Inpatient aggression by mentally ill offenders: a retrospective case-control study

A retrospective case-control study was conducted examining relationships between patients’ socio-demographic, clinical and admission characteristics and inpatient aggression. Patients aged 18–64?years with a recent offence episode, who were admitted to a regional acute mental health unit, were included as cases (N?=?82), while controls comprised the next available admission, matched for age and gender (N?=?82). The prototypical patient was a young, single male, with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a history of substance use and previous psychiatric admissions. The majority of cases had a history of aggression and recent offences against public order. They also revealed a higher likelihood of involvement in ‘less serious’ aggressive incidents (e.g. verbal threats or demands) during the index admission. Clinically, knowledge of each patient’s recent offence history, arrival mode and observed characteristics on admission (including any verbal aggression) may be important in the management of subsequent inpatient aggression.     

Lifestyle illicit drug seizures: A routine ESI-LC-MS method for the identification of sildenafil and vardenafil

For street samples suspected of containing the phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors sildenafil (Viagra(?)) and/or vardenafil (Levitra(?)), including powders or adulterated herbal supplements, a chemical analysis is needed to provide confirmatory identification of these illegally procured substances. Sildenafil and vardenafil are structurally similar and it is difficult to differentiate between them, as previous mass spectrometric studies have shown the two drugs to produce similar fragmentation patterns. The use of tandem mass spectrometry can produce confirmatory data, but the technique requires a high level of technical expertise. We have developed an electrospray ionization-liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (ESI-LC-MS) method that allows differentiation between these two structurally similar molecules via in-source fragmentation in combination with an ion trap mass spectrometer. A very stable gas phase ion is formed during in-source fragmentation of vardenafil; the combination of the stability of this ion and the longer residence time for the ion in the ion trap results in a very strong signal. This feature results in a method that can provide clear differentiation between sildenafil and vardenafil while at the same time requiring less expertise from the routine analyst to confirm the presence or absence of the two compounds.     

Foreign problems and domestic laws

The complexities presented by the conflicts of law were longavoided in the UK, unlike in other European countries. The Englishjudges, pragmatic as ever, used a legal fiction to ensure thatno action ever had a foreign element. If an action arose betweenan English and French merchant in Paris, then the imaginativecourt would determine that the events took place in ‘Paris,at London in the parish     

Experience in the transfer of handpump technology to less developed countries

Many of the world's nations have neither adequate water supplies nor sufficient sanitation facilities. The United Nations, therefore, designated 1981–1990 as the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade with the explicit goal of providing the world's poor with access to adequate water supplies and proper sanitations. Over the past eight years, the International Division of the Engineering Experiment Station at Georgia Tech has been helping the world's poorer countries assess their need for handoperated water pumps, develop effective hand pump programs, and manufacture, install, maintain and monitor the pumps. The purpose of this paper is to provide a methodology for technology transfer that is applicable to hand pumps as well as to numerous other hardware items.