bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Comparative study of various methods for extraction of multi- quantum wells Schottky diode parameters
Authors: Garoudja Elyes , Filali Walid , Oussalah Slimane , Sengouga Noureddine , Henini Mohamed
Published: September 2020

In this work, forward current voltage characteristics for multi-quantum wells Al0.33Ga0.67As Schottky diode were measured at temperature ranges from 100 to 300 K. The main parameters of this Schottky diode, such as the ideality factor, barrier height, series resistance and saturation current, have been extracted using both analytical and heuristics methods. Differential evolution (DE), particle swarm optimization (PSO) and artificial bee colony (ABC) have been chosen as candidate heuristics algorithms, while Cheung technic was selected as analytical extraction method. The obtained results show clearly the high performance of DE algorithms in terms of parameters accuracy, convergence speed and robustness.
A snapback-free and high-speed SOI LIGBT with double trenches and embedded fully NPN structure
Authors: Wang Chenxia , Wei Jie , Fan Diao , Yang Yang , Luo Xiaorong
Published: September 2020

A novel 600 V snapback-free high-speed silicon-on-insulator lateral insulated gate bipolar transistor is proposed and investigated by simulation. The proposed device features an embedded NPN structure at the anode side, and double trenches together with an N-type carrier storage (N-CS) layer at the cathode side, named DT-NPN LIGBT. The NPN structure not only acts as an electron barrier to eliminate the snapback effect in the on-state within a smaller cell pitch but also provides an extra electron extracting path during the turn-off stage to decrease the turnoff loss (E
off). The double cathode trenches and N-CS layer hinder the hole from being extracted by the cathode quickly. They then enhance carrier storing effect and lead to a reduced on-state voltage drop (V
on). The latch-up immunity is improved by the double cathode trenches. Hence, the DT-NPN LIGBT obtains a superior tradeoff between the V
on and E
off. Additionally, the DT-NPN LIGBT exhibits an improved blocking capability and weak dependence of breakdown voltage (BV) on the P+ anode doping concentration because the NPN structure suppresses triggering the PNP transistor. The proposed LIGBT reduces the E
off by 55% at the same V
on, and improves the BV by 7.3% compared to the conventional LIGBT.
4H-SiC trench MOSFET with an integrated Schottky barrier diode and L-shaped P+ shielding region
Authors: Luo Xiaorong , Zhang Ke , Song Xu , Fang Jian , Yang Fei , Zhang Bo
Published: September 2020

A novel 4H-SiC trench MOSFET is presented and investigated by simulation in this paper. The device features an integrated Schottky barrier diode and an L-shaped P+ shielding region beneath the gate trench and aside one wall of the gate trench (S-TMOS). The integrated Schottky barrier diode works as a free-wheeling diode in reverse recovery and reverse conduction, which significantly reduces reverse recovery charge (Q
rr) and reverse turn-on voltage (V
F). The L-shaped P+ region effectively shields the coupling of gate and drain, resulting in a lower gate–drain capacitance (C
gd) and date–drain charge (Q
gd). Compared with that of conventional SiC trench MOSFET (C-TMOS), the V
F and Q
rr of S-TMOS has reduced by 44% and 75%, respectively, with almost the same forward output current and reverse breakdown voltage. Moreover, the S-TMOS reduces Q
gd and C
gd by 32% and 22%, respectively, in comparison with C-TMOS.
Investigation of current collapse and recovery time due to deep level defect traps in β-Ga2O3 HEMT
Authors: Singh R. , Lenka T. R. , Velpula R. T. , Jain B. , Bui H. Q. T. , Nguyen H. P. T.
Published: September 2020

In this paper, drain current transient characteristics of β-Ga2O3 high electron mobility transistor (HEMT) are studied to access current collapse and recovery time due to dynamic population and de-population of deep level traps and interface traps. An approximately 10 min, and 1 h of recovery time to steady-state drain current value is measured under 1 ms of stress on the gate and drain electrodes due to iron (Fe)–doped β-Ga2O3 substrate and germanium (Ge)–doped β-Ga2O3 epitaxial layer respectively. On-state current lag is more severe due to widely reported defect trap E
C – 0.82 eV over E
C – 0.78 eV, −0.75 eV present in Iron (Fe)-doped β-Ga2O3 bulk crystals. A negligible amount of current degradation is observed in the latter case due to the trap level at E
C – 0.98 eV. It is found that occupancy of ionized trap density varied mostly under the gate and gate–source area. This investigation of reversible current collapse phenomenon and assessment of recovery time in β-Ga2O3 HEMT is carried out through 2D device simulations using appropriate velocity and charge transport models. This work can further help in the proper characterization of β-Ga2O3 devices to understand temporary and permanent device degradation.
Recent T2K Neutrino Oscillation Results
Authors: Sztuc Artur
Published: September 2020

