Female alcoholism in Ireland: A follow-up study.

A 10-yr follow-up study of 31 female alcoholics was carried out. 21 Subjects were interviewed and completed a questionnaire. Abstinence, prescribed drug abuse, morbidity, marital status, and attitudes to agencies that provide help for alcoholics were investigated. The study supports most of the accepted ideas about female alcoholism but emphasise the problems of suicide, prescribed drug abuse, and marital separation

Male prison transfers to the Central Mental Hospital, a special hospital (1983-1988).

During the course of imprisonment, whether on remand or when serving sentence, people sometimes need to be transferred to a psychiatric hospital. In Ireland the only psychiatric hospital a person can be transferred to is the Central Mental Hospital (CMH). This paper looks at 627 prison transfers to the CMH from 1983 to 1988, with 31% diagnosed as schizophrenic, 23% with reactive depression, 25% with a personality disorder, 5% with mania, 4% with a mental handicap and 5% with a drug/ alcohol problem

Beyond repair: weeds and industrial ruins

The introduction of invasive weed species into Australia during the late eighteenth century forever changed the Australian landscape with ecological damage occurring that is now beyond repair. This project examines the connection that weeds have with architectural destruction, providing evidence from investigations into the ruined Penfolds winery in Sydney's Minchinbury. This investigation further focuses on the exploration of how ruins and plant species have come to be the subject of numerous artists, musicians, architects and ideologies. Both academic and field based research is used to highlight the connection between weeds and ruins within my installation projects Hermitage and Hoardings: completed within the framework of my Master of fine arts research project. The work of a range artists is also used to highlight the historical and contemporary perspectives surrounding my practice. Influential sources, ranging from Joseph Gandy to Gordon Matta-Clark foreground original aspects of my own practice and are used to position my work in an original context, amidst the work of other sound and installation artists. Whilst there are many sources of classical and ancient ruins internationally, this study principally examines the effects of invasive weeds on the outskirts of Sydney, with post-war industrial buildings warranting special examination. This project is intended to develop current knowledge around how weeds and urban ruins continue to influence the Australian biogeography

Salt comets in hand sanitizer: A simple probe of microgel collapse dynamics

International audiencePolyelectrolyte microgels find many uses as rheological modifiers and stimulus-responsive materials. Understanding their swelling and collapse dynamics therefore holds broad importance in science and technology. We report remarkably simple experiments, requiring little sophistication, that reveal the subtle physics of microgel collapse. Millimeter-scale bubbles, sugar grains, and other small particles remain suspended and supported by the yield stress of household hand sanitizer, which arises due to a jammed suspension of swollen microgels. By contrast, salt grains with almost identical physical properties sediment through the material, leaving milky "comet tails" behind. Remarkably, the settling speed of a salt crystal remains constant as it dissolves-completely independent of its size or shape until it completely dissolves. Because the settling speed does depend on the type of salt that sediments, we hypothesize that salt grains effectively bore holes through hand sanitizer, with a velocity that is limited by the salt-induced dynamic collapse of the individual microgel particles. A simple convection-diffusion-collapse model successfully relates sedimentation velocities to microgel collapse dynamics for various salts. This model and its predictions are consistent with other observations and with complementary microfluidic experiments