24,285 research outputs found

    Identifying and responding to people with mild learning disabilities in the probation service

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    It has long been recognised that, like many other individuals, people with learningdisabilities find their way into the criminal justice system. This fact is not disputed. Whathas been disputed, however, is the extent to which those with learning disabilities arerepresented within the various agencies of the criminal justice system and the ways inwhich the criminal justice system (and society) should address this. Recently, social andlegislative confusion over the best way to deal with offenders with learning disabilities andmental health problems has meant that the waters have become even more muddied.Despite current government uncertainty concerning the best way to support offenders withlearning disabilities, the probation service is likely to continue to play a key role in thesupervision of such offenders. The three studies contained herein aim to clarify the extentto which those with learning disabilities are represented in the probation service, toexamine the effectiveness of probation for them and to explore some of the ways in whichprobation could be adapted to fit their needs.Study 1 and study 2 showed that around 10% of offenders on probation in Kent appearedto have an IQ below 75, putting them in the bottom 5% of the general population. Study 3was designed to assess some of the support needs of those with learning disabilities in theprobation service, finding that many of the materials used by the probation service arelikely to be too complex for those with learning disabilities to use effectively. To addressthis, a model for service provision is tentatively suggested. This is based on the findings ofthe three studies and a pragmatic assessment of what the probation service is likely to becapable of achieving in the near future

    Elite perceptions of the Victorian and Edwardian past in inter-war England

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    It is often argued by historians that members of the cultivated Elite after 1918 rejected the pre-war past. or at least subjected it to severe denigration. This thesis sets out to challenge such a view. Above all, it argues that inter-war critics of the Victorian and Edwardian past were unable to reject it even if that was what they felt inclined to do. This was because they were tied to those periods by the affective links of memory, family, and the continually unfolding consequences of the past in the present. Even the severest critics of the pre-war world, such as Lytton Strachey, were less frequently dismissive of history than ambivalent towards it. This ambivalence, it is argued, helped to keep the past alive and often to humanise it. The thesis also explores more positive estimation of Victorian and Edwardian history between the wars. It examines nostalgia for the past, as well as instances of continuity of practice and attitude. It explores the way in which inter-war society drew upon aspects of Victorian and Edwardian history both as illuminating parallels to contemporary affairs and to understand directly why the present was shaped as it was. Again, this testifies to the enduring power of the past after 1918. There are three parts to this thesis. Part One outlines the cultural context in which writers contemplated the Victorian and Edwardian past. Part Two explores some of the ways in which history was written about and used by inter-war society. Part Three examines the ways in which biographical depictions of eminent Victorians after 1918 encouraged emotional negotiation with the pas

    Victims' Access to Justice in Trinidad and Tobago: An exploratory study of experiences and challenges of accessing criminal justice in a post-colonial society

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    This thesis investigates victims' access to justice in Trinidad and Tobago, using their own narratives. It seeks to capture how their experiences affected their identities as victims and citizens, alongside their perceptions of legitimacy regarding the criminal justice system. While there have been some reforms in the administration of criminal justice in Trinidad and Tobago, such reforms have not focused on victims' accessibility to the justice system. Using grounded theory methodology, qualitative data was collected through 31 in-depth interviews with victims and victim advocates. The analysis found that victims experienced interpersonal, structural, and systemic barriers at varying levels throughout the criminal justice system, which manifested as institutionalized secondary victimization, silencing and inequality. This thesis argues that such experiences not only served to appropriate conflict but demonstrates that access is often given in a very narrow sense. Furthermore, it shows a failure to encompass access to justice as appropriated conflicts are left to stagnate in the system as there is often very little resolution. Adopting a postcolonial lens to analyse victims' experiences, the analysis identified othering practices that served to institutionalize the vulnerability and powerlessness associated with victim identities. Here, it is argued that these othering practices also affected the rights consciousness of victims, delegitimating their identities as citizens. Moreover, as a result of their experiences, victims had mixed perceptions of the justice system. It is argued that while the system is a legitimate authority victims' endorsement of the system is questionable, therefore victims' experiences suggest that there is a reinforcement of the system's legal hegemony. The findings suggest that within the legal system of Trinidad and Tobago, legacies of colonialism shape the postcolonial present as the psychology and inequalities of the past are present in the interactions and processes of justice. These findings are relevant for policymakers in Trinidad and Tobago and other regions. From this study it is recognized that, to improve access to justice for victims, there needs to be a move towards victim empowerment that promotes resilience and enhances social capital. Going forward it is noted that there is a need for further research

