1999 Seat Belt Usage Survey, March 15, 2000

The 78 percent seat belt usage rate in 1999 (up 7 percent since 1992) reflects active enforcement and education efforts that have occurred in Iowa during the last few years. Through continuing education of the public, an active "Life Toll" campaign, seat belt enforcement, and other cooperative efforts between state and local law enforcement, Iowa will strive to increase the use of seat belts and save lives on Iowa roadways.

1998 Seat Belt Usage Survey, February 18, 1999

The 78 percent seat belt usage rate in 1999 (up 7 percent since 1992) reflects active enforcement and education efforts that have occurred in Iowa during the last few years. Through continuing education of the public, an active "Life Toll" campaign, seat belt enforcement, and other cooperative efforts between state and local law enforcement, Iowa will strive to increase the use of seat belts and save lives on Iowa roadways.

2001 Seat Belt Usage Survey, April 23, 2003

The 81 percent seat belt usage rate in 2001 (up 10 percent since 1992) reflects active enforcement and education efforts that have occurred in Iowa during the last few years. Through continuing education of the public, an active "Life Toll" campaign, seat belt enforcement, and other cooperative efforts between state and local law enforcement, Iowa will strive to increase the use of seat belts and save more lives on Iowa roadways.

2002 Seat Belt Usage Survey, February 26, 2003

The 82 percent seat belt usage rate in 2002 (up 11 percent since 1992) reflects active enforcement and education efforts that have occurred in Iowa during the last few years. Through continuing education of the public, an active "Life Toll" campaign, seat belt enforcement, and other cooperative efforts between state and local law enforcement, Iowa will strive to increase the use of seat belts and save more lives on Iowa roadways.

2004 Seat Belt Usage Survey, August 15, 2005

The 86.4 percent safety-belt usage rate in 2004 (an increase of 13 percent since 1994) reflects active enforcement and education efforts that have occurred in Iowa over the course of the last decade. Through continuing education of the public with programs in the school and communities, the “Click it or Ticket” campaign, an active “Life Toll” campaign, year-long safety belt enforcement, and other cooperative efforts between state and local law enforcement, Iowa will strive to increase the use of safety belts and save more lives on Iowa roadways.

SURVEILLANCE OF, AND THE IMPACT OF COMMUNITY POLICING ON ARREST-RELATED DEATHS (ARDS): Exploring the surveillance of ARDs and the opportunities to prevent them in the United States

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Dependent Adult Abuse A Guide for Mandatory Reporters, July 2009

“Dependent adult” abuse allegations involve people who are aged 18 or over and are incapable of adequate self care due to physical or mental conditions and require assistance from other people. Dependent adults may be elderly or may have diminished physical or mental capacities that prevent them from meeting their own needs adequately. Researchers estimate that only 1 in 14 incidents of elder abuse actually come to the attention of law enforcement or human service agencies. Elder abuse is one of the most under-recognized and under-reported social problems in the United States. It is far less likely to be reported than child abuse because of the lack of public awareness. Nationally, it is estimated that over 55% of elder abuse is due to self-neglect. Such abuse can happen anywhere … in private homes, at health care facilities and in the community at large. Iowa has an increasing proportion of people who are aged 60 or over. The number of persons 80 or over is increasing more rapidly than any other age group. Iowa’s proportion of older adults in the population exceeds that of the United States as a whole.

On precise three-dimensional environment modeling via UAV-based photogrammetric systems

