Why do adolescents self-harm? An investigation of motives in a community sample

Given the high rates of self-harm among adolescents, recent research has focussed on a better understanding of the motives for the behaviour. The present study had three aims: to investigate (i) which motives are most frequently endorsed by adolescents who report self-harm; (ii) whether motives reported at baseline predict repetition of self-harm over a 6 month period; and (iii) whether self- harm motives differ between boys and girls. 987 school pupils aged 14-16 years completed a lifestyle and coping questionnaire at two time points 6 months apart that recorded self-harm and the associated motives. The motive "to get relief from a terrible state of mind" was the most commonly endorsed reason for self-harm (in boys and girls). Interpersonal reasons (e.g. "to frighten someone") were least commonly endorsed. Regression analyses showed that adolescents who endorsed "wanting to get relief from a terrible state of mind" at baseline were significantly more likely to repeat self-harm at follow-up than those adolescents who did not cite this motive. The results highlight the complex nature of self-harm. They have implications for mental health provision in educational settings, especially in relation to encouraging regulation of emotions and help-seeking

Identifying Shear Buckling Coefficients for Channels with Rectangular Web Stiffeners using the Generalised cFSM

The Direct Strength Method (DSM) of design for cold-formed sections was recently extended in the North American Specification for Cold-Formed Steel Structural Members (NAS S100:2012) to include members in shear. The method has largely been developed on the basis of work done on lipped channel sections. To utilise the method requires the critical shear buckling load of the section, which may be determined from a minimum point on the signature curve for the section in pure shear. However when longitudinal web stiffeners are added to the channel a minimum may not exist, or may occur at half-wavelengths where the critical buckling mode is localised in the individual vertical portions of the web rather than involving the full web as an essentially continuous element, as occurs for a plain lipped channel in local shear buckling. This paper explores the application of the recently-developed generalised constrained finite strip method (cFSM) to determine critical shear buckling loads for lipped channels with rectangular web stiffeners, from which shear buckling coefficients may be back-calculated. The addition of the stiffener leads to new distortional modes, deemed web-distortional modes, that play an important role in the buckling behaviour of web-stiffened channels at half-wavelengths where buckling involves deformations of the web as a continuous element. Using the cFSM, combinations of pure local modes and the web-distortional modes are considered to produce modal solutions. These modal solutions always give a minimum regardless of section and these minima are used to identify critical buckling half-wavelengths. The critical shear buckling loads are then taken as those at the same half-wavelengths on the corresponding traditional FSM signature curves for the sections. The proposed method is appropriate for sections with small stiffeners, as are used in practice

The medical elective: A unique educational opportunity

No Abstract

The Interest Ecology of Financial Regulation: Interest Group Plurality in the Design of Financial Regulatory Policies

Existing literature has offered a variety of claims regarding why financial regulatory politics features a relative dominance of the regulated financial industry. In this article we explore the broader interest group environment in which financial industry advocacy operates. Using new data on interest group participation in financial regulatory consultations, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of the ecology of interest groups that populate financial regulatory policymaking. Through a new measure of ‘mobilized dissent’ we find evidence that the level of interest group pluralism in financial regulatory policymaking is constrained by the limited mobilization of voices outside of the business community. We analyze how mobilized dissent toward the regulated financial industry changes in response to different institutional environments. While technical complexity, institutional context, and the global financial crisis are found to impact the level of mobilized dissent, the impact of these environmental conditions varies across different groups. This analysis reveals not only that organized opposition to the financial industry is relatively weak but also that it is relatively disjointed

Biomechanical, ultrastructural, and electrophysiological characterization of the non-human primate experimental glaucoma model.

Laser-induced experimental glaucoma (ExGl) in non-human primates (NHPs) is a common animal model for ocular drug development. While many features of human hypertensive glaucoma are replicated in this model, structural and functional changes in the unlasered portions of trabecular meshwork (TM) of laser-treated primate eyes are understudied. We studied NHPs with ExGl of several years duration. As expected, ExGl eyes exhibited selective reductions of the retinal nerve fiber layer that correlate with electrophysiologic measures documenting a link between morphologic and elctrophysiologic endpoints. Softening of unlasered TM in ExGl eyes compared to untreated controls was observed. The degree of TM softening was consistent, regardless of pre-mortem clinical findings including severity of IOP elevation, retinal nerve fiber layer thinning, or electrodiagnostic findings. Importantly, this softening is contrary to TM stiffening reported in glaucomatous human eyes. Furthermore, microscopic analysis of unlasered TM from eyes with ExGl demonstrated TM thinning with collapse of Schlemm's canal; and proteomic analysis confirmed downregulation of metabolic and structural proteins. These data demonstrate unexpected and compensatory changes involving the TM in the NHP model of ExGl. The data suggest that compensatory mechanisms exist in normal animals and respond to elevated IOP through softening of the meshwork to increase outflow

