A feminist criminological critique of aspects of the criminal justice system and the whole-system response towards female victims of intimate partner abuse

PhD ThesisThe thesis examines the development of the criminal justice system response to intimate partner abuse in England and Wales from 1997 to 2017. The examination occurs based on the intersectional gendered approach, which provides a feminist criminological perspective. This perspective aims to provide insight on the extent of the prevention of IPA and the protection of female victims by targeting gender inequality, considering their diverse identities, and promoting the transformation of the social perception. Specifically, the thesis focuses on identifying gaps between policies, laws, and practice of aspects of the criminal justice system and the whole-system response. This is achieved by investigating the governmental IPA strategies, criminal laws, and policies and practice of the police, CPS, and the courts. Moreover, the thesis focuses on three case studies, early intervention to young people through education, victims’ access to justice through legal aid, and specialist refuges. These issues are examined in order to show the contribution of the whole-system response to support diverse victims and to transform the social perception towards IPA due to the limited power of the law. Additionally, feminist engagements with these developments are identified. The critiques are produced through the views of feminist theorists and activists and by applying the intersectional gendered approach. The examination shows that the response to IPA has improved progressively through developments such as the creation of a gender-based VAWG strategy, the creation of the coercive control offence, and the mandatory teaching of Relationships and Sex Education. However, more changes are needed since there are gaps between the policies, laws, and practice. Moreover, the implementation of the Single Equality Duty needs to be changed since it undermines the implementation of the intersectional gendered approach. Feminist theorists and activists have contributed to these developments through theoretical and practical engagements such as lobbying, campaigning, and training. It is argued that the adoption of the intersectional gendered approach as the theoretical basis for the formation of the CJS and the whole-system responses could contribute to the improvement of the prevention of IPA and the protection of its victims

A STUDY REGARDING GREEK TEACHERS DURING ECONOMIC AUSTERITY

This article deals with teachers’ feelings about teaching through their personal beliefs and experiences. We tried to reveal the relationship between some of the factors operating in the context of a teacher’s work, the constraints on her/his freedom of action and judgement, teachers’ classroom practice and the possible rewards and the stresses that s/he experiences every day during economic austerity measures. It looks at the teacher as a person as well as a professional. The previously mentioned targets are undertaken through semi-structured (and e-mail) interviews with teachers during 2015-2016 and are based on the main idea of our Master’s thesis (we asked the same questions to teachers nowadays). The common ground and the differences across respondents’ answers are identified.   Article visualizations

Youth Spending and Geodemographics: A Review of Research into Adolescent Consumers

Our research seeks to undertake an exploratory analysis of adolescents’ consumer data. Our primary aim is to understand how variations in youth spending and earnings vary by demographics, and also by their neighbourhood characteristics. As the vast majority of consumer datasets focus on adults, little is known about how adolescents interact with the retail market as they age. The eventual aim is that the findings from our future research can be used to guide the production of youth geodemographic datasets using data pooled from a range of sources

Βελτιστοποίηση Απάντησης Ερωτημάτων σε Εκφραστική Οντολογική Γνώση

145 σ.Στη διατριβή αυτή έχουν αναπτυχθεί τεχνικές βελτιστοποίησης για την απάντηση συζευκτικών ερωτημάτων που τίθενται σε βάσεις γνώσης περιγραφικής λογικής. Με βάση το σύστημα συνεπαγωγής άμεσης σημασιολογίας OWL της SPARQL δημιουργήθηκε μια γλώσσα συζευκτικών ερωτημάτων, η οποία επιτρέπει τη χρήση μεταβλητών στη θέση εννοιών και ρόλων εκτός από τη θέση στιγμιοτύπων, και αναπτύχθηκε ένας αλγόριθμος απάντησης ερωτημάτων στη γλώσσα αυτή. Στη συνέχεια αναπτύχθηκε μια τεχνική για την εύρεση μιας όσο το δυνατόν πιο αποδοτικής σειράς εκτέλεσης των ατόμων ενός (συζευκτικού) ερωτήματος. Σύμφωνα με την τεχνική αυτή τα άτομα ενός ερωτήματος ταξινομούνται με βάση το κόστος εκτέλεσής τους. Ο υπολογισμός του κόστους ενός ατόμου στηρίζεται σε πληροφορία σχετική με τα στιγμιότυπα των εννοιών και ρόλων της υπό εξέταση οντολογίας η οποία εξάγεται από ένα αρχικό μοντέλο που κατασκευάζεται από μια OWL μηχανή συλλογιστικής. Παρουσιάζεται ένας στατικός και ένας δυναμικός αλγόριθμος ταξινόμησης που χρησιμοποιούν αυτά τα κόστη για να βρουν βέλτιστες ή σχεδόν βέλτιστες σειρές εκτέλεσης των ατόμων των ερωτημάτων. Στην περίπτωση του δυναμικού αλγορίθμου, χρησιμοποιείται μια τεχνική συσταδοποίησης στιγμιοτύπων και υπολογίζονται οι συναρτήσεις κόστους με βάση το πολύ ένα στιγμιότυπο από καθεμιά από τις συστάδες. Στη συνέχεια προτείνονται τεχνικές επανεγγραφής ερωτημάτων και αναλύεται πως μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν ειδικές λειτουργίες των OWL μηχανών συλλογιστικής και η ιεραρχία εννοιών και ρόλων της υπό εξέταση οντολογίας για τη μείωση του χρόνου απάντησης ερωτημάτων. Οι τεχνικές αυτές είναι ιδιαίτερα χρήσιμες για την αξιολόγηση ατόμων ερωτημάτων που περιέχουν μεταβλητές στη θέση εννοιών και ρόλων. Η αποτελεσματικότητα των προτεινόμενων τεχνικών αξιολογείται χρησιμοποιώντας πρότυπα σύνολα ελέγχου. Από την πειραματική αυτή μελέτη προκύπτει ότι ο στατικός αλγόριθμος ταξινόμησης συνήθως υπερτερεί του δυναμικού όταν χρησιμοποιείται για ερωτήματα για τα οποία έχουμε ακριβείς πληροφορίες/στατιστικές από την αρχή. Για ερωτήματα που τίθενται σε μη ντετερμινιστικές οντολογίες (οντολογίες με διαζευκτική πληροφορία) και περιέχουν πολλά άτομα για τα οποία δεν είναι δυνατή η εξαγωγή ακριβών στατιστικών εκ των προτέρων, ο δυναμικός αλγόριθμος είναι πιο αποδοτικός. Η χρήση τεχνικών συσταδοποίησης οδηγεί σε βελτίωση της απόδοσης για ερωτήματα με μεγάλο πλήθος αποτελεσμάτων. Για τέτοια σύνθετα ερωτήματα οι τεχνικές αυτές μπορούν να οδηγήσουν σε βελτίωση μέχρι και τρεις τάξεις μεγέθους. Στο τέλος ακολουθεί μια περιγραφή του τρόπου που μπορούν να χρησιμοποιηθούν οι προτεινόμενες τεχνικές και το αναπτυγμένο σύστημα σε μια πραγματική εφαρμογή σημασιολογικής αναζήτησης πολιτιστικών αντικειμένων.Query answering over ontologies, i.e., the computation of answers to user queries based not only on explicitly stated information but also on implicit knowledge is an important task in the context of the Semantic Web. In this direction, the SPARQL query language has recently been extended by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) with so-called entailment regimes. An entailment regime defines how queries are evaluated under more expressive semantics than SPARQL's standard simple entailment, which is based on subgraph matching. In this thesis we describe a sound and complete algorithm for the OWL Direct Semantics entailment regime of SPARQL (SPARQL-OWL). The proposed SPARQL-OWL queries are very expressive since variables can occur within complex concepts and can also bind to concept or role names apart from individuals. Initially, we present a cost-based query planning strategy for SPARQL queries issued over an OWL ontology. The costs of the model are based on information about the instances of concepts and roles that are extracted from a model abstraction built by an OWL reasoner. A static and a dynamic algorithm are presented which use these costs to find optimal or near optimal execution orders for the templates of a query. For the dynamic case, we improve the performance by exploiting an individual clustering approach that allows for computing the cost functions based on one individual sample per cluster. Afterwards, we propose optimizations that target particularly the complex queries that are allowed in SPARQL-OWL. These optimizations exploit query rewriting techniques and the concept and role hierarchies to efficiently answer such queries. The proposed algorithm and optimizations have been implemented in a system called OWL-BGP. Our experimental study, using this system, shows that the static ordering usually outperforms the dynamic one when accurate statistics are available. This changes, however, when the statistics are less accurate, e.g., due to non-deterministic reasoning decisions. For complex SPARQL-OWL queries we observe an improvement of up to three orders of magnitude due to the proposed optimizations. Finally, we show that the implemented system works well in a real world application about cultural heritage data.Ηλιάννα Σ. Κόλλι

