523 research outputs found
Professional decision making and women offenders : containing the chaos?
This article draws on the findings from research undertaken in south-east Scotland in 2008 which sought to identify the characteristics of female offenders and to document the views of policy makers and practitioners regarding the experiences of women involved in the Scottish criminal justice system. Despite Scotland having retained a stronger 'welfare' focus than elsewhere in the UK (e.g. McAra, 2008), this is not reflected in the treatment of women who offend, with the rate of female imprisonment having almost doubled in the last ten years and community based disposals falling short of a welfare-oriented system. This article explores why the treatment that women offenders receive in the criminal justice system may be harsh and disproportionate both in relation to their offending and in relation to the treatment of men. It is argued that interventions with women need to be initiated earlier in their cycle of offending and at an earlier stage in the criminal justice process but also that the wide-ranging health, welfare, financial and behavioural needs of women who offend cannot be met solely within an increasingly risk-averse and punitive criminal justice environment
Fast track children's hearing pilot: final report of the evaluation of the pilot
This report presents key findings of the evaluation of the Fast Track childrenâs hearings pilot in Scotland1. The research was undertaken by staff at the Universities of Glasgow, Stirling and Strathclyde between February 2003 and January 2005
Magnetic Field Structure and Stochastic Reconnection in a Partially Ionized Gas
We consider stochastic reconnection in a magnetized, partially ionized
medium. Stochastic reconnection is a generic effect, due to field line
wandering, in which the speed of reconnection is determined by the ability of
ejected plasma to diffuse away from the current sheet along magnetic field
lines, rather than by the details of current sheet structure. We consider the
limit of weak stochasticity, so that the mean magnetic field energy density is
greater than either the turbulent kinetic energy density or the energy density
associated with the fluctuating component of the field. We consider field line
stochasticity generated through a turbulent cascade, which leads us to consider
the effect of neutral drag on the turbulent cascade of energy. In a
collisionless plasma, neutral particle viscosity and ion-neutral drag will damp
mid-scale turbulent motions, but the power spectrum of the magnetic
perturbations extends below the viscous cutoff scale. We give a simple physical
picture of the magnetic field structure below this cutoff, consistent with
numerical experiments. We provide arguments for the reemergence of the
turbulent cascade well below the viscous cut-off scale and derive estimates for
field line diffusion on all scales. We note that this explains the persistence
of a single power law form for the turbulent power spectrum of the interstellar
medium, from scales of tens of parsecs down to thousands of kilometers. We find
that under typical conditions in the ISM stochastic reconnection speeds are
reduced by the presence of neutrals, but by no more than an order of magnitude.Comment: Astrophysical Journal in pres
A nonlinear mixture theory representation of saturated sand
Nonlinear constitutive equations for saturated sands are proposed. They exhibit the interaction of dilatation and shear stress observed in sands in its small strain range. The equations are based on a continuum theory derived from a Newtonian approach to a mixture of a nonlinear solid and compressible fluid. The determination of the constitutive parameters from common soil mechanics experiments is discussed and illustrated by qualitatively valid numerical results.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22769/1/0000324.pd
Polar Fields for AB Dor
Polar spots are often observed on rapidly-rotating cool stars, but the nature
of the magnetic field in these spots is as yet unknown. While Zeeman-Doppler
imaging can provide surface magnetic field maps over much of the observed
stellar surface, the Zeeman signature is suppressed in the dark polar regions.
We have determined the effect on the global coronal structure of three current
models for this polar field: that it is composed (a) of unipolar field, (b) of
bipolar regions or (c) of nested rings of opposite polarity. We take as an
example the young, rapid rotator AB Dor (rotation period = 0.514 days). By
adding these model polar fields into the surface field maps determined from
Zeeman-Doppler imaging, we have compared the resulting coronal structure with
the observable properties of the corona - the magnitude and rotational
modulation of the X-ray emission measure and the presence of slingshot
prominences trapped in the corona around the Keplerian co-rotation radius. We
find that only the presence of a unipolar spot has any significant effect on
the overall coronal structure, forcing much of the polar field to be open.Comment: 10 pages, 21 figure
Conditions for the existence of dynamic snap-through of a shallow cylindrical shell under impulsive loading
Shallow shell theory is used to investigate the non-linear plane deformation of a circular cylindrical panel elastically restrained against rotation at the supports. The critical or equilibrium configurations which may exist at zero load are determined. By examining the local stability of the various configurations, the critical rotational stiffness is obtained, above which the shell cannot exhibit dynamic snap-through under impulsive load. Finally for the range of geometries and rotational stiffness for which snap-through may exist, a sufficient condition for stability is given.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34160/1/0000448.pd
Costs and benefits of social relationships in the collective motion of bird flocks
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Research via the DOI in this record.Supplementary Figs. 1â12 and Supplementary Tables 1â3 are available in the Supplementary Information. Raw images captured by one of the four cameras and the reconstructed birdsâ 3D movement trajectories are provided in Supplementary Videos 1â6. Plain text files, each including bird ID number, position, time, velocity, acceleration and wingbeat frequency at every time step, are provided in Supplementary Data 1â7. A plain text file that includes mean wingbeat frequency, flight speed and local density (approximated by the number of neighbours within a distance of 5âm from the focal bird) for paired and unpaired birds in six flocks, as well as for birds flying alone, is provided in Supplementary Data 8. All data required to reproduce the results in this study are included in Supplementary Data 1â8. Supplementary Data and Supplementary Videos are available at https://figshare.com/s/c55eb82bab800571d25d.Current understanding of collective behaviour in nature is based largely on models that assume that identical agents obey the same interaction rules, but in reality interactions may be influenced by social relationships among group members. Here, we show that social relationships transform local interactions and collective dynamics. We tracked individualsâ three-dimensional trajectories within flocks of jackdaws, a species that forms lifelong pair-bonds. Reflecting this social system, we find that flocks contain internal sub-structure, with discrete pairs of individuals tied together by spring-like effective forces. Within flocks, paired birds interacted with fewer neighbours than unpaired birds and flapped their wings more slowly, which may result in energy savings. However, flocks with more paired birds had shorter correlation lengths, which is likely to inhibit efficient information transfer through the flock. Similar changes to group properties emerge naturally from a generic self-propelled particle model. These results reveal a critical tension between individual- and group-level benefits during collective behaviour in species with differentiated social relationships, and have major evolutionary and cognitive implications.Human Frontiers in Science Programm
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