Protecting children from faith-based abuse through accusations of witchcraft and spirit possession: understanding contexts and informing practice

Faith-based abuse relating to the practice of witchcraft and spirit possession is a controversial and not well-understood form of child abuse. From its ‘discovery’ in the UK as a cause of abuse, serious injury and death for children, in 2000 to the present, the recent history of witchcraft and spirit possession involves some high-profile cases, involving serious harm and death for some children, which attracted significant publicity. This article reviews research and commentary, including grey literature, and the emerging policy framework. It discusses the underpinning relationship between faith-based practices and abuse, and takes a post-colonial perspective to discuss the social explanations for the continuing practice of witchcraft and spirit possession in contemporary society. These discussions are then shown to inform practice. Practice priorities are informed assessment of suspected cases, through early and statutory interventions, care for survivors, and an important focus on community engagement to prevent this form of child abuse

SEISMIC ISOLATION OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS

Seismic isolation is a viable strategy for protecting safety-related nuclear structures from the effects of moderate to severe earthquake shaking. Although seismic isolation has been deployed in nuclear structures in France and South Africa, it has not seen widespread use because of limited new build nuclear construction in the past 30 years and a lack of guidelines, codes and standards for the analysis, design and construction of isolation systems specific to nuclear structures.The funding by the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission of a research project to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and MCEER/University at Buffalo facilitated the writing of a soon-to-be-published NUREG on seismic isolation. Funding of MCEER by the National Science Foundation led to research products that provide the technical basis for a new section in ASCE Standard 4 on the seismic isolation of safety-related nuclear facilities. The performance expectations identified in the NUREG and ASCE 4 for seismic isolation systems, and superstructures and substructures are described in the paper. Robust numerical models capable of capturing isolator behaviors under extreme loadings, which have been verified and validated following ASME protocols, and implemented in the open source code OpenSees, are introduced

Site-Specific Response Analysis in the New Madrid Seismic Zone

A coal-fired power plant, Plum Point Energy Station, is being built in the city of Osceola, Arkansas, which is located in the New Madrid Seismic Zone (NMSZ). The project site is characterized as Site Class F, according to ASCE-7-05, because the soils at the site are prone to liquefaction. The depth of soil to rock is approximately 1 kilometer (km). A site-specific response study was required by the building code to determine the uniform hazard spectrum at the ground surface. The site-specific study included a probabilistic seismic hazard assessment to determine the Maximum Considered Earthquake (MCE) spectrum at an equivalent rock outcrop and a one-dimensional site response analysis to determine the ground surface response, given the rock outcrop motions. Spectral matching was used to generate the MCE ground motions at the rock outcrop. The equivalent linear site response code, SHAKE, and two nonlinear site response codes, SUMDES and DEEPSOIL, were used to generate the ground surface acceleration histories. The mechanical properties of the soils in the column were varied to assess the impact of changes in soil properties on free-field response. The function of the equivalent linear and nonlinear site response codes was identified. The amplification of the rock motion to the free field is discussed herein in terms of the site class factors presented in ASCE-7-05

Hurricane wind and storm surge effects on coastal bridges under a changing climate

Hurricanes and their cascading hazards have been responsible for widespread damage to life and property, and are the largest contributor to insured annual losses in coastal areas of the U.S.A. Such losses are expected to increase because of changing climate and growing coastal population density. An effective methodology to assess hurricane wind and surge hazard risks to coastal bridges under changing climate conditions is proposed. The influence of climate change scenarios on hurricane intensity and frequency is explored. A framework that couples the hurricane tracking model (consisting of genesis, track, and intensity) with a height-resolving analytical wind model and a newly developed machine learning-based surge model is used for risk assessment. The proposed methodology is applied to a coastal bridge to obtain its traffic closure rate resulting from the observed (historical) and future (projected) hurricane winds and storm surges, demonstrating the effects of changing climate on the civil infrastructure in a hurricane-prone region

Control through monomer placement of surface properties and morphology of fluoromethacrylate copolymers

The arrangement of monomers and morphology of fluorinated copolymers of methyl methacrylate (MMA) were found to be important for controlling the surface energy of the materials when formed into thin films. Novel copolymers of MMA and 2,2,3,3,4,4,4-heptafluorobutyl methacrylate (F3MA) were prepared with different monomer placement, namely statistical and block arrangements of the monomer units. The surface energies decreased with increasing incorporation of F3MA, in a manner consistent with previous reports for similar copolymers; however, the surface energies of the block copolymers were consistently lower than the statistical copolymers. This was interpreted as arising from conformational restriction of presentation of the fluoromonomers to the surface in the statistical copolymers, and formation of phase-separated domains at the surface of the block copolymers. The morphology of the block copolymers was confirmed by small angle X-ray scattering measurements, which allowed calculation of a solubility parameter for the fluorinated segments. The results have implications for the design of more environmentally acceptable materials with ultra-low surface energies

A Contour Integral Representation for the Dual Five-Point Function and a Symmetry of the Genus Four Surface in R6

