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The article talks about a report on the British Labour Party's defeat at the 2015 general election by Labour Party politician Margaret Beckett in an internal inquest. Topics discussed include the party's former leader Ed Miliband, reasons for defeat being noted as the the formation ofthe first peacetime coalition government in eight years, and the perception that the Labour Party was culpable for the economic crisis in 2008.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced UK universities to move the majority or all of tuition online. The Library Academic Support Team at Leeds Beckett University used that shift as an opportunity to improve information literacy (IL) and academic skills tuition across the institution. Instruction and support were redesigned on a flipped basis to ensure that online delivery improved on face-toface delivery rather than simply replicating it. This project report reviews that work with usage statistics, user feedback, practicalities of service provision and discussion of impact. The report extends existing literature with a model of significant institution-level changes to IL and academic skills instruction which could be applied elsewhere. It concludes that the shift to flipped online learning was a qualified success, with the revised approach proving notably more popular and inclusive, also providing other benefits such as more focused in-class discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Censorship details of the London premiere, publication, and revival of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot have been much discussed in the critical discourse, but that discussion has seldom been based on the complete primary documents. As a result, erroneous and unverified information has been disseminated. In fact, the notes and correspondence in the Lord Chamberlain's archives, proscriptions demanded by the official protectors of British decency, tell a story richer and substantially different from the received wisdom on these issues. In the case of Godot, the tussle between Beckett and his London producer, Donald Albery, on the one hand, and on the other, three of the Lord Chamberlain's principal deputies, Sir Vincent Troubridge, Sir Norman Gwatkin, and C.D. Heriot, suggests an exchange that threatened the British production of the play. It created an atmosphere, moreover, in which English publisher Faber and Faber believed that it could offer only a sanitized version of the play in 1956. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discussess the impact of Irish novelist Samuel Beckett's work on the cultural history of Great Britain. It mentions about his literary prominence; his play "Waiting for Godot;" and book "Beckett before Godot" by John Pilling in which he re-evaluates the formative years of Beckett between the publication of his first and last work. It also talks about various conferences, discussions, and exhibitions in Great Britain on Beckett's work.

The article reports that the next steps on managing radioactive waste were announced by Margaret Beckett, the British Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on July 29, 2002. Great Britain today has over 10,000 tonnes of solid, long-lived radioactive waste in storage, awaiting a decision on its long-term future. This will rise to half a million tonnes over the next century as nuclear reactors and other facilities come to the end of their lives. The future management options for Great Britain's civil plutonium includes its possible use as a fuel.

A narrative therapeutic group intervention, Tree of Life, was carried out with groups of ethnic minority parents of children with special educational needs and/or disability (SEND) in a mainstream primary school. A participatory research approach was used, involving collaboration with the group of parents and involvement of a parent co-researcher. Qualitative data were collected through a focus group with six parents on their views of the sessions. The parent co-researcher carried out the analysis of the data, using thematic analysis. The main themes identified were: "Sharing", "Self-awareness" and "Change". Strengths and limitations of the participatory research project are considered. The findings are discussed in relation to the experiences of ethnic minority parents of children with SEND. They are also considered in the context of educational psychologists engaging in critical and transformative practice through using narrative, strengths-based approaches, responding sensitively to diversity and working in ways which empower service-users.

The article presents a critique to the article "The Swedish Myth: The Corporal Punishment Ban and Child Death Statistics," by Chris Beckett published in an earlier issue of the journal. Chris Beckett has discussed the corporal punishment ban and child death statistics in Sweden. The author says that Beckett's main objective was to prove that there is no close connection between legal banning of child abuse and a decreasing frequency of child homicides. According to the author, the title of the article is misleading. The figures from the United Nation Children's Fund are from one single year and just a few more deaths in small countries like the Scandinavian countries could alter the figures quite substantially. The author was quite astonished when he first saw the figures, as the lowest figures were reported from countries where awareness and debate concerning child maltreatment have come into focus late, particularly in comparison with Great Britain and the Scandinavian countries. The author feels that it is very important to clarify the reasons behind child homicides in order to institute appropriate preventive measures.