T2K is a long baseline neutrino experiment producing a beam of muon neutrinos at the Japan Particle Accelerator Research Centre on the East coast of Japan and measuring their oscillated state 295 km away at the Super Kamiokande detector. Since, 2017 T2K has doubled its data in both neutrino and anti-neutrino beam modes. Coupled with improvements in analysis techniques, this has enabled the experiment to make world-leading measurements of the PMNS oscillation parameters

Δ

m

32

2

, sin2(θ
23) and the CP violating phase δCP
. In particular, the CP conserving values of δCP
now appear to be disfavoured at the 95% CL and there are regions of parameter space excluded at the 99.7% CL. This talk will describe these results and the analysis improvements that have enabled them.
Study of biomorphic calcium deficient hydroxyapatite fibres derived from a natural Harakeke (Phormium tenax) leaf fibre template
Authors: Siddiqui Humair A , Pickering Kim L , Mucalo Michael R
Published: September 2020

The complex structure of natural bio-organic matter has inspired scientists to utilise these as templates to design ‘biomorphic materials’, which retain the intricate architecture of the materials while acting as a useful bioactive material. Biomorphic hydroxyapatite-based fibres were synthesised using Harakeke leaf fibre as a template, which constitutes a powerful method for manufacturing bioactive ceramic fibres. Furthermore, in creating the hydroxyapatite-based fibres, a natural source of calcium and phosphate ions (from bovine bone) was utilised to create the digest solution in which the leaf fibres were immersed prior to their calcination to form the inorganic fibres. Chemical, thermogravimetric and microscopic characterisation confirmed that the final product was able to successfully replicate the shape of the fibres and furthermore be transformed into calcium deficient, bone-like hydroxyapatite.
Intermittent control strategy can enhance stabilization robustness in bumblebee hovering
Authors: Xu Ru , Nakata Toshiyuki , Cai Xuefei , Liu Hao
Published: September 2020

Active flight control plays a crucial role in stabilizing the body posture of insects to stay aloft under a complex natural environment. Insects can achieve a closed-loop flight control by integrating the external mechanical system and the internal working system through manipulating wing kinematics according to feedback information from multiple sensors. While studies of proportional derivative/proportional integral derivative-based algorithms are the main subject to explore the continuous flight control mechanisms associated with insect flights, it is normally observed that insects achieve an intermittent spike firing in steering muscles to manipulate wings in flight control discontinuously. Here we proposed a novel intermittent control strategy for a 3 degree of freedom (DoF) pitch-control and explored its stabilization robustness in bumblebee hovering. An integrated computational model was established and validated, which comprises an insect-inspired dynamic flight simulator and a novel discrete feedback controller as well as a simplified free-flight dynamic model. We found that the intermittent control model can achieve an angular-dominant flight control, whereas the continuous control model corresponds to an angular-velocity-dominant one. Given the biological constraints in sensorimotor neurobiology and musculoskeletal mechanics, the intermittent control strategy was examined capable of enhancing the stabilization robustness in terms of sensory latency, stroke derivation, spike interval, and damping strength. Our results indicate that the intermittent control strategy is likely a sophisticated flight control mechanism in insect flights while providing a bioinspired flight-control design for insect size flapping-wing micro air vehicles.
Hawking radiation correlations of evaporating black holes in JT gravity
Authors: Hollowood Timothy J , Kumar S Prem , Legramandi Andrea
Published: September 2020

We consider the Hawking radiation emitted by an evaporating black hole in JT gravity and compute the entropy of arbitrary subsets of the radiation in the slow evaporation limit, and find a zoo of possible island saddles. The Hawking radiation is shown to have long range correlations. We compute the mutual information between early and late modes and bound from below their squashed entanglement. A small subset of late modes are shown to be correlated with modes in a suitably large subset of the radiation previously emitted as well as later modes. We show how there is a breakdown of the semi-classical approximation in the form of a violation of the Araki–Lieb triangle entropy inequality, if the interior of the black hole and the radiation are considered to be separate systems. Finally, we consider how much of the radiation must be collected, and how early, to recover information thrown into the black hole as it evaporates.
Style
Authors: Hartley Daniel
Published: September 2020

