Family Histories of Mental Illness and Violence in State Patients

Background: It is known that both severe mental illness and violence have genetic components. Multiple genes play a role in the cause of violent behaviour. Violence is one of the leading causes of death for young people in South Africa and yet little is known about its prevalence in state patients and their family members. Aim: This study aimed to investigate the prevalence of violence and mental illness in the families of state patients, to what extend these coincide and to compare schizophrenia and mood psychosis in that context. Setting: The study included 60 state patients' folders, all of whom were diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, in accordance with DSM5 criteria. The subjects were divided into two groups: those who have committed violence and those who have not committed violence. Method: Patients' folders were selected by purposive sampling. These folders were then reviewed by the researcher and a questionnaire was completed. Results: Violent patients had more first-generation relatives with violent convictions (68.2%), compared to 36.4% of non-violent patients. Only 3.3% of non-violent patients witnessed domestic violence, whereas 13.3% of violent patients witnessed domestic violence. A significantly higher proportion of patients with bipolar disorder had been convicted of physical assault (p=0.035). 17.6% of violent schizophrenia patients had a family history of violence and mental illness, compared to 18.2% of violent patients with mood psychoses which is not statistically significant. Conclusion: It was found that violence runs in families and that mental illness and violence was prevalent in the described group. Of further concern was that more violent patients witnessed domestic violence compared to non-violent patients, emphasising the idea that the cause of violence is multifactorial (genetic, environmental), and that identification of not only high-risk patients but also high-risk families need to be implemented

Effects of journalism education on student engagement : a case study of a small-town scholastic press programe

Using social capital theory as the lens, this case study investigates how being part of a scholastic journalism program impacts the academic, social, and civic engagement levels of students in a small-town, rural setting by observing and interviewing journalism staff members at Canton-Galva High School in Canton, Kansas. Two journalism advisers and eight journalism students were interviewed, and observations took place during the Spring 2018 academic semester. The students were part of either the bi-weekly news magazine or the yearbook. Concepts of media literacy and pedagogical practices of the journalism advisers were also explored. Though the results cannot be generalized to encompass the experiences of students in all high school journalism programs, the study finds Canton-Galva High School students, who are experiencing increased academic engagement, fail to engage socially or civically directly as a by-product of participating in the journalism program largely due to weakness in pedagogy of the journalism courses. Students are increasing their social capital, though, by being exposed to tenets of social and civic participation.Includes bibliographical reference

The removal of nitrogen and phosphorus in anoxic-aerobic digestion of waste activated sludge from biological nutrient removal systems

Biological nutrient removal (BNR) activated sludge systems (designed and operated with an additional function of biologically removing nitrogen and phosphorus) produce a waste activated sludge (WAS) that is rich in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). When digested, this nitrogen and phosphorus are released, producing a dewatering liquor high in ammonia or nitrate and phosphate. Not only does this dewatering liquor need to be treated, but the phosphate also precipitates in the digester and surrounding pipework, resulting in loss of digester capacity and pipe blockages. This investigation studies anoxic-aerobic digestion (aerobic digestion with intermittent aeration), as an alternative digestion of BNR WAS. Aerobic digestion is simple to operate – being an extension of the activated sludge process, requiring aeration and limited recycling. This compared with anaerobic digestion which is complex to operate requiring airtight containers with fire risk, heating and much recycling. In anoxic-aerobic digestion, the nitrogen is removed by nitrification-denitrification, which has the added advantages of reducing the digester's oxygen demand and recovering some of the alkalinity lost in nitrification. Phosphate is precipitated in the digester - a convenient location. This results in a digester dewatering liquor low in nitrogen and phosphorus (<5 mgNH₄-N/l, <15 mgNO₃- N/l and 20 to 30 mgPO₄-P/l) that can be returned to the activated sludge plant without overloading it