In 2016, the British Educational Research Association (BERA) Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy brought together several academics from across the four jurisdictions of the UK already engaged in work on poverty, education and schooling. The aim of this BERA Commission was to build a network of research-active practitioners across the UK and, internationally, to engage in knowledge building about poverty and multiple factors of deprivation as these find expression in education and schooling. The Commission also aimed to facilitate counter discourses to be voiced and articulated in contrast to the dominant pathologising discourses of poor people and their education. The Commission therefore addressed the question: what can research tell us about the ways that different devolved policy contexts impact on the learning and well-being of young people living in poverty? This article describes the methodology used by the Commission to bring together researchers, policymakers, practitioners and children and young people to learn about the price of poverty in education and to reflect on the implications for policy. In so doing, the article addresses some challenges, opportunities and outcomes in terms of knowledge production, as well as implications for critical scholarship, with a focus on poverty and education.

The article offers information on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), which is a group of conditions caused by prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Topics include the importance of confirmation of PAE and a thorough alcohol history for identifying at-risk children, the lack of a cure for FASD but the efficacy of early targeted interventions, and the significance of gathering information about PAE when children enter care for future diagnoses.

The BBC in the 1950s was a conservative and cautious institution. British theatre was at the same time largely commercial and offered a glamourous distraction from wider social and political realities. During the decade, however, new avant-garde approaches to drama emerged, both on the stage and on radio. The avant-garde was particularly vibrant in Paris, where Samuel Beckett was beginning to challenge theatrical orthodoxies. Initially, managers and producers in BBC radio rejected a radio version of Beckett's, Waiting for Godot and other experimental work was viewed with distaste but eventually Beckett was accepted and commissioned to write All That Fall (1957), a masterpiece of radio drama. Other Beckett broadcasts followed, including more writing for radio, extracts from his novels and radio versions of his stage plays as well as plays by the experimental radio dramatist, Giles Cooper. This article examines the different change agents which enabled an initially reluctant BBC to convert enthusiastically to the avant-garde. A networked group of younger producers, men and women, played a vital role in the acceptance of Beckett as did the striking pragmatism of senior radio managers. A willingness to accept the transnational cultural flow from Paris to London was also an important factor. The attempt to reinvent radio drama using 'radiophonic' sound effects (pioneered in Paris) was another factor for change and this was encouraged by growing competition from television drama on the BBC and ITV. The acceptance and eventual championing of avant-garde drama in the late 1950s reveal how the BBC's commitment to public service broadcasting facilitated a flowering of experimental and avant-garde drama during radio drama's golden age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the rarely considered role of friends and peers supporting young people after sexual abuse experienced in adolescence, drawing on participatory research with 32 young people in the UK with lived experience. The article considers ways in which relationships with friends and peers interplay with recovery from abuse. This includes friends and peers as recipients of disclosure, conduits to professional support, sources of emotional support and distraction, and being embroiled in often challenging, precarious peer cultures that young people navigate post‐abuse. The article explores young people's rationale for, and experiences of, reaching out to friends and peers. It considers what young people seek and gain from these relationships in the aftermath of abuse, while acknowledging complex risks and precarity of these relationships. It argues that support from friends offers something distinct to family and professionals. It explores benefits of these relationships, but also potential for peer responses to undermine wellbeing if not sufficiently supportive or informed. The article ends by arguing for professionals to better recognise and respond to these relational contexts and consider whether there are safe and appropriate ways to 'support young people to support' without responsibilisation, and recognising welfare needs of those providing such support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, valuable datasets have been collected on the effects of the virus SARS-CoV-2. In this study, we combined whole genome sequencing data with clinical data (including clinical outcomes, demographics, comorbidity, treatment information) for 929 patient cases seen at a large UK hospital Trust between March 2020 and May 2021. We identified associations between acute physiological status and three measures of disease severity; admission to the intensive care unit (ICU), requirement for intubation, and mortality. Whilst the maximum National Early Warning Score (NEWS2) was moderately associated with severe COVID-19 (A = 0.48), the admission NEWS2 was only weakly associated (A = 0.17), suggesting it is ineffective as an early predictor of severity. Patient outcome was weakly associated with myriad factors linked to acute physiological status and