The challenge of assessing credibility when children with intellectual disabilities are alleged victims of abuse

Assessing credibility is of importance when deciding the legal outcome of a case. Such an assessment can be especially challenging when the witness is a child with intellectual disabilities. If these children have difficulties making their voices heard in legal proceedings the principal of equal legal rights may be called in question. We openly interviewed 32 lawyers, prosecutors, and police officers about how they assess credibility of these children. The findings indicate that individual perceptions of credibility are filtered through a legal norm of how to understand reliable reports irrespective of the eyewitnesses' ability to reach that standard. Legal representatives are aware that such a procedure may exclude intellectual disabled children from being fairly assessed but they do not deviate from the rules they perceive as required by their legal role. If knowledge about intellectual competence and functional level of an individual child witness was perceived as necessary when putting an adapted legal norm into praxis, this may increase the chance that assessments of credibility are based on knowledge rather then on a simplified general legal classification. Such an assessment procedure may increase the chance that children with intellectual disabilities are not excluded from fair legal trials of their cases

Technologies of memory: practices of remembering in analogue and digital photography

This article demonstrates the need always to consider change against continuity and continuity against change in the analysis of mnemonic technologies. It does so by exploring what has happened in the move from analogue to digital photography, looking in particular at how this has affected the meanings of personal photographs and the practices of remembering associated with them. In contrast with technologically determinist perspectives which have been, however latently, manifest in writing on new media, the value of exploring vernacular photography as a specifically mnemonic practice is that it turns our attention to the ways in which photographic practices are bound up with longer-term social uses and cultural values. Our analysis focuses on changes in four key categories of photographic practice that relate to the analogue/digital shift: photo-taking; photo-storing; photo-viewing; photo-sharing – all of which have consequences for the uses of photography as a mnemonic resource. They have all been altered in varying degrees by the advent of digital technologies, but with people continually making comparative evaluations of old and new, drawing on the former as a key aspect of learning how to use the latter

The Swedish Twin Registry : establishment of a biobank and other recent developments

The Swedish Twin Registry (STR) today contains more than 194,000 twins and more than 75,000 pairs have zygosity determined by an intra-pair similarity algorithm, DNA, or by being of opposite sex. Of these, approximately 20,000, 25,000, and 30,000 pairs are monozygotic, same-sex dizygotic, and opposite-sex dizygotic pairs, respectively. Since its establishment in the late 1950s, the STR has been an important epidemiological resource for the study of genetic and environmental influences on a multitude of traits, behaviors, and diseases. Following large investments in the collection of biological specimens in the past 10 years we have now established a Swedish twin biobank with DNA from 45,000 twins and blood serum from 15,000 twins, which effectively has also transformed the registry into a powerful resource for molecular studies. We here describe the main projects within which the new collections of both biological samples as well as phenotypic measures have been collected. Coverage by year of birth, zygosity determination, ethnic heterogeneity, and influences of in vitro fertilization are also described.VetenskapsrådetNIHSSFHjärt- och LungfondenAstma- och AllergiförbundetAccepte

Predictors of adolescents’ consent to use health records for research and results from data collection in a Swedish twin cohort

INTRODUCTION: Non-random selection into a study population due to differences between consenters and non-consenters may introduce participation bias. Past investigations of factors predicting consent to collection of medical health records for research imply that age, sex, health status, and education are of importance for participation, but disagree on the direction of effects. Very little is known about influences on consent from adolescents. METHODS: Two cohorts of Swedish 15-year-old twins (total n = 4,611) previously invited to the Child and Adolescent Twin Study in Sweden (CATSS) responded to a questionnaire with information on sex, individual's health, height, weight, and parental factors. The questionnaire included a question for consent to collection of medical health records. Predictors for consent were analyzed using logistic regression. Additionally, regional differences in the collection of health records of consenters were evaluated. RESULTS: Males were significantly less likely to consent compared to females (OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.64-0.85). The twin siblings' decision to consent was strongly associated with consent (OR 10.9, 95% CI 8.76-13.5), and individuals whose parents had responded to the original CATSS study were more likely to consent to record collection at age 15 (OR 2.2, 95% CI 1.81-2.75). Results of the subsequent collection of consenters' medical health records varied between geographical regions of Sweden. CONCLUSION: We identified several predictors for adolescents' consent to collection of their medical health records. Further selection was introduced through the subsequent record collection. Whether this will induce participation bias in future studies depends on the research questions' relationship to the identified predictors.NoneAccepte

