An investigation of the accuracy of numerical solutions of Boltzmann's equations for electron swarms in gases with large inelastic cross sections

Copyright @ 1979 CSIROA Monte Carlo simulation technique has been used to test the accuracy of electron energy distribution functions and transport coefficients calculated using conventional numerical solutions of Boltzmann's equation based on a two-term approximation. The tests have been applied to a number of model gases, some of which have characteristics close to those of real gases, and include cases where the scattering is anisotropic. The results show that, in general, previous application of the numerical solution to real gases has been valid

Policing and mental illness in the era of deinstutionalisation and mass incarceration: A UK Perspective

The policy of deinstitutionalisation, a progressive policy aimed at reducing the civic and social isolation of the mentally ill, did not achieve its utopian aims. Wolff (2005)/Moon (2000) argue that the Asylum has been replaced by fragmented, dislocated world of bedsits, housing projects, day centres or increasingly prisons and the Criminal Justice system. This shift has been termed “transinstitutionalisation”. This incorporates the ideas that individuals live in a community but have little interaction with other citizens and major social interactions are with professionals paid to visit them. Other social outcomes such as physical health, which can be used as measures of citizenship or social inclusion, are also very poor. Kelly (2005) uses the term “structural violence” – originally from liberation theology to highlight the impact of a range of factors including health, mental health status and poverty that impact on this group. This paper will explore one aspect of this process – the impact on policing, particularly the assessment of mental health issues in the custody setting. The paper is based on research projects carried out with two police forces in the North West of England. Both the Police and Criminal Evidence Act ( PACE 2004) and the Mental Health Act (2007) provide police officers with powers in relation to the arrest and detention of individuals experiencing mental distress. In addition, this legislation provides greater protection to individuals experiencing mental distress if they are interviewed by the police in connection with an alleged offence. The research uses Chan (1996)’s application of bureaucratic field and habitus to policing to explore ways, in which, the impact of mass incarceration and deinstitutionalisation have led to the increased marginalisation of the mentally ill

World wide web and scientific publishing

The relationship of scientific publishing and the world wide web steadily evolves as the internet technology advances in its sophistication and ability to reach an increasing number of people. Many well established medical publication currently publish their journal electronically as well as in print format. Forced by high volume of manuscript submissions as well as financial restraints, some journals publish a number of their articles on the internet alone, while others-such as this journal-are starting an entirely new publication in an electronic version only. The presentation of articles in the field of pediatric cardiology electronically has numerous advantages, particularly the ability to include movie clips, sound and animations in the published articles. This format of publication continues to have limitation. It is still not as widely available as a print journal could be and it is awkward to curl up in bed with a lap top, no matter how small or light it ispeer-reviewe

The ambivalent shadow of the pre-Wilsonian rise of international law

The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a “moralistic legalistic approach to international relations” remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the U.S. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed.by the realist founders of the field of “international relations” to the “moralistic legalistic approach to international relation

On the factorization of a class of Wiener-Hopf kernels

This is a pre-copy-editing, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in IMA Journal of Applied Mathematics following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version: Abrahams, I.D. & Lawrie, J.B. (1995) “On the factorisation of a class of Wiener-Hopf kernels.” I.M.A. J. Appl. Math., 55, 35-47. is available online at: http://imamat.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/55/1/35.The Wiener-Hopf technique is a powerful aid for solving a wide range of problems in mathematical physics. The key step in its application is the factorization of the Wiener-Hopf kernel into the product of two functions which have different regions of analyticity. The traditional approach to obtaining these factors gives formulae which are not particularly easy to compute. In this article a novel approach is used to derive an elegant form for the product factors of a specific class of Wiener-Hopf kernels. The method utilizes the known solution to a difference equation and the main advantage of this approach is that, without recourse to the Cauchy integral, the product factors are expressed in terms of simple, finite range integrals which are easy to compute

Our side of the mirror : the (re)-construction of 1970s’ masculinity in David Peace’s Red Riding

David Peace and the late Gordon Burn are two British novelists who have used a mixture of fact and fiction in their works to explore the nature of fame, celebrity and the media representations of individuals caught up in events, including investigations into notorious murders. Both Peace and Burn have analysed the case of Peter Sutcliffe, who was found guilty in 1981 of the brutal murders of thirteen women in the North of England. Peace’s novels filmed as the Red Riding Trilogy are an excoriating portrayal of the failings of misogynist and corrupt police officers, which allowed Sutcliffe to escape arrest. Burn’s somebody’s Husband Somebody’ Son is a detailed factual portrait of the community where Sutcliffe spent his life. Peace’s technique combines reportage, stream of consciousness and changing points of views including the police and the victims to produce an episodic non linear narrative. The result has been termed Yorkshire noir. The overall effect is to render the paranoia and fear these crimes created against a backdrop of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Peace has termed his novels as “fictions of the facts”. This paper will examine the way that Peace uses his account of Sutcliffe’s crimes and the huge police manhunt to catch the killer to explore the society that produced the perpetrator, victims and the police. The police officers represent a form of “hegemonic masculinity” but one that is challenged by the extreme misogyny, brutality, misery and degradation that surround them. This deconstruction of the 1970s male police officer is contrasted with the enormously popular figure of Gene Hunt from the BBC TV series Life on Mars

A brief historical perspective of the Wiener-Hopf technique

It is a little over 75 years since two of the most important mathematicians of the 20th century collaborated on finding the exact solution of a particular equation with semi-infinite convolution type integral operator. The elegance and analytical sophistication of the method, now called the Wiener–Hopf technique, impress all who use it. Its applicability to almost all branches of engineering, mathematical physics and applied mathematics is borne out by the many thousands of papers published on the subject since its conception. The Wiener–Hopf technique remains an extremely important tool for modern scientists, and the areas of application continue to broaden. This special issue of the Journal of Engineering Mathematics is dedicated to the work of Wiener and Hopf, and includes a number of articles which demonstrate the relevance of the technique to a representative range of model problems