Traumatic brain injury in New Zealand: a silent epidemic?

In 2008 I was fortunate enough to be invited to be part of a research team on a large population based project focusing on the incidence and outcome of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in New Zealand (led by Professor Valery Feigin National Institute of Stroke and Applied Neurosciences, AUT University). At the time I knew little about TBI or population based research, but the last five years have changed that. My involvement in the project has led to on-going collaborations and friendships, and continues to provide me with on-going challenges as a researcher. More importantly, however, thanks to those who participated in our research, it has given me an enormous appreciation of the daily challenges faced by those affected by TBI and the desire to do research that ultimately will make a difference for them and other TBI survivors

Rousseau on the Tourist Trail

This essay looks at the post-Napoleonic tourist trail associated with Rousseau in Switzerland, reconstructing the tourist sentiment which the figure of the philosopher elicited. This was a complex meld of the biographical and the fictional, which solicited the self-conscious and performative occupation by the visitor of a Rousseauistic sensibility. By comparing and contrasting early nineteenth-century travellers’ accounts of visiting Voltaire’s chateau at Ferney and Rousseau’s homes, especially his farmhouse refuge on the Ile St Pierre in the Lac de Bienne, this paper traces the emergence and contours of a new, romantic type of tourist sensibility and matching practices created by and around Rousseau before considering the way in which this model was subsumed within the exilic appeal of the Byronic

Bulk Aluminum at High Pressure: A First-Principles Study

The behavior of metals at high pressure is of great importance to the fields of shock physics, geophysics, astrophysics, and nuclear materials. In order to further understand the properties of metals at high pressures we studied the equation of state of aluminum using first-principles techniques up to 2500 GPa, pressures within reach of the planned L.L.N.L. National Ignition Facility. Our simulations use density-functional theory and density-functional perturbation theory in the generalized gradient approximation at 0K. We found core overlaps to become relevant beyond pressures of 1200 GPa. The equations of state for three phases (fcc, bcc, and hcp) were calculated predicting the fcc-hcp, fcc-bcc, and hcp-bcc transitions to occur at 215 GPa, 307 GPa, and 435 GPa respectively. From the phonon dispersions at increasing pressure, we predict a softening of the lowest transverse acoustic vibrational mode along the [110] direction, which corresponds to a Born instability of the fcc phase at 725 GPa.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev. B as a Brief Report. This version has update many figures. Moreover we provided updated and more accurate numbers based on further in-depth analyses of potential computational error

Au fait law placements:an emerged reality or a popular trend in contemporary education?

PurposeEnhancing student employability and bridging the gap between theory and practice in law education requires a more multifaceted approach than the traditional mix of lectures, tutorials and simulations. Law placements also provide an opportunity to reinforce the importance of the professional practice standards and requirements laid down by the Law Society of Scotland. The design and implementation of law placements is analysed from the point of initiation to becoming a regular practice. The emphasis is on placements embedded in the programme of study offered to Stage 3 students to facilitate their career choices prior to specialisation in the final year.Design/methodology/approachThis study utilises a longitudinal multi-method approach, allowing the analysis of various aspects the development and practical implementation of law related placements. The views of students, academic staff and representatives of local employers are gathered by in-depth interviews. A reflective workbook method is also used to analyse the ‘integration’ of learning and to support the ‘demonstration’ and assessment of personal and professional capabilities which are difficult to assess by other means.FindingsThe paper presents the challenge faced by a higher education institution in organising meaningful placements and looks at the other avenues explored, particularly in the Third Sector. There are differences in the expectations of law placement providers (law firms and Third Sector organisations) in respect of students’ skill and knowledge base. The students were explicit about the need to demystify the profession and are appreciative of experience with atypical law placement providers which expands their perceptions of the choices within a law career. Students have also indicated a positive alteration in their attitude to the role of reflective practice, which stimulated changes in their behaviour with respect to professional development.Practical implicationsThe outcomes of the initial stage of this study have implications for law departments in higher education in the context of organising law placements, evaluating their effectiveness and their impact on student employability.Originality/valueTeaching law has its specifics and already employs a number of methods: simulations, negotiation exercises, moots and debates. This paper explores ways of providing a more meaningful practical experience for undergraduate students by placing an emphasis on such elements of professional practice as drafting legal documents and preparing professional opinions, while introducing the complexity of the law profession. Solutions to the challenges faced by the institution in organising those placements are analysed. The study provides an analytical view on the effectiveness of law placements in relation to other widely used approaches to bridging the gap between the theory and practice of law