Search for squarks and gluinos in events with isolated leptons, jets and missing transverse momentum at s√=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for supersymmetry in final states containing at least one isolated lepton (electron or muon), jets and large missing transverse momentum with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider are reported. The search is based on proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy s√=8 TeV collected in 2012, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20 fb−1. No significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed. Limits are set on supersymmetric particle masses for various supersymmetric models. Depending on the model, the search excludes gluino masses up to 1.32 TeV and squark masses up to 840 GeV. Limits are also set on the parameters of a minimal universal extra dimension model, excluding a compactification radius of 1/R c = 950 GeV for a cut-off scale times radius (ΛR c) of approximately 30

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections for Higgs boson production in the diphoton decay channel at s√=8 TeV with ATLAS

Measurements of fiducial and differential cross sections are presented for Higgs boson production in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of s√=8 TeV. The analysis is performed in the H → γγ decay channel using 20.3 fb−1 of data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The signal is extracted using a fit to the diphoton invariant mass spectrum assuming that the width of the resonance is much smaller than the experimental resolution. The signal yields are corrected for the effects of detector inefficiency and resolution. The pp → H → γγ fiducial cross section is measured to be 43.2 ±9.4(stat.) − 2.9 + 3.2 (syst.) ±1.2(lumi)fb for a Higgs boson of mass 125.4GeV decaying to two isolated photons that have transverse momentum greater than 35% and 25% of the diphoton invariant mass and each with absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.37. Four additional fiducial cross sections and two cross-section limits are presented in phase space regions that test the theoretical modelling of different Higgs boson production mechanisms, or are sensitive to physics beyond the Standard Model. Differential cross sections are also presented, as a function of variables related to the diphoton kinematics and the jet activity produced in the Higgs boson events. The observed spectra are statistically limited but broadly in line with the theoretical expectations

Evidence for the Higgs-boson Yukawa coupling to tau leptons with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for H → τ τ decays are presented, based on the full set of proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the LHC during 2011 and 2012. The data correspond to integrated luminosities of 4.5 fb−1 and 20.3 fb−1 at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV respectively. All combinations of leptonic (τ → `νν¯ with ` = e, µ) and hadronic (τ → hadrons ν) tau decays are considered. An excess of events over the expected background from other Standard Model processes is found with an observed (expected) significance of 4.5 (3.4) standard deviations. This excess provides evidence for the direct coupling of the recently discovered Higgs boson to fermions. The measured signal strength, normalised to the Standard Model expectation, of µ = 1.43 +0.43 −0.37 is consistent with the predicted Yukawa coupling strength in the Standard Model

Measurement of the top pair production cross section in 8 TeV proton-proton collisions using kinematic information in the lepton plus jets final state with ATLAS

A measurement is presented of the $t\bar{t}$ inclusive production cross-section in $pp$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=8$ TeV using data collected by the ATLAS detector at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. The measurement was performed in the lepton+jets final state using a data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb$^{-1}$. The cross-section was obtained using a likelihood discriminant fit and $b$-jet identification was used to improve the signal-to-background ratio. The inclusive $t\bar{t}$ production cross-section was measured to be $260\pm 1{\textrm{(stat.)}} ^{+22}_{-23} {\textrm{(syst.)}}\pm 8{\textrm{(lumi.)}}\pm 4{\mathrm{(beam)}}$ pb assuming a top-quark mass of 172.5 GeV, in good agreement with the theoretical prediction of $253^{+13}_{-15}$ pb. The $t\bar{t}\to (e,\mu)+{\mathrm{jets}}$ production cross-section in the fiducial region determined by the detector acceptance is also reported.Comment: Published version, 19 pages plus author list (35 pages total), 3 figures, 2 tables, all figures including auxiliary figures are available at http://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/TOPQ-2013-06

Search for squarks and gluinos with the ATLAS detector in final states with jets and missing transverse momentum using √s=8 TeV proton-proton collision data

A search for squarks and gluinos in final states containing high-p T jets, missing transverse momentum and no electrons or muons is presented. The data were recorded in 2012 by the ATLAS experiment in s√=8 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, with a total integrated luminosity of 20.3 fb−1. Results are interpreted in a variety of simplified and specific supersymmetry-breaking models assuming that R-parity is conserved and that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle. An exclusion limit at the 95% confidence level on the mass of the gluino is set at 1330 GeV for a simplified model incorporating only a gluino and the lightest neutralino. For a simplified model involving the strong production of first- and second-generation squarks, squark masses below 850 GeV (440 GeV) are excluded for a massless lightest neutralino, assuming mass degenerate (single light-flavour) squarks. In mSUGRA/CMSSM models with tan β = 30, A 0 = −2m 0 and μ > 0, squarks and gluinos of equal mass are excluded for masses below 1700 GeV. Additional limits are set for non-universal Higgs mass models with gaugino mediation and for simplified models involving the pair production of gluinos, each decaying to a top squark and a top quark, with the top squark decaying to a charm quark and a neutralino. These limits extend the region of supersymmetric parameter space excluded by previous searches with the ATLAS detector