Truth commissions: a barrier to the provision of judicial assistance?

Truth commissions and criminal trials have come to be perceived as complementary transitional justice mechanisms. However, where effective prosecutions are dependent on the exchange of information and transfer of suspects between states under existing mutual legal assistance and extradition arrangements, the operation of a truth commission in the state of territoriality may act as an obstacle to international cooperation. At the same time, requests for assistance from a third state pursuing prosecutions may impact negatively on the truth commission process in the requested state by inhibiting those reluctant to become involved in criminal proceedings from offering testimony. This article demonstrates a practical discord between these bodies when they operate in different states and questions whether they can truly be considered “complementary”.

Using cursor measures to determine appropriate computer input assistance for motion-impaired users

People with motion-impairments can often have difficulty with accurate control of standard pointing devices for computer input. The nature of the difficulties may vary, so to be most effective, methods of assisting cursor control must be suited to each user's needs. The work presented here involves a study of cursor trajectories as a means of assessing the requirements of motion-impaired computer users. A new cursor characteristic is proposed that attempts to capture difficulties with moving the cursor in a smooth trajectory. A study was conducted to see if haptic tunnels could improve performance in "point and click" tasks. Results indicate that the tunnels reduced times to target for those users identified by the new characteristic as having the most difficulty moving in a smooth trajectory. This suggests that cursor characteristics have potential applications in performing assessments of a user's cursor control capabilities which can then be used to determine appropriate methods of assistance.

The use and usefulness of financial assistance to UK SMEs

Existing literature has paid considerable attention to the effects of supporting programmes on the survival and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), but it lacks a deep understanding of the benefits of the use of such assistance and the factors influencing the evaluation of such services from the perspective of SMEs. We examine the factors affecting the propensity to use assistance when SMEs make financial decisions and the usefulness perceived by the users. We examine 2500 UK SMEs and find that the use of assistance and the usefulness of such services, as perceived by SMEs, are much related to: the characteristics of the entrepreneur, the nature of the business, and the financial products used by the business. These empirical results imply that support and advice on financial decision making, available for SMEs, are important for them to better manage and to access finance. Assistance and advice are also very valuable for SMEs and entrepreneurs to compensate for their lack of human capital and thus facilitate overcoming possible problems in managing their businesses.

COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION BARRIERS TO HEALTH ASSISTANCE FOR DEAF PATIENTS

IN BRAZIL, recent regulations require changes in private and public health systems to make special services available to deaf patients. in the present article, the researchers analyze the perceptions of 25 sign language using patients regarding this assistance. The researchers found communication difficulties between these patients and health services staff, as well as a culture clash and a harmful inability among the service providers to distinguish among the roles of companions, caretakers, and professional translator/interpreters. Thus, it became common for the patients to experience prejudice in the course of treatment and information exchange, damage to their autonomy, limits on their access to services, and reduced efficacy of therapy. The researchers conclude that many issues must be dealt with if such barriers to health access are to be overcome, in particular the worrying degree of exclusion of deaf patients from health care systems.

Värdigt liv och välbefinnande, enligt vem? : en kvalitativ studie om brukare och biståndshandläggares beskrivningar av ett värdigt liv och välbefinnande : Dignity and well-being, according to whom? : a qualitative study of elderly and assistance officer´s descriptions of a dignified life and wellbeing

We are two students named Susanne Grönlund and Anna Zaar and have jointly worked together this c-essay called "dignity and well-being according to whom? The paper is written at Högskolan dalarna in Falun.The purpose of this study was to investigate how the elderly and assistance officer describes dignity and well-being and how it is consistent with the government's bill on the national values that the National Board has developed.Our empirical study consists of four qualitative interviews, two older people dependent on community care and two assistance officers. The study's theoretical basis is Antonovsky's salutogenic approach and SOC. The survey focuses on different themes such as dignity, integrity, participation, treatment, wellbeing, security and meaningfulness which are also central themes in the Government Bill on the national values for elderly.The results show that the respondents believe that a life of dignity is difficult to define and also a subjective experience. The results also show a consistency between what the elderly, assistance officer and the national values that define dignity and well-being. Social Services Act, national values should serve as a starting point for municipalities to improve elderly care, thereby creating a sense of coherence for the individual. Keywords: Elder care, dignity, integrity, participation, attitude, well-being, security and meaningfulness.

