Coming dissertations at Uppsala university
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Support and Treatment for Men Convicted of Sexual Offending : Readiness, Change, and Previous Help-Seeking
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-525255
Social work plays a crucial role in the prevention of sexual abuse. Such prevention can involve protection for potential victims but also measures directed at those who perpetrate sexual abuse. However, research on desistance among those who have committed sexual offences, their treatment readiness, and help-seeking prior to conviction is scarce.
This doctoral thesis aims to explore support and treatment from the perspective of adult men convicted of sexual offences in Sweden. What are their experiences of change after participation in sex offender treatment, and how do they engage in risk-reducing interventions? Particular attention is placed on the roles of relatives and society.
Data consist of pre- and post-tests (n = 99) and in-depth interviews with men convicted of sexual crimes (n = 19). The interviews were carried out with both participants (n = 13) and non-participants (n = 6) in sex offender treatment.
Participants’ self-reports (n ~ 26) and therapist ratings (n = 46) analysed in paper I suggest that participation in the sex offender programme called SEIF may be associated with changes in criminogenic needs, potentially reducing issues linked to recidivism. However, caution is advised due to methodological limitations. Further studies are needed to determine effectiveness. According to paper II, interviewees who participated in SEIF (n = 13) appeared to have started building new prosocial narrative identities, indicative of early desistance.
The findings in paper III suggest that non-rehabilitative, punitive elements within correctional systems can create barriers to readiness. Nevertheless, supportive and non-punitive responses from staff, close ones, or fellow inmates seemed to counteract these negative loops. This hypothesised relational mechanism, promoting readiness, is termed looping disruption. Paper IV examines help-seeking behaviours and indicates that prevention efforts can either succeed or fail at various societal levels. Barriers to seeking help include a lack of awareness of the problem, fear of social consequences, and a neglectful welfare system. Professionals with specific knowledge and focus were seen as providing meaningful support, while the involvement of loved ones was a central motivator.
In conclusion, a non-judgmental, person-centred, and supportive approach is recommended, as it seems to increase willingness to change. Professionals may need specific training to tackle the challenges associated with this task. Furthermore, the thesis highlights how the significant stigma associated with sexual offences is a major obstacle when reintegrating individuals convicted of such crimes into society.
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Of dark mesons and novel methods : A dark sector search in ATLAS data and development of new techniques for challenging final states
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-526249
Studies of the interactions of elementary particles at high energies have been carried out at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN for over a decade. Different quantities from the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics have been measured with increasing accuracy without substantial deviations from predictions. Searches for physics beyond the SM are similarly carried out, motivated by the existence of phenomena not yet described by it, such as dark matter. This thesis presents one such search in proton-proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector. The search is guided by a new, proposed addition to the SM, where the dark matter candidate arises as a composite particle of a new sector. If this were realised in nature, the same sector would give rise to other composite particles, dark mesons, that would be produced in proton-proton collisions and decay promptly to SM particles. This new model is largely free of previous constraints from searches and measurements. The full analysis targeting pair produced dark pions decaying to top and bottom quarks, tttb or ttbb, in the 1-lepton channel is described. It is carried out in the full Run 2 dataset of 140 fb−1 of proton-proton collisions at √s = 13 TeV center-of-mass energy. The analysis is sensitive to large parts of the parameter space of the model, and no significant excess was seen over SM predictions. Based on this, limits on the production cross-section of dark pions were set. By comparing with the theoretical cross sections of the model, these rule out dark pion masses up to 943 GeV in the most sensitive configuration.
Further, several novel techniques that could aid with searches in similar phase-spaces are presented. First, the Extrapolation Engine fast simulation of the inner tracker for the high luminosity upgrade of ATLAS was used in the study of a proposed hardware track trigger (HTT). This could be crucial to retaining efficiency in similar phase-spaces in the extreme conditions at the high luminosity LHC (HL-LHC). Second, the fully scalable multi-dimensional density estimate in SparkDensityTrees was applied on background and signal similar to those in the dark meson analysis and was shown to efficiently find signal-enriched regions. Third, the unsupervised clustering algorithm UCluster which can be trained with any clustering objective, such as signal extraction, anomaly detection or jet tagging was developed to run on multiple cores for arbitrary scalability. Lastly, a Boosted Decision Tree (BDT) was applied for signal and background discrimination in the dark meson analysis, yielding promising results for future iterations of it.
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Daily life in the Roman Republican countryside : A ceramic perspective on change and continuity in the production, distribution and consumption of cooking wares from the Pontine region (Central Italy), 4th–1st centuries BC
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-524897
Daily life in the Roman Republican countryside (4th–1st centuries BC) was influenced by the lasting effects of unification and integration into the Roman state. The outcomes of this process varied between areas depending on the local environment and pre-Roman history, leading to variation in daily practices among rural communities. This study aims to shed new light on the rural communities of the Pontine region and how they were impacted by larger-scale socio-economic processes. Through a detailed study of the production, distribution and consumption of cooking wares retrieved during surveys of farmsteads in the region, elements of change and continuity are explored.
In order to be able to connect small-scale data obtained from ceramic fabrics and individual sherds to large-scale socio-economic and top-down political processes, a multi-scalar behavioural framework centred on the life cycle of cooking wares is employed. The assemblages recovered from consumption contexts are viewed as remnants of habitual behaviour performed in domestic settings. Indirectly, the ceramic fragments also provide information about the production and distribution of these pots through their fabrics.
The morphological longevity and standardisation of different vessel forms suggests that production technology and consumption practices were widely shared, leading to the conceptualisation of what a cooking pot should look like. Minor morphological, technological and distributional changes occurred in the first half of the 2nd century BC. These tentatively point to changes in the organisation of production and distribution mechanisms, with regional and interregional producers supplying the Pontine pottery markets. This coincided with much wider societal changes associated with the Second Punic War.
The assemblage study reveals intra-regional variation and similarities. The Pontine plain shows a high level of uniformity in the assemblages, suggesting a homogenous population of (Roman) colonists settling the previously uninhabited but now drained marshland in the late 4th century BC. On the other hand, the coastal area shows more variation in consumption practices, reflecting the co-habitation of different groups such as the Volscians and Latins, mixed with Roman colonists, as well as possibly more socio-economic diversity between households. Diachronically, Mid-Republican foodways were centred on (semi)liquid foods prepared in jars and served in bowls, supplemented with a pre-Roman local tradition of bread baking. By the Late Republican period, foodways and their associated assemblages became more varied. Nonetheless, by the end of the 1st century, what inhabitants of the region would serve for dinner would still been somewhat recognisable to their Mid-Republican ancestors.