Online sex offending: approaches to assessment and intervention [introduction to the special issue]

Sexual offending against children has been an issue of major public and scientific concern over the last 50 years, and strategies and methods for managing risk and treating such offenders have gradually been developed and utilised across the world . Whilst there has been a marked and consistent decline in child sexual abuse over the last 20 years, the production and online accessing of Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) – in visual and written form – has dramatically increased in parallel with the growth and accessibility of the Internet (e.g. Kloess, Beech, & Harkins, 2014). Further worrying developments include children being abused live online and the online grooming of children for contact sexual abuse

Strength-based approaches to online child sexual abuse: Using self-management strategies to enhance desistance behaviour in users of child sexual exploitation material

© 2017, © Emerald Publishing Limited. Purpose: Increasing numbers of convictions for the use of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) call for enhanced measures to prevent this type of offending. Strength-based approaches such as the good lives model have made significant contributions to the management of offenders who have sexually abused against children. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach: The present study explored the application of these models to the rehabilitation and desistance behaviour of CSEM users, based on a thematic analysis of the self-managed desistance strategies employed by 26 offenders. Findings: The findings confirmed the value of strength-based approaches in understanding self-management strategies used to enhance desistance behaviour in CSEM users. Research limitations/implications: The empirical and theoretical findings were then combined into a conceptual framework aimed to enhance preventative efforts and interventions targeted at undetected CSEM users. Originality/value: This paper provides the first conceptual and empirical model of prevention and desistance behaviour specific to CSEM offending

Unstable neurons underlie a stable learned behavior

Motor skills can be maintained for decades, but the biological basis of this memory persistence remains largely unknown. The zebra finch, for example, sings a highly stereotyped song that is stable for years, but it is not known whether the precise neural patterns underlying song are stable or shift from day to day. Here we demonstrate that the population of projection neurons coding for song in the premotor nucleus, HVC, change from day to day. The most dramatic shifts occur over intervals of sleep. In contrast to the transient participation of excitatory neurons, ensemble measurements dominated by inhibition persist unchanged even after damage to downstream motor nerves. These observations offer a principle of motor stability: spatiotemporal patterns of inhibition can maintain a stable scaffold for motor dynamics while the population of principal neurons that directly drive behavior shift from one day to the next

Development of a case formulation model for individuals who have viewed, distributed, and/or shared child sexual exploitation material

Increases in the number of arrests of individuals who download or distribute Child Sexual Exploitation Material (CSEM) have highlighted a need to further understand the offending pathways of this offender group. This article describes the development of an aetiological model specific to CSEM offending. Individuals who had viewed, distributed and/or shared CSEM (n = 20) were interviewed regarding their life and sexual history, relationships, substance use, offending details, and circumstances leading to their CSEM offending, resulting in seven superordinate themes: Developmental Context, Individual Propensities (risk-related and risk-protective) and Psychological Vulnerabilities, Personal Circumstances, Permission-Giving Thoughts, Internet Environment and Behaviour, Evaluation of Consequences for the Individual, and Desistance. These themes were combined into a case formulation tool specific for CSEM offending behaviour, with the aim of providing systematic guidance for assessment and treatment providers

Lying in Wait: The Resurgence of Dengue Virus After the Zika Epidemic in Brazil

After the Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic in the Americas in 2016, both Zika and dengue incidence declined to record lows in many countries in 2017-2018, but in 2019 dengue resurged in Brazil, causing ~2.1 million cases. In this study we use epidemiological, climatological and genomic data to investigate dengue dynamics in recent years in Brazil. First, we estimate dengue virus force of infection (FOI) and model mosquito-borne transmission suitability since the early 2000s. Our estimates reveal that DENV transmission was low in 2017-2018, despite conditions being suitable for viral spread. Our study also shows a marked decline in dengue susceptibility between 2002 and 2019, which could explain the synchronous decline of dengue in the country, partially as a result of protective immunity from prior ZIKV and/or DENV infections. Furthermore, we performed phylogeographic analyses using 69 newly sequenced genomes of dengue virus serotype 1 and 2 from Brazil, and found that the outbreaks in 2018-2019 were caused by local DENV lineages that persisted for 5-10 years, circulating cryptically before and after the Zika epidemic. We hypothesize that DENV lineages may circulate at low transmission levels for many years, until local conditions are suitable for higher transmission, when they cause major outbreaks

The state of the Martian climate

60°N was +2.0°C, relative to the 1981–2010 average value (Fig. 5.1). This marks a new high for the record. The average annual surface air temperature (SAT) anomaly for 2016 for land stations north of starting in 1900, and is a significant increase over the previous highest value of +1.2°C, which was observed in 2007, 2011, and 2015. Average global annual temperatures also showed record values in 2015 and 2016. Currently, the Arctic is warming at more than twice the rate of lower latitudes

Functional Clustering Drives Encoding Improvement in a Developing Brain Network during Awake Visual Learning

Sensory experience drives dramatic structural and functional plasticity in developing neurons. However, for single-neuron plasticity to optimally improve whole-network encoding of sensory information, changes must be coordinated between neurons to ensure a full range of stimuli is efficiently represented. Using two-photon calcium imaging to monitor evoked activity in over 100 neurons simultaneously, we investigate network-level changes in the developing Xenopus laevis tectum during visual training with motion stimuli. Training causes stimulus-specific changes in neuronal responses and interactions, resulting in improved population encoding. This plasticity is spatially structured, increasing tuning curve similarity and interactions among nearby neurons, and decreasing interactions among distant neurons. Training does not improve encoding by single clusters of similarly responding neurons, but improves encoding across clusters, indicating coordinated plasticity across the network. NMDA receptor blockade prevents coordinated plasticity, reduces clustering, and abolishes whole-network encoding improvement. We conclude that NMDA receptors support experience-dependent network self-organization, allowing efficient population coding of a diverse range of stimuli.Canadian Institutes of Health Researc

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Demographic correlates of attenuated positive psychotic symptoms

It is now well established that the utilization of standardized clinical criteria can enhance prediction of psychosis. These criteria are primarily concerned with the presence and severity of attenuated positive symptoms. Because these symptom criteria are used to derive algorithms for designating clinical high risk (CHR) status and for maximizing prediction of psychosis risk, it is important to know whether the symptom ratings vary as a function of demographic factors that have previously been linked with symptoms in diagnosed psychotic patients. Using a sample of 356 CHR individuals from the NAPLS-II multi-site study, we examined the relation of three sex, age, and educational level, with the severity of attenuated positive symptom scores from the Scale of Prodromal Symptoms (SOPS). Demographic factors accounted for little of the variance in symptom ratings (5–6%). Older CHR individuals manifested more severe suspiciousness, and female CHR participants reported more unusual perceptual experiences than male participants. Contrary to prediction, higher educational level was associated with more severe ratings of unusual thought content, but less severe perceptual abnormalities. Overall, sex, age and education were modestly related to unusual thought content and perceptual abnormalities, only, suggesting minimal implication for designating CHR status and predicting psychosis-risk