Service Development Programme: Maximising Life Opportunities for Teenagers. Teenagers' Views and Experiences of Sex and Relationships Education, Sexual Health Services and Family Support Services in Kent - Survey findings for Year 2

This brief report provides findings from data collected in year 2 of a survey of teenagers' views and experiences of sex and relationships education and sexual health services in Kent. The data in year 2 was collected in Autumn 2005, a year after the data collected in year 1. The purpose of this report is to highlight the results in year 2 which differ from the year 1 survey data. It is to be used in conjunction with the report in year 1 entitled "Service Development Programme: Maximising Life Opportunies for Teenagers: Teenagers' Views and Experiences of Sex and Relationships Educatioon, Sexual Health Services and Family Suupport Services in Kent: Survey Findings July 2005". The final report on the survey will consist of findings from further analysis of the data from year 1 and year 2 merged together, available at the end of 2006

What Happened on Deliberation Day?

What are the effects of deliberation about political issues? This essay reports the results of a kind of Deliberation Day, involving sixty-three citizens in Colorado. Groups from Boulder, a predominantly liberal city, met and discussed global warming, affirmative action, and civil unions for same-sex couples; groups from Colorado Springs, a predominately conservative city, met to discuss the same issues. The major effect of deliberation was to make group members more extreme than they were when they started to talk. Liberals became more liberal on all three issues; conservatives became more conservative. As a result, the division between the citizens of Boulder and the citizens of Colorado Springs were significantly increased as a result of intragroup deliberation. Deliberation also increased consensus, and dampened diversity, within the groups. Hence Deliberation Day produced group polarization, in the distinctive form of ideological amplification. Implications are explored for the uses and structure of deliberation in general.

High-m Kink/Tearing Modes in Cylindrical Geometry

The global ideal kink equation, for cylindrical geometry and zero beta, is simplified in the high poloidal mode number limit and used to determine the tearing stability parameter, $\Delta^\prime$. In the presence of a steep monotonic current gradient, $\Delta^\prime$ becomes a function of a parameter, $\sigma_0$, characterising the ratio of the maximum current gradient to magnetic shear, and $x_s$, characterising the separation of the resonant surface from the maximum of the current gradient. In equilibria containing a current "spike", so that there is a non-monotonic current profile, $\Delta^\prime$ also depends on two parameters: $\kappa$, related to the ratio of the curvature of the current density at its maximum to the magnetic shear, and $x_s$, which now represents the separation of the resonance from the point of maximum current density. The relation of our results to earlier studies of tearing modes and to recent gyro-kinetic calculations of current driven instabilities, is discussed, together with potential implications for the stability of the tokamak pedestal.Comment: To appear in Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusio