Domestic violence (DV) service provision and the architecture of rural life: An Australian case study

This article uses the concept of the architecture of rural life to analyse domestic violence service provision in rural Australia. What is distinctive about this architecture is that it polices the privacy of the rural family. A tight cloak of silence is carved around instances of domestic violence. Imagined threats to rural safety are seen as coming from outsiders (i.e. urban influences or Indigenous), not insiders within rural families. This article draws on key findings from a study conducted in rural New South Wales, Australia. The study interviewed 49 rural service providers working in human services and the criminal justice system. The application of architecture of rural life as a conceptual tool demonstrates challenges with service provision in a rural setting. The main results of this study found that this architecture operates as a silencing form of social control in three distinctive ways. Firstly, shame about being a victim of domestic violence encourages rural women's complicity in remaining silent. Secondly, family privacy maintains a veil of silence that accentuates rural women's social and economic dependency on men. Thirdly, community sanctions act as a deterrent to women seeking help.

The Scent of Ancestral Memory

Poetry expresses the physical and spiritual worlds that other kinds of writing cannot. Travelling open our minds and frees our spirit. Creative writings and meditations on life, spirit, grace and relationships, art and nature weave their way through these lyrical poems. Some poems are suitable for study in the Australian Curriculum.

The role of δ-opioid receptors in learning and memory underlying the development of addiction

Opioids are important endogenous ligands that exist in both invertebrates and vertebrates and signal by activation of opioid receptors to produce analgesia and reward or pleasure. The μ-opioid receptor is the best known of the opioid receptors and mediates the acute analgesic effects of opiates, while the δ-opioid receptor (DOR) has been less well studied and has been linked to effects that follow from chronic use of opiates such as stress, inflammation and anxiety. Recently, DORs have been shown to play an essential role in emotions and increasing evidence points to a role in learning actions and outcomes. The process of learning and memory in addiction has been proposed to involve strengthening of specific brain circuits when a drug is paired with a context or environment. The DOR is highly expressed in the hippocampus, amygdala, striatum and other basal ganglia structures known to participate in learning and memory. In this review, we will focus on the role of the DOR and its potential role in learning and memory underlying the development of addiction.

Estimating the burden of disease attributable to interpersonal violence in South Africa in 2000

Violence, previously considered a social issue, is now an acknowledged public health problem. It is defined as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against another person, against oneself, or against a group or community, that results in injury, death or deprivation.1 In this study we focus on exposure to the interpersonal type of violence, which includes acts of family violence and community violence. Family violence is further categorised by victim: child, intimate partner, or elder. Community violence occurs among unrelated individuals and includes sexual assault and rape by strangers as well as youth violence...

Interpersonal violence : an important risk factor for disease and injury in South Africa

Background Burden of disease estimates for South Africa have highlighted the particularly high rates of injuries related to interpersonal violence compared with other regions of the world, but these figures tell only part of the story. In addition to direct physical injury, violence survivors are at an increased risk of a wide range of psychological and behavioral problems. This study aimed to comprehensively quantify the excess disease burden attributable to exposure to interpersonal violence as a risk factor for disease and injury in South Africa. Methods The World Health Organization framework of interpersonal violence was adapted. Physical injury mortality and disability were categorically attributed to interpersonal violence. In addition, exposure to child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence, subcategories of interpersonal violence, were treated as risk factors for disease and injury using counterfactual estimation and comparative risk assessment methods. Adjustments were made to account for the combined exposure state of having experienced both child sexual abuse and intimate partner violence. Results Of the 17 risk factors included in the South African Comparative Risk Assessment study, interpersonal violence was the second leading cause of healthy years of life lost, after unsafe sex, accounting for 1.7 million disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) or 10.5% of all DALYs (95% uncertainty interval: 8.5%-12.5%) in 2000. In women, intimate partner violence accounted for 50% and child sexual abuse for 32% of the total attributable DALYs. Conclusions The implications of our findings are that estimates that include only the direct injury burden seriously underrepresent the full health impact of interpersonal violence. Violence is an important direct and indirect cause of health loss and should be recognized as a priority health problem as well as a human rights and social issue. This study highlights the difficulties in measuring the disease burden from interpersonal violence as a risk factor and the need to improve the epidemiological data on the prevalence and risks for the different forms of interpersonal violence to complete the picture. Given the extent of the burden, it is essential that innovative research be supported to identify social policy and other interventions that address both the individual and societal aspects of violence.

