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Bullying victimisation in childhood and mental health in early adulthood : comparison of prospective and retrospective reports
Get PDFThe association between childhood bullying victimisation and mental health problems in adulthood has been consistently reported in the literature. Previous studies used both retrospective and prospective reports to measure bullying victimisation. However, there could be biases in both reports. We aimed to assess agreement between prospective and retrospective reports of childhood bullying victimisation, to compare their associations with mental health in early adulthood, and to examine the associations of consistent prospectively and retrospectively reported bullying victimisation with adult mental health. Data were from the prospective Bavarian Longitudinal Study of neonatal at-risk children and term-born controls recruited at birth. 489 participants were followed from birth to age 26 (mean [SD]: 26.4 [0.8] years). Adult mental health was assessed using both the Achenbach Young Adult Self-Report (YSR) and standardised diagnostic interviews. Childhood bullying victimisation was prospectively reported by participants and parents at age 13 and retrospectively self-reported at age 26. We showed that the agreement between retrospective and prospective self-reports of bullying victimisation was fair (Kappa 0.30) with only slight agreement (Kappa 0.18) when compared with prospective parent-reports. Both prospectively and retrospectively self-reported bullying victimisation was associated with poor mental health. Retrospective reports tended to produce stronger associations. Participants who reported being bullied both retrospectively and prospectively had a particularly elevated risk for mental health problems. In conclusion, prospective and retrospective reports capture partly different individuals with exposure to bullying victimisation. Exposure to bullying victimisation, whether it was retrospectively or prospectively self-reported, was associated with an increased risk for mental health problems
Problems in peer relationships and low engagement in romantic relationships in preterm born adolescents : effects of maternal warmth in early childhood
Get PDFThis study examined whether maternal warmth in early childhood moderates the association between preterm birth and problems in peer relationships and low engagement in romantic relationships in adolescence. We studied 9193 individuals from the Millennium Cohort Study in the United Kingdom, 99 (1.1%) of whom were born very preterm (VPT; < 32 weeks of gestation) and 629 (6.8%) moderate-to-late preterm (MLPT; 32–36 weeks gestation). Maternal warmth was reported by the mothers when their children were 3 years old. Peer relationship problems were reported by both the participants and their mothers at 14 and 17 years. Further, participants reported their engagement in romantic relationships at 14 and 17 years. All outcome variables were z-standardized, and the moderation effect was examined via hierarchical linear regressions. Compared to full-term birth, both MLPT and VPT birth were associated with lower engagement in romantic relationships at 17 years of age (b = .04, p = .02; b = .11, p = .02, respectively), and VPT birth was associated with increased peer relationship problems at 14 (b = .29, p = .01) and 17 years of age (b = .22, p = .046). Maternal warmth in early childhood was similarly associated with lower peer relationship problems in MLPT, VPT and full-term born adolescents. However, there was no influence of maternal warmth on engagement in romantic relationships at 17 years of age. There is no major modifying effect of maternal warmth in early childhood on the association between PT birth and peer relationship problems and low engagement in romantic relationships at 14 and 17 years of ages
School tasking : how legal outreach can benefit pupils, students, and universities alike
Get PDFSchool Tasking is a university-led primary outreach project based on the television show, Taskmaster. It began at Warwick Law School (WLS) in 2021 when Ali, as Director of Widening Participation (WP), was looking for ways to make outreach work more engaging. As a Taskmaster fan, she knew that its joyful, gently competitive format could inject fun and interactivity into primary school outreach. In Taskmaster itself, five comedians are pitted against each other in nonsensical tasks to win points from the Taskmaster, Greg Davies,1 . Taking the elements of, to borrow the words of the show’s creator, Alex Horne, ‘competing against each other in a supportive way doing ridiculous things for no good reason’, School Tasking was born
Goal-conditioned offline reinforcement learning through state space partitioning
