Utilisation of plant food waste

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The exception that proves the rule: female sex offending and the gendered nature of sexual violence

This paper explores statistics about the prevalence of female sex offending and outlines the impacts on victims of sex offences by women, as well as issues related to disclosing the abuse. Introduction National and international victimisation data demonstrate that intimate forms of violence, such as domestic and family violence, are gendered. However in both academic and popular discourses there is a lively debate about the possibility of men\u27s and women\u27s equivalent use of physical, emotional and psychological violence, with some researchers arguing that there is no gender difference in the perpetration of intimate partner and domestic violence. The debate centres on the notion that domestic violence is gender neutral - rather than a gendered crime in which men are by and large the perpetrators and women and children make up the majority of victims. This debate can be dangerous as it may promote men\u27s denial of their violence toward women and denial of women\u27s experiences of violent victimisation. Denial can continue the cycle of power and control that is a feature of men\u27s violence against women. While sexual violence has tended not to be a feature of these debates, its gendered nature (as demonstrated by the statistics) is challenged and undermined when instances of female sex offending are reported in the public domain. Like the gender symmetry debate in domestic and family violence, the occurrence of female sex offending is seen to invalidate the empirically supported notion that sexual assault is a gendered crime. It is important therefore to present what is currently known about female sex offenders in an examination of available data. The importance of research on female sexual offending is highlighted by the difficulty in conceptualising it. In the existing research/literature, there is no real clarity around what motivates females to sexually offend. However there is often a rejection of the idea of women having the potential for violence and deviant, coercive sexuality. There is an over-reliance on gender in discussing female sex offenders (specifically in the media and more broadly on a social/cultural level) that can often lead to the notion that female sex offending is less harmful - psychologically and physically - than male sex offending. Gender relates to the social characteristics attributed to men and women that can often be more prescriptive than descriptive of actual characteristics and behaviour. Although gender is an important conceptual tool there may be an over-reliance on gendered stereotypes in the public domain. Conversely, gender may play a role in how men and women sexually offend and ways that gender may conceal women\u27s offending. It is here that the difficulty lies - and a review of the literature does not completely undo this difficulty. Little is known about female sex offenders, and what empirical work has been done is in the initial stages of identifying characteristics associated with female sex offenders. Although prevalence rates are variable, the general consensus is that around 5% of sex offences are committed by women. Much of the work - which began in earnest in the 1980s - has limitations due to being conducted mainly with known offenders who are in the criminal justice system, or with very small clinical samples. Small sample sizes occur because there are only very small populations of female sex offenders, as opposed to much larger populations of male sex offenders. There currently appear to be no research summaries that bring together everything that is known about female sex offenders. This Research Summary will explore the current literature - predominantly from 2000 onward - and outline what is currently known about female sex offenders. Tables of data related to offence and offender characteristics will be presented to bring together the current available empirical evidence. The impacts on victims and issues related to disclosing sexual abuse perpetrated by women are also included

Sexual revictimisation: individual, interpersonal and contextual factors

People who have been sexually abused as children are two to three times more likely to be sexually revictimised in adolescence and/or adulthood. This paper explores the complex array of variables related to sexual revictimisation. Abstract There is a complex array of variables related to sexual revictimisation. Although prevalence is difficult to ascertain, several studies relate that people who have been sexually abused as children are two to three times more likely to be sexually revictimised in adolescence and/or adulthood. Much of the literature on sexual revictimisation focuses on the individual risk factors for the victim/survivor - their risk perception and emotional dysregulation resulting from initial sexual victimisation - and how these create vulnerability for sexual revictimisation. Broader contextual factors beyond the victim/survivor, however, are often ignored. These contextual factors are explored here with a particular emphasis on minority groups, such as people with a disability; gay, lesbian and bisexual people; and Indigenous people. This focus demonstrates that individual risk factors often do not account for how perpetrators may target vulnerable people who have previously been victimised, how community and organisational attitudes and norms may support sexual revictimisation, and how broader social norms create vulnerability for certain groups. A focus on these broader contextual factors helps to inform prevention strategies. Key messages People who are sexually abused in childhood are two to three times more likely to be sexually revictimised in adolescence and/or adulthood. Individual risk factors include a history of child sexual abuse, poor risk perception, emotional dysregulation, cumulative past abuse, family conflict and distress. Broader contextual factors, such as perpetrator tactics, community and organisational attitudes, and social norms, are also risk factors for sexual revictimisation. Those vulnerable to sexual revictimisation, including minority groups such as people with a disability; gay, lesbian and bisexual people; and Indigenous people may require greater support and advocacy in order to alleviate trauma and trauma symptoms, and increase their resilience. Similar strategies used in the sexual violence primary prevention space may be used to prevent sexual revictimisation. This includes respectful relationships education, gender equity principles and a focus on important sites of social norm reproduction, such as sporting sites and the media, to convey messages of respect and equality

