Religious courts provide a useful service for those whose faith they represent but they are in no way replacing civil law in the area of marriage and divorce

Following the Archbishop of Canterbury’s lecture on Religious and Civil Law in 2008, the existence and status of religious courts has proved controversial in the UK. These concerns have come to the fore more recently as a result of the Arbitration and Mediation Services (Equality) Bill (HL Bill 72), introduced into the House of Lords by Baroness Cox, which seeks to regulate the operation of religious arbitration, prohibiting it from matters which lie within the jurisdiction of the criminal or family courts. However, Gillian Douglas and Russell Sandberg report here on their research at Cardiff University, which suggests that much of the debate to date, and the content of this Private Members Bill, are based on several misunderstandings

An Evaluation of Rent Regulation Measures within Scotland's Private Rented Sector

Throughout Europe there is widespread concern about private rents, both from tenants and governments, especially in Europe’s larger cities and their 'hot spot' neighbourhoods. This report examines how the Scottish Government has responded to this issue as part of the development of the new Private Residential Tenancy which came into effect in December 2017, thus setting this analysis within a broader review of European 'rent regulation' measures. The term 'rent regulation' is commonly applied across Europe to refer to measures which seek to limit 'in-tenancy' rent increases, whilst leaving the rents for new tenancies free to find their place within the market. In looking to balance the interests of tenants and landlords, the Scottish Government rejected rent control across the rental market, favouring instead measures to ensure that 'in-tenancy' rent increases are not excessive and do not exceed market rates. The Act which emerged in 2015 set out a new open-ended tenancy to replace the short-assured tenancy along with its typical fixed terms of six months. This led to concerns that unscrupulous landlords might use excessive rent rises as a means to repossess their property. The Act therefore sought to protect tenants from excessive rent increases in two ways: firstly, by allowing tenants who believe their proposed rent increase is out of step with the market to seek a formal review by the Rent Officer, and secondly through area-wide inflation-linked restrictions on rent increases through Rent Pressure Zones. High and rapidly rising rents in Aberdeen, at the time of the Bill's passage, helped to garner political support for Rent Pressure Zones. Whilst Aberdeen’s rents have now fallen back in the wake of the sharp decline in oil related activity, rents in both Edinburgh and Glasgow continue to cause concerns. The Rent Pressure Zone measures emerged relatively late in the policy-making process and therefore were not considered in much detail when the Bill was debated in Parliament. This may have contributed to the challenges now faced by local authorities seeking to utilise this measure. After scoping out and discussing these challenges, the report offers some suggestions as to how these might be best overcome

Persistence of chlorpropham (CIPC) in the concrete flooring of potato stores

The loss of the sprout suppressant, chlorpropham (CIPC), to the fabric of potato stores is currently of concern due to the risk of potential cross contamination of other crops subsequently housed in these stores. HPLC UV/VIS and GCMS methods were successfully employed to detect CIPC in the concrete flooring of research and commercial potato stores with histories of between 1 and 26 years of use. The concentrations in identical research stores, with different numbers of applications, were in the range 0.58–5.7 and 3.4–112 μg g−1, suggesting the magnitude of contamination was influenced by the number of applications. Commercial store A, with a history of 18 seasons of applications (estimate of total CIPC applied 2040 kg), had concentrations varying between 6 and 48 μg g−1 in the top three centimetres, with more than 92% within the top centimetre. In contrast, commercial store B, with a history of less than five seasons of applications (estimate of total CIPC applied 319 kg), had concentrations varying between 0.58 and 304 μg g−1 in the top four centimetres, with less than 47% within the top centimetre. The difference in depth distributions between A and B may be due to the structural integrity of the concrete, which was much poorer in B. CIPC was persistent in all stores irrespective of the total quantities of CIPC applied and date of the final application

The spontaneous formation of stereotypes via cumulative cultural evolution

All people share knowledge of cultural stereotypes of social groups—but what are the origins of these stereotypes? We examined whether stereotypes form spontaneously as information is repeatedly passed from person to person. As information about novel social targets was passed down a chain of individuals, what initially began as a set of random associations evolved into a system that was simplified and categorically structured. Over time, novel stereotypes emerged that not only were increasingly learnable but also allowed generalizations to be made about previously unseen social targets. By illuminating how cognitive and social factors influence how stereotypes form and change, these findings show how stereotypes might naturally evolve or be manipulated

The simultaneous extraction of multiple social categories from unfamiliar faces

The research was supported by an award from the Experimental Psychology Society's Small Grant scheme.Peer reviewedPostprin

Blood Pressure Variation in the Institutionalized Elderly

Ambulatory blood pressure (ABP) monitoring has been used to examine stress responses in a variety of settings and populations, demonstrating that both the environment and activities influence BP. Little is known, however, about the effects of such factors on the BP of elders, particularly those in institutional settings. This paper examines sources of variation in BP among elders living in two long-term care settings. Twentyseven residents of a nursing home (NH) facility and 29 residents from independent living (IL) facilities wore ABP monitors for approximately 24-hours. Individual pressures were transformed to z-scores and analyzed by ANOVA. Posture, mood and activity were significantly associated with systolic BP among IL while location and activity were significantly associated among NH. Posture and activity were associated with diastolic BP among IL residents. The specific effects of location, posture, and activity did not differ across settings