Förståelse, bedömningar och hjälpinsatser : Socialarbetares arbete med män som våldsoffer

This report outlines the background to, and presents the results from the Crime Victim Compensation and Support Authority funded project "Social Workers' understanding of men as victims of crime". The project aimed at describing and analyzing how social workers understand and work with male victims of violence. More precisely, the research has focused on how social workers describe men's vulnerability and how they understand men's needs for assistance, what assistance that is provided and the way the constellations of perpetrators and victims of different gender and contexts in which the violence occurs in affect the understanding of male victims of violence. The study has also been devoted to the question of whether the Support Centers for young crime victims in Sweden provide different types of and different amount of help to young men and women afflicted of violence. The project was conducted in three substudies. The results from substudy 1 show that more young men than women seek support from the Support centers studied. Men predominate in number of cases and in the different categories of crime. The results also show that young men on average receive less assistance over a shorter average duration than young women. This applies irrespective of the category of offense that the vulnerability applies to. Furthermore, the young men, compared to the women, proportionally receive fewer interventions characterized as support and a greater proportion of interventions in the form of information. The results also show that the young men are referred on for further action to a lesser extent than is the case for women. The results from substudy 2 show that social workers tend to focus on whether, and to what extent, young men who are victims of violence themselves have behaved provocatively before the violence incident and if they have put themselves in a social situation that could be interpreted as having contributed to an escalation of the violence they have been subjected to. The results from substudy 2 also show that social workers talk about the men as active in the violent situations they have been involved in and dwell on the extent to which the young men's own actions have contributed to the violence. The results also show that young men who are victims of violence are described as "reluctant" victims who are trying to cope with their situation on their own without the involvement of professional or other helper. The young men are also described as reluctant to talk about their feelings. The results of substudy 3 show that social workers believe that young men, when they become victims of violence, risks losing their sense of autonomy, initiative and decisiveness, that is, attributes that are often linked to the dominating cultural image of masculinity. Furthermore, the results show that social workers estimate that men's practicing of their masculinity, but also the response that men who are traumatized get from society, creates difficulties for them to get help. The results from substudy 3 also shows that attributes and actions that can be connected to the masculinity of young men's, as well as a lack of such attributes and actions are considered to be adequate explanations for the violence the men has suffered. When it comes to violence in public places it is the masculinity that explains the violence and its escalation. When it comes to domestic violence it is the lack of expected male attributes and actions that are used as explanations for the violence that have occurred. The discussion is devoted to the question of how the results should be understood based on the concepts of self-performance, interpretation, negotiation and categorizations, and the consequences the results obtained should have for gender sensitive social work given to abused men.

A violência no contexto de um serviço de urgência: análise do processo de cuidar na visão das vítimas e profissionais de saúde em Natal/RN

Exploratory descriptive study, with a quantitative approach and prospective data, performed in Pronto Socorro Clóvis Sarinho (PSCS), in Natal/RN, aiming to analyze care given by the nursing and medical staff to victims of violence attended to in an emergency hospital in Natal/RN; to identify care given by the nursing and medical staff as viewed by the victims; to compare data observed during the process of care with the victim s view on the care given by the nursing and medical staff; to identify the existing knowledge on violence and the process of caring for victims and its relation with prejudice; to identify obstacles and perspectives for prevention during the process of caring for victims in the emergency services. The population consisted of 97 physicians, 16 nurses, 75 nursing technicians and assistants and 365 victims of violence, with data collected from April to May 2009. Out of 188 professionals, 52.1% are female; 32% were aged 41 to 50; 99.5% had given care to a victim of violence; 90.4% reported to have given care to patients under custody; among these, 17.3% felt prejudice; 55.3% stated they don t provide different care for assaulted victims and assailants, however 44.7% stated they do; 86.7% feel their workplace is unsafe; 61.7% denied the existence of any obstacle and 38.3% reported the existence of obstacles; among these, 26.1% referred to inadequate facilities; 37.8% believe reinforcing security and professional training are the main solutions. Among the 365 researched violence victims, 82.2% were assaulted; male (69.6%); aged 18 to 24 (24.9%); hailing from the Greater Natal area (89.9%); on 19.7% the event happened on Saturday; during the night (48.8%); victim of physical assault (61.4%); produced by body force (27.7%); 24.4% were injured in the head and neck. 57% had used some drug, among which alcohol was predominant (75.5%). On 621 observations performed during the victim care process, when compared to the report of assaulted victims, there was a statistical difference, at 5% significance level, regarding reception, resistance from the professionals, questioning about the violent event, providing of guidance, interaction with the patient and the understanding of receiving proper care, and care resolution. In comparisons involving the observed and the assailant victims reports, there was a statistical difference regarding the resence of resistance from the professionals, performance of necessary procedures and the nteraction with the patient and the understanding of receiving proper care and 58.1% reported the nursing team was the one that provided the best care. We conclude that professionals had lready given care to assailant patients, acknowledge the importance of knowing how the vent took place and acquired this preparation during their practice. The most often referred bstacles that hinder assistance were: inadequate facilities, material deficit and lack of rofessional preparation. As solutions for these problems, they cited the reinforcement of ecurity and professional training

