News coverage of suicidal behaviour in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland

Background: Media reporting of suicide has been associated with imitative acts. Internationally, this has led to the development of guidelines to promote responsible reporting of suicide. Aims: To examine the nature and quality of news coverage of suicidal behaviour in the United Kingdom (UK) and Republic of Ireland (ROI). Method: UK and ROI press clippings relating to suicide over 12 months (N=8101) were coded for content and assessed for quality against existing guidelines. We examined variability in relation to key characteristics (e.g. type of publication) and compared newspaper portrayal of suicide against official statistics. Results: Reports were biased towards young, female and relatively unusual suicides (including those involving a celebrity, more than one individual and violent methods). Almost a third of reports had inappropriate headlines, but only a minority was of poor overall quality, and editors appear to be responsive to feedback. There was considerable variability in the quality of reports for different suicide methods. Limitations: This work cannot account for the impact of reporting on suicidal behaviour. The speed of change in media trends also limits its conclusions. Conclusion: Our findings underscore the need for sustained efforts to promote responsible reporting of suicide

Weakly-bound rare isotopes with a coupled-channel approach that includes resonant levels

The question of how the scattering cross section changes when the spectra of the colliding nuclei have low-excitation particle-emitting resonances is explored using a multi-channel algebraic scattering (MCAS) method. As a test case, the light-mass nuclear target 8Be, being particle-unstable, has been considered. Nucleon-nucleus scattering cross sections, as well as the spectra of the compound nuclei formed, have been determined from calculations that do, and do not, consider particle emission widths of the target nuclear states. The resonant character of the unstable excited states introduces a problem because the low-energy tails of these resonances can intrude into the sub-threshold, bound-state region. This unphysical behaviour needs to be corrected by modifying, in an energy-dependent way, the shape of the target resonances from the usual Lorentzian one. The resonance function must smoothly reach zero at the elastic threshold. Ways of achieving this condition are explored in this paper.Comment: Contribution presented at INPC 2010, Vancouve

Low energy nuclear scattering and sub-threshold spectra from a multi-channel algebraic scattering theory

A multi-channel algebraic scattering theory, to find solutions of coupled-channel scattering problems with interactions determined by collective models, has been structured to ensure that the Pauli principle is not violated. Positive (scattering) and negative (sub-threshold) solutions can be found to predict both the compound nucleus sub-threshold spectrum and all resonances due to coupled channel effects that occur on a smooth energy varying background.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, FINUSTAR conference, Kos, Greece, Sept. 200