Improving the educational achievement of young people in out-of-home care

A strong link between research and practice is essential to ensure
that the best available evidence gets into the hands of child welfare
practitioners, who are faced with the daunting task of making decisions
about vulnerable children on a daily basis. In 2007, a group of
senior child welfare leaders in the province of Ontario (Canada) created
a research dissemination model that replicated the worldrenowned
UK program, Research in Practice (http://www.rip.org.
uk). Practice and Research Together (PART; www.partontario.org) is
an Ontario consortium of 45 child welfare organizations whose mandate
is to disseminate research to its member agencies, which include
85% of the local child welfare organizations in the province. Each
member pays an annual membership-fee that is based on its size
(Dill & Shera, 2011). A key factor in PART's success has been its ability
to link its program offerings (i.e., webinars, literature reviews, conferences,
and publications) to issues of real-world relevance to child
welfare practitioners and senior leaders. A central and highly anticipated
program offering is PART's annual conference (learning
event). These conferences bring evidence to bear on practice in priority
areas in child welfare.
On May 31 and June 1 and 2, 2011, PART, in collaboration with the
Centre for Research on Educational and Community Services (CRECS)
at the University of Ottawa, co-hosted an international conference in
Ottawa that was focused on improving the educational achievement
of young people in out-of-home care (hereafter, in care). Speakers
from five countries – Canada, USA, Germany, Sweden, and UK – presented
the results of their research at the conference. The speakers
addressed three main topic areas: the disadvantaged socio-political
status of young people in care, many of whom do not complete secondary
or post-secondary education; innovative interventions to improve
their educational outcomes; and the effectiveness of tutoring,
which is the most common educational intervention for young people
in care.

The anatomy of Last Glacial Maximum climate variations in south Westland, New Zealand, derived from pollen records

We present pollen records from three sites in south Westland, New Zealand, that document past vegetation and inferred climate change between approximately 30,000 and 15,000 cal. yr BP. Detailed radiocarbon dating of the enclosing sediments at one of those sites, Galway tarn, provides a more robust chronology for the structure and timing of climate-induced vegetation change than has previously been possible in this region. The Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra, a key isochronous marker, affords a precise stratigraphic link across all three pollen records, while other tie points are provided by key pollen-stratigraphic changes which appear to be synchronous across all three sites. Collectively, the records show three episodes in which grassland, interpreted as indicating mostly cold subalpine to alpine conditions, was prevalent in lowland south Westland, separated by phases dominated by subalpine shrubs and montane-lowland trees, indicating milder interstadial conditions. Dating, expressed as a Bayesian-estimated single 'best' age followed in parentheses by younger/older bounds of the 95% confidence modelled age range, indicates that a cold stadial episode, whose onset was marked by replacement of woodland by grassland, occurred between 28,730 (29,390-28,500) and 25,470 (26,090-25,270) cal. yr BP (years before AD, 1950), prior to the deposition of the Kawakawa/Oruanui tephra. Milder interstadial conditions prevailed between 25,470 (26,090-25,270) and 24,400 (24,840-24,120) cal. yr BP and between 22,630 (22,930-22,340) and 21,980 (22,210-21,580) cal. yr BP, separated by a return to cold stadial conditions between 24,400 and 22,630 cal. yr BP. A final episode of grass-dominated vegetation, indicating cold stadial conditions, occurred from 21,980 (22,210-21,580) to 18,490 (18,670-17,950) cal. yr BP. The decline in grass pollen, indicating progressive climate amelioration, was well advanced by 17,370 (17,730-17,110) cal. yr BP, indicating that the onset of the termination in south Westland occurred sometime between ca 18,490 and ca 17,370 cal. yr BP. A similar general pattern of stadials and interstadials is seen, to varying degrees of resolution but generally with lesser chronological control, in many other paleoclimate proxy records from the New Zealand region. This highly resolved chronology of vegetation changes from southwestern New Zealand contributes to the examination of past climate variations in the southwest Pacific region. The stadial and interstadial episodes defined by south Westland pollen records represent notable climate variability during the latter part of the Last Glaciation. Similar climatic patterns recorded farther afield, for example from Antarctica and the Southern Ocean, imply that climate variations during the latter part of the Last Glaciation and the transition to the Holocene interglacial were inter-regionally extensive in the Southern Hemisphere and thus important to understand in detail and to place into a global context. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Short-Sale Constraints and the Pricing of Managerial Skills