Memory and Epileptogenesis in Complex Biological and Simulated Systems

Oscillations of neural activity may bind widespread cortical areas into a neural representation that encodes disparate aspects of an event. In order to test this theory we have turned to data collected from complex partial epilepsy (CPE) patients with chronically implanted depth electrodes. Data from regions critical to word and face information processing was analyzed using spectral coherence measurements. Similar analyses of intracranial EEG (iEEG) during seizure episodes display HippoCampal Formation (HCF)—NeoCortical (NC) spectral coherence patterns that are characteristic of specific seizure stages (Klopp et al. 1996). We are now building a computational memory model to examine whether spatio-temporal patterns of human iEEG spectral coherence emerge in a computer simulation of HCF cellular distribution, membrane physiology and synaptic connectivity. Once the model is reasonably scaled it will be used as a tool to explore neural parameters that are critical to memory formation and epileptogenesis.

Mice behaviorally selected for high Pavlovian fear memory exhibit fear generalization, HPA-axis alterations and increased basal activity in cortico-limbic circuits

Biological factors underlying individual variability in fearfulness and anxiety have important implications for stress-related psychiatric illness including PTSD and major depression. Using an advanced intercross line (AIL) derived from C57BL/6 and DBA/2J mouse strains and behavioral selection over 3 generations, we established two lines exhibiting High or Low fear behavior after fear conditioning. Across the selection generations, the two lines showed clear differences in training and tests for contextual and conditioned fear. Before fear conditioning training, there were no differences between lines in baseline freezing to a novel context. However, after fear conditioning High line mice demonstrated pronounced freezing in a new context suggestive of poor context discrimination. Fear generalization was not restricted to contextual fear. High fear mice froze to a novel acoustic stimulus while freezing in the Low line did not increase over baseline. Enhanced fear learning and generalization are consistent with transgenic and pharmacological disruption of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA-axis) (Brinks, 2009, Thompson, 2004, Kaouane, 2012). To determine whether there were differences in HPA-axis regulation between the lines, morning urine samples were collected to measure basal corticosterone. Levels of secreted corticosterone in the circadian trough were analyzed by corticosterone ELISA. High fear mice were found to have higher basal corticosterone levels than low line animals. Examination of hormonal stress response components by qPCR revealed increased expression of CRH mRNA and decreased mRNA for MR and CRHR1 in hypothalamus of high fear mice. These alterations may contribute to both the behavioral phenotype and higher basal corticosterone in High fear mice. To determine basal brain activity in vivo in High and Low fear mice we used manganese-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (MEMRI). Analysis revealed a pattern of basal brain activity made up of amygdala, cortical and hippocampal circuits that was elevated in the High line. Ongoing studies also seek to determine the relative balance of excitatory and inhibitory tone in the amygdala and hippocampus and the neuronal structure of its neurons. While these heterogeneous lines are selected on fear memory expression, HPA-axis alterations and differences in hippocampal activity segregate with the behavioral phenotypes. These differences are detectable in a basal state strongly suggesting these are biological traits underlying the behavioral phenotype (Johnson et al, 2011).

Virtual business role-play : leveraging familiar environments to prime stakeholder memory during process elicitation

Business process models have traditionally been an effective way of examining business practices to identify areas for improvement. While common information gathering approaches are generally efficacious, they can be quite time consuming and have the risk of developing inaccuracies when information is forgotten or incorrectly interpreted by analysts. In this study, the potential of a role-playing approach for process elicitation and specification has been examined. This method allows stakeholders to enter a virtual world and role-play actions as they would in reality. As actions are completed, a model is automatically developed, removing the need for stakeholders to learn and understand a modelling grammar. Empirical data obtained in this study suggests that this approach may not only improve both the number of individual process task steps remembered and the correctness of task ordering, but also provide a reduction in the time required for stakeholders to model a process view.

