Evaluation of the sleep project for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Kent

It has been a privilege to evaluate the Sleep Project intervention for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children (UASC). The opportunity to evaluate this project arose through discussions between the authors and Dr. Ana Draper, exploring the work of Ana, her team and colleagues across the various agencies in supporting newly-arrived migrant children in Kent. From 2015, there was a rapid increase in the number of UASC arriving into the region and services were quickly adapted to meet the specific and immediate needs of these vulnerable children and young people, the Sleep Project being just one of the innovative interventions put in place. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children and young people have usually experienced harrowing journeys to the United Kingdom (UK) in seeking safety and refuge. Once in the UK, adapting to life within reception centres, foster families or supported housing, brings further challenges and within this context, practitioners and the young people identified sleep as a key problematic issue for which they required extra support. Through conversations with practitioners and young people, sleep difficulties were a recurring issue. Lack of sleep and disturbed sleep was preventing the young people from engaging in planned activities such as language classes. Tiredness was having negative health and social/educational impacts. This evaluation studies the benefits and challenges of the creative support mechanisms that were developed to address the sleep issues. This report presents our findings from the evaluation study of the Sleep Project intervention. The study comprised of 18 interviews with practitioners either working directly or indirectly with UASC, in paid and voluntary capacities. From the interviews, the qualitative data was thematically analysed to develop themes under which the benefits and challenges of the intervention could be explored. Throughout the interviews with practitioners working either directly with UASC or indirectly in managerial roles, it became apparent that there was a high level of commitment from individuals to develop their understanding of UASCs’ needs and to develop appropriate social care practice and support. The interviews highlighted that practitioners were prepared to think and act creatively to improve and to tailor support for this group of children and young people. The findings of the evaluation suggest that the Sleep Project was very well-received by young people and practitioners alike. It provided practical resources and support for good sleep, and it encouraged conversations to develop between the practitioners and the young people, and between the young people themselves, normalising the sleep issues that they were experiencing, and, according to interviewees, the young people were found to be encouraging other young people to use the good sleep packs. The intervention helped the practitioners feel more confident and equipped with skills to talk to the young people about sleep and, possibly, this led to deeper discussions about individual journeys and experiences, allowing care to become more empathetic, specific and person-centred. Significantly, interviewees reported that the project allowed them to ‘look at the basics’, that is, practical help such as providing night lights and educating young people about factors that hamper a good night’s sleep, whilst practitioners gained a greater understanding and responsiveness as to why the young people could struggle with sleep. This greater understanding has been important for shifting the perceptions of practitioners, particularly those in educational roles, helping them to be more patient and supportive to young people struggling to get to lessons on time and to concentrate. Key messages from the findings of this evaluation study are encapsulated in the following quotes from interviewees: • ‘I think it’s thinking a bit more innovatively about the care we can provide’ • ‘A confidence to look at the basics’ • ‘Context switched concepts’. Proposed recommendations involve: sustaining the work so far, looking at how the project could/should have a legacy, and building on the developed knowledge and networks. At the time of the publication of this report, young people are being transferred to other receiving local authorities outside Kent – a national dispersal scheme that was agreed by the Home Office in June 2016 to ease the pressure on Kent - therefore good practice from this project should be widely disseminated to service providers and policy makers at regional and national levels

Pricing and hedging of Asian options: Quasi-explicit solutions via Malliavin calculus

We use Malliavin calculus and the Clark-Ocone formula to derive the hedging strategy of an arithmetic Asian Call option in general terms. Furthermore we derive an expression for the density of the integral over time of a geometric Brownian motion, which allows us to express hedging strategy and price of the Asian option as an analytic expression. Numerical computations which are based on this expression are provided

Exact Dynamics of Multicomponent Bose-Einstein Condensates in Optical Lattices in One, Two and Three Dimensions

Numerous exact solutions to the nonlinear mean-field equations of motion are constructed for multicomponent Bose-Einstein condensates on one, two, and three dimensional optical lattices. We find both stationary and nonstationary solutions, which are given in closed form. Among these solutions are a vortex-anti-vortex array on the square optical lattice and modes in which two or more components slosh back and forth between neighboring potential wells. We obtain a variety of solutions for multicomponent condensates on the simple cubic lattice, including a solution in which one condensate is at rest and the other flows in a complex three-dimensional array of intersecting vortex lines. A number of physically important solutions are stable for a range of parameter values, as we show by direct numerical integration of the equations of motion.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figure