Multiresolution Diffusion Entropy Analysis of time series: an application to births to teenagers in Texas

The multiresolution diffusion entropy analysis is used to evaluate the stochastic information left in a time series after systematic removal of certain non-stationarities. This method allows us to establish whether the identified patterns are sufficient to capture all relevant information contained in a time series. If they do not, the method suggests the need for further interpretation to explain the residual memory in the signal. We apply the multiresolution diffusion entropy analysis to the daily count of births to teens in Texas from 1964 through 2000 because it is a typical example of a non-stationary time series, having an anomalous trend, an annual variation, as well as short time fluctuations. The analysis is repeated for the three main racial/ethnic groups in Texas (White, Hispanic and African American), as well as, to married and unmarried teens during the years from 1994 to 2000 and we study the differences that emerge among the groups.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. In press on 'Chaos, Solitons & Fractals

Light meson resonances from unitarized Chiral Perturbation Theory

We report on our recent progress in the generation of resonant behavior in unitarized meson-meson scattering amplitudes obtained from Chiral Perturbation Theory. These amplitudes provide simultaneously a remarkable description of the resonance region up to 1.2 GeV as well as the low energy region, since they respect the chiral symmetry expansion. By studying the position of the poles in these amplitudes it is possible to determine the mass and width of the associated resonances, as well as to get a hint on possible classification schemes, that could be of interest for the spectroscopy of the scalar sector.Comment: Invited talk to the II International Workshop on Hadron Physics & Effective Theories of Low Energy QCD. 25-29 September 2002. Coimbra. Portuga

Meson resonances from unitarized meson scattering at one loop in Chiral Perturbation Theory

We show the results for the scattering poles associated to the rho, f0, a0, K*, sigma and kappa resonances in meson-meson scattering. Our amplitudes are obtained from the complete one-loop meson-meson scattering amplitudes from Chiral Perturbation Theory. Once unitarized with the Inverse Amplitude Method, they describe remarkably well the data simultaneously in the low energy and resonance regions up to 1.2 GeV, using low energy parameters compatible with present determinations.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of the 5th International Conference on ``Quark confinement and the hadron spectrum'', held in Gargnano, Garda Lake, Italy. 10-14th September 2002. 3 page

The classification of substance and behavioural addictions: A preliminary investigation

The term addiction has been used to refer to impaired control over substance use for several centuries however recently there has been a shift toward using this term in the context of non-substance use disorders, such as pathological gambling. A preliminary investigation was conducted in an attempt to clarify the most appropriate classification of 'behavioural addictions'. Participants with alcohol dependence (AD, n = 24), pathological gambling (PG, n = 20) and compulsive buying disorder (CBD, n = 14) completed an Addictive Disorder Questionnaire (ADQ); the Symptom Checklist 90 Revised (SCL-90R); Barratt Impulsivity Scale II; and substance specific adaptations of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS). Although the AD group reported more severe addiction symptoms and had higher levels of depression and anxiety, there were broad similarities across the three disorders in relation to cravings, dyscontrol, impulsivity and obsessions. Despite the small sample size and the different recruitment strategies used across the groups, the findings from this preliminary study provide support for broadening addiction diagnostic definitions to include non-substance related disorders which in turn may contribute to the development of more efficacious treatments