Modern style emerged from the ruins of the premodern “separation of styles” (high, middle, and low). Whereas, previously, only the nobility could be represented in the high style and commoners in the low, modern style harbors a democratic, generic potential: in principle, anyone can write about anything in any way he or she likes. The history of modern style, as a central critical and compositional principle, is thus deeply imbricated with modern democracy and capitalist modernity. It has a unique relationship to the history of realism, which was itself premised upon the demise of the separation of styles. Many critics (e.g., Erich Auerbach, Roland Barthes, and Fredric Jameson) stress the way in which, as a concept and linguistic practice, style connects the body to a generic, Utopian potential of the everyday. Feminist critics, such as Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, have pursued style’s relationship to the body to delineate a specifically feminine mode of writing [écriture féminine]. Marxist critics, such as Raymond Williams, have argued that style should be understood as a linguistic mode of social relationship. The corollary is that social contradictions are experienced by writers as problems of style (e.g., in Thomas Hardy: how to unite the “educated” style of the urban ruling class with the “customary” style of the rural working class into a single artistic whole). Other critics (e.g., Franco Moretti, Roberto Schwarz) have extended this logic to the scale of “world literature:” they identify stylistic discontinuity as a feature of peripheral world literature that seeks to imitate European realist forms; it is caused by a mismatch between prevailing modes of production and dominant ideologies at the core and the (semi-)periphery of the capitalist world-system. Free indirect style, which merges narrator and character into a new, third voice, has been identified as a key feature of prose fiction in the world-systemic core—the symbolic embodiment of modern, bourgeois forms of power (an “impersonal intimacy”). Finally, “late style”—a concept associated with Theodor W. Adorno and Edward W. Said—has become an influential way of characterizing works of artistic maturity written as the author approaches old age and death (though it is certainly not limited to biological maturity). It is a style in which form and subjectivity become torn from one another, the latter freeing itself only then to subtract itself (rather than “express” itself). Style thus hovers between the impersonality of the demos and the grave.
Genetics and Heritability Research on Political Decision Making
Authors: Littvay Levente
Published: September 2020

In 2005, political scientists claimed that parent-child similarities, in addition to parenting, socialization, or shared social factors by the family, are also driven by genetic similarity. This claim upended a century of orthodoxy in political science. Many social scientists are uncomfortable with this concept, and this discomfort often stems from a multitude of misunderstandings. Claims about the genetics and heritability of political phenomena predate 2005 and wave of studies over the decade that followed swept through political science and then died down as quickly as they came. The behavior genetic research agenda faces several challenges within political science, including (a) resistance to these ideas within all of the social sciences, (b) difficulties faced by scholars in the production of meaningful theoretical and empirical contributions, and (c) developments in the field of genetics and their (negative) impact on the related scholarship within the study of politics.
Rational Choice Theory in Political Decision Making
Authors: Ainsworth Scott H.
Published: September 2020

Rational choice theory builds from a very simple foundation. To wit: individuals are presumed to pursue goal-oriented behavior stemming from rational preferences. Rational choice theory benefits from the very precise formulations of its assumptions. Individual-level rationality is generally defined as having complete and transitive preferences. Both completeness and transitivity have precise, formal definitions. From complete and transitive preferences, one can develop utility function presentations reflecting those preferences. Utility functions have the advantage of establishing a measure and allowing one to assess attitudes toward risk. That is, utility functions can reflect risk acceptance, risk neutrality, or risk aversion.

Although some rational choice theorists focus on individual-level decision making, most rational choice theorists consider the ways in which individuals’ decisions are aggregated into some sort of social outcome or social preference order. The aggregation of individuals’ preferences occurs in both social choice and game theoretic models. Arrow’s theorem is the best-known result in social choice theory. Arrow showed that the rationality of individuals’ preferences could not be readily preserved at the group level when those individuals’ preferences were aggregated. That is, individual-level rationality does not ensure group-level rationality. Put slightly differently, irrationality at the group level cannot impugn rationality at the individual level. Other examples highlighting the difficulty of aggregating individuals’ preferences into a collective outcome abound. For instance, game theoretic presentations of the collective action problem highlight how individually rational decisions can lead to suboptimal outcomes.

Rational choice models have been used to model interactions in a wide array of political institutions. Rational choice models have been developed to tackle some of the most challenging concepts in the social sciences, even in areas long thought impenetrable to rational choice theorizing. For instance, concepts such as ideology or personal identification have typically been used as preestablished descriptors. In contrast to treating those concepts as extant descriptors, rational choice theorists have modeled the endogenous development of ideologies and personal identification. Given the complexity of social phenomena, the relative parsimony and the clarity of rational choice models can be particularly helpful. The usefulness of rational choice models stems from their parsimony and their applicability to a wide range of settings.
Homosexuality Under Socialism in the German Democratic Republic
Authors: Armstrong Josh
Published: September 2020

In general, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) did not treat its gay and lesbian citizens very favorably. Although the legal situation was more liberal than in the Federal Republic (West Germany) and other Western European countries, most homosexual East Germans lived in a state of invisibility at best, or suffered direct homophobia at worst, often at the hands of the government. In the mid-1980s, the public and government stance toward homosexuality liberalized slightly, leading to small improvements in the lives of gay East Germans. However, gay East Germans never experienced many of the same freedoms or opportunities that their West German, other Western European, or American counterparts enjoyed.