Index Theory of One Dimensional Quantum Walks and Cellular Automata

If a one-dimensional quantum lattice system is subject to one step of a reversible discrete-time dynamics, it is intuitive that as much "quantum information” as moves into any given block of cells from the left, has to exit that block to the right. For two types of such systems — namely quantum walks and cellular automata — we make this intuition precise by defining an index, a quantity that measures the "net flow of quantum information” through the system. The index supplies a complete characterization of two properties of the discrete dynamics. First, two systems S 1, S 2 can be "pieced together”, in the sense that there is a system S which acts like S 1 in one region and like S 2 in some other region, if and only if S 1 and S 2 have the same index. Second, the index labels connected components of such systems: equality of the index is necessary and sufficient for the existence of a continuous deformation of S 1 into S 2. In the case of quantum walks, the index is integer-valued, whereas for cellular automata, it takes values in the group of positive rationals. In both cases, the map $${S \mapsto {\rm ind} S}$$ is a group homomorphism if composition of the discrete dynamics is taken as the group law of the quantum systems. Systems with trivial index are precisely those which can be realized by partitioned unitaries, and the prototypes of systems with non-trivial index are shift

The removal of N and P in aerobic and anoxic-aerobic digestion of waste activated sludge from biological nutrient removal systems

Biological nutrient removal (BNR) activated sludge (AS) systems produce a waste activated sludge (WAS) that is rich in nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P). When this sludge is thickened to 3–6% total suspended solids (TSS) and digested (aerobic or anaerobic), a high proportion of N and P are released to the bulk liquid resulting in high concentrations of ammonia/nitrate and orthophosphate up to several hundred mg/ℓ (without denitrification or P precipitation). This research investigates P removal by P precipitation in anoxic-aerobic digestion of P-rich BNR system WAS. The experimental setup for this work was a lab-scale membrane UCT BNR system fed real settled sewage with added acetate, orthophosphate, and cations Mg and K to increase biological excess P removal. This WAS was fed to batch aerobic digesters at various TSS concentrations, and to two 20-day retention time continuous anoxic-aerobic digesters (AnAerDig) with aeration cycles of 3-h air on and 3-h air off, one fed concentrated WAS (20 g TSS/ℓ ) and the other fed diluted WAS (3 g TSS/ℓ). Nitrogen removal has been discussed in the previous paper. This paper focuses on the P removal by P precipitation observed in the batch tests and continuous systems. The rate of polyphosphate release (bGP) during batch aerobic digestion at low TSS without P precipitation was found to be 2.5 times faster than the endogenous respiration rate (bG) of phosphorus accumulating organics (PAO), i.e. bGP = 0.1/d. This rate was then applied to the high-TSS aerobic batch tests and continuous anoxic-aerobic digesters to estimate the P precipitation at various TSS concentrations, with and without additional Mg or Ca dosing. Newberyite (MgHPO4·3H2O) and amorphous tricalcium phosphate (ACP or TCP, Ca3(PO4)2·xH2O) are found to be the most common phosphate precipitates.Keywords: biological excess phosphorus removal, waste activated sludge, anoxic-aerobic digestion, phosphaterelease, mineral precipitatio

The evaluation of a pedagogical-program development environment for Novice programmers : a comparative study

It is an acknowledged fact that many novice programmers experience difficulty in the process of learning to program. One of the contributing factors to this difficulty is the Program Development Environment (PDE). Professional-PDEs are those developed specifically for professional programmers, but are often used by educational institutions in the instruction of programming. It has long been accepted that such environments are inappropriate in the instruction of programming due to unnecessary complexity and lack of support for novice programmers in the learning process. Numerous pedagogical-PDEs supporting the mechanics of programming have been developed in response to this. A review of literature, however, indicates that very limited empirical studies comparing pedagogical-PDEs and professional-PDEs have been conducted. The current study investigates whether there are measurable benefits to using a pedagogical-PDE supporting the mechanics of programming in the instruction of programming instead of a professional-PDE. A comparative study of this nature requires a representative pedagogical-PDE and representative professional-PDE be compared with one another. The first part of the current study determines a set of requirements that a pedagogical- PDE should adhere to based on literature. A set of representative features for a pedagogical-PDE is derived by examining the features of existing PDEs in conjunction with the set of requirements. Based on these features, a pedagogical-PDE, known as SimplifIDE, is developed that implements the representative set of features and that meets are the requirements for a pedagogical-PDE. The second part of the current study is the specification and administration of an empirical experiment in which SimplifIDE and Borland© DelphiTM are compared with one another. A holistic approach in determining the differences between the PDEs is taken and three main areas are examined, namely academic performance, perceptions and programming behavior