human genetics, including age, sex and pre-existing conditions. Overall, we found no significant links between viral genomics and severe outcomes, but saw evidence that variant subtype may impact relative risk for certain sub-populations. Specific mutations of SARS-CoV-2 appear to have little impact on overall severity risk in these data, suggesting that emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants do not result in more severe patient outcomes. However, our results show that determining a causal relationship between mutations and severe COVID-19 in the viral genome is challenging. Whilst improved understanding of the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 has been achieved through genomics, few studies on how these evolutionary changes impact on clinical outcomes have been seen due to complexities associated with data linkage. By combining viral genomics with patient records in a large acute UK hospital, this study represents a significant resource for understanding risk factors associated with COVID-19 severity. However, further understanding will likely arise from studies of the role of host genetics on disease progression. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic, nosocomial transmission has represented a major concern for healthcare settings and has accounted for many infections diagnosed within hospitals. As restrictions ease and novel variants continue to spread, it is important to uncover the specific pathways by which nosocomial outbreaks occur to understand the most suitable transmission control strategies for the future. Methods: In this investigation, SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences obtained from 694 healthcare workers and 1,181 patients were analyzed at a large acute NHS hospital in the UK between September 2020 and May 2021. These viral genomic data were combined with epidemiological data to uncover transmission routes within the hospital. We also investigated the effects of the introduction of the highly transmissible variant of concern (VOC), Alpha, over this period, as well as the effects of the national vaccination program on SARS-CoV-2 infection in the hospital. Results: Our results show that infections of all variants within the hospital increased as community prevalence of Alpha increased, resulting in several outbreaks and super-spreader events. Nosocomial infections were enriched amongst older and more vulnerable patients more likely to be in hospital for longer periods but had no impact on disease severity. Infections appeared to be transmitted most regularly from patient to patient and from patients to HCWs. In contrast, infections from HCWs to patients appeared rare, highlighting the benefits of PPE in infection control. The introduction of the vaccine at this time also reduced infections amongst HCWs by over four-times. Discussion: These analyses have highlighted the importance of control measures such as regular testing, rapid lateral flow testing alongside polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, isolation of positive patients in the emergency department (where possible), and physical distancing of patient beds on hospital wards to minimize nosocomial transmission of infectious diseases such as COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is concerned to respond to recent UK governments' attitudes to teachers, who are predominantly women, and who are denied a voice and sense of professionalism. It looks to the role of teacher research in school decision-making, including school improvement, historically in England, which set a pioneering example in years before the Thatcher government, and in Australia, where it became a central logistical feature in generations of "poverty programs", as well as the current conjuncture. It documents recent efforts to build school-university partnerships for school improvement geared to support teachers' knowledge-building about working with disadvantaged pupils who are disengaged and under-achieving. It maps the educational political context, framed by the global neo-liberal policy agenda, and charts efforts to support school staff develop a research perspective on the complexities of schools' work in a system geared to a relentless focus on attainment targets, performance, and school league tables. It develops a responsive theoretical-strategic framework for a local north of England "knowledge-building programme" of continuing professional development (CPD) with optional accreditation, intended to counter the system's lack of a broad and creative pedagogical "imaginary". The resultant project is inspired by a democratic impulse and progressive social justice goals to facilitate learning about what this Leeds network of schools needs to be doing itself to address issues of concern about pupils marked by poverty and deprivation.

Little research has been conducted to date exploring the extent to which treatment can impact upon dynamic factors thought to be related to sexually harmful behaviour in adolescents. This study explores the within-treatment change in a group of adolescent males who have sexually harmed. Pre- and post-treatment psychometric data for 34 participants who had completed an offence-specific group work programme while residing at a specialist residential treatment provision for adolescent males who have sexually harmed were analysed to investigate if the treatment had affected their scores on measures of psychosocial functioning and offence-related attitudes. Results supported the hypothesis that treatment would impact positively on the post-treatment psychometric scores, although the limitations of the study hinder the extent to which any firm conclusions can be drawn. Some corroborating data from relevant domains on the ERASOR risk assessment protocol is also presented for a subgroup of 24 individuals. (Contains 8 tables.)