Linear signaling in the Toll-Dorsal pathway of Drosophila: activated Pelle kinase specifies all threshold outputs of gene expression while the bHLH protein Twist specifies a subset

Differential activation of the Toll receptor leads to the formation of a broad Dorsal nuclear gradient that specifies at least three patterning thresholds of gene activity along the dorsoventral axis of precellular embryos. We investigate the activities of the Pelle kinase and Twist basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factor in transducing Toll signaling. Pelle functions downstream of Toll to release Dorsal from the Cactus inhibitor. Twist is an immediate-early gene that is activated upon entry of Dorsal into nuclei. Transgenes misexpressing Pelle and Twist were introduced into different mutant backgrounds and the patterning activities were visualized using various target genes that respond to different thresholds of Toll-Dorsal signaling. These studies suggest that an anteroposterior gradient of Pelle kinase activity is sufficient to generate all known Toll-Dorsal patterning thresholds and that Twist can function as a gradient morphogen to establish at least two distinct dorsoventral patterning thresholds. We discuss how the Dorsal gradient system can be modified during metazoan evolution and conclude that Dorsal-Twist interactions are distinct from the interplay between Bicoid and Hunchback, which pattern the anteroposterior axis

Analysis of Thisbe and Pyramus functional domains reveals evidence for cleavage of Drosophila FGFs

Background: As important regulators of developmental and adult processes in metazoans, Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) proteins are potent signaling molecules whose activities must be tightly regulated. FGFs are known to play diverse roles in many processes, including mesoderm induction, branching morphogenesis, organ formation, wound healing and malignant transformation; yet much more remains to be learned about the mechanisms of regulation used to control FGF activity. Results: In this work, we conducted an analysis of the functional domains of two Drosophila proteins, Thisbe (Ths) and Pyramus (Pyr), which share homology with the FGF8 subfamily of ligands in vertebrates. Ths and Pyr proteins are secreted from Drosophila Schneider cells (S2) as smaller N-terminal fragments presumably as a result of intracellular proteolytic cleavage. Cleaved forms of Ths and Pyr can be detected in embryonic extracts as well. The FGF-domain is contained within the secreted ligand portion, and this domain alone is capable of functioning in the embryo when ectopically expressed. Through targeted ectopic expression experiments in which we assay the ability of full-length, truncated, and chimeric proteins to support cell differentiation, we find evidence that (1) the C-terminal domain of Pyr is retained inside the cell and does not seem to be required for receptor activation and (2) the C-terminal domain of Ths is secreted and, while also not required for receptor activation, this domain does plays a role in limiting the activity of Ths when present. Conclusions: We propose that differential protein processing may account for the previously observed inequalities in signaling capabilities between Ths and Pyr. While the regulatory mechanisms are likely complex, studies such as ours conducted in a tractable model system may be able to provide insights into how ligand processing regulates growth factor activity

Computing and deflating eigenvalues while solving multiple right hand side linear systems in Quantum Chromodynamics

We present a new algorithm that computes eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a Hermitian positive definite matrix while solving a linear system of equations with Conjugate Gradient (CG). Traditionally, all the CG iteration vectors could be saved and recombined through the eigenvectors of the tridiagonal projection matrix, which is equivalent theoretically to unrestarted Lanczos. Our algorithm capitalizes on the iteration vectors produced by CG to update only a small window of vectors that approximate the eigenvectors. While this window is restarted in a locally optimal way, the CG algorithm for the linear system is unaffected. Yet, in all our experiments, this small window converges to the required eigenvectors at a rate identical to unrestarted Lanczos. After the solution of the linear system, eigenvectors that have not accurately converged can be improved in an incremental fashion by solving additional linear systems. In this case, eigenvectors identified in earlier systems can be used to deflate, and thus accelerate, the convergence of subsequent systems. We have used this algorithm with excellent results in lattice QCD applications, where hundreds of right hand sides may be needed. Specifically, about 70 eigenvectors are obtained to full accuracy after solving 24 right hand sides. Deflating these from the large number of subsequent right hand sides removes the dreaded critical slowdown, where the conditioning of the matrix increases as the quark mass reaches a critical value. Our experiments show almost a constant number of iterations for our method, regardless of quark mass, and speedups of 8 over original CG for light quark masses.Comment: 22 pages, 26 eps figure

MCMC inference for Markov Jump Processes via the Linear Noise Approximation

Bayesian analysis for Markov jump processes is a non-trivial and challenging problem. Although exact inference is theoretically possible, it is computationally demanding thus its applicability is limited to a small class of problems. In this paper we describe the application of Riemann manifold MCMC methods using an approximation to the likelihood of the Markov jump process which is valid when the system modelled is near its thermodynamic limit. The proposed approach is both statistically and computationally efficient while the convergence rate and mixing of the chains allows for fast MCMC inference. The methodology is evaluated using numerical simulations on two problems from chemical kinetics and one from systems biology