Educación anti-opresiva: mensages de Paulo Freire

This paper provides a critical discussion of education as a process in classroom but also as an institution within wider contextual structures. The limitations and challenges faced by educators have reduced education in a target/outcome focused process that reproduce societal norms and ‘knowledge’. However, the anti-oppressive pedagogy of Freire, it is argued, can be used as an inspirational and helpful tool to deconstruct and reconstruct oppressive reality within and outside class. Following an in depth description of Freire’s conceptualization of education, the paper concludes with a number of implications for educators who are committed to anti-oppression and social justice.El presente artículo presenta una discusión crítica acera de la educación como un proceso en el aula pero también como una institución contextualizada en ámbitos más amplios. Las limitaciones y los desafíos afrontados por los educadores hen reducido la educación a un proceso orientado a lograr metas y resultados que a menudo reproducen las normas y el conocimiento de la sociedad. Sin embargo la pedagogía antiopresiva de Freire puede ser utilizada como una herramienta inspitadora y útil tanto para deconstruir como para reconstruir realidades otrora opresivas y tanto desde dentro como desde fuera de las aulas. Siguiendo una descripcion en profundidad de la conceptualizacion freireana de educación, el artículo concluye con una serie de implicaciones para educadores comprometidos con la justicia y con lo anti opresivo.This paper provides a critical discussion of education as a process in classroom but also as an institution within wider contextual structures. The limitations and challenges faced by educators have reduced education in a target/outcome focused process that reproduce societal norms and ‘knowledge’. However, the anti-oppressive pedagogy of Freire, it is argued, can be used as an inspirational and helpful tool to deconstruct and reconstruct oppressive reality within and outside class. Following an in depth description of Freire’s conceptualization of education, the paper concludes with a number of implications for educators who are committed to anti-oppression and social justice

The Most Suitable Way of Teaching

Within the context of educational science it is necessary to deal with ways of making the transmission of knowledge to individuals more effective. In trying to find out which is the best way of teaching K-12 curriculum (that is how publicly supported education from kindergarten to High school is called in most countries), we asked our samples, which consists of eighteen (18) nursery (or pre-education) teachers, twenty five (25) primary teachers, fourteen (14) IT (or Computing) teachers and nine (9) secondary teachers, one simple question “Which is the most suitable way of teaching according to your opinion?”. The research background consists of educators’ efforts to comprehend ways of effective and functional teaching through the years. The method of our research is qualitative and the tools we use adopt elements from semi-structured e-mail interviews and discourse analysis. Expressing themselves in various ways, teachers ended up stating that the most suitable way of teaching is Group collaborative teaching/learning. We could claim that all teachers participating in our research try to match their teaching method to pupils’ needs and that is an essential and strong element. What makes the topic significant is the fact that how to teach is an issue that concerns educators (and not only) worldwide and since aspects are numerous and not always conclusive, it is interesting to highlight them and constantly study educational reality. Keywords: Way of Teaching; Didactics; Teachers; Qualitative Research DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-29-02 Publication date:October 31st 202

HOW ICT TEACHERS FEEL ABOUT TEACHING: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN GREECE AND INDONESIA

The issue of Computer Science entering schools first appeared during the ’60s. The first academic Computer Science Department was founded during this decade at Purdue University and was followed by a second one at Stanford University. As far as the other levels of educational systems are concerned the wide introduction of computers into schools started during the ’80s. This paper refers to a comparative small scale qualitative research that took place between two countries: Greece and Indonesia. It compares Greek and Indonesian Computer Science teachers’ views on whether the Computer Science (or ICT or Computing or Informatics) course improves students’ lives and could in general assist in teaching. Both Greece and Indonesia have included the course of Information and Communication(s) Technologies (ICT) in the curricula of their primary and secondary education levels. Data were collected through interviews (semi-structured and e-mail ones). We interviewed eleven (11) Greek and twenty (20) Indonesian Computer Science (or ICT or Computing or Informatics) teachers. For each country we carefully studied participants’ answers, we categorized and analyzed them in order to obtain reliable results. Then we compared the two countries’ results so as to find similarities and differences between them. After this comparison we drew the conclusion that the points of view of teachers coming from the two aforementioned countries are almost the same. Participants declared that they see teaching as a positive procedure and that they also consider ICT (or Computer Science or Computing or Informatics) course as important for their pupils’/students’ lives. Article visualizations

A Unified Deep Learning Approach for Prediction of Parkinson’s Disease

The paper presents a novel approach, based on deep learning, for diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease through medical imaging. The approach includes analysis and use of the knowledge extracted by Deep Convolutional and Recurrent Neural Networks (DNNs) when trained with medical images, such as Magnetic Resonance Images and DaTscans. Internal representations of the trained DNNs constitute the extracted knowledge which is used in a transfer learning and domain adaptation manner, so as to create a unified framework for prediction of Parkinson’s across different medical environments. A large experimental study is presented illustrating the ability of the proposed approach to effectively predict Parkinson’s, using different medical image sets from real environments