Here Francis Beckett, formerly Education Correspondent of the New Statesman and long-time member of the Labour Party "Comprehensive Futures" group set up to further the cause of non-selective schools for all children reflects on the prospects for radical state education in New Labour's third term. He argues that with Andrew Adonis made a lord to enable him to be kept in charge of education the likelihood of progress in directions this journal would support seem highly unlikely. In these circumstances Francis Beckett opts for a "wilderness" that he suggests is likely to be a more comfortable place to be than contemporary alternatives.

This article outlines the findings of a new study that explores the portrayal of disability within a sample of the primary-age children's literature most readily available to UK schools. The kind of literature to which children are exposed is likely to influence their general perceptions of social life. How disability is handled by authors is therefore important from the standpoint of disability equality. Findings suggest that whilst there are some good examples of inclusive literature "out there", discriminatory language and/or negative stereotypes about disability continue to be present in a range of more contemporary children's books. Clearly, more "still" needs to be done to ensure that schools and teachers are provided with information relating to the best examples of inclusion literature and efforts must continue to be made to inform authors, publishers and illustrators about how to approach the issue of disability. (Contains 1 table and 1 note.)

There is an abundance of evidence showing relatively strong associations between family characteristics and a child's psychological functioning--both within the normal range and, also, with reference to psychopathology. That has sometimes led to the assumption that equally strong associations should be found within adoptive families. Nevertheless, the available evidence indicates that, to the contrary, the associations tend to be much weaker than those in biological families. In this chapter, the authors sought to determine whether variations in the qualities in the adoptive home might provide the explanation. There was no evidence that postadoption environmental features accounted for the presence of DSPs, but that did not necessarily rule out the possibility of effects on psychopathological features outside of DSPs. The findings certainly do not mean that the huge improvements in functioning following adoption were not a consequence of the adoption. To the contrary, there is ample evidence that this was a causal effect. (Contains 11 tables.)

Whereas metaanalyses of cross-sectional adoption studies have indicated that there is an impact of early deprivation on adoptee's cognitive ability, these effects generally diminish markedly after upbringing in adoptive homes. Outcomes in terms of scholastic attainment were not quite so positive in a cross-sectional metaanalysis, but the Swedish follow-up study of male conscripts did not find that scholastic attainment was impaired relative to IQ. Both initial impairment and catch-up vary as a function of the length and severity of deprivation experienced. Previous analyses of the ERA data patterns of educational attainment at age 11 indicated that these were largely predictable on the basis of cognitive ability, although symptoms of inattention also played a minor role. In this chapter, the authors tackle two key issues: the validity, and the meaning of, a general factor of overall intelligence "g"; and whether these specific cognitive functions are regularly associated with different types of scholastic performance. (Contains 5 tables and 1 figure.)

It has come to be generally accepted that the psychopathological effects of psychosocial stress and adversity are diagnostically nonspecific. There is a good deal of supporting evidence in support of this assumption, even though it may be that the nonspecificity has been exaggerated through a failure to take account of comorbidity. This chapter presents findings on the designation of deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs). These included an early onset (at least by age 6 years, the earliest age at which data were available for the whole sample) and persistence to 11 years of age. The persistence to 11-year requirement was introduced particularly because minor manifestations of DA were so frequent at age 6 years in the pooled comparison group. Without the persistence criterion, the association of DSPs with institutional deprivation would be much weakened. (Contains 5 tables and 8 figures.)

In chapter IV, the authors focused on their findings on the developmental course of deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs). The authors rediscussed the syndrome concept in the light of two main considerations. First, the findings indicated substantial overlap among the four postulated DSPs at 15 years including CI and I/O before requiring cooccurrence with Q-A or DA. Second, they realized that, ordinarily, syndromes are defined on the basis of a unifying pathophysiology rather than a mere clustering together of symptoms. Although they have not identified the nature of such pathophysiology, the strong continuing association with institutional deprivation extending up to at least 6 months of age, plus the findings from the pilot brain imaging study points to the likelihood that there is a unifying pathophysiology. Accordingly, they conclude that, on balance, a coherent syndrome remains a strong possibility. (Contains 6 tables.)

