Low stress and safe handling of outdoor cattle - effective measures to improve work environment and avoid dangerous situations

Grazing cattle are needed to preserve 450 000 hectares of semi-natural grasslands of high biodiversity in Sweden. Keeping cattle outdoors promotes their health and possibili¬ties to conduct natural behaviors. Working with cattle on pasture however, can increase accident rates (Health and Safety Authority, 2011). During the last two years, five fatali¬ties and several accidents have occurred during handling of cattle in Sweden. A method, based on knowledge of the animals’ natural behavior, referred to as low stress stock han¬dling (LSS-method), has been introduced to Sweden for cattle handling (Atkinson, 2011). A handler who consistently uses this method prevents the use of hits, sticks, harsh voice or negative forceful handling techniques. A consistent predictable approach from the han¬dler creates consistent and predictable animal behavior in return. Cattle become more trusting with their handlers and consequently more cooperative. This positive interaction between human being and animal can lead to both a safer work situation and a better animal welfare. On two of five studied farms so far, the LSS-method was actually inter¬vened during the observations, resulted in a successful reversal of conflict behaviour. On farm1, a highly stressed heifer took over three hours in attempt to load into a transport. It was successfully loaded within an hour after the intervention. On another farm, five escaped cows that the farmer had attempted to capture unsuccessfully for three conse¬cutive weeks were successfully captured through using the LSS-method

Towards a geometrical interpretation of quantum information compression

Let S be the von Neumann entropy of a finite ensemble E of pure quantum states. We show that S may be naturally viewed as a function of a set of geometrical volumes in Hilbert space defined by the states and that S is monotonically increasing in each of these variables. Since S is the Schumacher compression limit of E, this monotonicity property suggests a geometrical interpretation of the quantum redundancy involved in the compression process. It provides clarification of previous work in which it was shown that S may be increased while increasing the overlap of each pair of states in the ensemble. As a byproduct, our mathematical techniques also provide a new interpretation of the subentropy of E.Comment: 11 pages, latex2

Developing a ‘Global South’ Perspective of Street Children’s Involvement in Organised Crime

The majority of studies about gangs come from the global North meaning that we know very little about young people’s involvement in organized crime in the global South. This chapter explores the roles that Bangladeshi street children play organized crime groups by drawing on interviews with street children, criminal justice practitioners, non-government organization workers and community members, and over three years of participant observation of Bangladesh and its criminal justice system. This paper argues that in order to understand street children’s involvement in Bangladesh’s organized crime groups – the mastaans – it is necessary to expand the boundaries of criminology to include development studies’ concepts of social protection, patron-clientism and child labor. The chapter highlights the need to build a more cohesive collaboration between criminology and development studies

Emergence of charge order in a staggered loop-current phase of cuprate high-temperature superconductors

We study the emergence of charge ordered phases within a pi-loop current (piLC) model for the pseudogap based on a three-band model for underdoped cuprate superconductors. Loop currents and charge ordering are driven by distinct components of the short-range Coulomb interactions: loop currents result from the repulsion between nearest-neighbor copper and oxygen orbitals, while charge order results from repulsion between neighboring oxygen orbitals. We find that the leading piLC phase has an antiferromagnetic pattern similar to previously discovered staggered flux phases, and that it emerges abruptly at hole dopings p below the van Hove filling. Subsequent charge ordering tendencies in the piLC phase reveal that diagonal d-charge density waves (dCDW) are suppressed by the loop currents while axial order competes more weakly. In some cases we find a wide temperature range below the loop-current transition, over which the susceptibility towards an axial dCDW is large. In these cases, short-range axial charge order may be induced by doping-related disorder. A unique feature of the coexisting dCDW and piLC phases is the emergence of an incommensurate modulation of the loop currents. If the dCDW is biaxial (checkerboard) then the resulting incommensurate current pattern breaks all mirror and time-reversal symmetries, thereby allowing for a polar Kerr effect

Issues in the development of advance directives in mental health care

<i>Background</i>: Interest in advance directives in mental health care is growing internationally. There is no clear universal agreement as to what such an advance directive is or how it should function. <i>Aim</i>: To describe the range of issues embodied in the development of advance directives in mental health care. <i>Method</i>: The literature on advance directives is examined to highlight the pros and cons of different versions of advance directive. <i>Results</i>: Themes emerged around issues of terminology, competency and consent, the legal status of advance directives independent or collaborative directives and their content. Opinions vary between a unilateral legally enforceable instrument to a care plan agreed between patient and clinician. <i>Conclusion</i>: There is immediate appeal in a liberal democracy that values individual freedom and autonomy in giving weight to advance directives in mental health care. They do not, however, solve all the problems of enforced treatment and early access to treatment. They also raise new issues and highlight persistent problems. <i>Declaration</i> <i>of</i> <i>interest</i>: The research was funded by the Nuffield Foundation grant number MNH/00015G

Developing authenticity, building connections; exploring research methodologies in Asia

The article considers the methodological opportunities and challenges associated with three large-scale ethnographic studies conducted in Bangladesh, China and Nepal. It reflects on how locally, and regionally embedded cultural practices and meanings shape Asian criminological research projects. The article argues that conducting research in certain Asian contexts benefits from an awareness and sensitivity to specific modalities of culture in these regions. The following deliberations reflect on the importance of developing authenticity and building connections, embedded within concepts specific and relevant to research in Asia – relationality, guanxi, patronage and adda. The challenges of the research projects, of which there were many, are also discussed, and include dichotomies between research conducted in the global North and global South, coloniality, ethics and issues faced by a British researcher, conducting research in Asia