4,275 research outputs found
Investigating the Forensic Interviewing of Children: Multiple Interviews and Social Support
Despite a burgeoning literature on the most effective ways to interview child
victims/witnesses and resulting changes in interviewing guidelines in the UK, many
childrenâs cases still do not progress to court. The present thesis focuses on two underresearched
aspects of interviewing that have the potential to improve childrenâs
informativeness and their willingness to support case progression; namely, multiple
interviews and social support. Multiple interviewing entails formally interviewing a child
more than once about an alleged event. Social support involves building rapport with a
child to ease their anxieties about the interview. These techniques were addressed in four
studies. The first comprised a survey of police officers and ascertained their opinions
about and use of multiple interviews and social support. Officers reported conducting
child interviews in a supportive manner. Their opinions of multiple interviewing were
cautiously positive, including concerns over causing further distress to a child interviewee
and the possibility that children might provide inconsistent details. The following studies
addressed these risks. The second study analysed interviewer and interviewee behaviours
in a real life sample of multiple interview transcripts. The findings showed first, second,
and third interviews to be conducted similarly in terms of the amount of support provided,
and question types used. Children also provided many new details in second and third
interviews, and very few contradictions of their previous testimony. The third study
comprised an experiment examining the current UK police guidelinesâ rapport-building
phase in multiple interviews with children. Again, children provided many new details
and few contradictions in multiple interviews, but there were no significant differences
between the recall and well-being of children who had and had not experienced rapportbuilding.
The final study examined how multiple interviewing and viewing the rapportbuilding
phase of an interview affected mock-jurorsâ perceptions of a child witness, the
interview, and the case. Multiple interviews resulted in more positive views of the child,
whereas viewing the rapport-building led to more negative ones. Based on the previous
chaptersâ positive findings regarding multiple interviewing, and some recent calls for the
guidelines to be relaxed regarding the contexts in which multiple interviewing should be
encouraged, a Study Space Analysis was conducted. However, this revealed that the
literature is not yet sufficient for policy change to be enacted. In conclusion, multiple
interviewing shows potential to be an effective way of obtaining additional, accurate information from children, but an alternative, more effective technique for building
rapport with, and providing social support to children may need to be developed
On p-adic lattices and Grassmannians
It is well-known that the coset spaces G(k((z)))/G(k[[z]]), for a reductive
group G over a field k, carry the geometric structure of an inductive limit of
projective k-schemes. This k-ind-scheme is known as the affine Grassmannian for
G. From the point of view of number theory it would be interesting to obtain an
analogous geometric interpretation of quotients of the form
G(W(k)[1/p])/G(W(k)), where p is a rational prime, W denotes the ring scheme of
p-typical Witt vectors, k is a perfect field of characteristic p and G is a
reductive group scheme over W(k). The present paper is an attempt to describe
which constructions carry over from the function field case to the p-adic case,
more precisely to the situation of the p-adic affine Grassmannian for the
special linear group G=SL_n. We start with a description of the R-valued points
of the p-adic affine Grassmannian for SL_n in terms of lattices over W(R),
where R is a perfect k-algebra. In order to obtain a link with geometry we
further construct projective k-subvarieties of the multigraded Hilbert scheme
which map equivariantly to the p-adic affine Grassmannian. The images of these
morphisms play the role of Schubert varieties in the p-adic setting. Further,
for any reduced k-algebra R these morphisms induce bijective maps between the
sets of R-valued points of the respective open orbits in the multigraded
Hilbert scheme and the corresponding Schubert cells of the p-adic affine
Grassmannian for SL_n.Comment: 36 pages. This is a thorough revision, in the form accepted by Math.
Zeitschrift, of the previously published preprint "On p-adic loop groups and
Grassmannians
Improved Quantitative Plant Proteomics via the Combination of Targeted and Untargeted Data Acquisition.
