Some Exceptional Beauville Structures

We first show that every quasisimple sporadic group possesses an unmixed strongly real Beauville structure aside from the Mathieu groups M11 and M23 (and possibly 2B and M). We go on to show that no almost simple sporadic group possesses a mixed Beauville structure. We then go on to use the exceptional nature of the alternating group A6 to give a strongly real Beauville structure for this group explicitly correcting an earlier error of Fuertes and Gonzalez-Diez. In doing so we complete the classification of alternating groups that possess strongly real Beauville structures. We conclude by discussing mixed Beauville structures of the groups A6:2 and A6:2^2.Comment: v4 - case Co2 ammende

Recent Progress in the Symmetric Generation of Groups

Many groups possess highly symmetric generating sets that are naturally endowed with an underlying combinatorial structure. Such generating sets can prove to be extremely useful both theoretically in providing new existence proofs for groups and practically by providing succinct means of representing group elements. We give a survey of results obtained in the study of these symmetric generating sets. In keeping with earlier surveys on this matter, we emphasize the sporadic simple groups. ADDENDUM: This is an updated version of a survey article originally accepted for inclusion in the proceedings of the 2009 `Groups St Andrews' conference. Since the article was accepted the author has become aware of other recent work in the subject that we incorporate to provide an updated version here (the most notable addition being the contents of Section 3.4.)Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure, an updated version of a survey article accepted for the proceedings of the 2009 "Groups St Andrews" conference. v2 adds McLaughlin reference and abelian groups reference

New upper bounds on the spreads of the sporadic simple groups

We give improved upper bounds on the exact spreads of many of the larger sporadic simple groups, in some cases improving on the best known upper bound by several orders of magnitude

'Who is responsible when 'attempted suicide' goes wrong?

About four years ago, the British Press were full of reports about a woman, brain damaged after taking an overdose while suffering from post-natal depression, who had won £2.8m from Lancashire Ambulance NHS Trust, in the North of England. The story raises many issues, some of them ethical. Setting aside questions about whether compensation of this level was, or could be justified, where does responsibility for Mrs Burchell’s tragic condition lie? With the ambulance crew who took twenty six rather than ten minutes to reach her? Or does it lie with Mrs Burchell herself, who was the agent of her own harm, as well as the victim of the circumstances that led to her ending up alive, but disabled? It is important to engage with such deeply unsettling questions. We will probably never know what Mrs Burchell intended when she acted – whether, for example, she wanted to die or merely ‘to be dead’ for a while. Some people who act in apparently similar ways intend, by ‘gesturing’ at suicide, to influence the behaviour, thoughts and feelings of others. Some, whose acts I would refer to as ‘cosmic roulette’, intend to gamble with their lives, leaving the outcome – life or death – up to chance, or to God. In this paper I will discuss questions of responsibility in suicide. En route, I will map out a little of the conceptual and ethical territory that surrounds suicide and a range of other related human acts

Narratives of Health in Prison

In this paper I want to talk about the use of narrative to explore health issues in prisons. I begin with a discussion of story, the part it plays in our lives and its use in research. After that I discuss a narrative study of health care in three British prisons, in which I was involved some years ago. The study allowed us to gain access to aspects of the experience of prisoners, even though we did not work directly with them, but rather with custody officers and health care professionals. My intention is to argue for the use of narrative in this research, and then to share some of our findings in discussing the importance, not only of providing prisoners with health care that is as good as that available to others, but of arranging continuity of care when they leave prison. En route I shall draw attention to some ethical issues