Get PDFOffline reinforcement learning (RL) aims to create policies for sequential decision-making using exclusively offline datasets. This presents a significant challenge, especially when attempting to accomplish multiple distinct goals or outcomes within a given scenario while receiving sparse rewards. Prior methods using advantage weighting for offline goal-conditioned learning improve policies monotonically. However, they still face challenges from distribution shift and multi-modality that arise due to conflicting ways to reach a goal. This issue is especially challenging in long-horizon tasks, where the presence of multiple, often conflicting, solutions makes it hard to identify a single optimal policy for transitioning from a state to a desired goal. To address these challenges, we introduce a complementary advantage-based weighting scheme that incorporates an additional source of inductive bias. Given a value-based partitioning of the state space, the contribution of actions expected to lead to target regions that are easier to reach, compared to the final goal, is further increased. Our proposed approach, Dual-Advantage Weighted Offline Goal-conditioned RL, outperforms several competing offline algorithms in widely used benchmarks. Furthermore, we provide a theoretical guarantee that the learned policy will not be inferior to the underlying behavior policy
'I was going into it blind' : nearest relatives, legal literacy, and the Mental Health Act 1983
Get PDFEligible relatives are given rights and powers in the compulsory treatment of people with mental health problems in several international jurisdictions, including within England and Wales. However, little attention has been given to whether relatives feel legally literate or competent to fulfil such roles. This article examines this issue through focussing on the experiences of Nearest Relatives, who are given rights and powers during Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) assessments for compulsory admission in England and Wales. Interviews with nineteen Nearest Relatives in England were conducted and were thematically analysed. Three themes were identified. First, NRs spoke about their awareness and knowledge of the role. They predominantly reported negative experiences in which they received no or little information. They also reported that professionals assumed they possessed legal knowledge, and their legal knowledge was largely self-taught. Secondly, NRs reported uncertainty about their own rights and powers, noting the role lacked status or informational or emotional support. Third, NRs highlighted areas for legal reform, stating that the NR role was important, but required specialist support systems for NRs. The findings of this study indicate greater attention needs to be given by law and policy makers to support relatives' understanding of their rights and powers under the MHA, if the NR role is to be effective in helping to safeguard patient rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. These include the right in Article 5 not to be arbitrarily deprived of one's liberty and the right to a private and family life in Article 8. Legislators also need to take account of these factors when considering proposals to reform mental health law in England and Wales
Conflict and gender norms
Get PDFWe study the relationship between exposure to historical conflict involving heavy weaponry and male-favoring gender norms. We argue that the physical nature of such conflict produced cultural norms favoring males and male offspring. We focus on spatial variation in gender norms across India, a dynamic developing economy in which gender inequality persists. We show robust evidence that areas with high exposure to pre-colonial conflict are significantly more likely to exhibit male-favoring gender norms as measured by male-biased sex ratios and crimes against women. We document how conflict-related gender norms have been transmitted over time via male-favoring folkloric traditions, the gender identity of temple gods, and male-biased marriage practices, and have been transmitted across space by migrants originally from areas with high conflict exposur
Finite-horizon optimal control for nonlinear multi-input systems with online adaptive integral reinforcement learning
No full textIn this paper, a novel adaptive integral reinforcement learning (AIRL) is utilized to online handle the finite-horizon optimum control policies of the partially unknown multi-input nonlinear system. Firstly, the concept of Nash equilibrium is introduced to make the multiple cost functions reach the saddle point. Then, dual neural networks (NNs) are applied to approach the performance index functions based on the integral reinforcement signal. Simultaneously, two novel learning algorithms are proposed to update the NN weights, in which the convergence of weights is proved. Then, the optimal strategies can be obtained by using the obtained weights. The designed controllers based on the data-driven AIRL scheme can avoid the internal state of the system and the derivatives of NN activations in the weight learning process. Finally, the stability of the controlled system is analyzed. An F-16 aircraft model and another nonlinear system are utilized to prove the validity and rationality of the algorithm. Note to Practitioners —There exist many multi-input systems in practical engineering, which includes multi-engine driven F-16 aircraft, large radar servo system and large artillery systems, etc. The finite-horizon optimal control of these systems is crucial for the better performance of system state. However, an accurate engineering model is difficult to obtain, and the finite-horizon cannot generally be achieved. To address these issues, this paper proposes the finite-horizon optimal control for these systems based on a novel adaptive integral reinforcement learning (AIRL). The AIRL can realize an optimal performance for these multi-input systems in finite-time without internal system dynamics, which is a good development for the multi-input system in practical engineering
