Anal signs of child sexual abuse: a case–control study

Background: There is uncertainty about the nature and specificity of physical signs following anal child sexual abuse. The study investigates the extent to which physical findings discriminate between children with and without a history of anal abuse.<p></p> Methods: Retrospective case note review in a paediatric forensic unit.<p></p> Cases: all eligible cases from 1990 to 2007 alleging anal abuse.<p></p> Controls: all children examined anally from 1998 to 2007 with possible physical abuse or neglect with no identified concern regarding sexual abuse. Fisher’s exact test (two-tailed) was performed to ascertain the significance of differences for individual signs between cases and controls. To explore the potential role of confounding, logistic regression was used to produce odds ratios adjusted for age and gender.<p></p> Results: A total of 184 cases (105 boys, 79 girls), average age 98.5 months (range 26 to 179) were compared with 179 controls (94 boys, 85 girls) average age 83.7 months (range 35–193). Of the cases 136 (74%) had one or more signs described in anal abuse, compared to 29 (16%) controls. 79 (43%) cases and 2 (1.1%) controls had >1 sign. Reflex anal dilatation (RAD) and venous congestion were seen in 22% and 36% of cases but <1% of controls (likelihood ratios (LR) 40, 60 respectively), anal fissure in 14% cases and 1.1% controls (LR 13), anal laxity in 27% cases and 3% controls (LR 10).<p></p> Novel signs seen significantly more commonly in cases were anal fold changes, swelling and twitching. Erythema, swelling and fold changes were seen most commonly within 7 days of last reported contact; RAD, laxity, venous congestion, fissure and twitching were observed up to 6 months after the alleged assault.<p></p> Conclusions: Anal findings are more common in children alleging anal abuse than in those presenting with physical abuse or neglect with no concern about sexual abuse. Multiple signs are rare in controls and support disclosed anal abuse

A critical investigation of the role of concepts, skills and attitudes within religious education in the secondary school

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Development and Application of Porphyrin-Maquette Complexes: Towards Artificial Photosynthesis

This study looks at developing an artificial reaction centre with photogenerated electron transfer. Naturally occurring photosynthetic reaction centres utilise proteins to house photoactive material, which is coupled with redox enzymes for catalytic reactions to produce chemical fuels. Photosynthetic systems provide inspiration for designing new means to produce renewable energy, whereby sunlight can produce fuels in the form of chemical energy. Artificially designed proteins with synthetically produced porphyrins can potentially be employed to mimic the natural photosynthetic reaction centre for light-induced charge separation. This charge separation is fundamental for conversion of light energy to other forms of energy

Transformational Leadership Behaviors in Christian School Athletic Administrators and its Correlation with Coach Efficacy

Athletic administrators in a Christian school setting have an unusual amount of influence over large portions of the student body via their influence on coaches. This study investigated the possibility of a correlative relationship between how varsity team head coaches perceive the degree of transformational leadership behaviors of their athletic administrators and their own coaching efficacy. Transformational leadership behaviors could be the most relevant leadership style for modern society while the benefits of coaching efficacy range from an increase in job satisfaction to an increase in student-athlete satisfaction with the athletic experience. A correlation between athletic administrator leadership and the efficacy of their coaches could provide significant insight into ensuring that the student-athlete experience is positive. Utilizing the Global Transformational Leadership scale and the Coaching Efficacy Scale II – High School Teams, 171 varsity head coaches of team sports were surveyed regarding the perceptions of the athletic administrators they work for in Christian high schools. Pearson’s Product-Moment Correlation was used to correlate the single scale scores of the Global Transformational Leadership scale and the Total Coaching Efficacy Scores of the Coaching Efficacy Scale II – High School Teams. A moderately positive statistically significant relationship was found between the varsity head coaches’ perception of their athletic administrator’s transformational leadership behaviors and their own coaching efficacy. These findings have implications for how athletic administrators lead their coaches, and what behaviors school leaders should encourage in their athletic administrators

Development of a method to identify foot strike on an arena surface: application to jump landing