This monograph is concerned with the mid adolescent follow-up of a group of adoptees from Romania and from within the United Kingdom who were first assessed at the age of 4 years (or 6 years in the case of the oldest children). Chapter I provides the background as it applied at the time that the study began, and then goes on to outline the overall research strategy and the measures relevant for the first assessment at age 4 years. It then goes on to summarize, briefly, some of the key findings from the follow-ups undertaken up to the age of 11 years. In the authors' published papers on the age 4-, 6-, and 11-year assessments, they mainly dealt with findings in relation to key outcome variables. In this monograph, they have adopted a different strategy that capitalizes on the unique features of their study. Their study is the only investigation with detailed interview and observation measures, together with psychometric assessments, spanning a 10-year follow-up period. Most especially, their study is unique in having systematic, standardized measurements of key behavioral patterns that seem to be specific to institutional deprivation. Accordingly, the authors have been able to focus on the crucial issue of the extent to which these patterns account for the deficits and problems that have persisted to age 15 years. In order to do that, it was first necessary both to determine which patterns met criteria for specificity to institutional deprivation and to determine their boundaries. This topic is tackled in Chapter III, after outlining the methods and measures in Chapter II. Chapter IV builds on the authors' prospective data over the course of a decade in order to describe the developmental course of the deprivation-specific psychological patterns (DSPs) defined in Chapter III. To facilitate this, the several apparently DSPs are pooled, having noted the major overlap among them. Chapter V considers disturbances of emotion, conduct and peer relations--that is, the three major domains of psychopathology that, up to age 11 years, appeared "not" to follow a DSPs. Chapter VI takes as its starting point the major catch-up found in cognitive functioning following adoption and goes on to ask how far cognitive findings vary according to specific cognitive function and how far cognitive gains up to age 11 have been translated into meaningful educational attainments at age 15-16 years. Chapter VII reevaluates these findings in the light of the age 15 results and examines the physical growth and maturational effects of institutional deprivation. It considers how far the findings differ according to the presence/absence of institutional deprivation-specific features. Chapter VIII reexamines the issue of possible postadoption environmental mediators, paying attention to key methodological challenges. Throughout their study, there has been abundant evidence of heterogeneity in outcome. Chapter IX seeks to pull together the relevant findings with respect to possible biological moderators and mediators. There is reexamination of the apparently protective role of minimal language skills, of genetic influences on environmental susceptibility, of possible effects of social cognitive features, of the role of subnutrition, and of impaired head growth. Finally, Chapter X provides an overview of the findings at age 15, together with the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. (Contains 48 tables and 21 figures.)

In the United Kingdom, the introduction of the Disability Equality Duty 2006 has provided a new window of opportunity to promote the idea that education has a role to play in changing non-disabled children/young people's attitudes towards disabled people. This article explores the issues raised by the application of the Disability Equality Duty to English schools. The remainder of the article then seeks to 'map the territory' for future research into the role that education might play in challenging disabling attitudes and building an inclusive society. (Contains 5 notes.)

Theory of Mind (ToM) and Executive Function (EF) have been associated with autism and with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and hence might play a role in similar syndromes found following profound early institutional deprivation. In order to examine this possibility the current study included a group of 165 Romanian adoptees, of whom 144 were adopted into the UK from deprived institutional settings before 43 months of age, and a group of 52 within-UK adoptees, all adopted before 6 months of age. Both groups were assessed at 6 and 11 years. The Strange Stories task was used to assess ToM and the Stroop task was used to assess EF, both at age 11. The Romanian adoptees displayed deficits in both ToM and EF compared with the within-UK adoptee group. The degree of deficit was greater for children who had experienced more than 6 months of institutional deprivation. Deficits in both domains (ToM and EF) were associated with each of the three apparently deprivation-specific problems, namely quasi-autism, disinhibited attachment and inattention/overactivity. Statistical analyses indicated a mediating role for both ToM and EF with respect to quasi-autism; possibly a partial mediating role for EF with respect to inattention/overactivity; and probably no mediating role for either ToM or EF in the case of disinhibited attachment. In conclusion, there is evidence for a possible mediating role for ToM and EF in the development of some apparently deprivation-specific difficulties in institution-reared Romanian adoptees, but neither accounts for the overall pattern of deprivation-related difficulties.

