lieutenant Commander, United States NavyApproved for public release. Distribution is unlimited

Farmers and bovine tuberculosis: contextualising statutory disease control within everyday farming lives

Farmers are important stakeholders to be enrolled in national efforts to control and eliminate endemic livestock diseases by state veterinary authorities. Their co-operation (or otherwise) has significant influence on the success of statutory disease control efforts, and when accomplishment does not meet aspiration, farmers may be blamed by the state for perceived failures. Approaching disease control within a political ecology framework and using a qualitative social science investigation of bovine tuberculosis (bTB) in Northern Ireland as a case study, this empirical paper explores the rationales and sensibilities of cattle farmers and the agricultural political economy and regulatory framework within which they operate in this region of the United Kingdom. This is important for understanding the farming context within which bTB is located, and this context is a feature of the disease landscape which has been under-developed in the bTB literature to date. Examining the premise that farmers are part of the problem of bTB, and a link in the chain of explanation as to why the disease has not yet been eliminated from the region, the paper will trace what everyday life is like for farmers living with multiple uncertainties and indeterminacies in their farming presents and futures. bTB as a disease is but one important influence on their farming lives – there are competing others which attract their attention and employ their resources, often pushing bTB down the list of priorities, despite its substantial cost to the economy. It will also demonstrate that farmers are embedded within wider structures, particularly global markets and European Union regulatory regimes, which profoundly condition and shape their actions, often elucidating resistance and a perceived loss of autonomy. A political ecology approach to investigating the complex multidimensional problems of First World agriculture, such as the effective control of endemic livestock disease in intensive production systems, is recommended if holistic interpretations and workable solutions are to be found and implemented

Farmer and veterinarian attitudes towards the risk of zoonotic Mycobacterium bovis infection in Northern Ireland

Based on a qualitative social science research methodology using semi-structured interviews, this paper examines the attitudes of farmers and veterinarians in Northern Ireland around the risk of acquiring tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium bovis from infected cattle and drinking raw milk. This region has traditionally had one of the highest rates of bovine tuberculosis in the United Kingdom and among the highest in Europe. The research finds that the risk is often downplayed and considered so rare that it is no longer a significant public health risk due to the pasteurisation of milk and intensive surveillance on farms through systematic testing and removal of positive animals, as evidenced by the low recorded human incidence. Although the incidence of tuberculosis in humans caused by M bovis is only around 1% of all annual human tuberculosis cases, this paper argues that M bovis may be underestimated as a human pathogen and makes the case for a renewed perspective. Discourses surrounding the disease may need to be re-orientated to remind relevant stakeholders that human infection with M bovis is a hazard that needs to be treated with more caution on the front line of control