Foot strike can be difficult to determine using kinematics alone, particularly when studying equine activities on more compliant surfaces, so this study was done with the aim of developing and validating a method to determine foot strike on an arena surface that can be used in conjunction with kinematics alone, and of applying the method in the context of measuring foot strike during jump landing on an arena surface. A low-cost contact mat was developed. The timing of the contact mat switching ‘on’ was compared to the timing of a force platform onset of 20 N, load and loading rate at foot strike. Two groups of 25 participants were used in two separate studies to validate the contact mat: the first measured the difference in timing with respect to two different activities (running and stepping down from a box), and the second measured the difference in timing with respect to 1- and 2-cm depths of an arena surface during running. In a third study, the mat was used to measure leading limb foot strike of six horses during jump landing, and these data were compared to kinematics from a palmar marker on the hoof wall. All data were recorded at 500 Hz. A consistent difference in delay was found between the mat and force platform onset, and as a result, no significant differences (P>0.05) in timing delay between different loading rates or depths were found. During jump landing, foot strike (determined from the mat) occurred after the vertical velocity minima and the acceleration maxima for the hoof marker, but it occurred before the point where the rate of vertical displacement began to reduce. In conclusion, further work is needed to enhance these techniques, but these preliminary results indicate that this method may be effective in determining foot strike for field-based applications

The Utility of Table-Top Exercises in Teaching Nuclear Security

In the emerging field of nuclear security, those responsible for education and training are constantly seeking to identify and engage with tools and approaches that provide for a constructive learning environment. In this context, this paper explores the nature and value of Tabletop exercises (TTX) and how they can be applied in the nuclear security context. On the one hand, the paper dissects the key components of the TTX and considers the broader pedagogical benefits of this teaching method. On the other hand, the paper draws lessons from the authors’ experience of running TTXs as part of nuclear security professional development courses (PDCs) over the past six years. The paper finds that the TTX holds enormous benefit as a learning resource when developed as part of a comprehensive approach to nuclear security education

Bags of sand and dirt : exploiting the British Geological Survey's environmental samples and database

Ask any member of the public or even the science community what samples they would expect to find in a geological survey organisation and they would undoubtedly list fossils, rocks and minerals, the traditional view of a geological collection. Few would think about the tons of sediment, soil, and water samples – environmental samples less glamorously referred to as bags of sand and dirt. This is hardly moon or gold dust yet collectively these samples are a valuable asset for the British Geological Survey (BGS) that require collating in a systematic and secure manner. The corporate BGS Geochemical Database contains some half-a-million samples and eight million analyte determinations. This Oracle database contains numerous tables describing the samples, the sites from where they were collected, details about the laboratories that have carried out analyses and the methods used, in addition to chemical analyses. It is an under-used environmental resource that contains BGS geochemical data gathered over a period of nearly 40 years. Bringing this collection of digital environmental data from disparate projects together into one database has required procedures to be developed to ensure consistent coding for the description of samples. The chemical data has to be verified as being fit for purpose through data conditioning to ensure a consistency of quality. The environmental data is increasingly being used for legislative purposes, for example the identification of contaminated land under the Environment Protection Act Part IIa. The data therefore has to be presented in a way that non-scientists can understand what it shows and, equally as important, what are the quality issues and limits associated with the data

Phase transition in the Ising model on a small-world network with distance-dependent interactions

We study the collective behavior of an Ising system on a small-world network with the interaction $J(r) \propto r^{-\alpha}$, where $r$ represents the Euclidean distance between two nodes. In the case of $\alpha = 0$ corresponding to the uniform interaction, the system is known to possess a phase transition of the mean-field nature, while the system with the short-range interaction $(\alpha\to\infty)$ does not exhibit long-range order at any finite temperature. Monte Carlo simulations are performed at various values of $\alpha$, and the critical value $\alpha_c$ beyond which the long-range order does not emerge is estimated to be zero. Thus concluded is the absence of a phase transition in the system with the algebraically decaying interaction $r^{-\alpha}$ for any nonzero positive value of $\alpha$