Planning for the reuse of redundant defence estate: disposal processes, policy frameworks and development impacts

This paper reviews recent research and other literature concerning the planning and development of redundant defence estate. It concentrates on UK sources but includes reference to material from Europe and the North America were it is relevant for comparative purposes. It introduces the topic by providing a brief review of the recent restructuring of the UK defence estate and then proceeds to examine the various planning policy issues generated by this process; the policy frameworks used to guide it; comparable approaches to surplus land disposal and the appraisal of impacts; and ending the main body of the review with an analyse of the economic, social and environmental impacts of military base closure and redevelopment. It concludes that there is a significant body of work focusing on the reuse and redevelopment of redundant defence estate in the UK and abroad, but that much of this work is based on limited research or on personal experience. One particular weakness of the current literature is that it does not fully reflect the institutional difficulties posed by the disposal process and the day-to-day pressures which MOD personnel have to deal with. In doing this, it also under-emphasises the embedded cultures of individuals and professional groups who are required to operationalise the policies, procedures and practices for planning and redeveloping redundant defence estate.

Fetal programming effects of testosterone on the reward system and behavioral approach tendencies in humans

BACKGROUND: Sex differences are present in many neuropsychiatric conditions that affect emotion and approach-avoidance behavior. One potential mechanism underlying such observations is testosterone in early development. Although much is known about the effects of testosterone in adolescence and adulthood, little is known in humans about how testosterone in fetal development influences later neural sensitivity to valenced facial cues and approach-avoidance behavioral tendencies. METHODS: With functional magnetic resonance imaging we scanned 25 8-11-year-old children while viewing happy, fear, neutral, or scrambled faces. Fetal testosterone (FT) was measured via amniotic fluid sampled between 13 and 20 weeks gestation. Behavioral approach-avoidance tendencies were measured via parental report on the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Rewards questionnaire. RESULTS: Increasing FT predicted enhanced selectivity for positive compared with negatively valenced facial cues in reward-related regions such as caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not the amygdala. Statistical mediation analyses showed that increasing FT predicts increased behavioral approach tendencies by biasing caudate, putamen, and nucleus accumbens but not amygdala to be more responsive to positive compared with negatively valenced cues. In contrast, FT was not predictive of behavioral avoidance tendencies, either through direct or neurally mediated paths. CONCLUSIONS: This work suggests that testosterone in humans acts as a fetal programming mechanism on the reward system and influences behavioral approach tendencies later in life. As a mechanism influencing atypical development, FT might be important across a range of neuropsychiatric conditions that asymmetrically affect the sexes, the reward system, emotion processing, and approach behavior.

Do we need different frameworks to explain infant MNEs from developing countries?

I argue that the initial set of firm-specific assets (FSAs) act as an envelope for the early stages of internationalization of multinational enterprises (MNEs) (of whatever nationality) AND THAT there is a threshold LEVEL of FSAs that IT must possess for such international expansion to be SUCCESSFUL. I also argue that the initial FSAs of an MNE tend to be constrained by the location-specific (L) assets of the home country. However, beyond different initial conditions, there are few obvious reasons to insist that INFANT developing country MNEs are of unique character THAN ADVANCED ECONOMY MNEs, and I predict that as they evolve, the observable differences between the two groups will diminish. Successful firms will increasingly explore internationalization, but there is also no reason to believe that this is likely to happen disproportionately from the developing countries.

Computationally efficient induction of classification rules with the PMCRI and J-PMCRI frameworks

In order to gain knowledge from large databases, scalable data mining technologies are needed. Data are captured on a large scale and thus databases are increasing at a fast pace. This leads to the utilisation of parallel computing technologies in order to cope with large amounts of data. In the area of classification rule induction, parallelisation of classification rules has focused on the divide and conquer approach, also known as the Top Down Induction of Decision Trees (TDIDT). An alternative approach to classification rule induction is separate and conquer which has only recently been in the focus of parallelisation. This work introduces and evaluates empirically a framework for the parallel induction of classification rules, generated by members of the Prism family of algorithms. All members of the Prism family of algorithms follow the separate and conquer approach.

Reworking the NAFTA: departures from traditional frameworks

This paper reviews the treatment of intellectual property rights in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and considers the welfare-theoretic bases for innovation transfer between member and nonmember states. Specifically, we consider the effects of new technology development from within the union and question whether it is efficient (in a welfare sense) to transfer that new technology to nonmember states. When the new technology contains stochastic components, the important issue of information exchange arises and we consider this question in a simple oligopoly model with Bayesian updating. In this context, it is natural to ask the optimal price at which such information should be transferred. Some simple, natural conjugate examples are used to motivate the key parameters upon which the answer is dependent

Classed femininity, performativity, and camp in British structured reality programming

This article explores the representations and tonal qualities of British “structured reality” programming. Focusing on The Only Way Is Essex and Made in Chelsea, it investigates their glocalizing of the model established by MTV’s Laguna Beach and The Hills. It argues that while they blur boundaries between docusoap, drama, and soap opera, the British programs also recognize and foreground issues of construction for their reality TV-literate youth audience. It suggests the programs play a key role in their respective channel identities and the ideologies of British youth television, connecting to larger issues of class, gender, and taste. This is articulated through their regional and classed femininities, with the article exploring how the programs draw on classed ideologies surrounding “natural” and “excessive” femininities and of the role of this in their engagement with construction and camp play. This play contributes to the tonal shift offered by the British programs, mixing the melodrama of the MTV programs with a knowing, at times comic edge that can tip into mockery. In doing so, the programs offer their audience a combination of performative self-awareness and emotional realism that situates them clearly within British youth television