    Building body identities - exploring the world of female bodybuilders

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    This thesis explores how female bodybuilders seek to develop and maintain a viable sense of self despite being stigmatized by the gendered foundations of what Erving Goffman (1983) refers to as the 'interaction order'; the unavoidable presentational context in which identities are forged during the course of social life. Placed in the context of an overview of the historical treatment of women's bodies, and a concern with the development of bodybuilding as a specific form of body modification, the research draws upon a unique two year ethnographic study based in the South of England, complemented by interviews with twenty-six female bodybuilders, all of whom live in the U.K. By mapping these extraordinary women's lives, the research illuminates the pivotal spaces and essential lived experiences that make up the female bodybuilder. Whilst the women appear to be embarking on an 'empowering' radical body project for themselves, the consequences of their activity remains culturally ambivalent. This research exposes the 'Janus-faced' nature of female bodybuilding, exploring the ways in which the women negotiate, accommodate and resist pressures to engage in more orthodox and feminine activities and appearances

    Towards a sociology of conspiracy theories: An investigation into conspiratorial thinking on Dönmes

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    This thesis investigates the social and political significance of conspiracy theories, which has been an academically neglected topic despite its historical relevance. The academic literature focuses on the methodology, social significance and political impacts of these theories in a secluded manner and lacks empirical analyses. In response, this research provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for conspiracy theories by considering their methodology, political impacts and social significance in the light of empirical data. Theoretically, the thesis uses Adorno's semi-erudition theory along with Girardian approach. It proposes that conspiracy theories are methodologically semi-erudite narratives, i.e. they are biased in favour of a belief and use reason only to prove it. It suggests that conspiracy theories appear in times of power vacuum and provide semi-erudite cognitive maps that relieve alienation and ontological insecurities of people and groups. In so doing, they enforce social control over their audience due to their essentialist, closed-to-interpretation narratives. In order to verify the theory, the study analyses empirically the social and political significance of conspiracy theories about the Dönme community in Turkey. The analysis comprises interviews with conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theory readers and political parties, alongside a frame analysis of the popular conspiracy theory books on Dönmes. These confirm the theoretical framework by showing that the conspiracy theories are fed by the ontological insecurities of Turkish society. Hence, conspiracy theorists, most readers and some political parties respond to their own ontological insecurities and political frustrations through scapegoating Dönmes. Consequently, this work shows that conspiracy theories are important symptoms of society, which, while relieving ontological insecurities, do not provide politically prolific narratives

    Parallel velocity extension and load-balanced Re-distancing on hierarchical grids for high performance process TCAD