Gay East Germans occupied a difficult position within the socialist ideology of the GDR. In theory, each East German was equal, enjoying universal rights and opportunities, and living free from discrimination. At the same time, however, the smallest building block of the society was the heterosexual, reproductive, married couple: a model into which same-sex desiring people could not fit. This doctrine of supposed equality probably contributed to the fact that homosexuality was decriminalized earlier in the GDR than in the Federal Republic, but it was also used by the SED (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands: the ruling, dictatorial party) as an excuse not to engage further with the specific needs of gay citizens until the mid-1980s.

The GDR saw some limited gay activism in the 1970s in the form of the Homosexuelle Interessengemeinschaft Berlin (HIB); however, the group’s activities never really extended outside of East Berlin and did not lead to significant political or social change. More impactful activism occurred in the 1980s under the aegis of the Protestant Church as the only organization in the GDR that operated largely outside of state control. The SED eventually yielded to some of the demands of gay activists—by sanctioning publications and meeting spaces, for example—but did so primarily to draw gay activists out of the protection of Church structures and in order to be able to monitor and control them more easily.

There are few East German literary or artistic works that engage with homosexuality, although a number of relevant literary works were published in the 1980s. These contributed to a fledgling discourse around homosexuality, shifting the issue from a taboo topic to one more acceptable for discussion in the public sphere. However, when East German audiences viewed Heiner Carow’s Coming Out in 1989—the first and only East German feature film to depict homosexual relationships—many claimed that it was their first exposure to homosexuality. And, since the GDR ceased to exist as a state fairly abruptly in 1990, one will never know how the trajectory of gay rights activism may have continued.
International Crises Interrogated: Modeling the Escalation Process with Quantitative Methods
Authors: Iakhnis Evgeniia , Neumeier Stefanie , Van Wijk Anne , James Patrick
Published: September 2020

Quantitative methodology in crisis studies is a topic of substantial scope. The principal rallying point for such research is the long-standing International Crisis Behavior (ICB) Project, which from 1975 onward has produced a comprehensive and heavily accessed data set for the study of conflict processes. A prehistory of crisis studies based on statistical methods, which identified connections between and among various conflict-related events, pointed increasingly toward the need for a program of research on escalation. The potential of quantitative methodology to contribute seriously to crisis studies has been realized along multiple dimensions by the ICB Project in particular. For example, quantitative methods have been applied productively to study the effects of both global and regional organizations, along with individual states, upon the process of crisis escalation. Current research in crisis studies is based on the premise that research designs so far have covered only one of multiple relevant stages regarding the process of escalation. This is where the concept of a “near crisis” becomes relevant: a near crisis entails perception of threat and finite time, but not an increased likelihood of military hostilities. Data analysis pertaining to multiple stages of escalation is at an early stage of development, but initial results are intriguing. A further critique of quantitative research begins with the observation that it is mostly state-centered and reductionist in nature. A key question emerges: How can the concept of crisis and associated data collection be revised to include a humanistic element that would entail new and potentially more enlightening configurations of independent and dependent variables?
Negotiation in the Law Enforcement Context
Authors: Vecchi Gregory M.
Published: September 2020

Law enforcement negotiation is one of the only times when a law enforcement officer interacts with an offender during the commission of a crime and, as such, can influence the outcome of the situation in favor of law enforcement. All other interactions between offenders take place after the commission of the crime or during undercover operations when the law enforcement officer is hiding their identity. Law enforcement crisis and tactical negotiation (LECTN) provides techniques, tactics, and procedures for seamlessly dealing with difficult, dangerous, and disordered persons to obtain voluntary compliance through the application of verbal influence-based skill sets. LECTN is a method by which to deal with perceived threats to a subject’s emotional, psychological, or physical well-being during intense conflict or crisis situations. Understanding critical incidents and the mindset of a subject is critical to determining the proper communication strategies and tactics. At the heart of the process is understanding and assessing instrumental and expressive behavior in order to apply tactical negotiation or crisis intervention. A key skill set to being effective in negotiating with difficult, dangerous, and disordered persons is to build credibility through the application of the Behavioral Influence Stairway Model in the effective application of active listening skills, empathy, rapport–trust, and influence to persuade behavioral change on the part of the subject.
Political Recruitment and Candidate Selection in Latin America
Authors: Siavelis Peter M. , Morgenstern Scott
Published: September 2020

Candidate recruitment and selection is a complex and opaque process that drives political outcomes and processes. Further, the process of candidate selection is notoriously difficult to study because of its informal nature, the multiplicity of actors involved, and because politicians may prefer to obfuscate their motives when asked about their decisions. Still, the literature has made advances in understanding recruitment and selection (R&S) and this article explores this crucial and understudied topic with respect to Latin America.

Much literature has considered the importance of political institutions to candidate selection, but these explanations alone are insufficient. Analyses of political institutions have significantly advanced in the region, but in isolation, their explanatory power can fall short, as evident in examples where similar institutional frameworks yield different outcomes . This suggests the need to include informal processes when analyzing candidate recruitment and selection procedures. Then, armed with a more complete understanding of the processes, we can better assess the impacts of candidate choice on political outcomes.

There is extensive work on recruitment and candidate selection in Latin America that focuses on executives, legislators, and gender. Each of these themes provides multiple examples of how outcomes are determined through a combination of formal institutions and informal practices. .

The region’s politics have been trending towards more formal, open, and inclusive processes. This is largely a result of the belief that there is a crisis of representation for which parties are to blame. Reformists have thus championed more inclusive selection processes as an antidote to the problem of low-quality representation. By themselves, however, these reforms are insufficient to enhance the quality of democracy and they can have high associated costs for the democratic system. Therefore, the multiple consequences of the R&S process—intended and hidden—should raise caution for scholars and reformers.
Direct Democracy and Political Decision Making
Authors: Bowler Shaun , Dobbs Reagan , Nicholson Stephen
Published: September 2020

Direct democracy in the United States is the process whereby voters decide the fate of laws, through either an initiative or a referendum. Initiatives allow voters to approve or reject a policy proposal, whereas referendums permit voters to decide the fate of laws passed by the legislature. Although some high-profile ballot measures, especially those related to ‘moral’ issues, may induce people to vote, most ballot measures are unfamiliar to voters and so have a limited effect on participation. Rather than mobilizing voters, the more choice confronting voters faced with ballot measures is whether to “roll-off” or abstain from voting on them. The subsequent decision, how to vote, is intimately related to the decision over whether to vote and is largely motivated by the same factors.

In deciding whether and how to vote, voters must know what a ballot measure is about, discern the political motivation underlying it, and match that information to their political predispositions to cast a Yes or No vote; otherwise they abstain. The more voters know about a given proposition, the more likely it is that they will vote and, furthermore, that the vote they do cast will reflect their underlying political values. In contrast both to the claims made by many critics of direct democracy and, also, some current studies in political science, votes in direct democracy are often underpinned by substantive, policy-based considerations. Voters are thus capable of meaningfully participating in the direct democracy process.
The Maldives: The Changing Dynamics of Civil-Military Relations
Authors: Hosur Suhas Prashant , Banerjee Vasabjit
Published: September 2020

The Maldives’ strategic location in the Indian Ocean has elicited interest in its politics. While it is the smallest state in South Asia and a classic example of a microstate, with a population of less than 400,000, its strategic location in the Indian Ocean region (IOR) and large EEZ allow it to play an outsize role in the region. When it comes to civil‒military relations, the Maldives National Defence Force (MNDF) has traditionally accepted a subordinate role to the civilian leadership. However, there has been intermittent political turmoil and instability as civilian leaders—many of whom have been autocratic—resist democratic changes. There are three components that require attention in assessing the nature of the Maldives’ civil‒military relations. The first component is the great power rivalry between China and India operating in the region. While India has considered the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) to be within its sphere of influence, it has been challenged by recent Chinese activities in the IOR. The second component is the stability and turmoil in the domestic political structures in the Maldives as the country seeks to democratize. Finally, although it is the largest contributor to the Maldives’ GDP, a section of fundamentalist Muslims identify the tourism industry with a “decadent lifestyle” being promoted by the state solely for economic growth . Given that tourism is the primary economic sector in the Maldives, such opposition can pose both a security and an economic threat. Whether the growing radicalism has affected the military is unclear, but the possibility poses new threats to a country on the path of democratization.
Fast and Frugal Heuristics
Authors: Katsikopoulos Konstantinos V.
Published: September 2020

Polymath, and also political scientist, Herbert Simon dared to point out that the amounts of time, information, computation, and other resources required for maximizing utility far exceed what is possible when real people have to make real decisions in the real world. In psychology, there are two main approaches to studying actual human judgment and decision making—the heuristics-and-bias and the fast-and-frugal-heuristics research programs. A distinctive characteristic of the fast-and-frugal-heuristics program is that it specifies formal models of heuristics and attempts to determine when people use them and what performance they achieve. These models rely on a few pieces of information that are processed in computationally simple ways. The information and computation are within human reach, which means that people rely on information they have relatively easy access to and employ simple operations such as summing or comparing numbers. Research in the laboratory and in the wild has found that most people use fast and frugal heuristics most of the time if a decision must be made quickly, information is expensive financially or cognitively to gather, or a single/few attributes of the problem strongly point towards an option. The ways in which people switch between heuristics is studied in the framework of the adaptive toolbox. Work employing computer simulations and mathematical analyses has uncovered conditions under which fast and frugal heuristics achieve higher performance than benchmarks from statistics and machine learning, and vice versa. These conditions constitute the theory of ecological rationality. This theory suggests that fast and frugal heuristics perform better than complex optimization models if the available information is of low quality or scarce, or if there exist dominant options or attributes. The bias-variance decomposition of statistical prediction error, which is explained in layperson’s terms, underpins these claims. Research on fast and frugal heuristics suggests a governance approach not based on nudging, but on boosting citizen competence.
Social Development Across the Lifespan
Authors: Cotton Bronk Kendall , Postlewaite Elyse , Blackard Betsy , Boeder Jordan , Lucas Hannah
Published: September 2020