Quantitative proteomics strategies - which are playing important roles in the expanding field of plant molecular systems biology - are traditionally designated as either hypothesis driven or non-hypothesis driven. Many of these strategies aim to select individual peptide ions for tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS), and to do this mixed hypothesis driven and non-hypothesis driven approaches are theoretically simple to implement. In-depth investigations into the efficacies of such approaches have, however, yet to be described. In this study, using combined samples of unlabeled and metabolically (15)N-labeled Arabidopsis thaliana proteins, we investigate the mixed use of targeted data acquisition (TDA) and data dependent acquisition (DDA) - referred to as TDA/DDA - to facilitate both hypothesis driven and non-hypothesis driven quantitative data collection in individual LC-MS/MS experiments. To investigate TDA/DDA for hypothesis driven data collection, 7 miRNA target proteins of differing size and abundance were targeted using inclusion lists comprised of 1558 m/z values, using 3 different TDA/DDA experimental designs. In samples in which targeted peptide ions were of particularly low abundance (i.e., predominantly only marginally above mass analyser detection limits), TDA/DDA produced statistically significant increases in the number of targeted peptides identified (230 ± 8 versus 80 ± 3 for DDA; p = 1.1 à 10(-3)) and quantified (35 ± 3 versus 21 ± 2 for DDA; p = 0.038) per experiment relative to the use of DDA only. These expected improvements in hypothesis driven data collection were observed alongside unexpected improvements in non-hypothesis driven data collection. Untargeted peptide ions with m/z values matching those in inclusion lists were repeatedly identified and quantified across technical replicate TDA/DDA experiments, resulting in significant increases in the percentages of proteins repeatedly quantified in TDA/DDA experiments only relative to DDA experiments only (33.0 ± 2.6% versus 8.0 ± 2.7%, respectively; p = 0.011). These results were observed together with uncompromised broad-scale MS/MS data collection in TDA/DDA experiments relative to DDA experiments. Using our observations we provide guidelines for TDA/DDA method design for quantitative plant proteomics studies, and suggest that TDA/DDA is a broadly underutilized proteomics data acquisition strategy
Pure Anderson Motives and Abelian \tau-Sheaves
Pure t-motives were introduced by G. Anderson as higher dimensional
generalizations of Drinfeld modules, and as the appropriate analogs of abelian
varieties in the arithmetic of function fields. In order to construct moduli
spaces for pure t-motives the second author has previously introduced the
concept of abelian \tau-sheaf. In this article we clarify the relation between
pure t-motives and abelian \tau-sheaves. We obtain an equivalence of the
respective quasi-isogeny categories. Furthermore, we develop the elementary
theory of both structures regarding morphisms, isogenies, Tate modules, and
local shtukas. The later are the analogs of p-divisible groups.Comment: final version as it appears in Mathematische Zeitschrif
The third International Workshop on Aedes albopictus: building scientific alliances in the fight against the globally invasive Asian tiger mosquito
Convergent evolution of venom gland transcriptomes across Metazoa.
Animals have repeatedly evolved specialized organs and anatomical structures to produce and deliver a mixture of potent bioactive molecules to subdue prey or predators-venom. This makes it one of the most widespread, convergent functions in the animal kingdom. Whether animals have adopted the same genetic toolkit to evolved venom systems is a fascinating question that still eludes us. Here, we performed a comparative analysis of venom gland transcriptomes from 20 venomous species spanning the main Metazoan lineages to test whether different animals have independently adopted similar molecular mechanisms to perform the same function. We found a strong convergence in gene expression profiles, with venom glands being more similar to each other than to any other tissue from the same species, and their differences closely mirroring the species phylogeny. Although venom glands secrete some of the fastest evolving molecules (toxins), their gene expression does not evolve faster than evolutionarily older tissues. We found 15 venom gland-specific gene modules enriched in endoplasmic reticulum stress and unfolded protein response pathways, indicating that animals have independently adopted stress response mechanisms to cope with mass production of toxins. This, in turn, activates regulatory networks for epithelial development, cell turnover, and maintenance, which seem composed of both convergent and lineage-specific factors, possibly reflecting the different developmental origins of venom glands. This study represents a first step toward an understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying the repeated evolution of one of the most successful adaptive traits in the animal kingdom
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Extracellular Matrix Molecules Facilitating Vascular Biointegration
All vascular implants, including stents, heart valves and graft materials exhibit suboptimal biocompatibility that significantly reduces their clinical efficacy. A range of biomolecules in the subendothelial space have been shown to play critical roles in local regulation of thrombosis, endothelial growth and smooth muscle cell proliferation, making these attractive candidates for modulation of vascular device biointegration. However, classically used biomaterial coatings, such as fibronectin and laminin, modulate only one of these components; enhancing endothelial cell attachment, but also activating platelets and triggering thrombosis. This review examines a subset of extracellular matrix molecules that have demonstrated multi-faceted vascular compatibility and accordingly are promising candidates to improve the biointegration of vascular biomaterials
An investigation of the relationship between mental imagery and written recall in the eighth grade
Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit
The valuation of European financial firms
We extend the recent literature concerning accounting based valuation models to investigate financial firms from six European countries with substantial financial sectors: France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Switzerland and the UK. Not only are these crucial industries worthy of study in their own right, but unusual accounting practices, and inter-country differences in those accounting practices, provide valuable insights into the accounting-value relationship. Our sample consists of 7,714 financial firm/years observations from 1,140 companies drawn from 1989-2000. Sub-samples include 1,309 firm/years for banks, 650 for insurance companies, 1,705 for real estate firms, and 3,239 for investment companies. In most countries we find that the valuation models work as well or better in explaining cross-sectional variations in the market-to-book ratio for financial firms as they do for industrial and commercial firms in the same countries, although Switzerland is an exception to this generalization. As expected, the results are sensitive to industrial differences, accounting regulation and accounting practices. In particular, marking assets to market value reduces the relevance of earnings figures and increases that of equity
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