Beyond 'types' in environmental agencies

Dr Brian Coffey contends that Dr Sue Briggs' commentary - 'From advocates to zealots' (PUBLIC ADMISTRATION Today, issue 27: July-September 2011) - on bureaucratic types in environmental agencies - 'raises an important issue: the need for reformers to understand the characteristics of public servants'.

Embedded restricted Boltzmann machines for fusion of mixed data types and applications in social measurements analysis

Analysis and fusion of social measurements is important to understand what shapes the public’s opinion and the sustainability of the global development. However, modeling data collected from social responses is challenging as the data is typically complex and heterogeneous, which might take the form of stated facts, subjective assessment, choices, preferences or any combination thereof. Model-wise, these responses are a mixture of data types including binary, categorical, multicategorical, continuous, ordinal, count and rank data. The challenge is therefore to effectively handle mixed data in the a unified fusion framework in order to perform inference and analysis. To that end, this paper introduces eRBM (Embedded Restricted Boltzmann Machine) – a probabilistic latent variable model that can represent mixed data using a layer of hidden variables transparent across different types of data. The proposed model can comfortably support largescale data analysis tasks, including distribution modelling, data completion, prediction and visualisation. We demonstrate these versatile features on several moderate and large-scale publicly available social survey datasets.

Exploring a recently developed census population model of the diversity of the sixteen psychological types in Australia

It is important for practitioners to know about the distribution of the sixteen psychological types in the country in which they operate. For instance: Are more females with Feeling preferences found in particular occupational categories? Can you make valid distinctions on the basis of the types found in sales workers compared with other categories? What are the differences in the Australian distribution of psychological types compared with the UK and USA? Participants in this workshop will be encouraged to make connections between their own experience of the diversity of types and a recently developed Australian Census Population Type Table which for the first time approaches a national probability sample. We will explore the patterns of type distribution in Australia, and compare the data with national population Type Tables developed in the UK and the USA.

Biosensors, types and applications

Biosensor has rapidly become essential analytical tools, since they offer higher performance in terms of sensitivity and selectively than any other currently available diagnostic device. The development of biosensor technology represents a crucial task for environmental pollution management, there is a considerable need to project and realize biosensors with the best features for commercialization, such as selectivity, sensitivity, stability, reproducibility and low cost. With appropriate progress testing and commercialization, biosensors will have an important impact on environmental monitoring, reducing costs and increasing the efficiency of certain applications. The same multiple approach might be used for development of biosensor platforms suitable for use in fields as diverse as environmental and agrifood to industry, research security and defence, medical and clinical. This review paper focussed on the various types of biosensors and applications in environmental monitoring.

A review of the impact of different types of leading interview questions on child and adult witnesses with intellectual disabilities

Children and adults with intellectual disabilities have traditionally been considered poor witnesses because they are easily misled and produce less accurate information in interviews when compared with individuals without intellectual disabilities. However, witnesses’ levels of accuracy depend on the types of questions that they are asked, such as whether they are open or closed and whether they contain misleading information. In the current systematic review, we examined the literature investigating the different types of misleading questions commonly used in interviews, and their influence on the memories of adults and children with and without an intellectual disability. Thirteen articles that met inclusion criteria were reviewed. It was found that, compared with other question types, open and closed questions that presumed certain information to be true elicited the greatest number of errors in children and adults with intellectual disabilities compared with other question types. These findings reinforce the notion that the onus is on interviewers – particularly when interviewing vulnerable witnesses – to avoid leading questions that presume information that may not be true.

Abolishing defensive homicide offence essential

The Victorian government's proposal to abolish the offence of defensive homicide is a welcome step forward for a law that has been plagued by controversy since the abolition in 2005 of the partial defence of provocation. The offence of defensive homicide was introduced in November 2005 in response to concerns that the abolition of provocation would disadvantage those who killed in response to prolonged family violence.

Errors in the identification of question types in investigative interviews of children

This study examined the incidence and nature of the errors made by trainee coders during their coding of question types in interviews in which children disclosed abuse. Three groups of trainees (online, postgraduate and police) studied the coding manual before practising their question coding. After this practice, participants were given two-page field transcripts to code in which children disclosed abuse. Their coding was assessed for accuracy; any errors were analysed thematically. The overall error rate was low, and police participants made the fewest errors. Analysis of the errors revealed four common misunderstandings: (1) the use of a ‘wh’ question always denotes a specific cued-recall question; (2) ‘Tell me’ always constitutes an open-ended question; (3) open-ended questions cannot include specific detail; and (4) specific questions cannot elicit elaborate responses. An analysis of coding accuracy in the one group who were able to practise question coding over time revealed that practice was essential for trainees to maintain their accuracy. Those who did not practise decreased in coding accuracy. This research shows that trainees need more than a coding manual; they must demonstrate their understanding of question codes through practice training tasks. Misunderstandings about questions need to be elicited and corrected so that accurate codes are used in future tasks.

Book Review: Diabetes and wellbeing: Managing psychological and emotional challenges of diabetes types 1 and 2

Book Review in peer revewed Journal of Diabetes Nursing about the psychological and emotional challenges associated with living with Diabetes. The book is recommended to both health professionals and people with Diabetes.

Death or survival from invasive pneumococcal disease in Scotland: associations with serogroups and multilocus sequence types

We describe associations between death from invasive pneumococcal disease (IPD) and particular serogroups and sequence types (STs) determined by multilocus sequence typing (MLST) using data from Scotland. All IPD episodes where blood or cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) culture isolates were referred to the Scottish Haemophilus, Legionella, Meningococcal and Pneumococcal Reference Laboratory (SHLMPRL) from January 1992 to February 2007 were matched to death certification records by the General Register Office for Scotland. This represented 5959 patients. The median number of IPD cases in Scotland each year was 292. Deaths, from any cause, within 30 days of pneumococcal culture from blood or CSF were considered to have IPD as a contributing factor. Eight hundred and thirty-three patients died within 30 days of culture of Streptococcus pneumoniae from blood or CSF [13.95 %; 95 % confidence interval (13.10, 14.80)]. The highest death rates were in patients over the age of 75. Serotyping data exist for all years but MLST data were only available from 2001 onward. The risk ratio of dying from infection due to particular serogroups or STs compared to dying from IPD due to all other serogroups or STs was calculated. Fisher’s exact test with Bonferroni adjustment for multiple testing was used. Age adjustment was accomplished using the Cochran–Mantel–Haenszel test and 95 % confidence intervals were reported. Serogroups 3, 11 and 16 have increased probability of causing fatal IPD in Scotland while serogroup 1 IPD has a reduced probability of causing death. None of the 20 most common STs were significantly associated with death within 30 days of pneumococcal culture, after age adjustment. We conclude that there is a stronger association between a fatal outcome and pneumococcal capsular serogroup than there is between a fatal outcome and ST.

Reintegration: The contribution of offence, offender and respondent factors

Community attitudes toward offender reintegration, in particular sex offenders, were investigated. Findings revealed the public are more supportive of reintegrative policies than they are willing to be involved in the reintegration process. Predictors of reintegrative attitudes were also investigated with a belief in redeemability found to be the strongest predictor.