Abstract : Images acquired from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) can provide data with unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution for three-dimensional (3D) modeling. Solutions developed for this purpose are mainly operating based on photogrammetry concepts, namely UAV-Photogrammetry Systems (UAV-PS). Such systems are used in applications where both geospatial and visual information of the environment is required. These applications include, but are not limited to, natural resource management such as precision agriculture, military and police-related services such as traffic-law enforcement, precision engineering such as infrastructure inspection, and health services such as epidemic emergency management. UAV-photogrammetry systems can be differentiated based on their spatial characteristics in terms of accuracy and resolution. That is some applications, such as precision engineering, require high-resolution and high-accuracy information of the environment (e.g. 3D modeling with less than one centimeter accuracy and resolution). In other applications, lower levels of accuracy might be sufficient, (e.g. wildlife management needing few decimeters of resolution). However, even in those applications, the specific characteristics of UAV-PSs should be well considered in the steps of both system development and application in order to yield satisfying results. In this regard, this thesis presents a comprehensive review of the applications of unmanned aerial imagery, where the objective was to determine the challenges that remote-sensing applications of UAV systems currently face. This review also allowed recognizing the specific characteristics and requirements of UAV-PSs, which are mostly ignored or not thoroughly assessed in recent studies. Accordingly, the focus of the first part of this thesis is on exploring the methodological and experimental aspects of implementing a UAV-PS. The developed system was extensively evaluated for precise modeling of an open-pit gravel mine and performing volumetric-change measurements. This application was selected for two main reasons. Firstly, this case study provided a challenging environment for 3D modeling, in terms of scale changes, terrain relief variations as well as structure and texture diversities. Secondly, open-pit-mine monitoring demands high levels of accuracy, which justifies our efforts to improve the developed UAV-PS to its maximum capacities. The hardware of the system consisted of an electric-powered helicopter, a high-resolution digital camera, and an inertial navigation system. The software of the system included the in-house programs specifically designed for camera calibration, platform calibration, system integration, onboard data acquisition, flight planning and ground control point (GCP) detection. The detailed features of the system are discussed in the thesis, and solutions are proposed in order to enhance the system and its photogrammetric outputs. The accuracy of the results was evaluated under various mapping conditions, including direct georeferencing and indirect georeferencing with different numbers, distributions and types of ground control points. Additionally, the effects of imaging configuration and network stability on modeling accuracy were assessed. The second part of this thesis concentrates on improving the techniques of sparse and dense reconstruction. The proposed solutions are alternatives to traditional aerial photogrammetry techniques, properly adapted to specific characteristics of unmanned, low-altitude imagery. Firstly, a method was developed for robust sparse matching and epipolar-geometry estimation. The main achievement of this method was its capacity to handle a very high percentage of outliers (errors among corresponding points) with remarkable computational efficiency (compared to the state-of-the-art techniques). Secondly, a block bundle adjustment (BBA) strategy was proposed based on the integration of intrinsic camera calibration parameters as pseudo-observations to Gauss-Helmert model. The principal advantage of this strategy was controlling the adverse effect of unstable imaging networks and noisy image observations on the accuracy of self-calibration. The sparse implementation of this strategy was also performed, which allowed its application to data sets containing a lot of tie points. Finally, the concepts of intrinsic curves were revisited for dense stereo matching. The proposed technique could achieve a high level of accuracy and efficiency by searching only through a small fraction of the whole disparity search space as well as internally handling occlusions and matching ambiguities. These photogrammetric solutions were extensively tested using synthetic data, close-range images and the images acquired from the gravel-pit mine. Achieving absolute 3D mapping accuracy of 11±7 mm illustrated the success of this system for high-precision modeling of the environment.

The Privacy Paradox: Privacy, Surveillance, and Encryption

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2016-08

Production de la sécurité, rationalité et gouvernance locale : une ethnographie urbaine à Douala et Yaoundé (Cameroun)