The current study examined the persistence and phenotypic presentation of inattention/overactivity (I/O) into early adolescence, in a sample of institution reared (IR) children adopted from Romania before the age of 43 months. Total sample comprised 144 IR and 21 non-IR Romanian adoptees, and a comparison group of 52 within-UK adoptees, assessed at ages 6 and 11 years. I/O was rated using Rutter Scales completed by parents and teachers. I/O continued to be strongly associated with institutional deprivation, with continuities between ages 6 and 11 outcomes. There were higher rates of deprivation-related I/O in boys than girls, and I/O was strongly associated with conduct problems, disinhibited attachment and executive function but not IQ more generally, independently of gender. Deprivation-related I/O shares many common features with ADHD, despite its different etiology and putative developmental mechanisms. I/O is a persistent domain of impairment following early institutional deprivation of 6 months or more, suggesting there may be a possible pathway to impairment through some form of neuro-developmental programming during critical periods of early development.

Academy sponsors have generally behaved with great arrogance, knowing that they enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Tony Blair's Government. And this has been particularly true of Catholic and evangelical sponsors, who believed that Blair's premiership was the best chance they would ever have of bringing about a seismic shift of power in schools from the state to the churches. Yet it seems clear that the academy project is not working out as its supporters originally intended, and it might well be that Gordon Brown's new Government will feel obliged to jettison large parts of the original scheme. (Contains 3 notes.)

The relationship between severe early institutional deprivation and scholastic attainment at age 11 in 127 children (68 girls and 59 boys) adopted from institutions in Romania was compared to the attainment of 49 children (17 girls and 32 boys) adopted within the UK from a non-institutional background. Overall, children adopted from Romania had significantly lower attainment scores than those adopted within the UK; the children within the Romanian sample who had spent 6 months or more in an institution had significantly lower attainment scores than those who had spent less than 6 months in an institution, but there was no additional risk of low attainment associated with longer institutional care after 6 months. The lower scholastic attainment in the children adopted from Romanian institutions, as compared with domestic adoptees, was mediated by IQ, and to a lesser degree, inattention/overactivity. When these factors were taken into account, only small between-group differences in attainment remained.

Background: Some young children reared in profoundly depriving institutions have been found to show autistic-like patterns, but the developmental significance of these features is unknown. Methods: A randomly selected, age-stratified, sample of 144 children who had experienced an institutional upbringing in Romania and who were adopted by UK families was studied at 4, 6, and 11 years, and compared with a non-institutionalised sample of 52 domestic adoptees. Twenty-eight children, all from Romanian institutions, for whom the possibility of quasi-autism had been raised, were assessed using the Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS) at the age of 12 years. Results: Sixteen children were found to have a quasi-autistic pattern; a rate of 9.2% in the Romanian institution-reared adoptees with an IQ of at least 50 as compared with 0% in the domestic adoptees. There were a further 12 children with some autistic-like features, but for whom the quasi-autism designation was not confirmed. The follow-up of the children showed that a quarter of the children lost their autistic-like features by 11. Disinhibited attachment and poor peer relationships were also present in over half of the children with quasi-autism. Conclusions: The findings at age 11/12 years confirmed the reality and clinical significance of the quasi-autistic patterns seen in over 1 in 10 of the children who experienced profound institutional deprivation. Although there were important similarities with "ordinary" autism, the dissimilarities suggest a different meaning.

Longitudinal analyses on normal versus impaired functioning across 7 domains were conducted in children who had experienced profound institutional deprivation up to the age of 42 months and were adopted from Romania into U.K. families. Comparisons were made with noninstitutionalized children adopted from Romania and with nondeprived within-U.K. adoptees placed before the age of 6 months. Specifically, the validity of the assessment, the degree of continuity and change in levels of functioning from 6 to 11 years, and the factors in the pre- and postadoption environment accounting for heterogeneity in outcome were examined. Pervasive impairment was significantly raised in children experiencing institutional deprivation for =6 months of life, with a minority within this group showing no impairment. There was no additional significant effect of duration of deprivation beyond the 6-month cutoff, and few other predictors explained outcome. The pattern of normality/impairment was mainly established by 6 years of age, with considerable continuity at the individual level between 6 and 11 years. The findings are discussed in terms of the possibility of a sensitive period for development.