The invention of the "dual resonance model" N-point functions BN motivated the development of current string theory. The simplest of these models, the four-point function B4, is the classical Euler Beta function. Many standard methods of complex analysis in a single variable have been applied to elucidate the properties of the Euler Beta function, leading, for example, to analytic continuation formulas such as the contour-integral representation obtained by Pochhammer in 1890. Here we explore the geometry underlying the dual five-point function B5, the simplest generalization of the Euler Beta function. Analyzing the B5 integrand leads to a polyhedral structure for the five-crosscap surface, embedded in RP5, that has 12 pentagonal faces and a symmetry group of order 120 in PGL(6). We find a Pochhammer-like representation for B5 that is a contour integral along a surface of genus five. The symmetric embedding of the five-crosscap surface in RP5 is doubly covered by a symmetric embedding of the surface of genus four in R6 that has a polyhedral structure with 24 pentagonal faces and a symmetry group of order 240 in O(6). The methods appear generalizable to all N, and the resulting structures seem to be related to associahedra in arbitrary dimensions.Comment: 43 pages and 44 figure

EphA2 as a Diagnostic Imaging Target in Glioblastoma: A Positron Emission Tomography/Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Noninvasive imaging is a critical technology for diagnosis, classification, and subsequent treatment planning for patients with glioblastoma. It has been shown that the EphA2 receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) is overexpressed in a number of tumors, including glioblastoma. Expression levels of Eph RTKs have been linked to tumor progression, metastatic spread, and poor patient prognosis. As EphA2 is expressed at low levels in normal neural tissues, this protein represents an attractive imaging target for delineation of tumor infiltration, providing an improved platform for image-guided therapy. In this study, EphA2-4B3, a monoclonal antibody specific to human EphA2, was labeled with Cu-64 through conjugation to the chelator 1,4,7-triazacyclononane-1,4,7-triacetic acid (NOTA). The resulting complex was used as a positron emission tomography (PET) tracer for the acquisition of high-resolution longitudinal PET/magnetic resonance images. EphA2-4B3-NOTA-Cu-64 images were qualitatively and quantitatively compared to the current clinical standards of [F-18] FDOPA and gadolinium (Gd) contrast-enhanced MRI. We show that EphA2-4B3-NOTA-Cu-64 effectively delineates tumor boundaries in three different mouse models of glioblastoma. Tumor to brain contrast is significantly higher in EphA2-4B3-NOTA-Cu-64 images than in [F-18] FDOPA images and Gd contrast-enhanced MRI. Furthermore, we show that nonspecific uptake in the liver and spleen can be effectively blocked by a dose of nonspecific (isotype control) IgG

Low dose influenza virus challenge in the ferret leads to increased virus shedding and greater sensitivity to oseltamivir

Ferrets are widely used to study human influenza virus infection. Their airway physiology and cell receptor distribution makes them ideal for the analysis of pathogenesis and virus transmission, and for testing the efficacy of anti-influenza interventions and vaccines. The 2009 pandemic influenza virus (H1N1pdm09) induces mild to moderate respiratory disease in infected ferrets, following inoculation with 106 plaque-forming units (pfu) of virus. We have demonstrated that reducing the challenge dose to 102 pfu delays the onset of clinical signs by 1 day, and results in a modest reduction in clinical signs, and a less rapid nasal cavity innate immune response. There was also a delay in virus production in the upper respiratory tract, this was up to 9-fold greater and virus shedding was prolonged. Progression of infection to the lower respiratory tract was not noticeably delayed by the reduction in virus challenge. A dose of 104 pfu gave an infection that was intermediate between those of the 106 pfu and 102 pfu doses. To address the hypothesis that using a more authentic low challenge dose would facilitate a more sensitive model for antiviral efficacy, we used the well-known neuraminidase inhibitor, oseltamivir. Oseltamivir-treated and untreated ferrets were challenged with high (106 pfu) and low (102 pfu) doses of influenza H1N1pdm09 virus. The low dose treated ferrets showed significant delays in innate immune response and virus shedding, delayed onset of pathological changes in the nasal cavity, and reduced pathological changes and viral RNA load in the lung, relative to untreated ferrets. Importantly, these observations were not seen in treated animals when the high dose challenge was used. In summary, low dose challenge gives a disease that more closely parallels the disease parameters of human influenza infection, and provides an improved pre-clinical model for the assessment of influenza therapeutics, and potentially, influenza vaccines

Public health messages during a global emergency through an online community: a discourse and sentiment analysis

The growing popularity of social media and its ubiquitous presence in our lives brings associated risks such as the spread of mis- and disinformation, particularly when these may be unregulated in times of global crises. Online communities are able to provide support by enabling connection with others and also provide great potential for dynamic interaction and timely dissemination of information compared with more traditional methods. This study evaluates interactions within the Essex Coronavirus Action/Support Facebook private group, which set out to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infection by informing Essex residents of guidance and helping vulnerable individuals. At the outset, 18 community administrators oversaw the group, which attracted approximately 37,900 members. Longitudinal Facebook group interactions across five periods spanning the UK lockdowns 2020–2021 were analysed using psychological discourse analysis and supplementary computed-mediated analysis to further explore sentiment and linguistic features. The findings endorsed that the group provided a protected space for residents to express their feelings in times of crises and an opportunity to address confusion and concern. The effective communication of public health messages was facilitated by promoting desired interaction and the construction of group identities. Administrators worked with group members to achieve a shared understanding of others' perspectives and the COVID-19 evidence base, which led to a mobilisation of the provision of support in the community. This was accomplished through the application of rhetorical and interactional devices. This study demonstrates how online groups can employ discursive strategies to engage audiences, build cohesion, provide support, and encourage health protective behaviours. This has implications for public health teams in terms of designing, implementing, or evaluating such interventions