School Based Responses to Non-Suicidal Self Injury and Suicide: Literature Considerations When Framing a Policy Response

Deliberate Non-Suicidal Self Injury (NSSI) and suicide present distinct but related concerns for schools. An Australian study of over 6,300 families containing children/ adolescents aged 4 to 17 years found that one in 10 young people had engaged with NSSI – with three quarters of this cohort having harmed themselves in the previous twelve months (Lawrence, 2015). The same study found that within the 12 to 17 year old age group, one in 13 individuals had considered suicide in the previous 12 months, with one in 40 having made attempts (Lawrence, 2015). This article seeks to articulate key themes from literature that demand consideration by schools seeking to construct their own framework or pastoral response, balancing the prioritization of student safety whilst also attending to the realities of staff competencies. Given the age group presented in the Lawrence (2015) study, it should not be surprising that adolescents in the school context may disclosure the presence of intrusive thoughts pertaining to at-risk behaviours. Consequently, schools are well placed to deliver prevention services and simultaneously, need to be prepared to respond to situations of NSSI and suicide attempts. Drawing on the expertise of staff from an Edmund Rice Education Australia (EREA) school located in Brisbane, this paper draws links to existing policy determinants of pastoral care from within this Catholic school, whilst considering the issue of risk-to-self with relevant themes organized according to the three action areas outlined by the Queensland Suicide Action Prevention Plan (Queensland Mental Health Commission, 2015) namely: prevention; intervention; and postvention

FACTORS AFFECTING CONSERVATION PRACTICE BEHAVIOR OF CRP PARTICIPANTS IN ALABAMA

This study examines the factors that affect conservation practice choices of CRP farmers in Alabama. From over 9,000 contracts enrolled in the state between 1986 and 1995, 594 were randomly selected for the study. A multiple-regression analysis was employed to analyze the data. Results indicate that education, ratio of cropland in CRP, farm size, gender, prior crop practice, and geographic location of contract had a significant influence on the choice of conservation practice adopted.conservation practices, Conservation Reserve Program, CRP contracts, cost share, erodible cropland, grass practice, land retirement, tree practice, Farm Management, Land Economics/Use,

Damages for Mental Distress and Other Intangible Loss in a Commercial Context

As a general rule, contracts law does not permit an award of general damages for mental distress or other intangible loss. There are several rationales for this, including: plaintiffs are to bear their disappointment or upset with mental fortitude; without the rule, courts would be awash in litigation since every breach of contract brings with it some degree of emotional distress; without the rule, plaintiffs may fabricate or exaggerate the degree of their upset; and the rule simply reflects the lack of foreseeability of such loss under Hadley v. Baxendale. Notwithstanding the general rule, courts have awarded mental distress in a variety of circumstances by following one of three strategies to do so: permitting recovery when the contract is non-commercial; permitting recovery when the contract fits within a special or established category of exception to the general rule; and permitting recovery on the basis of foreseeability principles alone. There are a number of reasons to critique the general rule, particularly in light of the House of Lord\u27s much more expansive approach in Farley v. Skinner, [2001] 3 WL.R. 899. In short, an under-inclusive approach to this question results in contracts only being partially enforceable - a result contrary to the foundational principles that parties should be held to their bargain. Based on Farley, this paper offers a proposed restatement of the general rule. It also offers a way of clearly distinguishing between aggravated damages, on the one hand, and general damages for mental distress, on the othe

Assessing Exclusion Clauses: The Supreme Court of Canada\u27s Three Issue Framework in Tercon Contractors Ltd v British Columbia (Transportation and Highways)

The Supreme Court of Canada\u27s 2010 decision in Tercon Contractors Ltd v British Columbia (Transportation and Highways) concerned the enforceability of a broadly drafted exclusion clause in the context of public procurement tendering. It is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the decision unanimously articulated a three-issue framework for determining the enforceability of exclusion clauses. Second, and on a more theoretical front, Tercon offered competing visions as to how contracts are to be interpreted. Though the Supreme Court was unanimous that parties to a contract should-of course-generally be bound by its terms, the majority and dissent followed significantly different paths for determining the scope of the agreement at bar. Justices LeBel, Deschamps, Fish, Charron, and Cromwell (in a majority decision delivered by Cromwell J.) approached the task of contractual interpretation by elevating the long-standing and judicially enforced values that specifically inform the tendering process2 including notions of integrity, transparency, and business efficacy. The dissent, per McLachlin C.J., Binnie, Abella, and Rothstein JJ., in a judgment delivered by Binnie J., emphasized another set of long-standing andjudicially enforced values, namely freedom of contract and fidelity to the legal principle that contracts are to be enforced according to their words. And third, the Supreme Court of Canada laid to rest the doctrine offundamental breach as it applies to exclusion clauses-or attempted to at least

