Studies of chemical speciation in naturally anoxic basins

The chemical speciation of both metals and non-metals, the use of polarographic techniques, and application to the study of the chemistry of anoxic waters are considered. In the first part of the paper unfamiliar terminology is explained and then an example of simple lake chemistry is presented to illustrate why the concept of speciation is necessary

Family learning: "What's the score?"

Family Learning through Football and Coaching (FLTFC) was developed with Sunderland Association Football Club (SAFC) Foundation, an adult basic skills provider, a primary school and the Open College Network. Ten years on this programme has high participation rates and is recognised for its capacity to engage the ‘hard-to-reach’ in learning. This paper provides a focused historical analysis and attempts to locate family learning in relation to policy, local authority structures and educational discourse. As cuts to public services continue, there is an expectation that the third sector, including social enterprises such as SAFC Foundation, will step in to fill the gap. The success of FLTFC could be presented as evidence of the effectiveness of the Big Society agenda however taking the long view it is evident that partnership with the public sector is an essential element in the development and continuity of successful provision. The theoretical framework which informs the paper incorporates brief consideration of the concept of lifelong learning and an examination of informal learning in the context of the family. The emerging localism agenda and issues relating to the current Coalition government's Big Society concept also inform the discussion. The paper will contribute to understanding of support for learning within families by providing a historical analysis of the endurance and success of a specific family learning programme. The findings of this study have the potential to contribute to the implementation of policy arising from the current review of adult informal community learning (BIS, 2011)

Bovine colostrum and immune function after exercise

Strenuous and/or prolonged exercise causes transient perturbations in immune function. It is well accepted that this is one mechanism contributing to the higher occurrence of infection (e.g. upper respiratory tract infection (URTI)) in athletes, especially endurance athletes. URTI or upper respiratory tract (URT) symptoms can negatively affect training and competition performance but athletes must train intensively to be successful. Therefore, interventions that can legitimately enhance immune function and reduce URTI risk can be of benefit to athletes. Bovine colostrum supplementation has been investigated as a possible nutritional countermeasure to enhance (or maintain) immune function, and reduce URTI risk, following strenuous or prolonged exercise and during intensive training periods. There is convincing evidence that daily supplementation with bovine colostrum, for a number of weeks (and preliminary evidence for acute effects after a single dose), can maintain intestinal barrier integrity, immune function and reduce the chances of suffering URTI or URT symptoms in athletes or those undertaking heavy training. The mechanisms are not fully understood at present but there is preliminary evidence suggesting that the effects on immune function are attributable, at least in part, to small bioactive components that survive digestion and are biologically available after consumption, but further work is required. In summary, the balance of existing evidence does support the notion that bovine colostrum is beneficial for certain groups of athletes, such as those involved in strenuous training (e.g. endurance athletes), in terms of immunity and resistance to infection

Private damages actions under EU competition policy : an exploration of the ongoing sea change in respect of such actions concerning articles 101 and 102 TFEU infringements

The EU has an established history of public enforcement concerning antitrust infringements under what are now Articles 101 and 102 of the Treaty of the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Yet, until recently, this has not been true in respect of private compensatory damages actions in relation to the said Articles. Hence, these actions are now seen as reinforcing the existing deterrent provided by pubic enforcement fines. This paper focuses upon the ongoing sea change that aims to enable and encourage compensatory damages claims in relation to harm caused by breaches of 101 and 102 TFEU. It reveals that both the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and the European Commission have played pioneering roles in advancing this sea change. It further asserts that, although the rulings of the CJEU have created a hybrid architecture that makes possible private actions in relation to the said breaches under Member state procedural laws before national courts, the architecture itself is problematic as it fails to guarantee that Member states’ procedural rules have a high degree of uniformity, thereby failing to guarantee a regulatory level playing field across the Union concerning the said damages actions. Moreover, not only is the architecture problematic, but it needed further development in respect of rules and requirements in several key areas, such as the right of evidential disclosure, the limitation period issue, collective redress and the quantification of harm, so as to facilitate and encourage claims. The Commission was aware of these concerns, and this paper explores its response. The issues could have been addressed by the establishment of a set of EU procedural rules which national courts would apply in the said actions but the Commission decided upon a different way forward. Working with the said hybrid architecture, and through the vehicle of the 2014 Directive on certain rules governing actions for damages under national law for infringements of the competition law provisions of the Member States and of the European Union, the Commission has amended and created rules and requirements which will form part of member states’ domestic procedural law - and therefore will be applied by national courts – in order to establish a more level regulatory playing field across the Union which should facilitate and encourage private compensatory damages actions for harm caused by EU antitrust breaches. Of course, a more level playing field means that differences will still remain. Moreover, it will be some time before the success of the Directive can be gauged, and further measures may be required in the future

Formation of iron sulfide at faecal pellets and other microniches within suboxic surface sediment.

Faecal pellet deposition and bioturbation may lead to heterogeneously distributed particles of localized highly reactive organic matter (microniches) being present below the oxygen penetration depth. Where O2, NO3-, and Fe/Mn oxyhydroxides become depleted within these microniches or where they exist in zones of sulfate reduction, significant localized peaks in sulfide concentration can occur. These discrete zones of sulfide evolution can cause formation of iron sulfides that would not be predicted by analysis of the ‘bulk’ sediment. Using a reaction-transport model developed specifically for investigating spherical microniches, and incorporating 3D diffusion, we investigated how the rate constants of organic matter (OM) degradation, particle porosity and niche lifetime, affect dissolved sulfide and iron concentrations, and formation of iron sulfide at such niches. For all of the modelled scenarios the saturation index for iron sulfide is positive, indicating favourable conditions for FeS precipitation in all niches. Those simulations within the microniche lifetime range of 2.5 to 5 days gave comparable concentration ratios of sulfide to iron in solution within the niche to experimentally observed values. Our model results provide insight into the mechanisms of preservation of OM, including soft tissue, in the paleo record, by predicting the conditions that result in preferential deposition of precipitates at the edge of microniches. Decreases in porosity, shorter niche lifetimes and increases in OM degradation rate constants, all tend to increase the likelihood that FeS precipitation will preferentially occur at the edges of a niche, rather than uniformly throughout the niche volume

Generalizing the Kantorovich Metric to Projection-Valued Measures

Given a compact metric space $X$, the collection of Borel probability measures on $X$ can be made into a compact metric space via the Kantorovich metric. We partially generalize this well known result to projection-valued measures. In particular, given a Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$, we consider the collection of projection-valued measures from $X$ into the projections on $\mathcal{H}$. We show that this collection can be made into a complete and bounded metric space via a generalized Kantorovich metric. However, we add that this metric space is not compact, thereby identifying an important distinction from the classical setting. We have seen recently that this generalized metric has been previously defined by F. Werner in the setting of mathematical physics. To our knowledge, we develop new properties and applications of this metric. Indeed, we use the Contraction Mapping Theorem on this complete metric space of projection-valued measures to provide an alternative method for proving a fixed point result due to P. Jorgensen. This fixed point, which is a projection-valued measure, arises from an iterated function system on $X$, and is related to Cuntz Algebras.Comment: The new version of this article has been updated to correct an error (proof of Theorem 3.1 in the previous version). We would like to acknowledge Krystal Taylor for identifying the error. The new version has also been shortened from the previous version (removed Section 4) to match the final publicatio

A systematic definition of sentence topic

Bibliography: leaves 43-46Supported in part by the National Institute of Education under contract no. HEW-NIE-C-400-76-011