The image of child protection social workers in the news and amongst children's professionals : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Social Work at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

This research examines portrayals of child protection social workers in New Zealand news reporting and explores how child protection social workers are perceived by their colleagues in the children’s workforce. The research set out not only to assess perceptions, but also to gain insight into how they are formed and to consider their implications. To this end, the research also examined children’s professionals’ perceptions of news coverage and sought to better understand the factors that influence professionals’ attitudes towards child protection social workers. Finally, professionals from the children’s workforce were asked how helpful they believed referrals to child protection social workers would be for a range of problems. The study is positioned within a critical realist outlook and uses mixed methodology. The data was sourced using two instruments. Firstly, professionals from the children’s workforce in New Zealand were invited to participate in an online survey. Secondly, two years of New Zealand news articles were analysed to assess how child protection social workers were portrayed. The principle findings of the research have been presented as they relate to five research questions. They underscore the importance of personal and professional relationships, and of academic and professional publications, in influencing children’s professionals’ perceptions of child protection social workers. They suggest children’s professionals tend to view child protection social workers somewhat favourably. On the other hand, news reporting was found to depict child protection social workers more negatively, although only marginally so. Children’s professionals appear to largely understand this. Alongside the more encouraging findings, negative perceptions of specific characteristics of child protection social workers were found to prevail in both news reporting and amongst children’s professionals. Perhaps of most concern, the findings identified a troubling lack of confidence in the potential helpfulness of referrals to child protection social workers. An analysis of these findings and themes from the literature indicates that the key perceptions of concern are unlikely to be divorced from substantive issues. Improving the image of child protection social workers in New Zealand will almost certainly require addressing some of the underlying causes of unfavourable perceptions

Citizens of Character - The Values and Character Dispositions of 14-16 Year Olds in the Hodge Hill Constituency

Citizens of Character explores the attitudes, dispositions, and values of 14-16 year old students in a particular urban environment - the six schools of the Hodge Hill constituency in Birmingham - and the extent to which the education system and the local environment advance or inhibit their sense of self, their values and their character development. These students constituted a heterogeneous group of religious and non-religious individuals. This project goes beyond the normal exploration and measurement of strengths of character in individuals and looks at the factors that build character in families and schools. This research has wider implications for the relationship between character and aspirations, social change, school cultures, citizenship, identity and religion. The study discusses what students understand by character. It set out to ascertain the moral values held by a group of students living in an inner-city area. The study sought to question who or what has influenced their moral values and examined which individuals, institutions and situations might have hindered or promoted their development. Some of the issues and concerns which arose - for example, relations with neighbours, the matter of local and national pride and questions of trust - may seem not to impinge upon character education as such but are relevant in a wider context

Understanding in all things : the revelation and transmission of divine insight in the Qumran scrolls and New Testament

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:DXN054088 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

CONSTRAINING HIGH-ENERGY DARK MATTER SIGNALS

I consider methods of indirect detection of dark matter annihilation, including astrophysical foreground modeling, techniques for background removal, and current and predicted limits to the dark matter annihilation and decay rate. Dark matter signals from several sources are considered: the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, the Milky Way Galactic halo, diffuse extragalactic emission, and dwarf galaxies. The strongest dark matter signal is expected to come from the inner degrees of the Galaxy. With the signal and background regions from the High Energy Spectroscopic System (HESS) collaboration from the Galactic center, I derive the strongest constraints on TeV-scale dark matter. I consider a number of dark matter models, including those with Sommerfeld-enhanced cross-sections, and show that the HESS Galactic center observations are in tension with many of these dark matter models. At lower energies in the Galactic center, the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) sees extended emission, the "WMAP haze", which is consistent with the synchrotron radiation from a population of high-energy electrons and positrons. Comparing the electron and positron emission from pulsars and dark matter annihilation in the as a source for this synchrotron emission, the two sources show morphological differences, with dark matter giving a more sharply-peaked flux profile and pulsars giving a more extended profile. Both sources give signals consistent with the WMAP haze, but future experiments should be able to identify the source of the emission based on morphology. I also discuss the modeling of blazars, one of the largest foregrounds in the extragalactic gamma-ray sky. I present a model of blazars which yields gamma-ray flux consistent with the diffuse gamma-ray background (DGRB) radiation observed by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope. Specifically, I model the emission from blazars with a luminosity-dependent luminosity evolution model for the blazar gamma-ray luminosity function and use a blazar spectral energy distribution for the blazar emission spectra. By extending this model to the Fermi-LAT 5-year sensitivity, I show that the DGRB will decrease by a factor of 2-3 with five years of Fermi-LAT observations. An analysis of the DGRB is used to constrain the cross-section of dark matter annihilations for several dark matter annihilation channels and masses, and I include a predicted constraint from the Fermi-LAT 5-year DGRB forecast. I also consider the effects of gamma-rays from inverse-Compton emission on the dark matter annihilation signal and consider the dark matter cross-section limits when including this effect. I conclude with the expected sensitivity of the water Cherenkov detector to high-mass annihilating dark matter from both the Galactic center and dwarf galaxies. At high dark matter masses, the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory should be more sensitive to dark matter in dwarf galaxies than prior experiments

Photonic crystals modified by optically resonant systems

We investigate light propagation in periodic nanoscale structures known as photonic crystals. The goal is to gain insight into how the propagation of light can be modified and exploited for uses in telecommunication, regenerative energy, quantum information processing and optical computing. To this end, we dope photonic crystals with optically resonant systems: systems which strongly modify light propagation

Evaluating the importance of the Crown Film Unit, 1940 – 1952

The Crown Film Unit (CFU) was the British Government’s principal in-house film production facility during the years 1940 to 1952. Over this period it produced around 225 films of different types and lengths ranging from short five minute Public Information Films to feature length cinema exhibited pictures. A very few of the latter, such as Target for Tonight (1941) or Fires Were Started (1943) have become iconic representations of both the bomber offensive and the Blitz during the Second World War. Although these films only represented a very small percentage of the CFU’s entire catalogue they have, in the main, dominated academic discourse about the Unit. This research has sought to explore the full production canon of the CFU and, in particular, to examine its importance and legacy. In doing so it has also engaged with the debates about the role of film propaganda especially as it impacted upon the self-image and morale of the British people during and after the War. It also examines the role and position of the Unit in the development and history of the Documentary Movement. To achieve these research aims the Crown Film Unit is first situated in its historical context and the influences of its predecessors over the previous forty or so years are examined. Subsequently a new classification paradigm is developed which allows the films themselves to be reviewed according to theme. Locating each of the films in a particular dynamic framework enables them to be evaluated from the appropriate social, economic, political or military perspectives. The films are also considered in the context of their reception which, in the case of the CFU was not just cinematic exhibition but also a substantial non-theatrical audience watching, not only in the UK, but across the world. The penultimate chapter examines the legacy of the CFU demonstrating that it had an important impact upon British and overseas feature film making in the 1950s, but it also made a currently undervalued contribution to the subsequent development of both Public Information, training, advertising and instructional films. The research concludes that although perhaps still best described as a Documentary Film Unit the role of the CFU was far more nuanced