Social development refers to the process through which individuals learn to get along with others. It encompasses the formation of friendships and romantic relationships as well as experiences of bullying and loneliness. Across the life span, cognitive development enables increasingly complex social interactions, and the most important contexts for social development expand. Early in life, family is the primary context for social development, but in adulthood the social world grows to include peers, colleagues, and others. Social development is critical for well-being. Research finds that the lasting social bonds that individuals form are perhaps the most important ingredient in a life well lived.
Procedural Justice in the Criminal Justice System
Authors: Sargeant Elise , Barkworth Julie , Madon Natasha S.
Published: September 2020

Fairness and equity are key concerns in modern liberal democracies. In step with this general trend, academics and practitioners have long been concerned with the fairness of procedures utilized by the criminal justice system. Definitions vary, but procedural justice is loosely defined as fair treatment and fair decision-making by authorities. In the criminal justice system, the procedural justice of authorities such as police officers, judicial officers, and correctional officers is evaluated by members of the public. Procedural justice in the criminal justice system is viewed as an end in and of itself, but it is also an opportunity to yield various outcomes including legitimacy, public compliance with the law, cooperation with criminal justice officials, and satisfaction with criminal justice proceedings and outcomes.
Inclusive Education in Central America and the Caribbean (CA-DR)
Authors: Caballeros Marta , Bran Jeannette , Castro Gabriela
Published: September 2020

Inclusive education, as stated in declarations and human development goals, features in the educational policies being implemented in Central American and Caribbean (CA-DR) countries (Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, and the Dominican Republic). The policies seek to give the entire population of each country permanent access to quality education services, and they have a particular focus on people with disabilities. However, there are considerable challenges to be overcome, caused by a combination of historical factors and the sociopolitical and economic context. Some of the countries still have significant levels of poverty and inequity, both of which hinder the development of inclusive education. At the same time, inclusive education is expected to help eradicate social exclusion and facilitate social mobility. This paradigm began as an effort to secure disabled people’s right to education, and countries have since been working to offer disabled people access to regular schools. Nevertheless, segregated education services or services with an integration aim still persist. Moreover, poverty causes many students to drop out of school, or never to enroll at all. Each country has vulnerable or marginalized groups in its population. The work being done, from an inclusive perspective, follows two main routes: reorienting education systems toward inclusivity; and offering these groups affirmative actions to ensure their regular attendance at mainstream schools that have quality programs for all. If CA-DR countries are to achieve inclusive education, they must fulfill two requirements. Firstly, they must develop intersectorial interventions that revert causes of exclusion—education policies in isolation are unable to do that. Secondly, they must take action to ensure that inclusive education is achieved in practice in the classroom. There are advances toward inclusion, but more work is needed to answer the question of how CA-DR countries can develop inclusive societies, based on social protection and quality education services for all, that give proper attention to diversity, practice equity, and promote social mobility. Bottom-up strategies are valuable in the effort to achieve inclusive education.
Women in South Sudan
Authors: Tounsel Christopher
Published: September 2020

Since the late 19th-century, Southern Sudanese have experienced Anglo-Egyptian colonialism (1899–1956), national independence with Northern Sudan (1956), two civil wars that resulted in South Sudanese independence (1955–1972, 1983–2005), a civil war within the new nation (2013–2018), and the conclusion of that conflict (2018). Southern Sudanese women’s experiences within, and contributions to, this stream of cataclysmic events has been harrowing and significant. This tumultuous history is rife with harsh realities. Women and girls have consistently had unequal access to education compared to their male counterparts, been subjected to sexual violence, marginalized from the political sphere, and faced a multitude of socioeconomic constraints and hardships. Many social scientists, furthermore, have argued that women’s vulnerabilities have increased as the result of lengthy militarized violence. However, in the midst of these realities, women have found ways to make important contributions not only as mothers, wives, and daughters but also as soldiers, teachers, activists, agriculturalists, and in various other positions during each of the postcolonial liberation wars. While women’s political participation has been encouraged since South Sudan’s 2011 independence, war, sexual violence, and socioeconomic inequalities have kept the female population in a vulnerable position.
Normative Debates and Policy Responses in Climate Change Politics
Authors: Cass Loren R.
Published: September 2020

Climate change politics refers to attempts to define climate change as a physical phenomenon as well as to delineate current and predict future effects on the environment and broader implications for human affairs as a foundation for political action. Defining the causes, scale, time frame, and consequences of climate change is critical to determining the political response. Given the high stakes involved in both the consequences of climate change and the distributive implications of policies to address climate change, climate change politics has been and remains highly contentious both within countries and across countries.

