Although technology provides numerous benefits to young people, it also has a ’ dark side ’, as it can be used for harm, not only by some adults but also by the young people themselves. Email, texting, chat rooms, mobile phones, mobile phone cameras and web sites can and are being used by young people to bully peers. It is now a global problem with many incidents reported in the United States, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia and the United Kingdom, as well as in Australia and New Zealand. This growing problem has as yet not received the attention it deserves and remains virtually absent from the research literature. This article explores definitional issues, the incidence and potential consequences of cyber bullying, as well as discussing possible prevention and intervention strategies.

Cyber bullying: An old problem in a new guise?

Applying the Rasch Model

A developmental approach to cyberbullying: prevalence and protective factors

[1] Extreme precipitation and floods in Europe are a recurring natural hazard causing large socioeconomic damages. Here we investigate the connection between annual maxima (AM) daily precipitation at a pan-European scale and atmospheric rivers (ARs), narrow filaments that convey the majority of the poleward water vapor transport within extratropical cyclones. We show that ARs are responsible for many AM precipitation days in Western Europe. The relationship is especially strong along the western European seaboard, with some areas having eight of their top 10 AM related to ARs. The effects of ARs are also seen as far inland as Germany and Poland. Southern Europe was most affected by ARs under negative North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) conditions, whereas northern Europe was more associated with a positive relationship between ARs and an NAO-type pattern. Our results suggest that ARs are critical in explaining the upper tail of the extreme precipitation distribution in Western Europe.

The nexus between atmospheric rivers and extreme precipitation across Europe

Atmospheric rivers (ARs) are characterized by intense moisture transport, which, on landfall, produce precipitation which can be both beneficial and destructive. ARs in California, for example, are known to have ended drought conditions but also to have caused substantial socio-economic damage from landslides and flooding linked to extreme precipitation. Understanding how AR characteristics will respond to a warming climate is, therefore, vital to the resilience of communities affected by them, such as the western USA, Europe, East Asia and South Africa. In this Review, we use a theoretical framework to synthesize understanding of the dynamic and thermodynamic responses of ARs to anthropogenic warming and connect them to observed and projected changes and impacts revealed by observations and complex models. Evidence suggests that increased atmospheric moisture (governed by Clausius–Clapeyron scaling) will enhance the intensity of AR-related precipitation — and related hydrological extremes — but with changes that are ultimately linked to topographic barriers. However, due to their dependency on both weather and climate-scale processes, which themselves are often poorly constrained, projections are uncertain. To build confidence and improve resilience, future work must focus efforts on characterizing the multiscale development of ARs and in obtaining observations from understudied regions, including the West Pacific, South Pacific and South Atlantic. Due to their intense moisture transport, atmospheric rivers are associated with hydrological hazards such as extreme rainfall and flooding. This Review discusses how atmospheric-river characteristics and impacts may change with warming, synthesizing physical theory, observations and modelling.

Responses and impacts of atmospheric rivers to climate change

Cyberbullying: the hidden side of college students

Este estudo apresenta dados que permitem conhecer a frequencia de varios tipos de condutas de agressao e vitimacao – fisico, verbal e indirecto ou relacional – ocorridos entre adolescentes que frequentavam as escolas basicas 2/3 e as escolas secundarias do ensino oficial de uma cidade do Norte Alentejo. O estudo compara a frequencia dos tipos de agressao/vitimacao ( bullying ) que ocorrem entre generos; entre tres niveis de escolaridade e entre tres niveis socioeconomicos com base nos resultados obtidos a partir de um questionario de comportamentos referidos pelo proprio ( self-report ). Os resultados obtidos sao ainda comparados com os resultados obtidos por outros estudos europeus sobre este tema.

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Agressão e vitimação entre adolescentes, em contexto escolar: Um estudo empírico

This study aims to clarify how the quality of the family environment is related to the involvement in cyberbullying behaviors, either as a cyber-victim or as a cyber-aggressor, via a cross-sectional research design. With this purpose a diagnostic questionnaire with questions about both the quality of family environment and cyberbullying was conceived and administered to 3525 adolescents attending 6th, 8th and 11th grades at several schools in Portugal. The results suggested that two family aspects seem to be equally important in protection against cyberbullying: perception of family support and perception of rules within the family. A hierarchical regression analysis reveals that lack of family support is more predictive of cyber-victimization and that a lack of family rules is more predictive of cyber-aggression. The authors discuss the implications for the well-being of adolescents, as well as the challenges that parents face in the supervision of adolescents' use of digital technologies.

Cyber-Victimization and Cyber-Aggression among Portuguese Adolescents: The Relation to Family Support and Family Rules

Adolescent cybervictimization – Who they turn to and their perceived school climate

This study examined the extent and nature of cyberbullying in 23 Portuguese schools. A sample of 3,525 sixth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade students completed a self-response questionnaire assessing their perceptions and experiences of cyberbullying. The findings showed that 7.6% of students have been victimized, and 3.9% have bullied others at least once over the last year. The incidences of victimization were higher for females and for the older students. In contrast, more boys reported having bullied others in the eleventh grade. The most frequent medium of cyberbullying was via websites, whilst sending offensive messages was the most widely reported type of behavior. Telling someone about cyberbullying is among the most frequent coping strategies used by cybervictims, who usually chose to tell their friends rather than adults. Implications of these findings for students, schools, and parents are discussed.

Maria José D. Martins

Papers

Cyberbullying: the hidden side of college students

Agressão e vitimação entre adolescentes, em contexto escolar: Um estudo empírico

Cyber-Victimization and Cyber-Aggression among Portuguese Adolescents: The Relation to Family Support and Family Rules

Adolescent cybervictimization – Who they turn to and their perceived school climate

Cyberbullying in Portuguese Schools: Prevalence and Characteristics