Quanten-Gittersysteme mit diskreten Zeitschritten

Discrete time quantum lattice systems recently have come into the focus of quantum computation because they provide a versatile tool for many different applications and they are potentially implementable in current experimental realizations. In this thesis we study the fundamental structures of such quantum lattice systems as well as consequences of experimental imperfections. Essentially, there are two models of discrete time quantum lattice systems, namely quantum cellular automata and quantum walks, which are quantum versions of their classical counterparts, i.e., cellular automata and random walks. In both cases, the dynamics acts locally on the lattice and is usually also translationally invariant. The main difference between these structures is that quantum cellular automata can describe the dynamics of many interacting particles, where quantum walks describe the evolution of a single particle. The first part of this thesis is devoted to quantum cellular automata. We characterize one-dimensional quantum cellular automata in terms of an index theory up to local deformations. Further, we characterize in detail a subclass of quantum cellular automata by requiring that Pauli operators are mapped to Pauli operators. This structure can be understood in terms of certain classical cellular automata. The second part of this thesis is concerned with quantum walks. We identify a quantum walk with the one-particle sector of a quantum cellular automaton. We also establish an index theory for quantum walks and we discuss decoherent quantum walks, i.e., the behavior of quantum walks with experimental imperfections.Quanten-Gittersysteme haben in den letzten Jahren zunehmend an Bedeutung im Bereich des Quantenrechnens gewonnen, weil sie ein vielseitiges Instrument für unterschiedliche Anwendungen darstellen und in derzeitigen experimentellen Realisierungen potentiell implementierbar sind. Wir untersuchen in dieser Arbeit sowohl grundlegende Strukturen solcher Quanten-Gittersysteme als auch experimentelle Imperfektionen. Im wesentlichen gibt es zwei Modelle von Quanten-Gittersystemen in diskreter Zeit: Quanten-Zellularautomaten und Quanten Walks. In beiden Fällen ist die Dynamik lokal und translationsinvariant. Der Hauptunterschied besteht darin, dass Quanten-Zellularautomaten viele miteinander wechselwirkende Teilchen beschreiben können, wohingegen Quanten Walks die Zeitentwicklung eines einzelnes Teilchen darstellen. Zu beiden Modellen gibt es entsprechende klassischen Strukturen, nämlich Zellularautomaten, bzw. Random Walks. Im ersten Teil dieser Arbeit werden Quanten-Zellularautomaten behandelt. Wir charakterisieren eindimensionale Automaten mithilfe einer Index Theorie bis auf lokale Deformation. Außerdem untersuchen wir im Detail die Struktur einer Unterklasse von Quanten-Zellularautomaten, die dadurch festgelegt ist, dass Pauli Operatoren auf Pauli Operatoren abgebildet werden. Wir zeigen, dass sich solche Automaten durch spezielle klassische Zellularautomaten verstehen lassen. Im zweiten Teil dieser Arbeit behandeln wir Quanten Walks, welche wir mit Ein-Teilchen-Sektoren von Quanten-Zellularautomaten identifizieren. Wir führen ebenso eine Index Theorie für Quanten Walks ein und wir diskutieren dekohärente Quanten Walks, d.h., das Verhalten von Quanten Walks mit experimentellen Imperfektionen

What’s right (leaning) with Kansas media: The cultivation of misinformation in rural America

