A qualitative analysis of the social regulation of violence in a Cornish school 1999-2003

This thesis demonstrates the day-to-day experiences of victimisation and opinions about crime as they were encountered by a group of pupils in a rural school at one particular point in time. A number of key themes are addressed, the first being the notion of the adolescent as a victim of crime. This thesis considers what 'crime' means to the pupils at this school and documents their views of crime in the wider community. The next area addressed is the victimisation of adolescents by fellow adolescents; here the focus is on incidents of bullying that occurred on and off the school premises. Thirdly, boys as victims is an under-researched subject matter. this is regarded and the question of masculine identities is included. Furthermore, the roles the female students play are investigated, paying particular attention to their involvement in acts of violence and bullying. The fourth area explore the limits of moral conduct and how this particular age group makes decisions about the unwritten moral codes and boundaries affecting the display of violence. This in tum invites the question of how teenagers made sense of larger moral problems and problems of living inside a school interpreted as a form of institution with a distinctive 'underlife'. These themes are addressed within an analysis of the larger social organisation of childhood and adolescence. Criminologists have long recognised the importance of peer group influence in the development of offending behaviour, but the research took into account the rural context of that setting, the final analytical lens through which it is focussed. This thesis demonstrates that the intricate patterns of violence and bullying are a process whereby status and power reinforce an established hierarchy of pupil's informal relations. The importance of the peer group emerged as the key to understanding interactions between the pupils at the school researched. The power of the peer group would have to be taken into consideration in any strategies devised to curtail bullying

Upotreba participativnih metoda u istraživanju iskustava djece i mladih

Participatory research methods offer a very promising approach for gaining in-depth understanding of young people’s lives. However, when adopting such approaches, researchers need to be aware of methodological and theoretical issues. The aim of this article is to present a discussion of ways in which participatory methods may be used as a research strategy when investigating young people’s experiences and emotions. We explore the potential of these methods as well as some of their limitations.Participativne istraživačke metode nude vrlo obećavajući pristup dubinskom razumijevanju života mladih. Prilikom upotrebe takvih metoda istraživači trebaju biti svjesni metodoloških i teorijskih nedoumica. Cilj ovog članka je raspraviti o načinima na koji participativne metode mogu biti korištene kao strategija za istraživanje iskustava i emocija mladih. U radu će biti istražen potencijal tih metoda, kao i njihova ograničenja

Bullying at University: The Social and Legal Contexts of Cyberbullying Among University Students

Students within the university sector are ‘digital natives’. Technology is not ‘new’ or ‘alien’ to them, but rather it is an accepted and normalised part of everyday life (Simmons et al., 2016). With this level of expertise and competence, we could assume that university students are relatively happy with their online relationships. However, in recent years there has been a growing realisation that, for some students at least, the online world is a very dangerous place.The age of the students is of key importance here too, as those in higher and further education are young adults, rather than children in need of parental support. From this perspective, the university as an institution has a duty of care to its students in their learning environment regardless of their age. In this article, we consider the social and cultural contexts which either promote or discourage cyberbullying among university students. Finally, the implications for policies, training and awareness-raising are discussed along with ideas for possible future research in this under researched area

Extending the scope of pooled analyses of individual patient biomarker data from heterogeneous laboratory platforms and cohorts using merging algorithms

Background: A common challenge in medicine, exemplified in the analysis of biomarker data, is that large studies are needed for sufficient statistical power. Often, this may only be achievable by aggregating multiple cohorts. However, different studies may use disparate platforms for laboratory analysis, which can hinder merging. Methods: Using circulating placental growth factor (PIGF), a potential biomarker for hypertensive disorders of pregnancy (HDP) such as preeclampsia, as an example, we investigated how such issues can be overcome by inter-platform standardization and merging algorithms. We studied 16,462 pregnancies from 22 study cohorts. PIGF measurements (gestational age >= 20 weeks) analyzed on one of four platforms: R & Systems, Alere (R) Triage, Roche (R) Elecsys or Abbott (R) Architect, were available for 13,429 women. Two merging algorithms, using Z-Score and Multiple of Median transformations, were applied. Results: Best reference curves (BRC), based on merged, transformed PIGF measurements in uncomplicated pregnancy across six gestational age groups, were estimated. Identification of HDP by these PIGF-BRCS was compared to that of platform-specific curves. Conclusions: We demonstrate the feasibility of merging PIGF concentrations from different analytical platforms. Overall BRC identification of HDP performed at least as well as platform-specific curves. Our method can be extended to any set of biomarkers obtained from different laboratory platforms in any field. Merged biomarker data from multiple studies will improve statistical power and enlarge our understanding of the pathophysiology and management of medical syndromes. (C) 2015 International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.Peer reviewe

Pan-cancer Alterations of the MYC Oncogene and Its Proximal Network across the Cancer Genome Atlas

Although theMYConcogene has been implicated incancer, a systematic assessment of alterations ofMYC, related transcription factors, and co-regulatoryproteins, forming the proximal MYC network (PMN),across human cancers is lacking. Using computa-tional approaches, we define genomic and proteo-mic features associated with MYC and the PMNacross the 33 cancers of The Cancer Genome Atlas.Pan-cancer, 28% of all samples had at least one ofthe MYC paralogs amplified. In contrast, the MYCantagonists MGA and MNT were the most frequentlymutated or deleted members, proposing a roleas tumor suppressors.MYCalterations were mutu-ally exclusive withPIK3CA,PTEN,APC,orBRAFalterations, suggesting that MYC is a distinct onco-genic driver. Expression analysis revealed MYC-associated pathways in tumor subtypes, such asimmune response and growth factor signaling; chro-matin, translation, and DNA replication/repair wereconserved pan-cancer. This analysis reveals insightsinto MYC biology and is a reference for biomarkersand therapeutics for cancers with alterations ofMYC or the PMN

Pan-Cancer Analysis of lncRNA Regulation Supports Their Targeting of Cancer Genes in Each Tumor Context

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are commonly dys-regulated in tumors, but only a handful are known toplay pathophysiological roles in cancer. We inferredlncRNAs that dysregulate cancer pathways, onco-genes, and tumor suppressors (cancer genes) bymodeling their effects on the activity of transcriptionfactors, RNA-binding proteins, and microRNAs in5,185 TCGA tumors and 1,019 ENCODE assays.Our predictions included hundreds of candidateonco- and tumor-suppressor lncRNAs (cancerlncRNAs) whose somatic alterations account for thedysregulation of dozens of cancer genes and path-ways in each of 14 tumor contexts. To demonstrateproof of concept, we showed that perturbations tar-geting OIP5-AS1 (an inferred tumor suppressor) andTUG1 and WT1-AS (inferred onco-lncRNAs) dysre-gulated cancer genes and altered proliferation ofbreast and gynecologic cancer cells. Our analysis in-dicates that, although most lncRNAs are dysregu-lated in a tumor-specific manner, some, includingOIP5-AS1, TUG1, NEAT1, MEG3, and TSIX, synergis-tically dysregulate cancer pathways in multiple tumorcontexts

Genomic, Pathway Network, and Immunologic Features Distinguishing Squamous Carcinomas

This integrated, multiplatform PanCancer Atlas study co-mapped and identified distinguishing molecular features of squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) from five sites associated with smokin