A NATIONAL PERSPECTIVE ON LAND USE POLICY ALTERNATIVES AND CONSEQUENCES AT THE RURAL-URBAN FRINGE

Land Economics/Use,

Analysis of residues resulting from mafic silicate impacts into aluminium 1100

Accepted versio

NHS reforms and the working lives of midwives and physiotherapists

From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as requiring a greater leadership role from health professionals, closer and more cooperative working between health professionals, and between health professionals, social services, and community and other service providers. The project surveyed a random sample of midwives and physiotherapists to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of the reforms, and their effects on working lives. The predominant perception was that NHS reforms had negatively affected the funding of their services; and had done little to improve service quality, delivery or organisation. Although the potential existed for the reforms to improve services, the necessary resources and required staffing were not made available and the objectives of the reforms were only partially secured by intensifying of work. The downside of this was a deterioration of the sociopsychological wellbeing of midwives and physiotherapists, especially the former, exacerbating the shortage of skilled and experienced. Shortage of staff and the associated increased work burdens were demoralising and demotivating; morale and job satisfaction declined, and job insecurity and labour turnover increased

Human development and decent Work: Why some concepts succeed and others fail to make an impact

This paper examines the impact of the International Labour Office’s (ILO) concept of Decent Work on development thinking and the associated literature. We attempt to answer the question of what makes a development initiative successful by comparing the decent work approach to the United Nation Development Program's (UNDP) human development concept (in conjunction with the human development indicator). We consider that the latter has been one of the most successful development concepts ever to have been launched, while the impact of decent work by comparison has been limited. Our hypothesis relating to the question of what makes a development initiative successful has three fundamental components: first, a solid theoretical foundation has to justify the launch of a development concept. A second vital factor is the availability of sufficient national and internationally comparable data that enables researchers and policymakers alike to apply the concept, preferably by means of a synthetic indicator. Third, the political will and institutional structure of the development institution that launches a concept is a key factor, particularly if data availability is limited as countries then have to be persuaded to generate new data.The authors would like to thank the Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme, the European Union (FP7 project ‘Nopoor’), and the Conicyt/Fondap Proyect number 15130009 for partial funding provided for this paper.This is the accepted manuscript. It's currently embargoed pending publication by Wiley. The final version is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/dech.12149/abstrac

Aluminum Foils of the Stardust Interstellar Collector: The Challenge of Recognizing Micrometer-sized Impact Craters made by Interstellar Grains

Preliminary Examination (PE) of the Stardust cometary collector revealed material embedded in aerogel and on aluminium (Al) foil. Large numbers of sub-micrometer impact craters gave size, structural and compositional information. With experience of finding and analyzing the picogram to nanogram mass remains of cometary particles, are we now ready for PE of the Interstellar (IS) collector? Possible interstellar particle (ISP) tracks in the aerogel are being identified by the stardust@home team. We are now assessing challenges facing PE of Al foils from the interstellar collector

Survival of Organic Materials in Hypervelocity Impacts of Ice on Sand, Ice, and Water in the Laboratory

The survival of organic molecules in shock impact events has been investigated in the laboratory. A frozen mixture of anthracene and stearic acid, solvated in dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO), was fired in a two-stage light gas gun at speeds of ?2 and ?4?km s?1 at targets that included water ice, water, and sand. This involved shock pressures in the range of 2–12 GPa. It was found that the projectile materials were present in elevated quantities in the targets after impact and in some cases in the crater ejecta as well. For DMSO impacting water at 1.9?km s?1 and 45° incidence, we quantify the surviving fraction after impact as 0.44±0.05. This demonstrates successful transfer of organic compounds from projectile to target in high-speed impacts. The range of impact speeds used covers that involved in impacts of terrestrial meteorites on the Moon, as well as impacts in the outer Solar System on icy bodies such as Pluto. The results provide laboratory evidence that suggests that exogenous delivery of complex organic molecules from icy impactors is a viable source of such material on target bodies

Cometary Dust Characteristics: Comparison of Stardust Craters with Laboratory Impacts

Aluminium foils exposed to impact during the passage of the Stardust spacecraft through the coma of comet Wild 2 have preserved a record of a wide range of dust particle sizes. The encounter velocity and dust incidence direction are well constrained and can be simulated by laboratory shots. A crater size calibration programme based upon buckshot firings of tightly constrained sizes (monodispersive) of glass, polymer and metal beads has yielded a suite of scaling factors for interpretation of the original impacting grain dimensions. We have now extended our study to include recognition of particle density for better matching of crater to impactor diameter. A novel application of stereometric crater shape measurement, using paired scanning electron microscope (SEM) images has shown that impactors of differing density yield different crater depth/diameter ratios. Comparison of the three-dimensional gross morphology of our experimental craters with those from Stardust reveals that most of the larger Stardust impacts were produced by grains of low internal porosity

SEM-EDS analyses of small craters in stardust aluminium foils: implications for the Wild-2 dust distribution

Implications for the Wild-2 dust distribution of the statistical results obtained by SEM-EDS from nearly 300 impact craters on aluminium foils of the Stardust sample tray assembly

Validation of the self-completed Cambridge-Hopkins questionnaire (CH-RLSq) for ascertainment of restless legs syndrome (RLS) in a population survey.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Epidemiological studies of restless legs syndrome (RLS) have been limited by lack of a well validated patient-completed diagnostic questionnaire that has a high enough specificity to provide a reasonable positive predictive value. Most of the currently used patient completed diagnostic questionnaires have neither been validated nor included items facilitating the differential diagnosis of RLS from conditions producing similar symptoms. The Cambridge-Hopkins diagnostic questionnaire for RLS (CH-RLSq) was developed with several iterations to include items covering the basic diagnostic features of RLS and to provide some basic differential diagnosis. This validation study sought to determine the sensitivity and specificity of the RLS diagnosis based on this questionnaire. PATIENTS AND METHODS: The CH-RLSq was completed by 2005 blood donors who were asked to consent to being contacted for a telephone diagnostic interview. A scoring criterion was established for ascertainment of RLS based on the clinical definition of the disorder and the exclusion of "mimic" conditions. A weighted sample (N=185) of all completed questionnaires was selected for expert clinical diagnosis of RLS using the validated Hopkins Telephone Diagnostic Interview (HDTI). The telephone interviewers were blinded to all questionnaire responses. RESULTS: A telephone diagnosis was obtained on 183 of the sample's 185 questionnaires. The questionnaire's normalized sensitivity and specificity were 87.2% and 94.4%, respectively, for RLS compared to not RLS. The positive predictive values in this sample were 85.5%. CONCLUSIONS: The Cambridge-Hopkins RLS questionnaire provides a reasonable level of sensitivity and specificity for ascertainment of RLS in population-based studies