Injection of clarity needed?

The legal status of children who stay in hospital for three months or longer gives rise to considerable confusion among managers in social services and social work departments. And the number of young people affected is significant. NHS statistics for the year ending 31 March 2000 suggest that in England around 2,800 children aged 0-19 on admission were discharged after spending more than two months in hospital, as were more than 500 children in Scotland. (A small number of these would have been discharged as adults.) A two-year study, commissioned by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation1 and carried out by the universities of Stirling, Durham, Newcastle and York, investigated the numbers, characteristics and circumstances of children and young people with complex needs who spend long periods in health care settings. Interviews were conducted in England and Scotland with 11 social services or health managers responsible for these children. The findings show a worrying degree of uncertainty about the position of young people who find themselves in a hospital or other health care setting for at least three months. One social services manager believed such children become looked after under the terms of the Children Act 1989. Another said children are not formally looked after but nevertheless receive the same services and safeguards as those who are. One Scottish social work manager did not know whether children going into health care settings for short-term (respite) care are looked after or not. And discussion with the research team's advisory group indicated that the confusion is not confined to our fieldwork areas

Psychological Distress Following Disenfranchised Grief and Social Support Loss in African American Women Living With HIV

Psychological distress can have lasting effects on African American women living with HIV. Research on African American women experiencing psychological distress (anxiety and depression) and living with HIV has focused on coping strategies, religious coping, medical adherence, and quality of life. African American women experiencing psychological distress due to their HIV diagnosis and status may also experience disenfranchised grief and social support loss. This quantitative study determined the extent to which disenfranchised grief and social support loss predicted psychological distress among African American women living with HIV. The integrative theory of bereavement and chronic sorrow theory served as the theoretical foundation. Participants (N = 70) completed an online survey using SurveyMonkey. Standard multiple regression analyses were used to evaluate the relative strength of disenfranchised grief and social support loss in predicting psychological distress (anxiety and depression). Results demonstrated that disenfranchised grief and social support loss (family, friends, and significant others) did not significantly predict psychological distress (anxiety and depression) among African American women with HIV. Although the findings in the current study did not demonstrate a predictive relationship between the variables, the theories offer insight for bereaved individuals living with HIV. The results of this study may lead to positive social change by providing information to grief counselors, psychologists, and other advocates to effectively serve African American women living with HIV

Jet Fragmentation in Vacuum and Medium with gamma-hadron Correlations in PHENIX

Jet fragmentation in p+p and Au+Au collisions is studied via back-to-back correlations of direct photons and charged hadrons. The direct photon correlations are obtained by statical subtraction of the background from decay photons. Results on the nuclear modification to the associated charged hadron yields are reviewed. Further studies of jet fragmentation in p+p using isolated direct photons are also presented. A kT-smeared LO pQCD calculation is used to interpret the data. The sensitivity of the data to the underlying fragmentation function is tested and the results are found to be compatible with expectations of a sample dominated by quark jet fragmentation.Comment: Talk presented at Hot Quarks 2010, June 21-26, La Londe Les Maures, France. To be published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series (JPCS

High-resolution N-body Simulations of Galactic Cannibalism: The Magellanic Stream

Hierarchical clustering represents the favoured paradigm for galaxy formation throughout the Universe; due to its proximity, the Magellanic system offers one of the few opportunities for astrophysicists to decompose the full six-dimensional phase-space history of a satellite in the midst of being cannibalised by its host galaxy. The availability of improved observational data for the Magellanic Stream and parallel advances in computational power has led us to revisit the canonical tidal model describing the disruption of the Small Magellanic Cloud and the consequent formation of the Stream. We suggest improvements to the tidal model in light of these recent advances.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX (gcdv.sty). Refereed contribution to the 5th Galactic Chemodynamics conference held in Swinburne, July 2003. Accepted for publication in PASA. Version with high resolution figures available at http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/staff/tconnors/publications.htm

Evolution of the Small Magellanic Cloud

Based on the results of N-body simulations on the last 2.5 Gyr evolution of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (LMC and SMC, respectively) interacting with the Galaxy, we firstly show when and where the leading arms (LAs) of the Magellanic stream (MS) can pass through the Galactic plane after the MS formation. We secondly show collisions between the outer Galactic HI disk and the LAs of the MS can create giant HI holes and chimney-like structures in the disk about 0.2 Gyr ago. We thirdly show that a large amount of metal-poor gas is stripped from the SMC and transfered to the LMC during the tidal interaction between the Clouds and the Galaxy about 0.2 and 1.3 Gyr ago. We thus propose that this metal-poor gas can closely be associated with the origin of LMC's young and intermediate-age stars and star clusters with distinctively low-metallicities with [Fe/H] < -0.6.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, to appear in the proceedings of ``Galaxies in the Local Volume'', Sydney, 8 to 13 July, 200

Children with complex support needs in healthcare settings for prolonged periods: their numbers, characteristics and experiences

This report details the findings of research conducted in England and Scotland to identify how many children with complex support needs are spending longer than one month in healthcare settings in Scotland and England, how and why they are in hospital, why they have not been discharged home or to appropriate alternative community-based facilities, and how well the hospital or healthcare setting is meeting their emotional, social and educational needs. It finds that many of these children could and should be discharged but are not, for a variety of reasons: primarily the lack of appropriate resources in the community and poor discharge planning processes, coupled with the inability of their families to manage their care and supervision without intensive support. Hospitals and healthcare settings in many cases are not meeting their needs and these children are being denied the protection offered by UK legislation governing children's rights and welfare

Scientific objectives and first results from COMPTEL

The imaging Compton telescope (COMPTEL) is the first imaging telescope in space to explore the MeV gamma ray range. At present it is performing a complete sky survey. In later phases of the mission, selected celestial objects will be studied in more detail. Targets of special interest in the COMPTEL energy range are radio pulsars, X-ray binaries, novae, supernova remnants, molecular clouds, and the interstellar medium within the Milky Way, as well as the nuclei of active galaxies, supernovae, and the diffuse cosmic background radiation in extragalactic space. The first four months of operation demonstrated that COMPTEL basically performs as expected. The Crab is clearly seen at its proper position in the first images of the anticenter region of the Galaxy. The Crab pulsar lightcurve was measured with unprecedented accuracy. The quasar 3C273 was seen for the first time at MeV-energies. Several cosmic bursts within the COMPTEL field of view could be located to an accuracy of about 1 degree. On June 9, 11, and 15, 1991 COMPTEL observed gamma ray (continuum and line) emission from three solar flares. Neutrons were also detected from the June 9 flare. At the present state of analysis, COMPTEL achieves the prelaunch predictions of its sensitivity within a factor of 2. Based on the present performance of COMPTEL, the team is confident that COMPTEL will fulfill its primary mission of surveying and exploring the MeV sky