"I take care of my own" : a field study on how leadership handles conflict between individual and collective incentives

From the early literature on the role of firm managers (Alchian and Demsetz 1972) to the industrial organisation on contracts and mechanism design (Laont and Martimort 2009), economists have given a lot of attention to find solutions to the imperfect alignment between individuals' incentives and an organisation's collective goals (Prendergast 1999). In that literature a key role of managers is to monitor individuals to reward behaviour aligned with the collective goals and reduce sub- optimal behaviour, such as shirking. How- ever, another strand of literature, since Akerlof (1982), has put forward a vision of reciprocal behaviour between an organisation's leadership and its members: gifts (high wages, recognition) from the organisation are reciprocated by high effort from the members of the organisation. By rewarding individual members (rather than strictly monitoring them), organisations may benefit from greater effort and cohesion. Experimental research in organizational economics has provided mixed results suggesting that agents do react to personal incentives but also that reciprocal behaviour can play a substantial role (Camerer and Weber 2012).

Neurobiological correlates of encoding strength of Pavlovian fear conditioned memory

Emotionally significant memories, especially those induced in conjunction with physical and mental trauma, are frequently retained for an individual’s lifetime. How these memories are organized and encoded within neural networks is a fundamental question. The lateral amygdala (LA) is a key nucleus for acquisition and maintenance of associative emotional memories. We used Pavlovian fear conditioning to study how ‘weaker’ and ‘stronger’ memories are encoded in neural networks of the LA. In Pavlovian fear conditioning a neutral stimulus, in this case a tone, is temporally paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US), such as a foot shock. The previously neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) capable of eliciting defensive responses. We used time spent freezing when the CS is presented in a neutral context as a dependent variable measure of memory ‘strength’.

Geo-economics and considerations on the tourism industry with emphasis on historical cities tourism and ecotourism in Iran

Considering its many potentials in the tourism industry, Iran has constantly been among the leading countries seeking development in this industry. Iran is a country with many attractions in different tourism sections including cultural, urban, and monument tourism, and ancient places as well as ecotourism, and water tourism etc. for tourists. However, Iran has never economically prospered regarding its potentials in this industry as compared to its rivals. Thus, the main objective of this work is to list the main necessities of harnessing economic power and required instruments to fulfill this goal. In addition, the tourism industry is discussed as an important strategy for reaching this power, and the Iranian wildlife is introduced as an intact environment. It is also discussed that what economic benefits are obtained through using this tourism industry. It must be noted that the main emphasis of this work is on urban, monument tourism, ancient places, and ecotourism as a case study in two Iranian provinces. Finally, the required analyses are performed considering the affinity between these two sections and two provinces. Results indicated that while Iran having the highest percent of growth compared to the two other countries active in this area, however this advantage has not significantly affected the GDP in Iran, and Iran has not been able to improve its geo-economic capacity in this area.

Domestic violence and family law : criminological concerns

The battered women’s movement in the United States contributed to a sweeping change in the recognition of men’s violence against female intimate partners. Naming the problem and arguing in favor if its identification as a serious problem meriting a collective response were key aspects of this effort. Criminal and civil laws have been written and revised in an effort to answer calls to take such violence seriously. Scholars have devoted significant attention to the consequences of this reframing of violence, especially around the unintended outcomes of the incorporation of domestic violence into criminal justice regimes. Family law, however, has remained largely unexamined by criminologists. This paper calls for criminological attention to family law responses to domestic violence and provides directions for future research.

‘It’s about finding a way’ : children, sites of opportunity, and building everyday peace in Colombia

The multiple forms of violence associated with protracted conflict disproportionately affect young people. Literature on conflict-affected children often focuses on the need to provide stability and security through institutions such as schools but rarely considers how young people themselves see these sites as part of their everyday lives. The enduring, pervasive, and complex nature of Colombia’s conflict means many young Colombians face the challenges of poverty, persistent social exclusion, and violence. Such conditions are exacerbated in ‘informal’ barrio communities such as los Altos de Cazucá, just south of the capital Bogotá. Drawing on field research in this community, particularly through interviews conducted with young people aged 10 to 17 this article explores how young people themselves understand the roles of the local school and ngo in their personal conceptualisations of the violence in their everyday lives. The evidence indicates that children use spaces available to them opportunistically and that these actions can and should be read as contributing to local, everyday forms of peacebuilding. The ways in which institutional spaces are understood and used by young people as ‘sites of opportunity’ challenges the assumed illegitimacy of young people’s voices and experiences in these environments.