Marriage: Suffering and Bliss

In The Canterbury Tales, the perfect marriage is one where tension leads to yielding, resulting in bliss. According to the Wife of Bath, she has enough authority on the topic of marriage, through her extensive life experience, to lecture on the wo that is in marriage. While on a pilgrimage to Canterbury, she draws attention to a gender-power struggle in marriage, and through her prologue and tale, explores a theme of what women most desire. Mouthing conventional misogynistic notions of the time, Alisoun seeks the kind of authority that within her culture is traditionally offered to men. She exemplifies a woman\u27s desire to choose not only what she wants for herself, but also a wife\u27s desire for maistrie and soverayntee within her marriage. Although maistrie and sovereignty are often times used interchangeably, they refer to physical and/or financial dominance as well as governance over one\u27s own body. Geoffrey Chaucer\u27s Canterbury Tales both supports and challenges this theme of women\u27s maistrie and sovrayntee throughout, specifically within three tales from The Marriage Group : the Wife of Bath\u27s Tale, the Clerk\u27s Tale, and the Franklin\u27s Tale. Although the wives, Alisoun, Grisilde, and Dorigen, antithetically approach mastery and sovereignty in their marriages, they demonstrate that wives are paradoxically capable of dominating while still yielding to their spouses. However, one may challenge the idea that the tales reveal a blissful marriage deriving from a domineering wife, concluding instead that the husbands undeniably possess, and never surrender, any soverayntee and maistrie. To explain this medieval battle of the sexes, I will argue the perspectives of the wives in these three tales, unveiling their varying approaches to obtaining marital dominance through sex, money, stubbornness, wantonness, promises, and yielding, and I will ultimately declare the wives victorious in this gender-power battle, while at the same time showing how the husbands greatly benefit

Regulating Homeowners\u27 Disaster Insurance Through Federal Intervention: Lessons from the Affordable Care Act

One of the most impactful effects of climate change in recent years has been the increasing frequency and severity of natural disasters, even in geographic areas not previously known as disaster-prone. These disasters have caused untold property damage. Typically, the cost of rebuilding a home is assumed at least in part by private insurance companies, but many homeowners are significantly underinsured for disaster-related losses. Additionally, in areas where natural disasters are becoming increasingly frequent, private insurers have determined that it is no longer profitable to continually issue massive payouts without charging astronomical premiums, leaving many homeowners without access to financial relief. This Note argues that these circumstances call for a federal intervention. Specifically, it analogizes owning a disaster-prone home to having a preexisting health condition as defined by the Affordable Care Act. Using lessons from this analogy, this Note proposes a federal mandate requiring all homeowners to purchase natural disaster insurance and argues such a policy is achievable through Congress\u27s taxing power. Further, this Note argues that features of the proposed mandate, such as precaution crediting and a subsidized insurance program, render it superior to previously attempted regulation of natural disaster insurance

An Information--Theoretic Equality Implying the Jarzynski Relation

We derive a general information-theoretic equality for a system undergoing two projective measurements separated by a general temporal evolution. The equality implies the non-negativity of the mutual information between the measurement outcomes of the earlier and later projective measurements. We show that it also contains the Jarzynski relation between the average exponential of the thermodynamical work and the exponential of the difference between the initial and final free energy. Our result elucidates the information-theoretic underpinning of thermodynamics and explains why the Jarzynski relation holds identically both quantumly as well as classically.Comment: 2 pages, no figure

Fluctuation Theorem with Information Exchange: Role of Correlations in Stochastic Thermodynamics

We establish the fluctuation theorem in the presence of information exchange between a nonequilibrium system and other degrees of freedom such as an observer and a feedback controller, where the amount of information exchange is added to the entropy production. The resulting generalized second law sets the fundamental limit of energy dissipation and energy cost during the information exchange. Our results apply not only to feedback-controlled processes but also to a much broader class of information exchanges, and provides a unified framework of nonequilibrium thermodynamics of measurement and feedback control.Comment: To appear in PR

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Fire and water imagery in Jane Eyre

Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is a study in contrasts. Critics have argued the implausibility of the novel, that an orphaned governess who marries her dashing employer is too far-fetched to be believed. However, a proper understanding of Jane Eyre must be based not on a sequence of events, but on the thematic form of the novel in which the signifiers relate to each other and shift throughout. Ferdinand de Saussure explains in his Course in General Linguistics, that the mental concept one has of a word is its signifier (62). Charlotte Bronte relies not simply upon a sequence of events to convey understanding, but on metaphors in which hot and cold temperatures act as signifiers. These temperature metaphors indicate a realization in Jane of her power through her conscious action of speaking. This power is conveyed and contrasted within the novel through Freudian imagery which further communicates the socially accepted proper position of the Victorian female. Nicola Nixon in her Wide Sargasso Sea and Jean Rhys\u27s Interrogation of the nature wholly alien in Jane Eyre, examines female stereotypes in Victorian literature. Nixon explains that in spite of the similarities between Bronte\u27s plot structure in the novel and a fairy tale in which a damsel in distress finds her salvation with a strong man, there is more at work than a simple Cinderella story (269). She writes that Bronte is conscious of the artificiality of this [romantic novel] structure, addressing ... directly the assumptions inherent in the romance paradigms upon which her novel is premised (268). Nixon quotes Nancy Miller, stating that Bronte provides a commentary on female plot itself (Subject 208). Bronte ultimately calls the reader\u27s attention to the inequity of a society in which a woman must marry above her state to gain any success in life, or at least be financially independent, something that rarely if ever happened for Victorian-era women