When state silence becomes persecution: The case of domestic violence refugees in minister for immigration and multicultural affairs v Khawar

In Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs v Khawar, the Federal Court upheld a finding setting aside the refusal of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) to grant a protection visa to a Pakistani woman - Tribunal's failure to consider the notion that state tolerance of violence for discriminatory reasons could amount to persecution under the definition of 'refugee' in the Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees.

The use of non-hypothetical experimental markets for measuring the acceptance of genetically modified foods

The findings from a study measuring consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods are presented. The empirical data were collected in an experimental market, an approach used extensively in experimental economics for measuring the monetary value of goods. The approach has several advantages over standard approaches used in sensory and marketing research (e.g., surveys and focus groups) because of its non-hypothetical nature and the realism introduced by using real goods, real money, and market discipline. In each of three US locations, we elicited the monetary compensation consumers required to consume a GM food. Providing positive information about the benefits of GM food production, in some cases, reduced the level of monetary compensation demanded to consume the GM food. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Consumer welfare effects of introducing and labeling genetically modified food

Non-hypothetical valuations obtained from experimental auctions in three United States and two European locations were used to calculate welfare effects of introducing and labeling of genetically modified food. Under certain assumptions, we find that introduction of genetically modified food has been welfare enhancing, on average, for United States consumers but not so for Europeans and while mandatory labeling has been beneficial for European consumers, such a policy would be detrimental in the United States. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Effect of Information about benefits of biotechnology on consumer acceptance of genetically modified food; evidence from experimental auctions in the United States, England, and France

This study investigates the effect of information about potential benefits of biotechnology on consumer acceptance of genetically modified (GM) foods. Consumer willingness to accept compensation to consume a GM food was elicited using an incentive compatible auction mechanism in three US states (California, Florida, and Texas) and in two European countries (England and France). Results indicate that information on environmental benefits, health benefits and benefits to the third world significantly decreased the amount of money consumers demanded to consume GM food; however, the effect of information varied by type of information and location. Consistent with prior research, we find that initial attitudes toward biotechnology have a significant effect on how individuals responded to new information.

Comparative advantage in demand: Experimental evidence of preferences for genetically modified food in the United States and European Union

The United States (US) exports more than US$6 billion in agricultural commodities to the European Union (EU) each year, but one issue carries the potential to diminish this trade: use of biotechnology in food production. The EU has adopted more stringent policies towards biotechnology than the US. Understanding differences in European and American policies towards genetically modified (GM) foods requires a greater understanding of consumers' attitudes and preferences. This paper reports results from the first large-scale, cross-Atlantic study to analyse consumer demand for genetically modified food in a non-hypothetical market environment. We strongly reject the frequent if convenient assumption in trade theory that consumer preferences are identical across countries: the median level of compensation demanded by English and French consumers to consume a GM food is found to be more than twice that in any of the US locations. Results have important implications for trade theory, which typically focusses on differences in specialization, comparative advantage and factor endowments across countries, and for on-going trade disputes at the World Trade Organization.

Categories of GM risk-benefit perceptions and their antecedents

The stated benefits and perceived risks of genetic modification (GM) cover very diverse issues, such as food safety, world food security, and the environment, that may differentially affect consumer acceptance. In this research, we hypothesize that consumers perceive up to eight dimensions: risks to business (farmers, agribusiness, etc.), benefits to business, risks and benefits to the environment, risks and benefits to the developing world, and risks and benefits to self and family. Moral concerns are also recognized. Using data collected in 2002 in the United States, France, and the UK, we investigate these different dimensions. Second, we analyze the extent to which the dimensions of risk-benefit perceptions can be explained by general attitudes widely used to explain food purchase behavior (such as general attitude to the environment, to technology, etc.), as well as by perceived knowledge of GM, level of education, and trust in various sources of information. In all locations, the majority of consumers only perceive a medium level of risk from GM products. Attitude to technology is the most important attitude variable—those with a positive attitude to technology in general also have a positive attitude to GM technology. More Americans than Europeans fall into this category. Those who trust government and the food industry tend to think GM technology is less risky, whereas those who trust activists believe the opposite. Americans are more trusting of the former, Europeans of the latter. Level of education is positively associated with benefit perceptions and negatively associated with moral concerns. Location continues to play a limited independent role in explaining perceptions even after these factors have been taken into account.

Determinants of consumers’ willingness to accept GM foods

This paper investigates Willingness to Accept (WTA) Genetic Modification (GM) foods based on experimental auctions carried out in the USA, UK and France. It explores perceptions of risk and benefits, moral concerns and their antecedents, attitudes to the environment and technology and trust in various sources using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Trust in information provided by industry proved to be the most important determinant of risk/benefit perceptions and WTA followed by general attitudes to the environment and technology. Education and age are also enhance perceived benefits and lower perceived risks of GM. Perception of risk/benefit and moral concerns all have significant effects on consumers' WTA but the perceived benefits are most important. The research suggests that trust-building by industry would be the most effective in enhancing GM acceptance.