Background: Disinhibited attachment is an important sequel of an institutional rearing, but questions remain regarding its measurement, its persistence, the specificity of the association with institutional rearing and on whether or not it constitutes a meaningful disorder. Method: Children initially reared in profoundly depriving institutions in Romania and subsequently adopted into UK families were compared with respect to findings at 11 years with children who had not experienced institutional deprivation and who had been adopted within the UK before the age of 6 months. Measures included parental reports, a Strange Situation procedure modified for use in the home and systematic standardised investigator ratings of the children's behaviour. Results: Disinhibited attachment, as reported by parents, showed a high degree of persistence from 6 to 11, but also a reduction over time in its frequency. Investigator ratings validated the parental reports but suggested that much of the fall in rate of disinhibited attachment was a function of the parental measure being less developmentally appropriate at 11 than it had been at 6. Disinhibited attachment was strongly associated with institutional rearing but there was not a significant increase in relation to duration of institutional deprivation beyond the age of 6 months. Mild, but not marked, disinhibited attachment was quite frequent in non-institutionalised adopted children but both the course and correlates indicated that its meaning was probably quite different. In the institution-reared children, disinhibited attachment was associated with a marked increase in service usage and associations with other forms of psychopathology. Conclusions: Disinhibited attachment constitutes a valid, and handicapping, clinical pattern that is strongly associated with an institutional rearing.

Background: There is uncertainty about the extent to which language skills are part of general intelligence and even more uncertainty on whether deprivation has differential effects on language and non-language skills. Methods: Language and cognitive outcomes at 6 and 11 years of age were compared between a sample of 132 institution-reared Romanian children adopted into UK families under the age of 42 months, and a sample of 49 children adopted within the UK under the age of 6 months who had not experienced either institutional rearing or profound deprivation. Results: The effects of institutional deprivation were basically similar for language and cognitive outcomes at age 6; in both there were few negative effects of deprivation if it ended before the age of 6 months and there was no linear association with duration of deprivation within the 6 to 42 month range. For the children over 18 months on arrival (range 18-42 months), the presence of even very minimal language skills (imitation of speech sounds) at the time of arrival was a strong beneficial prognostic factor for language and cognitive outcomes, but not for social/emotional/behavioural outcomes. Individual variations in adoptive parent characteristics were unrelated to differences in language or cognitive outcomes, possibly as a consequence of the limited variability in the adoptive family group. Conclusions: Minimal language probably indexes some form of cognitive reserve that, in turn, indexes the degree of institutional deprivation.

An interview with British theatre and film director Ian Rickson is presented. Topics discussed include a one-act play "Krapp's Last Tape" by Samuel Beckett, the Royal Court Theatre in Great Britain and his experience of working with a Nobel Prize-winning English playwright Harold Pinter. It also discusses rehearsal process, theater artist performance and biographies of Irish avant-garde novelist Samuel Beckett.

Despite a rapid growth in research interest and treatment facilities for adolescent sex offenders, understanding of how these adolescents differ from non-offending adolescents remains incomplete. This study contributes to knowledge of the distinguishing characteristics of offenders and focuses on levels of sexual knowledge and empathy that differentiates adolescent sex offenders and normative comparators. Data were collected from 55 male non-offending adolescents and compared to 221 male adolescent child molesters of a similar age who had attended a treatment clinic. Measures used were the Sexual Matters Questionnaire (ADOL) and the Victim Empathy Scale. The present study found that adolescent sexual offenders have less sexual knowledge and less victim empathy skills than non-offending adolescents. Results are discussed in terms of ethical, methodological and intervention implications. (Contains 4 tables.)

Cognitive outcomes at age 11 of 131 Romanian adoptees from institutions were compared with 50 U.K. adopted children. Key findings were of both continuity and change: (1) marked adverse effects persisted at age 11 for many of the children who were over 6 months on arrival; (2) there was some catch-up between ages 6 and 11 for the bottom 15%; (3) there was a decrease of 15 points for those over 6 months on arrival, but no differentiation within the 6-42-month range; (4) there was marked heterogeneity of outcome but this was not associated with the educational background of the adoptive families. The findings draw attention to the psychological as well as physical risks of institutional deprivation.