Interim Report December 1952-March 1953

Change Order "O" to Contract NOy-12561, under which the Laboratory is now operating, provides as a general objective the investigation of the forces and pressures exerted by waves on fixed plane barriers inclined at any angle to the sea surface, and on stepped or off-set plane barriers. In keeping with this objective, the Laboratory is endeavoring to develop a program which will combine a basic investigation of the mechanics of wave-induced forces with the production of immediately useful data. It is expected, for instance, that the results of experimental farce and pressure measurements on plane barriers, aside from their scientific value, can be used with profit in calculating the stability of gravity-type or caisson breakwaters against sliding and overturning. Since this program represents a new field of work for this Laboratory, the initial portion of the contract period has been devoted to the alteration of existing laboratory equipment, and the design and construction of required new equipment. In all of the~ modification and development of force and pressure measuring equipment, an effort has been made to design for maximum flexibility. Thus, the resulting basic units can be easily adapted to the various specific phases of the current or future investigations, such as breaking and non-breaking wave conditions, and many configurations of structures for which force or pressure data will be of interest. At this time, all equipment for the pressure measuring and orbit investigation programs has been completed, and work on these programs has begun. The force measuring apparatus is under construction, with completion estimated as June 1, 1953. In view of the considerable investment in time and funds made to equip the Laboratory for this new type of investigation, this report has been prepared to describe in some detail the alteration of existing equipment and the development of new equipment

African Water: Supporting African involvement in the EU Framework Programme.

Water researchers in developing countries have yet to take full advantage of the funding and collaborative research opportunities presented by the EU Framework Programme. There are a variety of reasons for this, such as insufficient information and a lack of previous experience. The African Water initiative aims to increase the involvement of African water researchers through a range of activities including communication and dissemination, capacity building and development, and complementary initiatives. The project has demonstrated that there is a demand for such sector-specific support activities. However, African Water is a small component of a much larger process of partnership between the developed and the less-developed countries of the world, involving many different European and African organisations working across political, institutional and technical domains, and complementing the wide range of actions already being undertaken

The unusual thickness dependence of superconductivity in α\alpha-MoGe thin films

Thin films of $\alpha$-MoGe show progressively reduced $T_{c}$'s as the thickness is decreased below 30 nm and the sheet resistance exceeds 100 $\Omega/\Box$. We have performed far-infrared transmission and reflection measurements for a set of $\alpha$-MoGe films to characterize this weakened superconducting state. Our results show the presence of an energy gap with ratio $2\Delta_0/k_BT_{c} = 3.8 \pm 0.1$ in all films studied, slightly higher than the BCS value, even though the transition temperatures decrease significantly as film thickness is reduced. The material properties follow BCS-Eliashberg theory with a large residual scattering rate except that the coherence peak seen in the optical scattering rate is found to be strongly smeared out in the thinner superconducting samples. A peak in the optical mass renormalization at $2\Delta_0$ is predicted and observed for the first time

Advanced extravehicular activity systems requirements definition study. Phase 2: Extravehicular activity at a lunar base

The focus is on Extravehicular Activity (EVA) systems requirements definition for an advanced space mission: remote-from-main base EVA on the Moon. The lunar environment, biomedical considerations, appropriate hardware design criteria, hardware and interface requirements, and key technical issues for advanced lunar EVA were examined. Six remote EVA scenarios (three nominal operations and three contingency situations) were developed in considerable detail

Macroscopic quantum tunnelling of Bose-Einstein condensates in a finite potential well

Bose-Einstein condensates are studied in a potential of finite depth which supports both bound and quasi-bound states. This potential, which is harmonic for small radii and decays as a Gaussian for large radii, models experimentally relevant optical traps. The nonlinearity, which is proportional to both the number of atoms and the interaction strength, can transform bound states into quasi-bound ones. The latter have a finite lifetime due to tunnelling through the barriers at the borders of the well. We predict the lifetime and stability properties for repulsive and attractive condensates in one, two, and three dimensions, for both the ground state and excited soliton and vortex states. We show, via a combination of the variational and WKB approximations, that macroscopic quantum tunnelling in such systems can be observed on time scales of 10 milliseconds to 10 seconds.Comment: J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. in pres