Responses to Central Oxotremorine and Scopolamine Support the Cholinergic Control of Male Mating Behavior in Hamsters

The responses of hamsters to intracranial injections of the cholinergic agonist oxotremorine (OXO) implicate cholinergic mechanisms in the medial preoptic area (MPOA) in the control of male mating behavior. To extend these observations, we ran three studies of responses to cholinergic drugs delivered singly or in combination to the vicinity of the MPOA. The first tested responses to OXO, confirming its ability to reduce the postejaculatory interval. The second complemented the first by examining responses to MPOA microinjections of the cholinergic antagonist scopolamine (SCO). These caused several changes revolving around intromission. These included increases in intromission frequency and ejaculation latency. They also included a change in the patterning of intromissions, marked by continuous strings without the usual separation by dismounts. The final study resembled the others in examining the effects of MPOA injections of OXO and SCO but focused on the ability of each drug to antagonize responses to the other. Most of the responses to OXO and SCO individually replicated earlier findings, though the measures examined here also permitted the description of effects on some noncopulatory sexual behaviors, specifically the male's inspection of the female. However, the most interesting results may be those suggesting asymmetry in the responses to the addition of the second drug: Whereas responses to OXO tended to be antagonized by SCO, OXO was less effective at counteracting responses to SCO. Though the explanation of this asymmetry is not completely clear, it is consistent with previous suggestions of differences in the affinities of these drugs for subtypes of muscarinic receptors. Therefore, it suggests that the cholinergic synapses and circuits controlling distinct elements of male behavior could differ in their dependence on these receptors. Copyright 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Seeing Spaces: An Eye-Tracking Study Of Speech Segmentation

Speech is often a multimodal process, presented audiovisually through a talking face. One area of speech perception influenced by visual speech is speech segmentation, or the process of breaking a stream of speech into individual words. Mitchel and Weiss (2013) demonstrated that a talking face contains specific cues to word boundaries and that subjects can correctly segment a speech stream when given a silent video of a speaker. The current study expanded upon these results, using an eye tracker to identify highly attended facial features of the audiovisual display used in Mitchel and Weiss (2013). In Experiment 1, subjects were found to spend the most time watching the eyes and mouth, with a trend suggesting that the mouth was viewed more than the eyes. Although subjects displayed significant learning of word boundaries, performance was not correlated with gaze duration on any individual feature, nor was performance correlated with a behavioral measure of autistic-like traits. However, trends suggested that as autistic-like traits increased, gaze duration of the mouth increased and gaze duration of the eyes decreased, similar to significant trends seen in autistic populations (Boratston & Blakemore, 2007). In Experiment 2, the same video was modified so that a black bar covered the eyes or mouth. Both videos elicited learning of word boundaries that was equivalent to that seen in the first experiment. Again, no correlations were found between segmentation performance and SRS scores in either condition. These results, taken with those in Experiment, suggest that neither the eyes nor mouth are critical to speech segmentation and that perhaps more global head movements indicate word boundaries (see Graf, Cosatto, Strom, & Huang, 2002). Future work will elucidate the contribution of individual features relative to global head movements, as well as extend these results to additional types of speech tasks.

Social Cognition, Face Processing, and Oxytocin Receptor Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms in Typically Developing Children

Recent research has provided evidence of a link between behavioral measures of social cognition (SC) and neural and genetic correlates. Differences in face processing and variations in the oxytocin receptor (OXTR) gene have been associated with SC deficits and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) traits. Much work has examined the qualitative differences between those with ASD and typically developing (TD) individuals, but very little has been done to quantify the natural variation in ASD-like traits in the typical population. The present study examines this variation in TD children using a multidimensional perspective involving behavior assessment, neural electroencephalogram (EEG) testing, and OXTR genotyping. Children completed a series of neurocognitive assessments, provided saliva samples for sequencing, and completed a face processing task while connected to an EEG. No clear pattern emerged for EEG covariates or genotypes for individual OXTR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). However, SNPs rs2254298 and rs53576 consistently interacted such that the AG/GG allele combination of these SNPs was associated with poorer performance on neurocognitive measures. These results suggest that neither SNP in isolation is risk-conferring, but rather that the combination of rs2254298(A/G) and rs53576(G/G) confers a deleterious effect on SC across several neurocognitive measures. Copyright 2014. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

2008 Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day Report

The report for the third annual Lincoln University Sonia Kovalevsky (LUSK) Math for Girls Day held on April 18th, 2008 from 8:30am to 2:00pm on the campus of Lincoln University in Jefferson City, MO.

Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day General Information

PowerPoint presentation about Lincoln University Sonia Kovalevsky (LUSK) Math for Girls Day.

2011 Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day Flyer

6th Annual Lincoln University Sonia Kovalevsky Math for Girls Day program flyer on April 29, 2011.