We investigate the impact of the absence of short selling on the pricing of managerial skills in the mutual fund industry. In the presence of divergent opinions regarding managerial skills, fund managers can strategically use fees to attract only the most optimistic capital. The recognition of this fee strategy helps explain a set of stylized observations and puzzles in the mutual fund industry, including the underperformance of active funds, the existence of flow convexity, and the negative correlation between gross-of-fee α and fees.

Testing the efficacy of the glacial buzzsaw: insights from the Sredinny Mountains, Kamchatka

Peak altitudes, hypsometry, geology, and former equilibrium-line altitudes (ELAs) are analyzed across the Sredinny Mountains (Kamchatka). Overall, evidence is found to suggest that the glacial buzzsaw has operated to shape the topography of this mountain range, but the strength of this signature is not spatially uniform. In the southern sector of the mountains, we see evidence that an efficient glacial buzzsaw has acted to impose constraints upon topography, limiting peak altitudes, and concentrating land-surface area (hypsometric maxima) close to palaeo-ELAs. By contrast, in the northern sector of the mountains, a number of peaks rise high above the surrounding topography, and land-surface area is concentrated well below palaeo-ELAs. This deviation from a classic ‘buzzsaw signature’, in the northern sector of the mountains, is considered to reflect volcanic construction during the Quaternary, resulting in a series of high altitude peaks, combined with the action of dynamic glaciers, acting to skew basin topography toward low altitudes, well below palaeo-ELAs. These glaciers are considered to have been particularly dynamic because of their off-shore termination, their proximity to moisture-bearing air masses from the North Pacific, and because accumulation was supplemented by snow and ice avalanching from local high altitude peaks. Overall, the data suggest that the buzzsaw remains a valid mechanism to generally explain landscape evolution in mountain regions, but its signature is significantly weakened in mountain basins that experience both volcanic construction and climatic conditions favouring dynamic glaciation.

Efficacy of Tenofovir 1% Vaginal Gel in Reducing the Risk of HIV-1 and HSV-2 Infection

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that can result in rare opportunistic infections occurring in humans. The onset of these infections is known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Sexual transmission is responsible for the majority of infections 1, resulting in transmission of HIV due to infected semen or vaginal and cervical secretions containing infected lymphocytes. HIV microbicides are formulations of chemical or biological agents that can be applied to the vagina or rectum with the intention of reducing the acquisition of HIV. Tenofovir is an NRTI that is phosphorylated by adenylate kinase to tenofovir diphosphate, which in turn competes with deoxyadeosine 5’-triphosphate for incorporation into newly synthesized HIV DNA. Once incorporated, tenofovir diphosphate results in chain termination, thus inhibiting viral replication. Tenofovir has been formulated into a range of vaginal formulations, such as rings, tablets gels and films. It has been shown to safe and effective in numerous animal models, while demonstrating safety and acceptability in numerous human trials. The most encouraging results came from the CAPRISA 004 clinical trial which demonstrated that a 1% Tenofovir vaginal gel reduced HIV infection by approximately 39%.

Factors influencing European consumer uptake of personalised nutrition. Results of a qualitative analysis.

The aim of this research was to explore consumer perceptions of personalised nutrition and to compare these across three different levels of "medicalization": lifestyle assessment (no blood sampling); phenotypic assessment (blood sampling); genomic assessment (blood and buccal sampling). The protocol was developed from two pilot focus groups conducted in the UK. Two focus groups (one comprising only "older" individuals between 30 and 60 years old, the other of adults 18-65 yrs of age) were run in the UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Germany (N = 16). The analysis (guided using grounded theory) suggested that personalised nutrition was perceived in terms of benefit to health and fitness and that convenience was an important driver of uptake. Negative attitudes were associated with internet delivery but not with personalised nutrition per se. Barriers to uptake were linked to broader technological issues associated with data protection, trust in regulator and service providers. Services that required a fee were expected to be of better quality and more secure. An efficacious, transparent and trustworthy regulatory framework for personalised nutrition is required to alleviate consumer concern. In addition, developing trust in service providers is important if such services to be successful. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The current state of abortion law and practice in Northern Ireland

