Detoxification in rehabilitation in England: effective continuity of care or unhappy bedfellows?

There is evidence that residential detoxification alone does not provide satisfactory treatment outcomes and that outcomes are significantly enhanced when clients completing residential detoxification attend rehabilitation services (Gossop, Marsden, Stewart, & Rolfe, 1999; Ghodse, Reynolds, Baldacchino, et al., 2002). One way of increasing the likelihood of this continuity of treatment is by providing detoxification and rehabilitation within the same treatment facility to prevent drop-out, while the client awaits a rehabilitation bed or in the transition process. However, there is little research evidence available on the facilities that offer both medical detoxification and residential rehabilitation. The current study compares self-reported treatment provision in 87 residential rehabilitation services in England, 34 of whom (39.1%) reported that they offered detoxification services within their treatment programmes. Although there were no differences in self-reported treatment philosophies, residential rehabilitation services that offered detoxification were typically of shorter duration overall, had significantly more beds and reported offering more group work than residential rehabilitation services that did not offer detoxification. Outcomes were also different, with twice as many clients discharged on disciplinary grounds from residential rehabilitation services without detoxification facilities. The paper questions the UK classification of residential drug treatment services as either detoxification or rehabilitation and suggests the need for greater research focus on the aims, processes and outcomes of this group of treatment providers

Response of river-dominated delta channel networks to permanent changes in river discharge

Using numerical experiments, we investigate how river-dominated delta channel networks are likely to respond to changes in river discharge predicted to occur over the next century as a result of environmental change. Our results show for a change in discharge up to 60% of the initial value, a decrease results in distributary abandonment in the delta, whereas an increase does not significantly affect the network. However, an increase in discharge beyond a threshold of 60% results in channel creation and an increase in the density of the distributary network. This behavior is predicted by an analysis of an individual bifurcation subject to asymmetric water surface slopes in the bifurcate arms. Given that discharge in most river basins will change by less than 50% in the next century, our results suggest that deltas in areas of increased drought will be more likely to experience significant rearrangement of the delta channel network. Copyright 2010 by the American Geophysical Union

The final two redshifts for radio sources from the equatorial BRL sample

Best, Rottgering and Lehnert (1999, 2000a) defined a new sample of powerful radio sources from the Molonglo Reference Catalogue, for which redshifts were compiled or measured for 177 of the 178 objects. For the final object, MRC1059-010 (3C249), the host galaxy is here identified using near-infrared imaging, and the redshift is determined from VLT spectroscopy. For one other object in the sample, MRC0320+053 (4C05.14), the literature redshift has been questioned: new spectroscopic observations of this object are presented, deriving a corrected redshift. With these two results, the spectroscopic completeness of this sample is now 100%. New redshifts are also presented for PKS0742+10 from the Wall & Peacock 2.7 GHz catalogue, and PKS1336+003 from the Parkes Selected Regions. PKS0742+10 shows a strong neutral hydrogen absorption feature in its Lyman-alpha emission profile.Comment: 4 pages. LaTeX. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Spatio-Temporal Patterning in Primary Motor Cortex at Movement Onset

Voluntary movement initiation involves the engagement of large populations of motor cortical neurons around movement onset. Despite knowledge of the temporal dynamics that lead to movement, the spatial structure of these dynamics across the cortical surface remains unknown. In data from 4 rhesus macaques, we show that the timing of attenuation of beta frequency local field potential oscillations, a correlate of locally activated cortex, forms a spatial gradient across primary motor cortex (MI). We show that these spatio-temporal dynamics are recapitulated in the engagement order of ensembles of MI neurons. We demonstrate that these patterns are unique to movement onset and suggest that movement initiation requires a precise spatio-temporal sequential activation of neurons in MI

Cosmic downsizing of powerful radio galaxies to low radio luminosities

At bright radio powers ($P_{\rm 1.4 GHz} > 10^{25}$ W/Hz) the space density of the most powerful sources peaks at higher redshift than that of their weaker counterparts. This paper establishes whether this luminosity-dependent evolution persists for sources an order of magnitude fainter than those previously studied, by measuring the steep--spectrum radio luminosity function (RLF) across the range $10^{24} < P_{\rm 1.4 GHz} < 10^{28}$ W/Hz, out to high redshift. A grid-based modelling method is used, in which no assumptions are made about the RLF shape and high-redshift behaviour. The inputs to the model are the same as in Rigby et al. (2011): redshift distributions from radio source samples, together with source counts and determinations of the local luminosity function. However, to improve coverage of the radio power vs. redshift plane at the lowest radio powers, a new faint radio sample is introduced. This covers 0.8 sq. deg., in the Subaru/XMM-Newton Deep Field, to a 1.4 GHz flux density limit of $S_{\rm 1.4 GHz} \geq 100~\mu$Jy, with 99% redshift completeness. The modelling results show that the previously seen high-redshift declines in space density persist to $P_{\rm 1.4 GHz} < 10^{25}$ W/Hz. At $P_{\rm 1.4 GHz} > 10^{26}$ W/Hz the redshift of the peak space density increases with luminosity, whilst at lower radio luminosities the position of the peak remains constant within the uncertainties. This `cosmic downsizing' behaviour is found to be similar to that seen at optical wavelengths for quasars, and is interpreted as representing the transition from radiatively efficient to inefficient accretion modes in the steep-spectrum population. This conclusion is supported by constructing simple models for the space density evolution of these two different radio galaxy classes; these are able to successfully reproduce the observed variation in peak redshift.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures; accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Do you want to bet? The prevalence of problem gambling amongst athletes in the UK

This presentation was given as part of the 2011 London Workshop on Problem Gambling: Theory and (Best) Practice by Dr Daniel Rhind from the Sports Sciences subject area at Brunel University. The workshop was organised by Professor Fernand Gobet and Dr Marvin Schiller and hosted by Brunel University on the 13th September 2011

Consequence of reputation in an open-ended Naming Game

We study a modified version of the Naming Game, a recently introduced model which describes how shared vocabulary can emerge spontaneously in a population without any central control. In particular, we introduce a new mechanism that allows a continuous interchange with the external inventory of words. A novel playing strategy, influenced by the hierarchical structure that individuals' reputation defines in the community, is implemented. We analyze how these features influence the convergence times, the cognitive efforts of the agents and the scaling behavior in memory and time.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figure

Fluvio-deltaic avulsions during relative sea-level fall.

Understanding river response to changes in relative sea level (RSL) is essential for predicting fluvial stratigraphy and source-to-sink dynamics. Recent theoretical work has suggested that rivers can remain aggradational during RSL fall, but field data are needed to verify this response and investigate sediment deposition processes. We show with field work and modeling that fluvio-deltaic systems can remain aggradational or at grade during RSL fall, leading to superelevation and continuation of delta lobe avulsions. The field site is the Goose River, Newfoundland-Labrador, Canada, which has experienced steady RSL fall of around 3–4 mm yr⁻¹ in the past 5 k.y. from post-glacial isostatic rebound. Elevation analysis and optically stimulated luminescence dating suggest that the Goose River avulsed and deposited three delta lobes during RSL fall. Simulation results from Delft3D software show that if the characteristic fluvial response time is longer than the duration of RSL fall, then fluvial systems remain aggradational or at grade, and continue to avulse during RSL fall due to superelevation. Intriguingly, we find that avulsions become more frequent at faster rates of RSL fall, provided the system response time remains longer than the duration of RSL fall. This work suggests that RSL fall rate may influence the architecture of falling-stage or forced regression deposits by controlling the number of deposited delta lobes