Children\u27s experiences of companion animal maltreatment in households characterized by intimate partner violence

Cruelty toward companion animals is a well-documented, coercive tactic used by abusive partners to intimidate and control their intimate partners. Experiences of co-occurring violence are common for children living in families with intimate partner violence (IPV) and surveys show that more than half are also exposed to abuse of their pets. Given children\u27s relationships with their pets, witnessing such abuse may be traumatic for them. Yet little is known about the prevalence and significance of this issue for children. The present study examines the experiences of children in families with co-occurring pet abuse and IPV. Using qualitative methods, 58 children ages 7–12 who were exposed to IPV were asked to describe their experiences of threats to and harm of their companion animals. Following the interviews, template analysis was employed to systematically develop codes and themes. Coding reliability was assessed using Randolph\u27s free-marginal multirater kappa (kfree = .90). Five themes emerged from the qualitative data, the most common being children\u27s exposure to pet abuse as a power and control tactic against their mother in the context of IPV. Other themes were animal maltreatment to discipline or punish the pet, animal cruelty by a sibling, children intervening to prevent pet abuse, and children intervening to protect the pet during a violent episode. Results indicate that children\u27s experiences of pet abuse are multifaceted, potentially traumatic, and may involve multiple family members with diverse motives

Estudo da contribuição de um sistema de ar condicionado com distribuição de ar pelo piso para a remoção de particulados e dióxido de carbono do ar de um ambiente interno

É crescente a preocupação com a qualidade do ar em ambientes internos, dado que ela impacta na saúde e produtividade dos ocupantes. Alguns estudos relatam vantagens do sistema de ar condicionado com distribuição de ar pelo piso sobre os sistemas convencionais na remoção de poluentes do ar interior. O objetivo desta pesquisa foi verificar, experimentalmente e em condições reais de uso, a contribuição de um sistema UFAD para a remoção de particulados e CO2 do ar de uma sala de aula do Departamento de Engenharia de Construção Civil da Escola Politécnica da USP. A verificação baseou-se em medições das concentrações de partículas na zona de respiração para pessoas sentadas e na exaustão do ar simultaneamente, sob seis diferentes valores de temperatura do ar preestabelecidos para a zona ocupada. Essas concentrações permitiram o cálculo do Índice de Efetividade na Remoção de Particulado (IERP) em diversos pontos do ambiente. Análise similar foi realizada para o CO2. As baixas concentrações do Total de Partículas em Suspensão (TPS) sugerem que esse sistema não dispersa particulados no ambiente. Os IERP próximos a 1,0 para TPS e CO2 mostraram a boa contribuição desse sistema em sua remoção, sob diversas condições de operação

Transfer of Health for All policy – What, how and in which direction? A two-case study

BACKGROUND: This article explores the transfer of World Health Organization's (WHO) policy initiative Health for All by the Year 2000 (HFA2000) into national contexts by using the changes in the public health policies of Finland and Portugal from the 1970's onward and the relationship of these changes to WHO policy development as test cases. Finland and Portugal were chosen to be compared as they represent different welfare state types and as the paradigmatic transition from the old to new public health is assumed to be related to the wider welfare state development. METHODS: The policy transfer approach is used as a conceptual tool to analyze the possible policy changes related to the adaptation of HFA into the national context. To be able to analyze not only the content but also the contextual conditions of policy transfer Kingdon's analytical framework of policy analysis is applied. CONCLUSIONS: Our analysis suggests that no significant change of health promotion policy resulted from the launch of HFA program neither in Finland nor in Portugal. Instead the changes that occurred in both countries were of incremental nature, in accordance with the earlier policy choices, and the adaptation of HFA program was mainly applied to the areas where there were national traditions

Empirical study of multidimensional Child-Langmuir law with plasma ion source extraction using round apertures

One dimensional Child-Langmuir (CL) law is commonly used in ion source physics to describe space charge limited ion extraction from the plasma. Recently 2D and 3D CL laws have been derived, but plasma ion extraction does not strictly meet the assumptions in these CL laws. Investigations on the applicability of the CL laws to ion source extraction were conducted using filament-driven ion source, measuring the beam currents as a function of extraction voltage. The experiments are complemented with simulations where IBSimu is used for studying the behaviour of plasma meniscus. Three different voltage regions were identified with low, moderate and high voltage. With moderate voltages the extracted beam current density shows signs of 3D CL law. The results indicate that for the total beam current CL laws are not valid but instead require collimation for the CL effects emerge.peerReviewe