Climate politics presents difficulties for study given its interdisciplinary nature and the scientific complexities involved in climate change. The international relations literature surrounding climate politics has also evolved and grown substantially since the mid-2000s. Efforts to address the consequences of climate change have evoked controversial ethical and distributive justice questions that have produced an important normative literature. These debates increasingly inform the ongoing negotiations surrounding responsibility for the problem of climate change and the policies required to address climate change. There is also a larger debate regarding the complex linkages between climate change and broader ecological as well as economic and political consequences of both the effects of climate change and policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or remove them from the atmosphere. As we enter the 2020s, a new debate has emerged related to the implications of the posited transition to the Anthropocene Epoch and the future of climate politics. Normative and policy debates surrounding climate change politics remain contentious without a clear path to meaningful political action.
Plantation Life in the British West Indies, 1650–1850
Authors: Shaw Jenny
Published: September 2020

Over two million enslaved people labored on cash crop plantations in the British West Indies in the almost two hundred years between the development of sugar plantations on Barbados in the 1650s and the age of emancipation in the 1830s. Although both the sizes of plantations and the crops produced varied across the Caribbean, generally the system of enslavement and therefore the plantation life generated within that system, did not. The contours of enslaved lives were shaped by myriad forces—the violence of the institution of slavery, the strictures of gender, reproduction, and patriarchy, the racial animosity engendered by whites, the hierarchies of the enslaved community, and the demographic reality of the colonies. The labor enslaved women, men, and children performed, the violence they endured, the familial and kinship ties they forged, the cultural practices they engaged in, and the strategies they employed to challenge their bonded status, were the constituent elements of their enslavement and their daily lives. But once slavery ended, the demands of the plantation did not fade. Neither did the racist attitudes of whites about people of African descent, or elite assumptions about what constituted a good subject in Britain’s burgeoning empire. As they forged new lives in the 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s, former slaves grappled with how to set limits on their labor, build families, and live lives free from white scrutiny and oppression.
CYBERTRACK2.0: zero-inflated model-based cell clustering and population tracking method for longitudinal mass cytometry data
Authors: Minoura Kodai , Abe Ko , Maeda Yuka , Nishikawa Hiroyoshi , Shimamura Teppei
Published: September 2020

Recent advancements in high-dimensional single-cell technologies, such as mass cytometry, enable longitudinal experiments to track dynamics of cell populations and identify change points where the proportions vary significantly. However, current research is limited by the lack of tools specialized for analyzing longitudinal mass cytometry data. In order to infer cell population dynamics from such data, we developed a statistical framework named CYBERTRACK2.0. The framework’s analytic performance was validated against synthetic and real data, showing that its results are consistent with previous research.

Availability and implementation

CYBERTRACK2.0 is available at https://github.com/kodaim1115/CYBERTRACK2.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
svpluscnv: analysis and visualization of complex structural variation data
Authors: Lopez Gonzalo , Egolf Laura E , Giorgi Federico M , Diskin Sharon J , Margolin Adam A
Published: September 2020

Motivation

Despite widespread prevalence of somatic structural variations (SVs) across most tumor types, understanding of their molecular implications often remains poor. SVs are extremely heterogeneous in size and complexity, hindering the interpretation of their pathogenic role. Tools integrating large SV datasets across platforms are required to fully characterize the cancer’s somatic landscape.

Results

svpluscnv R package is a swiss army knife for the integration and interpretation of orthogonal datasets including copy number variant segmentation profiles and sequencing-based structural variant calls. The package implements analysis and visualization tools to evaluate chromosomal instability and ploidy, identify genes harboring recurrent SVs and detects complex rearrangements such as chromothripsis and chromoplexia. Further, it allows systematic identification of hot-spot shattered genomic regions, showing reproducibility across alternative detection methods and datasets.

Availability and implementation

https://github.com/ccbiolab/svpluscnv.

