Prisoners’ gang-related activity: the importance of bullying and moral disengagement

Gang-related activity can have a significant impact on the effective management of prisons in the UK, yet little is known about the characteristics of the prisoners involved. I it this study, 141 adult male prisoners' gang-related activity was examined in relation to their bullying behaviour and use of moral disengagement. Results showed that prisoners most involved in gang-related activity were likely to have spent a longer total time in the prison system, be perpetrators of bullying and have high levels of moral disengagement. Findings also show that moral disengagement partially mediates the relationship between bullying and gang-related activity Implications for treatment programmes and the prison estate are discussed

Adaptive and demographic responses of plankton populations to environmental change

Because of their large population sizes, short generation times, and clonal mode of propagation, microorganisms should often be the first members of a community to respond evolutionarily to temporal changes in the environment. Because the planktonic microbial community directly or indirectly influences all other members of aquatic ecosystems, it is useful to have a general theory for the magnitude and limits of such response. Models are presented for the expected dynamics of evolutionary change for the mean and variance of a quantitative character under natural selection toward a fixed or a moving optimum. It is also shown how the rate of population growth is related to the phenotypic composition of the population and the selective aspects of the environment. These models, which lead to the identification of extinction thresholds for the rate of environmental change beyond which a population cannot maintain itself, provide a heuristic basis for understand-ing the response of ecosystems to environmental perturbations. The analyses also indicate that clones of microorganisms isolated into novel laboratory environments are likely to undergo sub-stantial evolutionary change over periods of a few hundred days, which raises questions about the utility of such cultures for inferring ecological properties of natural populations

Persistent superfluid flow arising from the He-McKellar-Wilkens effect in molecular dipolar condensates

We show that the He-McKellar-Wilkens effect can induce a persistent flow in a Bose-Einstein condensate of polar molecules confined in a toroidal trap, with the dipolar interaction mediated via an electric dipole moment. For Bose-Einstein condensates of atoms with a magnetic dipole moment, we show that although it is theoretically possible to induce persistent flow via the Aharonov-Casher effect, the strength of electric field required is prohibitive. We also outline an experimental geometry tailored specifically for observing the He-McKellar-Wilkens effect in toroidally-trapped condensates.Comment: 5 pages 2 figure

OD Maps for Studying Historical Internal Migration in Ireland

We study internal migration in Ireland, an aspect of migration that is little-studied. OD Maps have enabled us to characterise aspects of spatial patterns in county to county migration more effectively than with other techniques. We found that internal migration is relatively local, but relatively national for Dublin. Although migration increased between 1851 and 1911, there was a decrease in more local migration. This work explores the origins of trends that would continue for over a century and had a profound effect on the population geography of the island

Historical Internal Migration in Ireland

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Applying inspection to object-oriented software

The benefits of the object-oriented paradigmare widely cited. At the same time, inspection is deemed to be the most cost-effective means of detecting defects in software products. Why then, is there no published experience, let alone quantitative data, on the application of inspection to object-oriented systems? We describe the facilities of the object-oriented paradigm and the issues that these raise when inspecting object-oriented code. Several problems are caused by the disparity between the static code structure and its dynamic runtime behaviour. The large number of small methods in object-oriented systems can also cause problems. We then go on to describe three areas which may help mitigate problems found. Firstly, the use of various programming methods may assist in making object-oriented code easier to inspect. Secondly, improved program documentation can help the inspector understand the code which is under inspection. Finally, tool support can help the inspector to analyse the dynamic behaviour of the code. We conclude that while both the object-oriented paradigm and inspection provide excellent benefits on their own, combining the two may be a difficult exercise, requiring extensive support if it is to be successful