Doctor of PhilosophyDepartment of Journalism and Mass CommunicationsMajor Professor Not ListedMisinformation and disinformation have shown the potential to fertilize distrust in the news (Kalogeropoulos et al., 2019; Karlsen & Aalberg, 2021; Swart & Broersma, 2022), which can allow democracy-damaging polarization to grow within the United States. This polarization often takes root due to the erosion of reliable information that can be exacerbated by confirmation bias that may cultivate filter bubbles and echo chambers (Flaxman et al., 2016; Lee et al., 2021; Nechushtai & Lewis, 2019; Pearson & Knobloch-Westerwick, 2019). In many cases, politically motivated individuals and media outlets plant these seeds of misinformation and disinformation intentionally, leaving members of society to graze on the subsequent silage of content. If it lacks nutrients, this information constructs a skewed perception of society. This weakens the social capital bonds that germinate a functioning democracy, which sprouts from reliable and public knowledge (Belair-Gagnon et al., 2019; Lewis et al., 2014; Putnam, 2001). In order to prune misinformation and disinformation from the fields of democracy that are irrigated by journalism’s flow of truth, the pathways to news that individuals take and lead them to the invasive species of information must be considered. This risk is particularly important as it relates to the news consumption habits of rural Americans, who largely live and work in agrarian communities and exist as an important voting block as was evident in the 2016 election of President Donald Trump and the controversy surrounding the outcome of the 2020 election. However, most current research does not examine this group in specific focus or simply largely ignores this swath of the United States population as just “fly-over” country. Thus, with the purpose of filling a crucial gap in the literature, this study investigated the pathways to news for individuals living and working in rural areas of the country, specifically rural Kansas. As the investigative focal point, rural Kansas provides a vital case study to explore how rural citizens come to believe in, and potentially further spread misinformation and disinformation, including conspiracy theories spread by partisan media outlets that include, but are not limited to, talk radio, cable television, and social media. Through the implementation of interviews and an online survey that collected data from these individuals, this dissertation reports how individuals in rural Kansas access and use news in ways that stimulate political division and set the stage for polarization to flourish (Bail et al., 2018; Darr et al., 2021; Gaultney et al., 2022; Talisse, 2021), which can lead to a bruised and battered democracy. This method of inquiry sprouts from the social constructionism perspective of reality. This dissertation thereby positions the media effects theories of Cultivation Theory (CT), Uses and Gratifications Theory (U&G), and Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT) as the optimal lenses through which to examine the pervasive problem of misinformation and disinformation by seeking the root cause of this noxious information’s spread. To that end, this study found that social media and news websites, television, and radio are the primary pathways to news for rural Kansans. The bulk of the content being consumed via these media comes from national and partisan sources, and, in many cases, it consists of opinion-based material. Driven by the state’s strong religious alignment (Wuthnow, 2012) and predominantly conservative political stance (Kansas Secretary of State, 2023), the media messages align with the previously held beliefs of the residents, even if the information is inaccurate. This leads to those beliefs becoming more entrenched, and the misinformation and disinformation spreads when individuals discuss the news with their peers. The fact that individuals do not recognize inaccurate or false information for what it is indicates a deficiency in terms of media literacy skills. Such a finding was made even more evident by several participants expressing their deeply held beliefs in various conspiracy theories. Compounding this issue is the pervasive lack of trust in the media reported by the respondents. In most cases, individuals said they have little to no trust that they are receiving accurate and complete information from news outlets. This was particularly true in terms of national outlets, and although confidence still wasn’t high, local news was found to be more trustworthy. Still, the overall results suggested that rural Kansans desire more reliable news and information, especially at the local level. Individuals indicated they believed journalism was important for society, and this was even more true locally because study participants suggested engaging socially and politically at that level proved to be more impactful than at the national level. Therefore, the implications of this study are multifaceted. First, misinformation and disinformation are being cultivated in rural Kansas because of the residents’ media consumption homogeneity. Also, media literacy skills need to be improved, which can be achieved through educational initiatives. Furthermore, rural Kansans need to be given better news options, and a primary way to achieve this is to improve local news and access to local news across modalities

On the structure of Clifford quantum cellular automata

We study reversible quantum cellular automata with the restriction that these are also Clifford operations. This means that tensor products of Pauli operators (or discrete Weyl operators) are mapped to tensor products of Pauli operators. Therefore Clifford quantum cellular automata are induced by symplectic cellular automata in phase space. We characterize these symplectic cellular automata and find that all possible local rules must be, up to some global shift, reflection invariant with respect to the origin. In the one dimensional case we also find that every uniquely determined and translationally invariant stabilizer state can be prepared from a product state by a single Clifford cellular automaton timestep, thereby characterizing these class of stabilizer states, and we show that all 1D Clifford quantum cellular automata are generated by a few elementary operations. We also show that the correspondence between translationally invariant stabilizer states and translationally invariant Clifford operations holds for periodic boundary conditions.Comment: 28 pages, 2 figures, LaTe