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    Die kontinuierlichen Entwicklungen und die Miniaturisierung der Herstellungsprozesse fĂŒr Halbleiterbauelemente erfordern physikalische Simulationen, um die Zahl der kostspieligen konventionellen Experimente in den Entwurfs- und Produktionsprozessen zu verringern. Am bekanntesten sind physikalische Simulationen, die einzelne physikalische Prozessschritte wie Ätzen oder Abscheiden modellieren. Diese topografieverĂ€ndernden Simulationen basieren gewöhnlich auf der Level-Set-Methode, da sie komplexe dreidimensionale Bauelementstrukturen effizient darstellen kann. Die hohen Genauigkeitsanforderungen dieser Simulationen erfordern die Anwendung komplexer und daher rechenintensiver physikalischer Modelle.In dieser Arbeit werden drei parallele Algorithmen eingefĂŒhrt, die zu zwei Rechenschritten der Level-Set-Methode gehören. Die Algorithmen verringern die Gesamtlaufzeit erheblich und verbessern die Genauigkeit. Die Algorithmen sind an Simulationen angepasst, die adaptive Diskretisierungen mit hierarchischen Gittern verwenden, um spitze Geometrien, z.B. Ecken und Kanten, effizient zu behandeln. Der Schwerpunkt der hier vorgestellten Forschung ist die effiziente Nutzung paralleler Rechensysteme mit gemeinsamem Speicher, um die immer anspruchsvolleren Level-Set-basierten physikalischen Simulationen zu bewĂ€ltigen.Der erste Algorithmus gehört zum Rechenschritt Velocity Extension, der die Geschwindigkeit, die die Verformung einer beliebigen Struktur beschreibt, von der OberflĂ€che der Struktur auf das gesamte Simulationsgebiet ausdehnt. Der entwickelte Algorithmus zur Geschwindigkeitserweiterung basiert auf der Fast-Marching-Methode. Die Fast-Marching-Methode ermöglicht es, die Geschwindigkeit in einem einzigen Durchgang durch das Simulationsgebiet zu berechnen, indem die Berechnungen in einer strengen Reihenfolge durchgefĂŒhrt werden. Der Hauptvorteil des entwickelten Algorithmus ist eine relaxierte Reihenfolge der Berechnungen. Diese reduziert nicht nur die KomplexitĂ€t der Berechnungen, sondern ermöglicht auch ParallelitĂ€t. Verschiedenen Entwicklungsstufen des Algorithmus werden durch den Vergleich der auf reprĂ€sentativen Rechensystemen gemessenen Laufzeiten bewertet. Eine LaufzeitverkĂŒrzung um den Faktor 18.5 wurde bei der Verwendung von 10 Threads erreicht.Der zweite Algorithmus gehört zum Rechenschritt Re-Distancing, der eine numerisch stabile ReprĂ€sentation der Struktur durch Berechnung des vorzeichenbehafteten Abstandsfeldes relativ zur OberflĂ€che der Struktur erzeugt oder wiederherstellt. Dieser Algorithmus basiert ebenfalls auf der Fast-Marching-Methode, aber wegen der selbstbezogenen DatenabhĂ€ngigkeiten wurde eine andere Parallelisierungsstrategie entwickelt. Es wird eine Gebietszerlegung eingefĂŒhrt, um die GranularitĂ€t der parallelen Aufgaben zu erhöhen. Dies ermöglicht einen besseren impliziten Lastausgleich im Vergleich zur nativen Gebietszerlegung, die durch das gegebene hierarchische Gitter bereitgestellt wird. Eine Geschwindigkeitssteigerung von mehr als 17.4 wurde bei der Verwendung von 24 Threads erreicht. Schließlich wurde ein Bottom-up-Korrekturalgorithmus entwickelt, der ebenfalls zum Rechenschritt Re-Distancing gehört und die Genauigkeit des vom zweiten Algorithmus berechneten vorzeichenbehafteten Abstandsfeldes erhöht. Dieser Korrekturalgorithmus benutzt das vorzeichenbehaftete Abstandsfeld in höher aufgelösten Gebieten des hierarchischen Gitters, um auch den Fehler in niedriger aufgelösten Gebieten zu reduzieren. Der entwickelte Algorithmus fĂŒgt dem zweiten Algorithmus einen vernachlĂ€ssigbaren Rechenaufwand hinzu, reduziert aber den Fehler bei Ecken um einen Faktor von bis zu 2.7.Durch die Kombination aller entwickelten Algorithmen wird gezeigt, dass sich die Gesamtlaufzeit einer reprĂ€sentativen physikalischen Simulation mehr als halbiert, wĂ€hrend die Genauigkeit weiter verbessert wird.The continuous developments and miniaturization of manufacturing processes for semiconductor devices require physical simulations to reduce the number of costly conventional experiments involved in the design and production processes. Most prominent are physical simulations which model individual physical processing steps like etching or deposition. These topography-changing simulations are commonly based on the level-set method, because of its capability to efficiently represent complex three-dimensional device structures. High accuracy demands of those simulations require the application of complex and, therefore, computationally expensive physical models. In this work, three parallel algorithms belonging to two computational steps of the level-set method are introduced. The algorithms significantly reduce overall run-time and improve accuracy. The algorithms are tailored to simulations using adaptive discretizations with hierarchical grids to efficiently handle sharp features, e.g., corners and edges. The focus of the presented research is to efficiently utilize shared-memory parallel computing systems to stem the increasingly demanding level-set based physical simulations. The first algorithm belongs to the computational step Velocity Extension which extends the velocity describing the deformation of an arbitrary structure from the structure's surface to the entire computational domain. The developed velocity extension algorithm is based on the fast marching method. The fast marching method allows to extend the velocity in a single pass through the computational domain by means of a strict ordering of the computations. The key advantage of the developed velocity extension algorithm is a relaxed ordering of the computations. This not only reduces the computational complexity but also enables parallelism. Different stages of the developed algorithm are evaluated by comparing run-times measured on representative computing systems. A run-time reduction by a factor of 18.5 using 10 threads has been achieved. The second algorithm belongs to the computational step Re-Distancing which creates or restores a numerically stable representation of the structure by computing the signed-distance field relative to the surface of the structure. This algorithm is also based on the fast marching method, but because of self-referred data dependencies a different parallelization strategy was developed. A domain decomposition is introduced to increase the granularity of the parallel tasks. This enables a better implicit load-balancing compared to the native decomposition provided by the given hierarchical grid. A speedup of more than 17.4 has been achieved when using 24 threads. Finally, a bottom-up correction algorithm was developed, also belonging to the computational step Re-Distancing, which increases the accuracy of the signed-distance field computed by the second algorithm. This correction algorithm utilizes the signed-distance field on higher resolved regions of hierarchical grids to also reduce the error in lower resolved regions. The developed algorithm adds negligible computational overhead to the second algorithm, yet reduces the error around corners by a factor of up to 2.7. Combining all developed algorithms, it is shown that the run-time of a representative physical simulation is more than halved whilst the accuracy is further improved.13

