"Even the dog has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder" (ADHD) A cross-cultural comparative study of parents’ and teachers’ knowledge and attitudes towards ADHD in Scotland and Romania

The aim of this research was to investigate the way in which ADHD is understood and constructed within Romania and Scotland, comparing and contrasting the discourses that constitute ADHD within different cultural contexts.Overall, this study employed a mixed method design based on a concurrent nested approach which was undertaken in 2 phases. In phase 1, 50 parents, 72 primary school teachers and 48 support staff from Scotland, and 50 parents, 86 primary school teachers and 57 support staff from Romania, completed a self-report questionnaire that measured their knowledge and attitudes towards ADHD. The statistical results showed that, for the knowledge of ADHD test, both sample of parents, teachers and support staff scored the highest at symptoms/diagnosis subscale. Parents,teachers and support staff from the Romanian sample scored the lowest at the treatment subscale whereas the Scottish respondents had difficulties in answering questions about the nature, causes and prognosis of ADHD. In terms of their self-reported attitudes, both samples of Scottish and Romanian parents, teachers and support staff scored the highest on the affective attitude subscale. Scottish teachers and support staff scored the lowest on the behavioural attitude subscale whereas Romanian teachers and support staff scored the lowest on the cognitive attitude subscale. On the other hand, both samples of Scottish and Romanian parents scored the lowest on the behavioural attitude subscale. These patterns were further explored in phase 2 of the study, where 5 Scottish and Romanian mothers, 3 Scottish and Romanian primary-school teachers and 3 Scottish and Romanian support staff were selected to take part in a semi-structured interview. Parents, teachers and support staff from both countries responded within a medical model of disability employing themes such as ADHD as a medical condition, the medicalisation of behaviour, behaviour as out of control or the specialness of ADHD. However, participants also adopted a social conceptualisation of ADHD, referring to ADHD as a social phenomenon, resisting medicalisation and describing the educational and medical "wrongs". Reflecting the uncertainty in the field, participants’ conceptualisation of ADHD expanded, modified or even shifted from one perspective to another. The cross-cultural comparisons used the Appadurai's theoretical framework of "scapes" to explain the global nature of ADHD as well as the differences between Scottish and Romanian parents, teachers and support staff in relation to the three most important results of this study: treatment of ADHD, inclusion of children diagnosed with ADHD in mainstream education and parents’ and teachers’ willingness to get involved. The findings have been used to develop a multidisciplinary framework for support, empowering teachers and parents with knowledge of ADHD and improving cross-professional relationships. The fundamental idea of this framework is that it moves beyond the deficit paradigm, helping teachers, parents and stakeholders to be alert and responsive to the various conceptualisations of ADHD and to understand how these schemata have come into existence in specific periods of time and in different cultural contexts

Reconciliation of CDM abundance and μ→eγ\mu\to e\gamma in a radiative seesaw model

We reexamine relic abundance of a singlet fermion as a CDM candidate, which contributes to the neutrino mass generation through radiative seesaw mechanism. We search solutions for Yukawa couplings and the mass spectrum of relevant fields to explain neutrino oscillation data. For such solutions, we show that an abundance of a lightest singlet fermion can be consistent with WMAP data without conflicting with both bounds of $\mu\to e\gamma$ and $\tau\to \mu\gamma$. This reconciliation does not need any modification of the original radiative seesaw model other than by specifying flavor structure of Yukawa couplings and taking account of coannihilation effects.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures, accepted version for publication

Effects of Surface Roughness on the Electrochemical Reduction of CO₂ over Cu

We have investigated the role of surface roughening on the CO₂ reduction reaction (CO₂RR) over Cu. The activity and product selectivity of Cu surfaces roughened by plasma pretreatment in Ar, O₂, or N₂ were compared with that of electrochemically polished Cu samples. Differences in total and product current densities, the ratio of current densities for HER (the hydrogen evolution reaction) to CO₂RR, and the ratio of current densities for C₂₊ to C₁ products depend on the electrochemically active surface and are nearly independent of plasma composition. Theoretical analysis of an electropolished and roughened Cu surface reveals a higher fraction of undercoordinated Cu sites on the roughened surface, sites that bind CO preferentially. Roughened surfaces also contain square sites similar to those on a Cu(100) surface but with neighboring step sites, which adsorb OC–COH, a precursor to C₂₊ products. These findings explain the increases in the formation of oxygenates and hydrocarbons relative to CO and the ratio of oxygenates to hydrocarbons observed with increasing surface roughness

A possible origin of bimodal duration distribution of gamma-ray bursts

We study the distribution of the durations of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) in the unified model of short and long GRBs recently proposed by Yamazaki, Ioka, and Nakamura. Monte Carlo simulations show clear bimodal distributions, with lognormal-like shapes for both short and long GRBs, in a power law as well as a Gaussian angulardistr ibution of the subjets. We find that the bimodality comes from the existence of the discrete emission regions (subjets or patchy shells) in the GRB jet

Neutrino masses and μ\mu terms in a supersymmetric extra U(1) model

We propose a supersymmetric extra U(1) model, which can generate small neutrino masses and necessary $\mu$ terms, simultaneously. Fields including quarks and leptons are embedded in three ${\bf 27}$s of $E_6$ in a different way among generations. The model has an extra U(1) gauge symmetry at TeV regions, which has discriminating features from other models studied previously. Since a neutrino mass matrix induced in the model has a constrained texture with limited parameters, it can give a prediction. If we impose neutrino oscillation data to fix those parameters, a value of $\sin\theta_{13}$ can be determined. We also discuss several phenomenological features which are discriminated from the ones of the MSSM.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures, final version for publicatio

Uni-directional transport properties of a serpent billiard

We present a dynamical analysis of a classical billiard chain -- a channel with parallel semi-circular walls, which can serve as a model for a bended optical fiber. An interesting feature of this model is the fact that the phase space separates into two disjoint invariant components corresponding to the left and right uni-directional motions. Dynamics is decomposed into the jump map -- a Poincare map between the two ends of a basic cell, and the time function -- traveling time across a basic cell of a point on a surface of section. The jump map has a mixed phase space where the relative sizes of the regular and chaotic components depend on the width of the channel. For a suitable value of this parameter we can have almost fully chaotic phase space. We have studied numerically the Lyapunov exponents, time auto-correlation functions and diffusion of particles along the chain. As a result of a singularity of the time function we obtain marginally-normal diffusion after we subtract the average drift. The last result is also supported by some analytical arguments.Comment: 15 pages, 9 figure (19 .(e)ps files

Does body contouring after bariatric weight loss enhance quality of life? A systematic review of QOL studies

Massive weight loss following bariatric surgery can result in excess tissue, manifesting as large areas of redundant skin that can be managed by body contouring surgery. This study aims to quantify the effects of body contouring surgery on indicators of quality of life in post-bariatric patients. A systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature revealed on indices of quality of life in post-bariatric patients, before and after body contouring surgery. Body contouring surgery resulted in statistically significant improvements in physical functioning, psychological wellbeing and social functioning, as well as a reduction in BMI. Body contouring surgery offers a strategy to improve quality of life in patients suffering from the functional and psychosocial consequences of excess skin after bariatric surgery