Supplementary information

Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Wolf Delisting Challenges Demonstrate Need for an Improved Framework for Conserving Intraspecific Variation under the Endangered Species Act.
Authors: Carroll Carlos , Rohlf Daniel J , vonHoldt Bridgett M , Treves Adrian , Hendricks Sarah A
Published: September 2020

Recent advances in genomics have increased our understanding of geographic patterns of intraspecific variation and the importance of this variation in enhancing species’ potential to adapt to novel threats. However, as part of an effort to limit the scope of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), the US government has proposed the removal of the gray wolf from the list of protected species on the basis of a claim that the statute permits a species to be declared recovered given the existence of a single presently secure population. We rebut this interpretation and propose a framework for the conservation of adaptive potential that builds on current agency practice in delineating subspecific recovery units and reconciles the definition of significance in the statute's “distinct population segment” and “significant portion of range” clauses. Such a coordinated policy would enhance the ESA's effectiveness in stemming loss of biodiversity in the face of climate change and other factors altering Earth's ecosystems.
Slip distribution of the 2020 Elazığ Earthquake (Mw 6.75) and its influence on earthquake hazard in the Eastern Anatolia
Authors: Doğru Aslı , Bulut Fatih , Yaltırak Cenk , Aktuğ Bahadır
Published: September 2020

We analysed coseismic surface displacements of the 2020 January 24 Elazığ (M 6.75) Earthquake using GPS (Global Positioning System) measurements to investigate the associated fault slip distribution and static stress change. Our geodetic analysis of 13 GPS sites surrounding the epicentre included data from four additional sites. We accurately located the nucleation point of the main shock at 38.310° N, 39.081° E (±1.4 km) and at a depth of 5.2 ± 1.2 km. Both seismograph and GPS-derived fault plane solutions confirmed that it has a nearly pure sinistral mechanism with a negligible obliquity. The main shock generated 29.2 cm average sinistral slip along an approximately 70 km long and 20 km wide section of the East Anatolian Fault. Based on its rupture size and average slip, its magnitude was found to be Mw 6.75. An average of 6.6 bars of stress drop occurred on the rupture plane. The rupture occurred bilaterally failing two separate segments both to the northeast and to the southwest of the nucleation point. Average sinistral slips were 14.6 and 47.4 cm along the southwestern and northeastern segments, respectively. Sinistral slip reached up to 53.1 cm along the southwestern segment and 110.5 cm along the northeastern segment. During the generation process of the 2020 earthquake, 78 per cent of the slip deficit had been released aseismically since 1875. Increasing Coulomb stress by an average of 2.5 bars, it substantially increased earthquake hazard on the 1874 (M 7.1) rupture zone, which might have already accumulated 1.51 m slip deficit on its fully locked patches. Furthermore, increasing Coulomb stress by an average of 0.5 bars, it raised earthquake hazard on the 1893 (M 7.1) rupture zone, which might have already stored 1.01 m slip deficit along the fully locked patches.
Content Moderation Technologies: Applying Human Rights Standards to Protect Freedom of Expression
Authors: Dias Oliva Thiago
Published: September 2020

With the increase in online content circulation new challenges have arisen: the dissemination of defamatory content, non-consensual intimate images, hate speech, fake news, the increase of copyright violations, among others. Due to the huge amount of work required in moderating content, internet platforms are developing artificial intelligence to automate decision-making content removal. This article discusses the reported performance of current content moderation technologies from a legal perspective, addressing the following question: what risks do these technologies pose to freedom of expression, access to information and diversity in the digital environment? The legal analysis developed by the article focuses on international human rights law standards. Despite recent improvements, content moderation technologies still fail to understand context, thereby posing risks to users’ free speech, access to information and equality. Consequently, it is concluded, these technologies should not be the sole basis for reaching decisions that directly affect user expression.
The Transition Matrix Between the Specht and 𝔰𝔩3 Web Bases is Unitriangular With Respect to Shadow Containment
Authors: Russell Heather M , Tymoczko Julianna
Published: September 2020

Webs are planar graphs with boundary that describe morphisms in a diagrammatic representation category for $\mathfrak{sl}_k$. They are studied extensively by knot theorists because braiding maps provide a categorical way to express link diagrams in terms of webs, producing quantum invariants like the well-known Jones polynomial. One important question in representation theory is to identify the relationships between different bases; coefficients in the change-of-basis matrix often describe combinatorial, algebraic, or geometric quantities (e.g., Kazhdan–Lusztig polynomials). By ”flattening” the braiding maps, webs can also be viewed as the basis elements of a symmetric group representation. In this paper, we define two new combinatorial structures for webs: band diagrams and their one-dimensional projections, shadows, which measure depths of regions inside the web. As an application, we resolve an open conjecture that the change of basis between the so-called Specht basis and web basis of this symmetric group representation is unitriangular for $\mathfrak{sl}_3$-webs ([ 33] and [ 29].) We do this using band diagrams and shadows to construct a new partial order on webs that is a refinement of the usual partial order. In fact, we prove that for $\mathfrak{sl}_2$-webs, our new partial order coincides with the tableau partial order on webs studied by the authors and others [ 12, 17, 29, 33]. We also prove that though the new partial order for $\mathfrak{sl}_3$-webs is a refinement of the previously studied tableau order, the two partial orders do not agree for $\mathfrak{sl}_3$.