What works with children and young people involved in crime

This review was commissioned by Audit Scotland in 2002 to examine the evidence on 'what works?' as it applies to children and young people involved in offending in Scotland. The first part of the paper provides a brief overview of research on factors associated with criminal behaviour in children and young people before considering research on effective intervention and change. The second paper provides an annotated summary of recent Scottish research in this field. Research tends to focus on individual change within a youth or criminal justice context. While responses to crime require to be informed by what seems to be effective in reducing criminal activity, they must, equally, be informed by our knowledge of the personal and social factors associated with criminal activity, by the nature of youth crime itself and by those important ingredients which assist young people sustain change over time and desist from offending. Factors associated with positive outcomes for children and young people cannot be considered separately from opportunities for social participation and social inclusion which are more difficult to document and measure

A new fitting-function to describe the time evolution of a galaxy's gravitational potential

We present a new simple functional form to model the evolution of a spherical mass distribution in a cosmological context. Two parameters control the growth of the system and this is modelled using a redshift dependent exponential for the scale mass and scale radius. In this new model, systems form inside out and the mass of a given shell can be made to never decrease, as generally expected. This feature makes it more suitable for studying the smooth growth of galactic potentials or cosmological halos than other parametrizations often used in the literature. This is further confirmed through a comparison to the growth of dark matter halos in the Aquarius simulations.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; example figures replaced by their correct versions. Accepted for publication in A&

The evolution of streams in a time-dependent potential

We study the evolution of streams in a time-dependent spherical gravitational potential. Our goal is to establish what are the imprints of this time evolution on the properties of streams as well as their observability. To this end, we have performed a suite of numerical experiments for a host system that doubles its mass during the integration time and for a variety of initial conditions. In these experiments we found that the most striking imprint is a misalignment of 10 degrees in the angular location of the apocentres of the streams compared to the static case (and to the orbit of the centre of mass), which only becomes apparent for sufficiently long streams. We have also developed an analytic model using action-angle variables which allows us to explain this behaviour and to identify the most important signature of time evolution, namely a difference in the slope defined by the distribution of particles along a stream in frequency and in angle space. Although a difference in slope can arise when the present-day potential is not correctly modelled, this shortcoming can be by-passed because in this case, streams are no longer straight lines in angle space, but depict a wiggly appearance and an implausible energy gradient. The difference in slope due to time-evolution is small, typically $\sim10^{-2}$ and its amplitude depends on the growth rate of the potential, but nonetheless we find that it could be observable if accurate full-space information for nearby long streams is available.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

On the behaviour of streams in angle and frequency spaces in different potentials

We have studied the behaviour of stellar streams in the Aquarius fully cosmological N-body simulations of the formation of Milky Way halos. In particular, we have characterised the streams in angle/frequency spaces derived using an approximate but generally well-fitting spherical potential. We have also run several test-particle simulations to understand and guide our interpretation of the different features we see in the Aquarius streams. Our goal is both to establish which deviations of the expected action-angle behaviour of streams exist because of the approximations made on the potential, but also to derive to what degree we can use these coordinates to model streams reliably. We have found that many of the Aquarius streams wrap in angle space along relatively straight lines, and also in frequency space. On the other hand, from our controlled simulations we have been able to establish that deviations from spherical symmetry, the use of incorrect potentials and the inclusion of self-gravity lead to streams in angle space to still be along relatively straight lines but also to depict wiggly behaviour whose amplitude increases as the approximation to the true potential becomes worse. In frequency space streams typically become thicker and somewhat distorted. Therefore, our analysis explains most of the features seen in the approximate angle and frequency spaces for the Aquarius streams with the exception of their somewhat `noisy' and `patchy' morphologies. These are likely due to the interactions with the large number of dark matter subhalos present in the cosmological simulations. Since the measured angle-frequency misalignments of the Aquarius streams can largely be attributed to using the wrong (spherical) potential, determining the mass growth history of these halos will only be feasible once the true potential has been determined robustly.Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures. Accepted for publication in A&

A review of the dermatological cases occurring in a year's work in general practice with notes on the changes in incidence and treatment during the past twenty years

Men who have been engaged in general practice during the past twenty years have witnessed many changes and many advances in all branches of medical science, and in no way has dermatology lagged behind.Changes in the incidence of skin diseases have been many.Impetigo Contagiosa, Scabies, Ringworm of the Scalp, Favus, Pediculosis (Corporis and Capitis), Occupational Dermatitis, Tuberculous-Affections of the skin, Tinae Barbae, and Syphilitic Lesions all show marked decrease in the number of cases presented for treatment.Many influences are at work to bring this about. Teachers in the local schools co-operate whole-heartedly with the Medical Officers appointed by the Education Authority in their efforts to stamp out the first five of the above-mentioned diseases. Physicians and Nurses working under the directions of the Medical Officer of Health render yeoman service at the baby clinics.Both employers and employees find it is to their mutual advantage to fight against dermatitis due to trade conditions

Mapping Gothicism in HIV/AIDS Art, and the Importance of Art in Understanding Queer Cultural Trauma: Canadian Perspectives

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in Canada continues to be a defining moment in queer trauma and cultural production. Since the 1990s, queer academics and theorists have become increasingly interested in how queer people navigate and negotiate trauma. With the establishment of Queer Studies and Gothic Studies, the two fields have been considered complementary both historically and contemporarily. Queer academics and theorists have discovered that queer cultural production continuously evokes gothic themes, tropes, and atmospheres to understand cultural trauma. Previous research primarily focuses on literature, and my research seeks to expand the field into visual mediums. My research is interested in understanding how queer cultural production’s use of gothic tropes in HIV/AIDS has changed throughout the decades and has shaped queer experience in Canada. I collect Canadian HIV/AIDS visual art, filmography, photography, and mixed-media art to conduct a visual and sociopolitical discourse analysis to understand the phenomenological experience of queer people in Canada. My findings unearth significant change in the ways themes of death, ghosts, and haunting are used in HIV/AIDS art, providing a unique insight into the changing phenomenological experiences of queer people in Canada, which are still heavily haunted by temporal and cultural trauma. My research is significant because it unearths new queer knowledge production, showcasing how queer Canadians have created new forms of understanding cultural trauma that resist and challenge mainstream traumatic discourse

Adverse Events in Hospitals: “Swiss Cheese” Versus the “Hierarchal Referral Model of Care and Clinical Futile Cycles”

The James Reason ‘Swiss Cheese’ model of adverse event causation has been the predominant principle in the determination and prevention of health-care-associated adverse events for the last 20 years. This model was developed to understand the causation of large-scale organisational and industrial accidents. In principle, it looks for holes in the defence layers of a large organisation that are largely administrative and not the fault of individuals that may be directly involved with the accident. This model has limitations when applied to health care, where most of the errors or accidents are individual technical or competency deficiencies within a background of an ever-changing micro socio-cultural environment. As such, using ‘Swiss Cheese’ methodology, there has been an over reliance on looking for system issues in health care that has led to a decreased focus on the individual performance of the health-care professional and avoidance of difficult cultural workplace issues. Clinical futile cycles (CFCs) are a model of adverse event causation that primarily focuses on the interaction between the immediate health-care professionals and patients and between health-care professionals. This focus allows for interventions that address issues such as clinical competency and the culture of the health-care environment