Information Sharing for Infrastructure Risk Management: Barriers and Solutions

There is a public interest in ensuring that infrastructure systems are appropriately protected and prepared for disruptions. While infrastructure protection is usually viewed as a public responsibility, infrastructure risk management actually requires a high degree of cooperation between the public and private sectors, particularly in the sharing of information about risks to infrastructure. Discussions with Chief Security Officers across sectors of the US economy reveal the complexity of the task, as they describe at length the private sector's requirements of multiples types of information about a range of potential threats. While the US government has established many mechanisms for sharing information, barriers remain that inhibit both the private and public partners from obtaining the information needed to protect infrastructure. Overcoming these barriers requires new thinking about the intelligence generation process, the mechanisms and practices upon which the process relies, and the responsibilities of those in the private sector who participate in it.     

An education for peace model that centres on belief systems: the theory behind the model

The education for peace model (EFPM) presented in this paper was developed within a theoretical framework of complexity science and critical theory and was derived from a review of an empirical research project conducted in a conflict affected environment. The model positions belief systems at the centre and is socioecologically systemic in design to capture the holistic dynamic of education within community. There is increasing interest, in both academic and development communities, in closing the gaps that exist between theory and practice in educational development in conflict affected settings and providing practioners with practical models. This paper makes a contribution in this through the presentation of the EFPM and the theory that informed its development. There are five key components to the EFPM: belief systems, learning experiences, students, teachers and schools. Belief systems are core as knowledge is generated from culture. Learning experiences are viewed as opportunities for growth, and schools are viewed as environments that provide opportunities and engender cultures for learning and conflict resolution. Teachers, drawn from the local community, are co-creators of these cultures, environments and opportunities and agents of effective change.     

An exercise in scientific problem-solving: Illustrating the utility of the principles of the Sydney Declaration

In forensic science, scientific problem-solving is characterized by the recognition of traces as part of iterative reasoning processes to assign meaning to those traces in order to interpret and reconstruct events. Through a set of fundamental principles, the Sydney Declaration presents a foundation of forensic science through the lens of a scientist. The distinction between a scientist and a technician may require clarification—where a prototypical technician follows a prescribed set of ‘standard operating procedures’ and may be limited in the interpretation of the resultant data, the scientist utilizes knowledge, skills, experience and imagination to identify the issue at hand and develop lines of inquiry for testing and interpretation. This case report draws on the Sydney Declaration in order to highlight the importance of learning about events from careful consideration of both obvious and less obvious traces. A case involving the assault of a police officer is examined to illustrate the use of the Principles: the problem originally defined by investigators at the scene and later by prosecutors resulted in incorrect analysis and interpretation of traces, hampering efforts at an accurate reconstruction of events. This exercise serves to demonstrate that in order to engage in scientific problem-solving, it is necessary to apply observation and reasoning in forensic investigations in order to yield an outcome that can be clearly articulated. The overarching goal is to support the drive to improve forensic science practice, education, and research through a case illustrating the value of the principles of the Sydney Declaration.     

Preaching politics: Islam and Christianity on the Kenya coast

Focusing on the Kenya coast, this article analyses the developing contrast between the place of Islam and Christianity in public politics. It argues that Islam’s association with criticism of the political order contrasts with Christianity, but that this is not the result of inherent difference between the religions. Both have previously provided a language, and space, for political commentary and activism in Kenya. The contrast is rather the contingent result of particular circumstances in Kenya. Christianity has become increasingly associated with affirming clientelism and the accumulation of wealth in a way which is avowedly non-political but in practice legitimates the current political order. Meanwhile, although individual Muslims are more likely to enjoy high political office than was previously the case, Muslims are also more likely to locate their experience as symptomatic of a wider pattern of exclusion in Kenya and link this sense of local injustice to global inequalities.     

American Indian and European American Women’s Perceptions of Domestic Violence

American Indian and European American women’s definitions and perceived causes for domestic violence were examined. Attitudes towards violence and battering as it relates to the self were measured with two scales. As predicted, results indicated American Indian women and European American women held different conceptualizations of what constitutes domestic violence and different notions concerning the cause of domestic violence. Also, American Indian women were more attuned to external causes for violence, while European American women referred to internal explanations for such violence. Differences in social and psychological histories of violence and attitudinal orientations toward violence were indicated. Legal and health system changes are recommended in order to combat violence in Indian country.

Testamentary competency

This paper examines the development of the doctrine that restricts testation to competent persons, and the use of expert testimony in implementing that doctrine. Since 1870 the leading articulation of this doctrine has been Lord Cockburn's Rule, which among other things requires that the testator knew the natural objects of his bounty at the time the will was made. The facultative theory of mind underlying Lord Cockburn's Rule is consistent with the contemporary, functional approach to competency to make medical decisions taken by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Where expert testimony, based on training in the behavioral sciences, takes a functional approach to discovering the nature of the testator's values regarding other persons, it can assist the trier of fact significantly more than the lay opinion testimony which many courts have preferred in questions of testamentary competency. The concern of commentators that courts make false attributions of testamentary competency out of a perceived need to protect the family would be lessened, and the freedom of testation promoted, if courts directed their attention, through the kind of expert testimony proposed, to the testator's psychological family, instead of the persons identified as family members in intestacy statutes.The author wishes to thank Professors John Monahan, Roberta A. Morris, and Richard J. Bonnie for their helpful critiques of an earlier draft of this paper. The author also gratefully acknowledges the research assistance of Vicki L. Epling and Paul A. Lombardo, law students at the University of Virginia.A portion of this paper was presented by the author at the 1982 Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association under the title, The Application of Psychology to Legal Problems Involving Trusts and Estates, as part of the symposium, Psychological Questions in Legal Areas Largely Unexplored by Psychologists. This symposium was proposed and organized by Professor Gary B. Melton of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.