Em busca do conhecimento da equipe de enfermagem na sua prática assistencial às vítimas de traumatismo raquimedular

The great demand of accidents resulting in victims with rachi-medullar traumatism (RMT) and the need for indetifying how they are being assisted, led us to proceed with this investigation. It had as its goal to identify and analyze the knowledge of nurses and nurse assistents regarding the nursing assistance to these patients. It consists of a descriptive exploratory study, with a quantitative method and prospective data. For its execution, 193 subjects were interviewed, 37 of them nurses and 157 nurse assistents in 02 hospitals of the metropolitan zone of Natal. The results reveal that the subjects are not coherent when questioned whether they are prepared to assist victim of RMT and the content described by order of piority regarding the steps followed in the assistance of these victims, both in the pre-hospital and hospital care. Thus, we observe that only 06 nurses and 07 assistents, described correctly all the steps necessary to pre-hospital care and only 01 nurse and 02 assistents registered all the steps in the correct sequence regarding the hospital care. We conclude that, in face of the obtained results, we can urgently modify this reality, improving the nursing staff and giving them better work conditions

Em defesa da reforma psiquiátrica :por um amanhã que há de renascer sem pedir licença

Insanity was victim of several arbitrary acts perpetrated on behalf of the science. Psychiatric reform constitues an important movement which has attempted to rescue dignity and humanity in the treatment of mental disorder patients. Some countries have advanced in the implement of substutive models that work on the construction of a new social place for madness. The model of attention to mental health in Brazil has also suffered extensive modifications due to the wearing out of the psychiatric hospital model. In Santos, a town in the State of Sao Paulo, we have found a landmark in the development of an anti internment politics, through the creation of a dail care service, including psychosocial assistance. It is in this context that it has been founded in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, the NAPS and CAPS ( Nucleus and Centres of Psychosocial Attention), municipal strategies that put into effect the law # 10.216/2001, which estabilishes the gradual extinction of psychiatric hospitals. This work has the purpose of carrying out a study about the historical process of psychiatric reform implantation in the State of Rio Grande do Norte, emphasizing the actors involved in process, their trajectory, achievements, improvements, and the movement s perspectives of achieving the ideal of reinstating mental disorder patients. In order to accomplish this purpose, it was necessary to understand the process occurred at the Municipal Secretary s Office for Health, since 1992, for it was the impelling experience towards the reflections about the psychiatric reform in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. The instruments used for this work were documentary analysis, through reports, legislation and handbooks, as well as the staments of people involved in this process. Through the statements analysis, we attempted to estabilish the social actors identity, their perception, emphasizing congruences and incongruences concerning the history of psychiatric reform in the State of Rio Grande do Norte. It is also analyzed the contribution of Psychology in this process, which has become a protagonist in the struggle for the rights of mental disorder patients

Violência contra a mulher:uma análise do trabalho do Centro de Referência da Assistência Social-CREAS/Parnamirim-RN.

