Liberian links: the role of the international community in rebuilding Liberia

This is the archive of a speech given by President Perry of Liberia, APC's 2nd President in Residence, on March 4, 2004

Living in a context of new knowledge : an exploration of the experience of young adults transitioning from cancer patient to survivor

This is a qualitative study exploring the experience of young adults diagnosed with cancer as they transition from active treatment to full-time survivorship. The question on which this study is based is: What was this transition like logistically, emotionally, and relationally for those who have gone through it, in particular for young adults? This study was undertaken to identify if this was a significant transition and what support is needed through the process; implications for social work practice are included. One-on-one interviews were conducted with twelve participants who were between the ages of 18 and 35, within two years of having finished treatment for cancer (chemotherapy, radiation, and/or surgery) and in remission. Questions were asked regarding the participants\u27 experience of ending treatment, how this has affected them and their relationships, which aspects were most difficult, and where support would have been useful. Interviews were recorded, transcribed and then systematically organized into themes and sub-themes using the method of grounded theory. The research finds the ending of treatment to be a significant transition. Participants reported unanticipated consequences of the ending of treatment, including strong emotions, fear of recurrence, continued physical effects, and difficulty integrating their experience. Participants suggested the utility of having support prior to and through this transition to normalize and ease the process

Building integral projection models with non-independent vital rates

Population dynamics are functions of several demographic processes including survival, reproduction, somatic growth, and maturation. The rates or probabilities for these processes can vary by time, by location, and by individual. These processes can co‐vary and interact to varying degrees, e.g., an animal can only reproduce when it is in a particular maturation state. Population dynamics models that treat the processes as independent may yield somewhat biased or imprecise parameter estimates, as well as predictions of population abundances or densities. However, commonly used integral projection models (IPMs) typically assume independence across these demographic processes. We examine several approaches for modelling between process dependence in IPMs and include cases where the processes co‐vary as a function of time (temporal variation), co‐vary within each individual (individual heterogeneity), and combinations of these (temporal variation and individual heterogeneity). We compare our methods to conventional IPMs, which treat vital rates independent, using simulations and a case study of Soay sheep (Ovis aries). In particular, our results indicate that correlation between vital rates can moderately affect variability of some population‐level statistics. Therefore, including such dependent structures is generally advisable when fitting IPMs to ascertain whether or not such between vital rate dependencies exist, which in turn can have subsequent impact on population management or life‐history evolution

A systematic review of selected interventions to reduce juvenile re-offending. Technical Report.

What do we want to know? Persistent juvenile re-offending remains an area of concern for public policy, due to the social, economic and health impacts of such offending on victims and offenders. A large proportion of criminal offences are committed by repeat offenders. The broad purpose of this systematic review was to review the research evidence on a selected range of interventions to reduce re-offending by juveniles to try and identify more effective interventions. What did we find and what are the implications? When compared to standard diversion (caution and monitoring) there was consistent evidence of reductions in re-offending from the following intervention: Pre-sentencing diversion with personal skills training and reparation The intervention included: - personal skills training/ counselling about anger management, personal responsibility and decision making. - some form of reparation to the community/ victim of crime. - family involvement. When compared to standard residential placement there was consistent evidence of reductions in re-offending from the following intervention: • Community based family residential placement for female juvenile offenders The intervention included: - residential placement for six months to a year in small group supportive ‘family type’ environment. - personal skills training/counselling which is about anger management, personal responsibility and decision making. - monitoring and use of appropriate incentives and sanctions. Promising effects The following interventions were classified as having promising positive effects with limited or inconsistent evidence: • ‘Teen Courts’ compared to other diversion • Community based family residential placements compared to standard residential placements for male juvenile offenders Insufficient evidence There was insufficient evidence identified to assess the impact of the following interventions: • Secure incarceration compared to community sentence • Psycho-dynamic counselling compared to normal court interventions • Pre-sentence diversions compared to court community sentence • Multi-component diversion for persistent offenders (comparison not clear) • Multi-component diversion for mixed groups of offence severity (comparison not clear) • Supported transition from secure incarceration to community compared to no or limited support • Probation plus sports counselling compared to probation only • Violence re-education programme compared to court imposed community service What are the implications? The results suggest that those interventions where there is consistent evidence of beneficial effect could be priorities for possible implementation accompanied by rigorous evaluation in the UK context as the evidence on the effects of this intervention in this review all came from the USA. The ‘promising’ interventions could be considered priorities for further rigorous evaluation. How did we get these results? The review was undertaken in a number of stages. The first stage consisted of identifying all studies that met the review inclusion criteria published between 1998 and 2007. Descriptive information about these studies was collected and used as a ‘map’ of research in the field of interventions to reduce juvenile re-offending. At this point there were 94 studies included the map. A further round of coding was undertaken to help identify sub-groups of studies. The results of this coding were discussed with the steering group and a decision was made at that point to focus on a number of subgroups for the in-depth review. At this stage detailed data extraction was undertaken to assess the quality of the studies and facilitate synthesis of the findings of the selected studies in order to provide answers to the review questions

Isoscattering Schottky Manifolds

The authors exhibit pairs of infinite-volume, hyperbolic three-manifolds that have the same scattering poles and conformally equivalent boundaries, but which are not isometric. The examples are constructed using Schottky groups and the Sunada construction.Comment: 14 pages, PDF file. to appear, G.A.F.