Speaking with different voices: the problems with English law and psychiatric injury

Private law courts in the UK have maintained the de minimis threshold as a condition precedent for a successful claim for the infliction of mental harm. This de minimis threshold necessitates the presence of a ‘recognised psychiatric illness’ as opposed to ‘mere emotion’. This standard has also been adopted by the criminal law courts when reading the Offences Against the Person Act 1861 to include non-physical injury. In determining the cut-off point between psychiatric injury and mere emotion, the courts have adopted a generally passive acceptance of expert testimony and the guidelines used by mental health professionals to make diagnoses. Yet these guidelines were developed for use in a clinical setting, not a legal one. This article examines the difficulty inherent in utilising the ‘dimensional’ diagnostic criteria used by mental health professionals to answer ‘categorical’ legal questions. This is of particular concern following publication of the new diagnostic manual, DSM-V in 2013, which will further exacerbate concerns about compatibility. It is argued that a new set of diagnostic guidelines, tailored specifically for use in a legal context, is now a necessity.

Program slice metrics and their potential role in DSL design, position paper

The advantages a DSL and the benefits its use potentially brings imply that informed decisions on the design of a domain specific language are of paramount importance for its use. We believe that the foundations of such decisions should be informed by analysis of data empirically collected from systems to highlight salient features that should then form the basis of a DSL. To support this theory, we describe an empirical study of a large OSS called Barcode, written in C, and from which we collected two well-known 'slice' based metrics. We analyzed multiple versions of the system and sliced its functions in three separate ways (i.e., input, output and global variables). The purpose of the study was to try and identify sensitivities and traits in those metrics that might inform features of a potential slice-based DSL. Results indicated that cohesion was adversely affected through the use of global variables and that appreciation of the role of function inputs and outputs can be revealed through slicing. The study presented is motivated primarily by the problems with current tools and interfaces experienced directly by the authors in extracting slicing data and the need to promote the benefits that analysis of slice data and slicing in general can offer.

River Sediment Sampling and Environment Quality Standards: A Case Study of the Ravensbourne River

Sediment is a major sink for heavy metals in river, and poses significant risks not only to river quality but also to aquatic and benthic organisms. At present in the UK, there are no mandatory sediment quality standards. This is partly due to insufficient toxicity data but also due to problems with identification of appropriate sediment monitoring and analytical techniques. The aim of this research was to examine the sampling different river sediment compartments in order to monitor compliance with any future UK sediment environmental quality standards (EQS). The significance of sediment physical and chemical characteristics on sampling and analysis was also determined. The Ravensbourne River, a tributary of the River Thames located in the highly urbanised South Eastern area of London was used for this study. Sediment was collected from the bed using the Van Veer grab, the bank using hand trowel, and from the water column (suspended sediment) using the time integrated suspended tube sampler between the period of July 2010 and December, 2011. The result for the total metal extraction carried out using aqua regia found that there were no significant differences in the metal concentrations retained in the different compartments by the <63μm sediment fraction but there were differences between the 63μm-2mm fractions of the bed and bank. The metal concentration in the bed, bank and suspended sediment exceeded the draft UK sediment quality guidelines. Sequential extraction was also carried out to determine metal speciation in each sediment compartment using the Maiz et al. (1997) and Tessier et al. (1979) methods. The Maiz et al. (1997) found over 80% of the metals in each sediment compartment were not bioavailable, while Tessier et al. (1979) method found most of the metals to be associated with the Fe/Mn and the residual phase. The bed sediment compartment and the <2mm (<63μm + 63μm-2mm) fraction appears to be the most suitable sediment sample for sediment monitoring from this study.