Simple uncertainty frameworks for selecting weighting schemes and interpreting multimodel ensemble climate change experiments

Future climate change projections are often derived from ensembles of simulations from multiple global circulation models using heuristic weighting schemes. This study provides a more rigorous justification for this by introducing a nested family of three simple analysis of variance frameworks. Statistical frameworks are essential in order to quantify the uncertainty associated with the estimate of the mean climate change response. The most general framework yields the “one model, one vote” weighting scheme often used in climate projection. However, a simpler additive framework is found to be preferable when the climate change response is not strongly model dependent. In such situations, the weighted multimodel mean may be interpreted as an estimate of the actual climate response, even in the presence of shared model biases. Statistical significance tests are derived to choose the most appropriate framework for specific multimodel ensemble data. The framework assumptions are explicit and can be checked using simple tests and graphical techniques. The frameworks can be used to test for evidence of nonzero climate response and to construct confidence intervals for the size of the response. The methodology is illustrated by application to North Atlantic storm track data from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) multimodel ensemble. Despite large variations in the historical storm tracks, the cyclone frequency climate change response is not found to be model dependent over most of the region. This gives high confidence in the response estimates. Statistically significant decreases in cyclone frequency are found on the flanks of the North Atlantic storm track and in the Mediterranean basin.

Teaching programming to beginners in a massive open online course

The University of Reading’s first Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) “Begin Programming: Build your first mobile game” (#FLMobiGame) was offered in Autumn 2013 on the FutureLearn platform. This course used a simple Android game framework to present basic programming concepts to complete beginners. The course attracted wide interest from all age groups. The course presented opportunities and challenges to both participants and educators. While some participants had difficulties accessing content some others had trouble grasping the concepts and applying them in a real program. Managing forums was cumbersome with the limited facilities supported by the Beta-platform. A healthy community was formed around the course with the support of social media. The case study reported here is part of an ongoing research programme exploring participants’ MOOC engagement and experience using a grounded, ethnographical approach.

Evaluation frameworks for information systems integration: from a semiotic lens

Information systems integration aims at the interaction, information exchange and interoperability between information systems, devices and units. Research efforts have contributed in evaluation of information systems integration on the development of evaluation frameworks. To improve the usability and measurability of evaluation, a review of existing evaluation frameworks including their evolution and classifications of different interoperability levels is conducted. The theory of organisational semiotics is used for a comparative analysis of the frameworks and future work.

Virtualization for cost-effective teaching of assembly language programming

A virtual system that emulates an ARM-based processor machine has been created to replace a traditional hardware-based system for teaching assembly language. The proposed virtual system integrates, in a single environment, all the development tools necessary to deliver introductory or advanced courses on modern assembly language programming. The virtual system runs a Linux operating system in either a graphical or console mode on a Windows or Linux host machine. No software licenses or extra hardware are required to use the virtual system, thus students are free to carry their own ARM emulator with them on a USB memory stick. Institutions adopting this, or a similar virtual system, can also benefit by reducing capital investment in hardware-based development kits and enable distance learning courses.

Sex differences in the programming effects of prenatal stress on psychopathology and stress responses: an evolutionary perspective

There is strong evidence from animal studies that prenatal stress has different effects on male and female offspring. In general, although not always, prenatal stress increases anxiety, depression and stress responses, both hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal and cardiovascular, in female offspring rather than in male. Males are more likely to show learning and memory deficits. There have been few studies so far in humans which differentiate effects of prenatal stress on male and female psychopathology. Some studies support the animal models, but the evidence is inconsistent. The mediating mechanisms for any sex specific effects are little understood, but there is evidence that placental function can differ depending on the sex of the fetus. We suggest that there may be an evolutionary reason for any sex differences in the long term effects of prenatal stress. In a stressful environment it may be adaptive for females, who are more likely to stay in one place and look after children, to be more vigilant, alert to danger and thus show more stress responsiveness. This can give rise to a more anxious or depressed phenotype. With males it may be more adaptive to go out and explore new environments, compete with other males, and be more aggressive. For this it may help to be less responsive to external stressors. More research is needed into sex differences in the effects of prenatal stress in humans, to test these ideas.

Evidence for sex differences in fetal programming of physiological stress reactivity in infancy

Associations between low birth weight and prenatal anxiety and later psychopathology may arise from programming effects likely to be adaptive under some, but not other, environmental exposures and modified by sex differences. If physiological reactivity, which also confers vulnerability or resilience in an environment-dependent manner, is associated with birth weight and prenatal anxiety, it will be a candidate to mediate the links with psychopathology. From a general population sample of 1,233 first-time mothers recruited at 20 weeks gestation, a sample of 316 stratified by adversity was assessed at 32 weeks and when their infants were aged 29 weeks (N = 271). Prenatal anxiety was assessed by self-report, birth weight from medical records, and vagal reactivity from respiratory sinus arrhythmia during four nonstressful and one stressful (still-face) procedure. Lower birth weight for gestational age predicted higher vagal reactivity only in girls (interaction term, p = .016), and prenatal maternal anxiety predicted lower vagal reactivity only in boys (interaction term, p = .014). These findings are consistent with sex differences in fetal programming, whereby prenatal risks are associated with increased stress reactivity in females but decreased reactivity in males, with distinctive advantages and penalties for each sex.