Gender and municipal politics : problems, perspectives and possibilities

Scholars of local government have repeatedly lamented the lack of literature on the subject (e.g., Mowbray 1997; Pini, Previte, Haslam & McKenzie 2007). As Dollery, Marshall and Worthington (2003: 1) have commented, local government has often been the ‘poor cousin of its more exalted relatives in terms of the attention it attracts from the research community.’ The exalted relatives Dollery et al. (2003) refer to are national political environments, where women’s participation has elicited significant attention. However, the dearth of research on the specific subject of women’s representation in local government is rarely acknowledged (Neyland & Tucker 1996; Whip & Fletcher 1999). This edited book attempts to redress this situation. Each chapter applies an explicit gender analysis to their specific topic of focus, making ‘gender visible in social phenomenon; [and] asking if, how, and why social processes, standards, and opportunities differ systematically for women and men’ (Howard, Risman & Sprague 2003: 1). These analyses in the local government context are critical for understanding the extent and nature of balanced representation at all levels of government. Furthermore, some women start their elective careers serving on school boards, city or town councils or as mayors, before progressing to state and national legislative offices. Hence, the experiences of women in local government illustrate broader notions of democracy and may for some individual women, shape their opportunities further along the political pipeline.

Numerical study of two ill-posed one-phase Stefan problems

We treat two related moving boundary problems. The first is the ill-posed Stefan problem for melting a superheated solid in one Cartesian coordinate. Mathematically, this is the same problem as that for freezing a supercooled liquid, with applications to crystal growth. By applying a front-fixing technique with finite differences, we reproduce existing numerical results in the literature, concentrating on solutions that break down in finite time. This sort of finite-time blow-up is characterised by the speed of the moving boundary becoming unbounded in the blow-up limit. The second problem, which is an extension of the first, is proposed to simulate aspects of a particular two-phase Stefan problem with surface tension. We study this novel moving boundary problem numerically, and provide results that support the hypothesis that it exhibits a similar type of finite-time blow-up as the more complicated two-phase problem. The results are unusual in the sense that it appears the addition of surface tension transforms a well-posed problem into an ill-posed one.

Developing a multidimensional scale for ethical decision making

This article reports on the development of the managerial ethical profile (MEP) scale. The MEP scale is a multilevel, self-reporting scale measuring the perceived influence that different dimensions of common ethical frameworks have on managerial decision making. The MEP scale measures on eight subscales: economic egoism, reputational egoism, act utilitarianism, rule utilitarianism, self-virtue of self, virtue of others, act deontology, and rule deontology. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to provide evidence of scale validity. Future research needs and the value of this measure for business ethics are discussed.

Developing ethical identities in young offenders through restorative justice practice in Australia

Restorative justice is firmly established in Australian juvenile justice. While the official language used to describe restorative initiatives varies across states and territories, the most common form is a meeting or conference between young offenders and their victims (most commonly known as a family group or youth justice conference). During the past decade, an impressive amount of empirical research has examined how the restorative justice process affects offenders, victims and other participants (such as supporters for young offenders and victims). Results from this line of research are remarkably consistent and show that participants generally regard restorative conferences as procedurally fair and that they are satisfied with the outcomes (eg what young offenders agree to do to make up for their offending behaviour, such as offer a sincere apology or perform work for the victim or the community). What is less common, however, is the perception among participants that restorative conferences achieve the key aim of restoration.By ‘restoration’ we refer to encounters where ‘offenders apologise, their apologies are accepted, victims offer forgiveness,and conferences conclude with a feeling of mutual good will’.

Ethical tensions and academic leaders

Internationally universities have been characterised by shrinking government funding, fierce competition for student enrolments, and greater pressures to become commercially viable. It is against this complex background that academic leaders have been required to confront and resolve a multitude of conflicting interests as they seek to balance a variety of values in their decision-making processes. In this article we put forward a model of ethical decision-making developed from empirical research and literature. To test the efficacy of the model, a case scenario is posed. The article concludes by raising a number of implications for academic leaders regarding ongoing professional learning needed in this area.

Open problems in the security of learning

Machine learning has become a valuable tool for detecting and preventing malicious activity. However, as more applications employ machine learning techniques in adversarial decision-making situations, increasingly powerful attacks become possible against machine learning systems. In this paper, we present three broad research directions towards the end of developing truly secure learning. First, we suggest that finding bounds on adversarial influence is important to understand the limits of what an attacker can and cannot do to a learning system. Second, we investigate the value of adversarial capabilities-the success of an attack depends largely on what types of information and influence the attacker has. Finally, we propose directions in technologies for secure learning and suggest lines of investigation into secure techniques for learning in adversarial environments. We intend this paper to foster discussion about the security of machine learning, and we believe that the research directions we propose represent the most important directions to pursue in the quest for secure learning.

Overcoming the complexity of diagnostic problems due to sensor network architecture

In fault detection and diagnostics, limitations coming from the sensor network architecture are one of the main challenges in evaluating a system’s health status. Usually the design of the sensor network architecture is not solely based on diagnostic purposes, other factors like controls, financial constraints, and practical limitations are also involved. As a result, it quite common to have one sensor (or one set of sensors) monitoring the behaviour of two or more components. This can significantly extend the complexity of diagnostic problems. In this paper a systematic approach is presented to deal with such complexities. It is shown how the problem can be formulated as a Bayesian network based diagnostic mechanism with latent variables. The developed approach is also applied to the problem of fault diagnosis in HVAC systems, an application area with considerable modeling and measurement constraints.

Young children as regenerative tissue donors : considering the need for legal reform in light of divergent ethical approaches

In Australia, young children who lack decision-making capacity can have regenerative tissue removed to treat another person suffering from a severe or life-threatening disease. While great good can potentially result from this as the recipient’s life may be saved, ethical unease remains over the ‘use’ of young children in this way. This paper examines the ethical approaches that have featured in the debate over the acceptability and limits of this practice, and how these are reflected in Australia’s legal regime governing removal of tissue from young children. This analysis demonstrates a troubling dichotomy within the Australia’s laws that requires decision-makers to adopt inconsistent ethical approaches depending on where a donor child is situated. It is argued that this inconsistency in approach warrants legal reform of this ethically sensitive issue.

Towards a global carbon integrity system : learning from the GFC and avoiding a GCC

This paper examines some of the central global ethical and governance challenges of climate change and carbon emis-sions reduction in relation to globalization, the “global financial crisis” (GFC), and unsustainable conceptions of the “good life”, and argues in favour of the development of a global carbon “integrity system”. It is argued that a funda-mental driver of our climate problems is the incipient spread of an unsustainable Western version of the “good life”, where resource-intensive, high-carbon western lifestyles, although frequently criticized as unsustainable and deeply unsatisfying, appear to have established an unearned ethical legitimacy. While the ultimate solution to climate change is the development of low carbon lifestyles, the paper argues that it is also important that economic incentives support and stimulate that search: the sustainable versions of the good life provide an ethical pull, whilst the incentives provide an economic push. Yet, if we are going to secure sustainable low carbon lifestyles, it is argued, we need more than the ethical pull and the economic push. Each needs to be institutionalized—built into the governance of global, regional, national, sub-regional, corporate and professional institutions. Where currently weakness in each exacerbates the weaknesses in others, it is argued that governance reform is required in all areas supporting sustainable, low carbon versions of the good life.