Cette thèse se penche sur la rationalité sécuritaire qui organise les villes de Douala et Yaoundé. En effet, l’insécurité urbaine devient une question très préoccupante, encore plus dans les villes des pays du Sud notamment les villes camerounaises où la recrudescence de la criminalité et de la violence ont donné lieu à des initiatives de sécurisation de la part de l’État et de la population. Sur le plan de la théorie, plusieurs approches nous permettent de nous projeter dans l’environnement sécuritaire des villes à l’étude. Nous considérons les villes de Douala et Yaoundé comme des lieux de production culturelle où se construisent à la faveur des migrations, à partir de diverses cultures et de comportements issus des villages d’origine, des formes d’identités hybrides et des territoires urbains diversifiés. Cela donne donc à réfléchir sur les modes de gouvernance locale, à l’échelle des quartiers, dans le but de comprendre les modalités d’encadrement de cette dynamique culturelle urbaine. Dans le même ordre d’idées, la gouvernance locale fait appel aux acteurs, dans leurs rôles et leurs logiques. Ces logiques s’observent dans leurs dimensions cognitives et leurs rapports avec l’espace. Les dimensions cognitives évoquent les perceptions, le vécu et les représentations subjectives qui sont associées à l’insécurité. Ainsi, le sentiment d’insécurité, la peur, la marginalisation, la violence et la criminalisation sont des phénomènes qui laissent entrevoir des populations défavorisées, victimes d’insécurité. C’est à côté de ces dernières que se manifestent les logiques d’acteurs associées à l’espace, qui ouvrent l’observation sur l’informalité et la ségrégation non seulement comme instruments de contrôle de l’espace urbain, mais également comme cadres de production d’espaces sécurisés. L’informalité et la ségrégation sont aussi favorables au développement des identités, à la construction d’utopies, ces visions mélioratives qui motivent et transforment les acteurs. Ce sont ces logiques d’acteurs dans leurs rapports avec l’espace qui justifient les initiatives de sécurisation. Finalement, c’est dans cette dynamique de transformation que les acteurs entrent en processus de subjectivation pour se produire comme sujets. Sur le plan méthodologique, cette thèse repose sur une ethnographie critique et comparative de la sécurité et sur l’approche de l’action sociale, qui invite à s’attarder aux interactions sociales, pour rendre compte de la rationalité sécuritaire. Étudier la sécurité requiert de s’attarder à l’échelle des quartiers, objets principaux de la sécurisation et espaces d’expression de l’informalité. Les quartiers sont encadrés par les chefferies urbaines, dont les systèmes de gestion constituent la gouvernance locale. Face à la question de la sécurité, cette gouvernance se prononce entre autres en fonction de son identité, de sa culture et de ses représentations. Elle côtoie les logiques étatiques dont les techniques et les stratégies d’organisation matérialisent les politiques de sécurité. Douala et Yaoundé présentent des approches populaires de sécurisation qui diffèrent sur le plan de l’organisation locale des quartiers et du tempérament populaire. Elles se rapprochent par les logiques d’acteurs et la motivation que ces derniers ont à se produire en sujets. La recherche a permis de constater qu’une forme de rationalité régit l’ensemble des dynamiques et des stratégies de production de la sécurité qui ont cours à Douala et Yaoundé. Cette rationalité passe par une pluralité de logiques de sécurité, elles-mêmes tributaires de nombreux phénomènes qui contribuent à la production de l’insécurité, mais aussi à celle de la sécurité. En effet, les migrations de la campagne vers la ville, l’informalité, la ségrégation et la présence de gangs locaux sont des réalités urbaines qui donnent une forme particulière à l’insécurité, mais invitent également à une réadaptation des techniques et des groupes d’acteurs impliqués dans la production de la sécurité. Il ressort que la rationalité sécuritaire, cette intelligence de gouvernement qui s’organise dans les dispositifs de l’offre publique de sécurité, suscite aussi dans les procédés des acteurs populaires, des techniques d’identification aux forces de l’ordre. Dans son processus, elle aboutit à la production de sujets sécurisés et de sécurité. En saisissant les productions humaines comme des activités innovantes, nous comprenons que la sécurisation procède par rapprochement entre les forces de l’ordre et les populations, par la mise en oeuvre de mécanismes mis en place pour répondre à la menace mais aussi par la « confiscation de la sécurité » pour les besoins d’une élite. Ensuite, elle représente une instance de subjectivation où l’innovation se matérialise et où les acteurs se réalisent, créent la sécurité et recréent la ville. Finalement, cette thèse révèle une pluralité de logiques de sécurité construites autour d’une même rationalité sécuritaire.

