On narrowing coated conductor film: emergence of granularity-induced field hysteresis of transport critical current

Critical current density Jc in polycrystalline or granular superconducting material is known to be hysteretic with applied field H due to the focusing of field within the boundary between adjacent grains. This is of concern in the so-called coated conductors wherein superconducting film is grown on a granular, but textured surface of a metal substrate. While previous work has mainly been on Jc determined using induced or magnetization currents, the present work utilizes transport current via an applied potential in strip geometry. It is observed that the effect is not as pronounced using transport current, probably due to a large difference in criterion voltage between the two types of measurements. However, when the films are narrowed by patterning into 200-, 100-, or 80-micron, the hysteresis is clearly seen, because of the forcing of percolation across higher-angle grain boundaries. This effect is compared for films grown on ion-beam-assisted-deposited (IBAD) YSZ substrate and those grown on rolling-assisted-biaxially-textures substrates (RABiTS) which have grains that are about ten times larger. The hysteresis is more pronounced for the latter, which is more likely to have a weak grain boundary spanning the width of the microbridge. This is also of concern to applications in which coated conductors will be striated in order to reduce of AC losses.Comment: text-only: 10 pages, plus 5 figures on 5 page

What do we know about transgender parenting?: Findings from a systematic review

Transgender issues are under‐explored and marginalised within mainstream social work and social care professional practice. The experience of gender transition has a profound impact on the individuals who have diverse gender identities and their family members. We present findings from a systematic review of studies concerning the experiences of transgender parenting conducted during January–September 2017. We took a life course approach, examining the research studies that investigated the experience of people identifying as transgender, who were already parents at the time of their transition or who wished to be parents following transition. The review evaluated existing findings from empirical research on transgender parenting and grandparenting to establish how trans people negotiate their relationships with children following transition, and sought to consider the implications for professional practice with trans people in relation to how best to support them with their family caring roles. We used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta‐Analyses (PRISMA) method. Empirical studies published from 1 January 1990 to 31 April 2017 in the English language, and which had transgender parenting as a significant focus, were included in the review. Twenty‐six studies met the criteria. Key themes reported are: how trans people negotiate their relationships with children following disclosure and transition; the impact of parental transitioning on children; relationships with wider families; trans people's desires to be parents; and the role of professional practice to support trans families. We discuss how the material from the review can inform social work education and practice, including to help identify future research, education and practice priorities in this area

‘What’s it like to have ME?’ The discursive construction of ME in computer-mediated communication and face-to-face interaction

ME/CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) is a debilitating illness for which no cause or medical tests have been identified. Debates over its nature have generated interest from qualitative researchers. However, participants are difficult to recruit because of the nature of their condition. Therefore, this study explores the utility of the internet as a means of eliciting accounts. We analyse data from focus groups and the internet in order to ascertain the extent to which previous research findings apply to the internet domain. Interviews were conducted among 49 members of internet (38 chatline, 11 personal) and 7 members of two face-to-face support groups. Discourse analysis of descriptions and accounts of ME/CFS revealed similar devices and interactional concerns in both internet and face-to-face communication. Participants constructed their condition as serious, enigmatic and not psychological. These functioned to deflect problematic assumptions about ME/CFS and to manage their accountability for the illness and its effects

EQUIPT: protocol of a comparative effectiveness research study evaluating cross-context transferability of economic evidence on tobacco control

This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Tobacco smoking claims 700 000 lives every year in Europe and the cost of tobacco smoking in the EU is estimated between €98 and €130 billion annually; direct medical care costs and indirect costs such as workday losses each represent half of this amount. Policymakers all across Europe are in need of bespoke information on the economic and wider returns of investing in evidence-based tobacco control, including smoking cessation agendas. EQUIPT is designed to test the transferability of one such economic evidence base-the English Tobacco Return on Investment (ROI) tool-to other EU member states

Young people, crime and school exclusion: a case of some surprises

During the 1990s the number of young people being permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales increased dramatically from 2,910 (1990/91) to a peak of 12,700 (1996/97). Coinciding with this rise was a resurgence of the debate centring on lawless and delinquent youth. With the publication of Young People and Crime (Graham and Bowling 1995) and Misspent Youth (Audit Commission 1996) the 'common sense assumption' that exclusion from school inexorably promoted crime received wide support, with the school excludee portrayed as another latter day 'folk devil'. This article explores the link between school exclusion and juvenile crime, and offers some key findings from a research study undertaken with 56 young people who had experience of being excluded from school. Self-report interview questions reveal that whilst 40 of the young people had offended, 90% (36) reported that the onset of their offending commenced prior to their first exclusion. Moreover, 50 (89.2% of the total number of young people in the sample), stated that they were no more likely to offend subsequent to being excluded and 31 (55.4%) stated that they were less likely to offend during their exclusion period. Often, this was because on being excluded, they were 'grounded' by their parents