This work demonstrates the results obtained from research on violence against women: an analysis of the work from reference center of the Social Assistance-CREAS, held in the city of Parnamirim/RN from September 2008 extending through the february of 2009. Having as goal to investigate and examine in a longitudinal cut, which specifically covers the period from 2006 to 2007, find out extent the actions taken by the Reference Center Specialized Social Assistance- CREAS, contributed to the change of women who were there, by checking if there was any change in their positions ahead of the violence and if they began to realize how social subjects, able to control their living conditions and interfere in the orientation of social dynamics Have a particular emphasis on the presence of work and schooling or lack of them is also a factor to be allied to the barriers and rules imposed on women in contemporary society. In this study it was found through a qualitative research guided by dialectical and implemented through the use of documentary research, observation, semi-structured interview and an extensive theoretical background on the subject in question that the woman victim of violence is in a complex and contradictory context where there is both the construction and deconstruction of rights, a view that there are strong influences of patriarchal culture and the consequences of social issues that specifically searched for the public, focuses on social, economic , political, social and cultural. In this sense, the National Policy to Combat Violence against Women, operated by CREASE Parnamirim, is also reflected in its early stages in the life of these women are to nurture a real chance for these victims of violence, to perceive themselves as social subjects can control their lives and interfere in their own destinies. We want this study to add more knowledge to help and most appropriate intervention in this reality, but without the intention of reaching exhaustion, but to subsidize future studies on the topic of women victims of violence

Violência contra a mulher: uma análise do trabalho do centro de referência da assistência social-CREAS/Parnamirim

This work demonstrates the results obtained from research on violence against women: an analysis of the work from reference center of the Social Assistance-CREAS, held in the city of Parnamirim/RN from September 2008 extending through the february of 2009. Having as goal to investigate and examine in a longitudinal cut, which specifically covers the period from 2006 to 2007, find out extent the actions taken by the Reference Center Specialized Social Assistance-CREAS, contributed to the change of women who were there, by checking if there was any change in their positions ahead of the violence and if they began to realize how social subjects, able to control their living conditions and interfere in the orientation of social dynamics Have a particular emphasis on the presence of work and schooling or lack of them is also a factor to be allied to the barriers and rules imposed on women in contemporary society. In this study it was found through a qualitative research guided by dialectical and implemented through the use of documentary research, observation, semi-structured interview and an extensive theoretical background on the subject in question that the woman victim of violence is in a complex and contradictory context where there is both the construction and deconstruction of rights, a view that there are strong influences of patriarchal culture and the consequences of social issues that specifically searched for the public, focuses on social, economic , political, social and cultural. In this sense, the National Policy to Combat Violence against Women, operated by CREASE Parnamirim, is also reflected in its early stages in the life of these women are to nurture a real chance for these victims of violence, to perceive themselves as social subjects can control their lives and interfere in their own destinies. We want this study to add more knowledge to help and most appropriate intervention in this reality, but without the intention of reaching exhaustion, but to subsidize future studies on the topic of women victims of violence

Spray deposition and losses in potato as a function of air-assistance and sprayer boom angle

A cultura da batata possui grande expressão econômica dentro do cenário agrícola. Para isso, equipamentos e técnicas de aplicação de produtos fitossanitários vêm sendo desenvolvidos visando melhorar o rendimento econômico da cultura. Neste sentido, experimentos foram conduzidos no delineamento em blocos ao acaso na cultura da batata cv. Ágata. Objetivando avaliar o efeito da assistência de ar combinada a diferentes ângulos de aplicação sobre a deposição da pulverização, bem como as perdas da calda para o solo utilizou-se um pulverizador com e sem assistência de ar junto à barra de pulverização posicionada a +30º, 0º e -30º (sinal + a favor e - contrário ao deslocamento) em relação a vertical. O volume de calda foi 400 L ha-1 utilizando-se pontas de jato cônico vazio JA-4 na pressão de 633 kPa. Para a avaliação dos depósitos utilizou-se um traçador cúprico. Os depósitos foram removidos dos folíolos por lavagem com água destilada, em ambas as superfícies foliares, nas posições superior e inferior das plantas de batata e quantificados por espectrofotometria de absorção atômica. As perdas da pulverização foram avaliadas em coletores plásticos colocados nas entrelinhas das parcelas experimentais. Os níveis dos depósitos do traçador cúprico nas diferentes posições da planta foram analisados pelo teste estatístico T² de Hotteling. Os maiores depósitos foram obtidos com a barra posicionada a 0º e +30º, em presença da assistência de ar, tanto na posição superior quanto inferior da planta. A presença do ar, além de propiciar maiores depósitos na parte inferior das plantas, possibilitou maior uniformidade na distribuição deles. As perdas da pulverização ficaram abaixo de 4%.