A Game of Horns: Transnational Flows of Rhino Horn

A multi-sectorial regime of protection including international treaties, conservation and security measures, demand reduction campaigns and quasi-military interventions has been established to protect rhinos. Despite these efforts, the poaching of rhinos and trafficking of rhino horn continue unabated. This dissertation asks why the illegal market in rhinoceros horn is so resilient in spite of the myriad measures employed to disrupt it. A theoretical approach grounded in the sociology of markets is applied to explain the structure and functioning of the illegal market. The project follows flows of rhino horn from the source in southern Africa to illegal markets in Southeast Asia. The multi-sited ethnography included participant observations, interviews and focus groups with 416 informants during fourteen months of fieldwork. The sample comprised of, amongst others, convicted and active rhino poachers, smugglers and kingpins, private rhino breeders and hunting outfitters, African and Asian law enforcement officials, as well as affected local communities and Asian consumers. Court files, CITES trade data, archival materials, newspaper reports and social media posts were also analysed to supplement findings and to verify and triangulate data from interviews, focus groups and observations. Central to the analysis is the concept of “contested illegality”, a legitimization mechanism employed by market participants along the different segments of the horn supply chain. These actors' implicit or explicit contestation of the state-sponsored label of illegality serves as a legitimising and enabling mechanism, facilitating participation in gray or illegal markets for rhino horn. The research identified fluid interfaces between legal, illegal and gray markets, with recurring actors who have access to transnational trade structures, and who also possess market and product knowledge, as well as information about the regulatory regime and its loopholes. It is against the background of colonial, apartheid and neoliberal exploitation and marginalization of local communities that a second argument is introduced: the path dependency of conservation paradigms. Underpinning rhino conservation and regulation are archaic and elitist conservation regimes that discount the potential for harmonious relationships between local communities and wildlife. The increasing militarization of anti-poaching measures and green land grabs are exacerbating the rhino problem by alienating communities further from conservation areas and wild animals. The third argument looks at how actors deal with coordination problems in transnational illegal markets. Resolving the coordination problems of cooperation, value and competition are considered essential to the operation of formal markets. It is argued that the problem of security provides an additional and crucial obstacle to actors transacting in markets. The systematic analysis of flows between the researched sites of production, distribution and consumption of rhino horn shows that the social embeddedness of actors facilitates the flourishing of illegal markets in ways that escape an effective enforcement of CITES regulations.

Constructivism, constitutionalism and the EU's area of freedom security and justice post-Lisbon

This essay addresses the fundamental conceptual challenges which face the development of the Area of Freedom Security and Justice (AFSJ) in the post-Lisbon Treaty era. It argues that Onuf style constructivism is a valid lens with which to examine the development of the AFSJ to date, involving as it does the development of a shared understanding by practitioners, predominantly law enforcement and prosecution professionals, within the structures provided for them, in order to develop a completely new area of law and practice. While this approach will continue to need to be deployed in the development of further new operational areas, such as cybercrime, a new approach is now required, that of constitutionalism. A variety of forms of constitutionalism are then examined in order to establish their suitability as a mode of analysis for these developments.

Productivity factors and fish production and their fisheries management concerns

The fundamental purpose of fisheries management is to ensure sustainable production over time from fish stocks, preferably through regulatory and enhancement actions that promote economic and social well being of the fishers and industries that depend on the resource. To achieve this purpose, management authorities must design, justify and administer (enforce) a collection of restraints on fishing and fishery-related activities. Productivity and management of the fisheries should be based on the understanding that they are complex and dynamic systems. Physical, chemical and biological components support a community of organisms that is unique to the these systems. All these components are in constant change but mainly dictated by human interference in the water body ecosystem.

