Restoration of Degraded Tropical Peatland in Indonesia: A Review

Tropical peatlands are fragile ecosystems with an important role in conserving biodiversity, water quality and availability, preventing floods, soil intrusion, erosion and sedimentation, and providing a livelihood for people. However, due to illegal logging, fire and conversion into other land use, the peatlands in Indonesia are under serious threat. Efforts to restore Indonesia’s tropical peatlands have been accelerated by the establishment of the Peatland Restoration Agency in early 2016. The restoration action policy includes the rewetting, revegetation and revitalisation of local livelihood (known as the 3Rs). This paper summarises the regulatory, institutional and planning aspects of peatland restoration, in addition to the implementation of the 3Rs in Indonesia, including failures, success stories, and the criteria and indicators for the success of peatland restoration.

Secure Mobile Edge Server Placement Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

Mobile edge computing is capable of providing high data processing capabilities while ensuring low latency constraints of low power wireless networks, such as the industrial internet of things. However, optimally placing edge servers (providing storage and computation services to user equipment) is still a challenge. To optimally place mobile edge servers in a wireless network, such that network latency is minimized and load balancing is performed on edge servers, we propose a multi-agent reinforcement learning (RL) solution to solve a formulated mobile edge server placement problem. The RL agents are designed to learn the dynamics of the environment and adapt a joint action policy resulting in the minimization of network latency and balancing the load on edge servers. To ensure that the action policy adapted by RL agents maximized the overall network performance indicators, we propose the sharing of information, such as the latency experienced from each server and the load of each server to other RL agents in the network. Experiment results are obtained to analyze the effectiveness of the proposed solution. Although the sharing of information makes the proposed solution obtain a network-wide maximation of overall network performance at the same time it makes it susceptible to different kinds of security attacks. To further investigate the security issues arising from the proposed solution, we provide a detailed analysis of the types of security attacks possible and their countermeasures.

Path Following Control for Underactuated Airships with Magnitude and Rate Saturation

This paper proposes a reinforcement learning (RL) based path following strategy for underactuated airships with magnitude and rate saturation. The Markov decision process (MDP) model for the control problem is established. Then an error bounded line-of-sight (LOS) guidance law is investigated to restrain the state space. Subsequently, a proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithm is employed to approximate the optimal action policy through trial and error. Since the optimal action policy is generated from the action space, the magnitude and rate saturation can be avoided. The simulation results, involving circular, general, broken-line, and anti-wind path following tasks, demonstrate that the proposed control scheme can transfer to new tasks without adaptation, and possesses satisfying real-time performance and robustness.

Preprint_Selected or rejected. Men and women’s reactions to affirmative action procedures in hiring

Previous research suggests that affirmative action policies tend to be perceived more negatively by men than by women, and by non-beneficiaries relative to beneficiaries. However, studies focusing on men as beneficiaries are lacking. The present paper reports the results of two pre-registered experiments conducted in Sweden. Study 1 investigated gender differences in reactions to being selected for a position based on either a strong or weak type of affirmative action policy. The results revealed that men (relative to women) displayed more negative attitudes, but not stronger resentment, and that a procedure using explicit quotas was perceived more negatively than a softer type of preferential treatment. In Study 2, we experimentally manipulated whether participants imagined being selected or rejected due to the same preferential treatment policy. Again, men displayed more negative attitudes, but not stronger resentment. The results further showed that attitudes were negative regardless of whether one was selected or rejected. However, those who were rejected felt stronger resentment than those who were selected, and this effect was especially pronounced for women. Implications for research, organizations, and policy-makers are discussed.

Comentario: Excepcionalidad meritocrática y política de acción afirmativa en la educación superior en Chile

We have written this commentary on the work “Meritocratic Exceptionality and Affirmative Action Policy in Higher Education in Chile” with the aim of complementing it with the background and points of view of people who have been rowing against the tide for 30 years, in favor of access for students who, during their secondary education, took full advantage of the opportunities they found in their socio-educational contexts, but whose doors are closed to them by the walls of “selective” universities. We hope, with hope, that the points of view of the authors of the work plus ours will be a contribution to the dismantling of the current social segregation of our country, which generates so much structural violence.

Developing Our Policy Know-How: Why Policy Should Be Part of Music Educator Identity

Policy is a critical practice that can be a valuable companion to music educators—alongside their pedagogical and content knowledge. This outlook challenges the position that teachers are subject to policy, reclaiming the necessity and value for teachers to see themselves as policy partners or policymakers in practice. The article explores three premises: (1) Today more than ever, policy matters; (2) there are important distinctions between policy and advocacy, and we should understand them and be engaged in both; and (3) expanding music teachers’ policy know-how can positively impact the role they play in school communities. The article offers pathways for policy thinking and action—policy know-how—as a significant element in the education and the professional life of music educators.