Chaos, containment and change: responding to persistent offending by young people

This article reviews policy developments in Scotland concerning 'persistent young offenders' and then describes the design of a study intended to assist a local planning group in developing its response. The key findings of a review of casefiles of young people involved in persistent offending are reported. It emerges that youth crime and young people involved in offending are more complex and heterogeneous than is sometimes assumed. This, along with a review of some literature about desistance from offending, reaffirms the need for properly individualised interventions. Studies of 'desisters' suggest the centrality of effective and engaging working relationships in this process. However, these studies also re-assert the significance of the social contexts of workers’ efforts to bring 'change' out of 'chaos'. We conclude therefore that the 'new correctionalism' must be tempered with appreciation of the social exclusion of young people who offend

How should we measure psychological resilience in sport performers?

Psychological resilience is important in sport because athletes must constantly withstand a wide range of pressures to attain and sustain high performance. To advance psychologists’ understanding of this area, there exists an urgent need to develop a sport-specific measure of resilience. The purpose of this paper is to review psychometric issues in resilience research and to discuss the implications for sport psychology. Drawing on the wider general psychology literature to inform the discussion, the narrative is divided into three main sections relating to resilience and its assessment: adversity, positive adaptation, and protective factors. The first section reviews the different ways that adversity has been measured and considers the potential problems of using items with varying degrees of controllability and risk. The second section discusses the different approaches to assessing positive adaptation and examines the issue of circularity pervasive in resilience research. The final section explores the various issues related to the assessment of protective factors drawing directly from current measures of resilience in other psychology sub-disciplines. The commentary concludes with key recommendations for sport psychology researchers seeking to develop a measure of psychological resilience in athletes

Early risk factors for adolescent antisocial behaviour: an Australian longitudinal study

Objective: This investigation utilizes data from an Australian longitudinal study to identify early risk factors for adolescent antisocial behaviour. Method: Analyses are based on data from the Mater University Study of Pregnancy, an on-going longitudinal investigation of women’s and children’s health and development involving over 8000 participants. Five types of risk factors (child characteristics, perinatal factors, maternal/familial characteristics, maternal pre- and post-natal substance use and parenting practices) were included in analyses and were based on maternal reports, child assessments and medical records. Adolescent antisocial behaviour was measured when children were 14 years old, using the delinquency subscale of the Child Behaviour Checklist. Results: Based on a series of logistic regression models, significant risk factors for adolescent antisocial behaviour included children’s prior problem behaviour (i.e. aggression and attention/restlessness problems at age 5 years) and marital instability, which doubled or tripled the odds of antisocial behaviour. Perinatal factors, maternal substance use, and parenting practices were relatively poor predictors of antisocial behaviour. Conclusions: Few studies have assessed early predictors of antisocial behaviour in Australia and the current results can be used to inform prevention programs that target risk factors likely to lead to problem outcomes for Australian youth

Time‐lapse photogrammetry reveals hydrological controls of fine‐scale High‐Arctic glacier surface roughness evolution

In a warming Arctic, as glacier snowlines rise, short- to medium-term increases in seasonal bare-ice extent are forecast for the next few decades. These changes will enhance the importance of turbulent energy fluxes for surface ablation and glacier mass balance. Turbulent energy exchanges at the ice surface are conditioned by its topography, or roughness, which has been hypothesized to be controlled by supraglacial hydrology at the glacier scale. However, current understanding of the dynamics in surface topography, and the role of drainage development, remains incomplete, particularly for the transition between seasonal snow cover and well-developed, weathered bare-ice. Using time-lapse photogrammetry, we report a daily timeseries of fine (millimetre)-scale supraglacial topography at a 2 m2 plot on the Lower Foxfonna glacier, Svalbard, over two 9-day periods in 2011. We show traditional kernel-based morphometric descriptions of roughness were ineffective in describing temporal change, but indicated fine-scale albedo feedbacks at depths of ~60 mm contributed to conditioning surface topography. We found profile-based and two-dimensional estimates of roughness revealed temporal change, and the aerodynamic roughness parameter, z0, showed a 22–32% decrease from ~1 mm following the exposure of bare-ice, and a subsequent 72–77% increase. Using geostatistical techniques, we identified ‘hole effect’ properties in the surface elevation semivariograms, and demonstrated that hydrological drivers control the plot-scale topography: degradation of superimposed ice reduces roughness while the inception of braided rills initiates a subsequent development and amplification of topography. Our study presents an analytical framework for future studies that interrogate the coupling between ice surface roughness and hydro-meteorological variables and seek to improve parameterizations of topographically evolving bare-ice areas