The leaderless resistance: George Lincoln Rockwell and the White Separatist Movement

The scope of the thesis encapsulates the wider post-war White Separatist Movement from the origins of American Nazism under George Lincoln Rockwell to the later developments of leaderless resistance and the political and cultural changes to the movement. The specific focus will be upon the relationship between George Lincoln Rockwell and the leaderless resistance concepts, in particular through its development and utilisation. Due to the complexity of the issues and the variety of influencing factors it is necessary in the first instance to assess it in terms of a historiography to allow themes to develop. As a result of this historical analysis themes have become evident to allow a conceptual analysis. In particular the thesis will utilise the following thematic contexts for assessing the various developments within White Separatism: including, state building; political marketing; the role of the media; and the propensity for terror and hate activities. In assessing the basis upon which the conceptual analysis is developed the research has utilised extensive use of texts, radio broadcasts, and pamphlets from the movement. The study has also been able to consider, government reports, law enforcement updates and communications from Civil Rights groups and other agencies. In the conceptual analysis of this information and themes, the thesis utilises new concepts as a means of creating an understanding of a rapidly changing area of politics; including ‘organic politic’ and ‘political firms’, when assessing political marketing trends; and assessing terrorist motivation.

From the human rights-based approach to an ecological approach on how to achieve successful inclusion in international disability education

The barriers that people with disabilities face around the world are not only inherent to the limitations resulting from the disability itself, but, more importantly, these barriers rest with the societal technologies of exclusion. Using a mixed methodology approach, I conduct a quest to revealing several societal factors that limit full participation of people with disabilities in their communities, which will contribute to understanding and developing a more comprehensive framework for full inclusion of people with disabilities into the society. First, I conduct a multiple regression analysis to seek whether there is a statistical relationship between the national level of development, the level of democratization, and the level of education within a country’s population on one hand, and expressed concern for and preparedness to improve the quality of life for people of disabilities on another hand. The results from the quantitative methodology reveal that people without disabilities are more prepared to take care of people with disabilities when the level of development of the country is higher, when the people have more freedom of expression and hold the government accountable for its actions, and when the level of corruption is under control. However, a greater concern for the well-being of people with disabilities is correlated with a high level of country development, a decreased value of political stability and absence of violence, a decreased level of government effectiveness, and a greater level of law enforcement. None of the dependent variables are significantly correlated with the level of education from a given country. Then, I delve into an interpretive analysis to understand multiple factors that contribute to the construction of attitudes and practices towards people with disabilities. In doing this, I build upon the four main principles outlined by the United Nations as strongly recommended to be embedded in all international programmes: (1) identification of claims of human rights and the corresponding obligations of governments, hence, I assess and analyze disability rights in education, looking at United Nation, United States, and European Union Perspectives Educational Rights Provisions for People with Disabilities (Ch. 3); (2) estimated capacity of individuals to claim their rights and of governments to fulfill their obligations, hence, I look at the people with disabilities as rights-holders and duty-bearers and discuss the importance of investing in special capital in the context of global development (Ch. 4); (3) programmes monitor and evaluate the outcomes and the processes under the auspices of human rights standards, hence, I look at the importance of evaluating the UN World Programme of Action Concerning People with Disabilities from multiple perspectives, as an example of why and how to monitor and evaluate educational human rights outcomes and processes (Ch. 5); and (4) programming should reflect the recommendations of international human rights bodies and mechanisms, hence, I focus on programming that fosters development of the capacity of people with disabilities, that is, planning for an ecology of disabilities and ecoducation for people with disabilities (Ch. 6). Results from both methodologies converge to a certain point, and they further complement each other. One common result for the two methodologies employed is that disability is an evolving concept when viewed in a broader context, which integrates the four spaces that the ecological framework incorporates. Another common result is that factors such as economic, social, legal, political, and natural resources and contexts contribute to the health, education and employment opportunities, and to the overall well-being of people with disabilities. The ecological framework sees all these factors from a meta-systemic perspective, where bi-directional interactions are expected and desired, and also from a human rights point of view, where the inherent value of people is upheld at its highest standard.