This paper reviews current abortion law and practice in Northern Ireland (NI). It explores the origins of NI's abortion law and its complexity in relation to current practice. it reviews issues relating to women seeking terminations in NI and Great Britain and reviews attempts by the Family Planning Association NI to require the Department of Health and Social Services and Public Safety NI to provide guidance for health professionals engaged in this practice. The paper also discusses some of the issues surrounding abortion in NI and seeks to explain why this subject is causing controversy and debate, especially following a judicial review in February and Marie Stopes opening a termination service in Belfast.

Multi-Dimensional Simulations of the Expanding Supernova Remnant of SN 1987A

The expanding remnant from SN 1987A is an excellent laboratory for investigating the physics of supernovae explosions. There is still a large number of outstanding questions, such as the reason for the asymmetric radio morphology, the structure of the pre-supernova environment, and the efficiency of particle acceleration at the supernova shock. We explore these questions using three-dimensional simulations of the expanding remnant between days 820 and 10,000 after the supernova. We combine a hydrodynamical simulation with semi-analytic treatments of diffusive shock acceleration and magnetic field amplification to derive radio emission as part of an inverse problem. Simulations show that an asymmetric explosion, combined with magnetic field amplification at the expanding shock, is able to replicate the persistent one-sided radio morphology of the remnant. We use an asymmetric Truelove & McKee progenitor with an envelope mass of 10 M-circle dot and an energy of 1.5 x 10(44) J. A termination shock in the progenitor's stellar wind at a distance of 0 ''.43-0 ''.51 provides a good fit to the turn on of radio emission around day 1200. For the H II region, a minimum distance of 0 ''.63 +/- 0 ''.01 and maximum particle number density of (7.11 +/- 1.78) x 10(7) m(-3) produces a good fit to the evolving average radius and velocity of the expanding shocks from day 2000 to day 7000 after explosion. The model predicts a noticeable reduction, and possibly a temporary reversal, in the asymmetric radio morphology of the remnant after day 7000, when the forward shock left the eastern lobe of the equatorial ring.

Does a proactive environmental orientation automatically lead to a ‘win-win’ situation?

A debate on the effect of environmental practices on performance has been taking place in the academic literature over the last two decades. In recent years this has involved researchers looking beyond the direct relationship between practices and performance to consider other potential contributing factors. This paper considers the extent to which environmental proactivity influences the practices that firms adopt and the associated performance outcomes. Data were collected from sample of UK food manufacturers and analysed using multiple regression analysis. Findings suggest that proactivity is an important antecedent to practices but these practices may not lead to improvements beyond environmental performance.

The emergence of bone technologies at the end of the pleistocene in Southeast Asia:Regional and evolutionary implications

For many decades Palaeolithic research viewed the development of early modern human behaviour as largely one of progress down a path towards the modernity of the present. The European Palaeolithic sequence the most extensively studied was for a long time the yard-stick against which records from other regions were judged. Recent work undertaken in Africa and increasingly Asia, however, now suggests that the European evidence may tell a story that is more parochial and less universal than previously thought. While tracking developments at the large scale (the grand narrative) remains important, there is growing appreciation that to achieve a comprehensive understanding of human behavioural evolution requires an archaeologically regional perspective to balance this. One of the apparent markers of human modernity that has been sought in the global Palaeolithic record, prompted by finds in the European sequence, is innovation in bonebased technologies. As one step in the process of re-evaluating and contextualizing such innovations, in this article we explore the role of prehistoric bone technologies within the Southeast Asian sequence, where they have at least comparable antiquity to Europe and other parts of Asia. We observe a shift in the technological usage of bone from a minor component to a medium of choice during the second half of the Last Termination and into the Holocene. We suggest that this is consistent with it becoming a focus of the kinds of inventive behaviour demanded of foraging communities as they adapted to the far-reaching environmental and demographic changes that were reshaping this region at that time. This record represents one small element of a much wider, much longerterm adaptive process, which we would argue is not confined to the earliest instances of a particular technology or behaviour, but which forms part of an on-going story of our behavioural evolution. © 2012 The McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research.