Adaptive model for the optical properties of excited gold
No full textWe investigate the optical properties of laser-excited gold within the Drude-Lorentz framework. Our approach extends the Drude-Lorentz model, initially fitted to experimental data for ambient conditions, to accommodate higher temperatures. It covers a wide range of excitation strengths and frequencies, Fermi-distributed electrons, as well as nonequilibrium scenarios. It is in good qualitative agreement with density functional theory–based calculations capturing key features of the reflectivity and, thus, provides a very efficient alternative to these numerically expensive calculations. When applied to thin films, we find a nonlinear dependence of reflection and absorption on electron temperature, accentuated at lower photon energies and under polarized light. Our highly efficient model can be particularly valuable when analyzing experiments investigating ultrafast processes as the pathways of energy relaxation in laser-excited samples
From social to legal : shifting approaches to trafficking at the turn of 20th-century England
No full textThis chapter argues that trafficking in women, or White slavery as then called, became understood as a legal issue at the turn of 20th-century England, and as a response attracted several legal, and certain criminal law, solutions. Drawing from the archival records of the National Vigilance Association and the International Abolitionist Federation in particular, the chapter examines how the certain civil society organizations gained and used the legal power during the period and the role that civil society action played in the legislative process. The first part of the chapter explores the emergence of language of victimhood, coercion, and social restraints in relation to the campaign to repeal the Contagious Diseases Acts and how this impacted both legal and social framing of trafficking. The second part explores how social reform campaigners such as William Coote understood and spoke of law’s power and potential. Through this analysis, the chapter shows how tensions grew between different organizations and argues that as civil society centred legislative processes and anti-White slavery laws, openly feminist actors and agenda became sidelined from mainstream discussions. Ultimately, the chapter shows how White slavery transformed from a social to a legal issue in England, revealing profound disagreements about the potential and dangers of legal power amid social reform campaigners
Strength and microscopic pore structure characterization of cement-fly ash stabilized organic soil under freeze-thaw cycles
No full textIn seasonal frost areas, an organic soil stratum is often encountered during engineering construction due to the widespread existence of organic soils. The soil stratum will experience frost heave in winter and thaw settlement in summer, resulting in a significant variation in its engineering behaviour, especially for organic soil stratum. In this study, with the help of cement, fly ash, and fulvic acid, cement-fly ash stabilized organic soil (CFOS) specimens were prepared and the unconfined compressive (UC) and mercury intrusion porosimetry (MIP) tests were carried out on CFOS specimens. The effects of fly ash content, number of freeze-thaw cycles (FT-N), and curing period on the strength, resilient modulus, and porosity were investigated. Test results revealed that the fly ash content increased from 0% to the optimum content of 5%, the unconfined compressive strength (UCS) and resilient modulus of CFOS with FT-12 increased by 50.30% and 118.92%, respectively. The pore size distribution (PSD) curve and fractal dimension (Dn) of specimens were obtained from the MIP test. The proportion of macropores was the main factor affecting the UCS of CFOS. With the increasing FT-N, the macropore proportion of CFOS with 5% fly ash content increased by 333.33%, and the UCS decreased by 28.25%. Based on a freeze-thaw damage model, the damage parameters of the CFOS specimens were extracted with the Dn as an independent variable. The microscopic pore characteristics and the relationship between the strength, Dn and damage parameter were analyzed. The microscopic pore structure of specimens with different fly ash contents experienced a change subjected to freeze-thaw cycles. The lower the strength, the lower the Dn of CFOS. The damage parameters quantitatively reflected the damage degree of specimens after freeze-thaw cycles on the micro scale. The damage parameter of CFOS with 5% fly ash content increased by 341.57% with the increase of FT-N. The introduction of fly ash was able to reduce freeze-thaw damage to the specimens. The damage parameter and CFOS strength exhibited a significant correlation. The relationships of the strength and microscopic pore structure of CFOS subjected to freeze-thaw cycles were conducive to a better understanding of the freeze-thaw damage mechanism of CFOS on the micro scale. These findings are beneficial for engineering construction design in seasonal frost areas