    Coloniality and the Courtroom: Understanding Pre-trial Judicial Decision Making in Brazil

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    This thesis focuses on judicial decision making during custody hearings in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The impetus for the study is that while national and international protocols mandate the use of pre-trial detention only as a last resort, judges continue to detain people pre-trial in large numbers. Custody hearings were introduced in 2015, but the initiative has not produced the reduction in pre-trial detention that was hoped. This study aims to understand what informs judicial decision making at this stage. The research is approached through a decolonial lens to foreground legacies of colonialism, overlooked in mainstream criminological scholarship. This is an interview-based study, where key court actors (judges, prosecutors, and public defenders) and subject matter specialists were asked about influences on judicial decision making. Interview data is complemented by non-participatory observation of custody hearings. The research responds directly to Aliverti et al.'s (2021) call to ‘decolonize the criminal question’ by exposing and explaining how colonialism informs criminal justice practices. Answering the call in relation to judicial decision making, findings provide evidence that colonial-era assumptions, dynamics, and hierarchies were evident in the practice of custody hearings and continue to inform judges’ decisions, thus demonstrating the coloniality of justice. This study is significant for the new empirical data presented and theoretical innovation is also offered via the introduction of the ‘anticitizen’. The concept builds on Souza’s (2007) ‘subcitizen’ to account for the active pursuit of dangerous Others by judges casting themselves as crime fighters in a modern moral crusade. The findings point to the limited utility of human rights discourse – the normative approach to influencing judicial decision making around pre-trial detention – as a plurality of conceptualisations compete for dominance. This study has important implications for all actors aiming to reduce pre-trial detention in Brazil because unless underpinning colonial logics are addressed, every innovation risks becoming the next lei para inglĂȘs ver (law [just] for the English to see)

    The crisis of cultural authority in museums : contesting human remains in the collections of Britain

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    Museums in Britain have displayed and researched human remains since the eighteenth century. However, in the last two decades human remains in collections have become subject to claims and controversies. Firstly, human remains associated with acquisition during the colonial period have become increasingly difficult to retain and have been transfered to culturally affiliated overseas indigenous groups. Secondly, a group of British Pagans have formed to make claims on ancient human remains in collections. Thirdly, human remains that are not requested by any community group, and of all ages, have become the focus of concerns expressed about their treatment by members of the profession. A discourse arguing for 'respect' has emerged, which argues that all human remains should be treated with new care. The claims made on human remains have been vigourously but differentially contested by members of the sector, who consider the human remains to be unique research objects. This thesis charts the influences at play on the contestation over human remains and examines its construction. The academic literature tends to understand changes to museums as a result of external factors. This thesis argues that this problem is influenced by a crisis of legitimacy and establishes that there are strong internal influences. Through a weak social constructionist approach I demonstrate that the issue has been promoted by influential members of the sector as part of a broader attempt to distance themselves from their foundational role, as a consequence of a crisis of cultural authority stimulated by external and internal factors. The symbolic character of human remains in locating this problem is informed by the unique properties of dead bodies and is influenced by the significance of the body as a scientific object; its association with identity work and as a site of political struggle, in the high modem period
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