A density functional theory study of CO and atomic oxygen chemisorption on Pt(111)

Ab initio total energy calculations within a density functional theory framework have been performed for CO and atomic oxygen chemisorbed on the Pt(111) surface. Optimised geometries and chemisorption energies for CO and O on four high-symmetry sites, namely the top, bridge, fee hollow and hcp hollow sites, are presented, the coverage in all cases being 0.25 ML. The differences in CO adsorption energies between these sites are found to be small, suggesting that the potential energy surface for CO diffusion across Pt(111) is relatively flat. The 5 sigma and 2 pi molecular orbitals of CO are found to contribute to bonding with the metal. Some mixing of the 4 sigma and 1 pi molecular orbitals with metal states is also observed. For atomic oxygen, the most stable adsorption site is found to be the fee hollow site, followed in decreasing order of stability by the hcp hollow and bridge sites, with the top site being the least stable. The differences in chemisorption energies between sites for oxygen are larger than in the case of CO, suggesting a higher barrier to diffusion for atomic oxygen. The co-adsorption of CO and O has also been investigated. Calculated chemisorption energies for CO on an O/fcc-precovered surface show that of the available chemisorption sites, the top site at the oxygen atom's next-nearest neighbour surface metal atom is the most stable, with the other four sites calculated bring at least 0.29 eV less stable. The trend of CO site stability in the coadsorption system is explained in terms of a 'bonding competition' model. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

THE SURFACE-STRUCTURE OF A C(2 X-2) POTASSIUM OVERLAYER ON CO(1010)

The surface structure of the clean Co{1010BAR} surface and a c(2 x 2) potassium overlayer have been determined by quantitative low energy electron diffraction. The Co{1010BAR} sample has been shown to be laterally unreconstructed with the surface being uniquely terminated by an outermost closely packed double layer (dz12 = 0.68 angstrom). A damped oscillatory relaxation of the outermost three atomic layers occurs, with relaxations DELTA-dz12 = -6.5 +/- 2% and DELTA-dz23 = +1.0 +/- 2%.

The c(2 x 2) overlayer formed at a coverage of 0.5 ML was subjected to a full I-V analysis. A range of adsorption sites were tested including fourfold hollow, on-top, and both long and short bridge sites in combination with both "long" and "short" cobalt interlayer terminations. A clear preference was found for adsorption in the maximal coordination fourfold hollow site. No switching of surface termination occurs. The potassium adatoms reside in the [1210BAR] surface channels directly above second layer cobalt atoms with a potassium to outermost cobalt interlayer separation of 2.44 +/- 0.05 angstrom. Potassium-cobalt bond lengths of 3.40 +/- 0.05 and 3.12 +/- 0.05 angstrom between the four (one) outermost (second) layer nearest-neighbour substrate atoms suggests a potassium effective radius of 1.87 +/- 0.05 angstrom, somewhat smaller than the Pauling covalent radius and considerably larger than the ionic radius (1.38 angstrom). The alkali-surface bonding is thus predominantly "covalent"/"metallic".

Atmospheric Pressure DC Plasma Processing of TIO2/PEDOT:PSS Nanocomposites

In this work we demonstrate the synthesis of a TiO2/PEDOT:PSS nanocomposite material in aqueous solution through atmospheric pressure direct current (DC) plasma processing at room temperature. The dispersion of the TiO2 nanoparticles is enhanced after microplasma processing, and TiO2/polymer hybrid nanoparticles with a distinct core shell structure have been obtained. We have observed increased TiO2/PEDOT:PSS nanocomposite electrical conductivity due to microplasma processing. The improvement in nanocomposite properties is due to the enhanced dispersion and stability in liquid polymer of microplasma treated TiO2 nanoparticles. Both plasma induced surface charge and nanoparticle surface termination with specific plasma chemical species are thought to provide an enhanced barrier to nanoparticle agglomeration and promote nanoparticle-polymer bonding, which is expected to have a significant benefit in materials processing with inorganic nanoparticles for wide range of applications.