From Greek temple to bird's nest : mapping, assessing and understanding national integrity systems

In this paper, I would like to outline the approach we have taken to mapping and assessing integrity systems and how this has led us to see integrity systems in a new light. Indeed, it has led us to a new visual metaphor for integrity systems – a bird’s nest rather than a Greek temple. This was the result of a pair of major research projects completed in partnership with Transparency International (TI). One worked on refining and extending the measurement of corruption. This, the second, looked at what was then the emerging institutional means for reducing corruption – ‘national integrity systems’

Redefining excellence : a strategic policy framework for community engagement and higher education

This report provides a current overview and analysis of the role of universities in local community development in the State of Victoria. Drawing on successful programs of community engagement in Victoria, Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, the report proposes policy strategies for fostering community development for Victorian Higher Education through effective community engagement programs.

Infinite-horizon policy-gradient estimation

Gradient-based approaches to direct policy search in reinforcement learning have received much recent attention as a means to solve problems of partial observability and to avoid some of the problems associated with policy degradation in value-function methods. In this paper we introduce GPOMDP, a simulation-based algorithm for generating a biased estimate of the gradient of the average reward in Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes (POMDPs) controlled by parameterized stochastic policies. A similar algorithm was proposed by Kimura, Yamamura, and Kobayashi (1995). The algorithm's chief advantages are that it requires storage of only twice the number of policy parameters, uses one free parameter β ∈ [0,1) (which has a natural interpretation in terms of bias-variance trade-off), and requires no knowledge of the underlying state. We prove convergence of GPOMDP, and show how the correct choice of the parameter β is related to the mixing time of the controlled POMDP. We briefly describe extensions of GPOMDP to controlled Markov chains, continuous state, observation and control spaces, multiple-agents, higher-order derivatives, and a version for training stochastic policies with internal states. In a companion paper (Baxter, Bartlett, & Weaver, 2001) we show how the gradient estimates generated by GPOMDP can be used in both a traditional stochastic gradient algorithm and a conjugate-gradient procedure to find local optima of the average reward. ©2001 AI Access Foundation and Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. All rights reserved.

The causes and consequences of corruption

This thesis comprehensively studies the causes and consequences of corruption in both crosscountry and within-country contexts, mainly focusing on China. The thesis commences by extensively investigating the causes of corruption. Using the standard economic approach, this study finds that in China regions with more anti-corruption efforts, higher education attainment, Anglo-American historic influence, higher openness, more access to media, higher relative wages of government employees, and a greater representation of women in legislature are markedly less corrupt; while the social heterogeneity, deregulation and abundance of resources, substantially breed regional corruption. Moreover, fiscal decentralization is discovered to depress corruption significantly. This study also observes a positive relationship between corruption and the economic development in current China that is mainly driven by the transition to a market economy. Focusing on the influence of political institutions on corruption, the thesis then provides evidence that a high level of political interest helps to reduce corruption within a society, while the effect of democracy upon corruption depends on property rights protection and income distribution. With the social economic approach, however, the thesis presents both cross-country and within-country evidence that the social interaction plays an important role in determining corruption. The thesis then continues by comprehensively evaluating the consequences of corruption in China. The study provides evidence that corruption can simultaneously have both positive and negative effects on economic development. And it also observes that corruption considerably increases the income inequality in China. Furthermore this study finds that corruption in China significantly distorts public expenditures. Local corruption is also observed to substantially reduce FDI in Chinese regions. Finally the study documents that corruption substantially aggravates pollution probably through a loosening of the environmental regulation, and that it also modifies the effects of trade openness and FDI on the stringency of environmental policy. Overall, this thesis adds to the current literature by a number of novel findings concerning both the causes and the consequences of corruption.

Induction of anti-chlamydial mucosal immunity by transcutaneous immunization is enhanced by topical application of GM-CSF

Transcutaneous immunization (TCI) involves the direct application of antigen plus adjuvant to skin, taking advantage of the large numbers of Langerhans cells and other resident skin dendritic cells, that process antigen then migrate to draining lymph nodes where immune responses are initiated. We have used this form of immunization to protect mice against genital tract and respiratory tract chlamydial infection. Protection was associated with local antibody responses in the vagina, uterus and lung as well as strong Th1 responses in the lymph nodes draining the reproductive tract and lungs respectively. In this study we show that topical application of GM-CSF to skin enhances the numbers and activation status of epidermal dendritic cells. Topical application of GM-CSF also increased the immune responses elicited by TCI. GM-CSF supplementation greatly increased cytokine (IFNgamma and IL-4) gene expression in lymph node and splenic cells compared to cells from animals immunized without GM-CSF. IgG responses in serum, uterine lavage and bronchoalveolar lavage and IgA responses in vaginal lavage were also increased by topical application of GM-CSF. The studies show that TCI induces protection against genital and respiratory tract chlamydial infections and that topical application of cytokines such as GM-CSF can enhance TCI-induced antibody and cell-mediated immunity.