The process of identifying suitable genome-wide association (GWA) studies and formatting the data to calculate multiple polygenic risk scores on a single genome can be laborious. Here, we present a centralized polygenic risk score calculator currently containing over 250,000 genetic variant associations from the NHGRI-EBI GWAS Catalog for users to easily calculate sample-specific polygenic risk scores with comparable results to other available tools. Polygenic risk scores are calculated either online through the Polygenic Risk Score Knowledge Base (PRSKB; https://prs.byu.edu) or via a command-line interface. We report study-specific polygenic risk scores across the UK Biobank, 1000 Genomes, and the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), contextualize computed scores, and identify potentially confounding genetic risk factors in ADNI. We introduce a streamlined analysis tool and web interface to calculate and contextualize polygenic risk scores across various studies, which we anticipate will facilitate a wider adaptation of polygenic risk scores in future disease research. The Polygenic Risk Score Knowledge Base (PRSKB) is a web-based interface that stores data from >2,300 distinct genome-wide association studies, and can estimate polygenic risk scores for general use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explosive volcanic eruptions can leave behind widespread ash deposits that can subsequently be remobilised during strong winds. The London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC), based at the Met Office UK, provides forecasts for resuspended ash clouds in southern Iceland. In this article we consider a significant resuspended ash event on 24 April 2017, which was captured by the London VAAC forecast. We examine the meteorological observations and NWP data from the event and identify specific synoptic conditions conducive to significant remobilisation of volcanic ash in southern Iceland. These criteria will help forecasters to predict resuspended ash events in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recentJET Anniversary Virtual Special Issue, abbreviated here to JET@40, reproduced its very first editorial with selected articles from Britain and abroad published in subsequent decades. The journal first came into being as a response to damning criticism of the profession via government-sponsored reports and reviews but also to encourage informed debate with particular focus on notions of ‘good teaching’ and the ‘good teacher’. In this paper, we engage with selected contributions in JET@40 to tease out an historical map for teacher education. The task is to glean a sense of the past which resonates with our co-developed, research-informed teacher education programme, and gives insight to a lack of institutional and political support to encourage teacher research activity that interrogates the effects of poverty and cumulative multiple deprivation on disadvantaged students’ lives, learning and urban schooling experiences. Our argument is that JET@40 not only provides us with an indication of the best of what is known and practised but also a ‘usable past’ or history of specific professional insights to inform debate about possibilities and predicaments in our own teacher education programme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Between 27 June and 14 July 2019 aerosol layers were observed by the United Kingdom (UK) Raman lidar network in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere. The arrival of these aerosol layers in late June caused some concern within the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) as according to dispersion simulations the volcanic plume from the 21 June 2019 eruption of Raikoke was not expected over the UK until early July. Using dispersion simulations from the Met Office Numerical Atmospheric-dispersion Modelling Environment (NAME), and supporting evidence from satellite and in situ aircraft observations, we show that the early arrival of the stratospheric layers was not due to aerosols from the explosive eruption of the Raikoke volcano but due to biomass burning smoke aerosols associated with intense forest fires in Alberta, Canada, that occurred 4 d prior to the Raikoke eruption. We use the observations and model simulations to describe the dispersion of both the volcanic and forest fire aerosol clouds and estimate that the initial Raikoke ash aerosol cloud contained around 15 Tg of volcanic ash and that the forest fires produced around 0.2 Tg of biomass burning aerosol. The operational monitoring of volcanic aerosol clouds is a vital capability in terms of aviation safety and the synergy of NAME dispersion simulations, and lidar data with depolarising capabilities allowed scientists at the Met Office to interpret the various aerosol layers over the UK and attribute the material to their sources. The use of NAME allowed the identification of the observed stratospheric layers that reached the UK on 27 June as biomass burning aerosol, characterised by a particle linear depolarisation ratio of 9 %, whereas with the lidar alone the latter could have been identified as the early arrival of a volcanic ash–sulfate mixed aerosol cloud. In the case under study, given the low concentration estimates, the exact identification of the aerosol layers would have made little substantive difference to the decision-making process within the London VAAC. However, our work shows how the use of dispersion modelling together with multiple observation sources enabled us to create a more complete description of atmospheric aerosol loading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]