Effect of heating rate on gas emissions and properties of fired clay bricks and fired clay bricks incorporated with cigarette butts

In general, the firing process of clay bricks generates a range of gas emissions into the atmosphere. At high concentrations, these volatile emissions can be a serious source of environmental pollutions. The main purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different heating rates on gas emissions and properties during the firing of clay bricks and clay bricks incorporated with cigarette butts (CBs). In this investigation, four different heating rates were used: 0.7 °C min−1−1, 2 °C min−1, 5 °C min−1 and 10 °C min. The samples were fired in solid form from room temperature to 1050 °C. During the firing cycles, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides,hydrogen cyanide and chlorine emissions were measured at different heating rates. All bricks were also tested for their physical and mechanical properties including dry density, compressive strength, tensile strength, water absorption and initial rate of absorption. Results show that gas emissions were reduced significantly with higher heating rates (10 °C min) followed by 5 °C min−1−1 and 2 °C min for both types of brick samples. Higher heating rates also decrease the compressive strength and tensile strength value but demonstrate an insignificant effect on the water absorption properties respectively. In conclusion, a higher heating rate is preferable in terms of decreasing gas emissions and it is also able to produce adequate physical and mechanical properties especially for the CB brick

The influence of reaction conditions on the oxidation of cyclohexane via the in-situ production of H2O2

The oxidation of cyclohexane via the in-situ production of H2O2 from molecular H2 and O2 offers an attractive route to the current industrial means of producing cyclohexanone and cyclohexanol (KA oil), both key materials in the production of Nylon. Herein we demonstrate that through the in-situ production of H2O2 supported AuPd nanoparticles catalyse the formation of KA oil under conditions where activity is limited when using molecular O2, with no loss in catalytic activity observed upon re-use. The effect of key reaction parameters, including reaction temperature, catalyst mass and H2:O2 ratio are evaluated

Superconductors with Magnetic Impurities: Instantons and Sub-gap States

When subject to a weak magnetic impurity potential, the order parameter and quasi-particle energy gap of a bulk singlet superconductor are suppressed. According to the conventional mean-field theory of Abrikosov and Gor'kov, the integrity of the energy gap is maintained up to a critical concentration of magnetic impurities. In this paper, a field theoretic approach is developed to critically analyze the validity of the mean field theory. Using the supersymmetry technique we find a spatially homogeneous saddle-point that reproduces the Abrikosov-Gor'kov theory, and identify instanton contributions to the density of states that render the quasi-particle energy gap soft at any non-zero magnetic impurity concentration. The sub-gap states are associated with supersymmetry broken field configurations of the action. An analysis of fluctuations around these configurations shows how the underlying supersymmetry of the action is restored by zero modes. An estimate of the density of states is given for all dimensionalities. To illustrate the universality of the present scheme we apply the same method to study `gap fluctuations' in a normal quantum dot coupled to a superconducting terminal. Using the same instanton approach, we recover the universal result recently proposed by Vavilov et al. Finally, we emphasize the universality of the present scheme for the description of gap fluctuations in d-dimensional superconducting/normal structures.Comment: 18 pages, 9 eps figure

Creation of gap solitons in Bose-Einstein condensates

We discuss a method to launch gap soliton-like structures in atomic Bose-Einstein condensates confined in optical traps. Bright vector solitons consisting of a superposition of two hyperfine Zeeman sublevels can be created for both attractive and repulsive interactions between the atoms. Their formation relies on the dynamics of the atomic internal ground states in two far-off resonant counterpropagating sigma^+ sigma^- polarized laser beams which form the optical trap. Numerical simulations show that these solitons can be prepared from a one-component state provided with an initial velocity.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure