Home Help: How something as small as a bag could make a big difference in the NHS

With crowded hospitals and a greater range of treatments available, many patients choose to be looked after at home. Healthcare in the home, though, needs to be as well-thought-out as treatment in the hospital. PhD student David Swann has taken an often overlooked but always present element of nursing - the bag - and considered how this could be improved to reduce disease transmission and make healthcare easier

A comparison of the Si/Al and Si/time wet-alkaline digestion methods for measurement of biogenic silica in lake sediments

Existing techniques for measuring sediment Biogenic Silica (BSi) concentrations rely largely on conventional (Si-only) wet-alkaline digestion methods. Although results have provided detailed palaeoenvironmental information, potential errors can arise in accounting for sources of non-BSi. Here, I compare a conventional Si-only method to a Si/Al wet-alkaline digestion method, which in theory provides a more robust correction for concentrations of non-BSi. Late glacial/Holocene-aged sediment from Lake Baikal, Russia was used for the comparison. Results showed no significant difference between the two techniques, indicating that existing Si-only BSi methods are suitable for reconstructing environmental changes when levels of digested non-BSi are low to moderate

'Is this the Region … that we must change for heav'n?': Milton on the margins

No abstract available

The fortunes of Arthur: Malory to Milton

This chapter follows the fortunes of Arthur as a figure contested and celebrated in equal measure between Malory's Morte Darthur (1485), and Milton's History of Britain (1670). Malory depicted the French wars under the guise of Arthur's sixth-century campaign against Rome, and Arthur was key to medieval and Renaissance representations of sovereignty and resistance. One critical view suggests that by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Arthur became an inconvenient myth, retaining poetic and propagandistic potential but scoffed at by serious scholars. The Reformation and the rise of antiquarianism engendered suspicion of medieval sources, and Arthur and Brutus were undone by the rise of Anglo-Saxon studies. Yet Arthur maintained momentum even as myth morphed from history to poetry, and writers such as Sidney, Spenser, and Shakespeare still found purchase in the legend. Looked at closely, Milton's disparaging of Arthur appears less absolute, refashioning as it does Malory's Arthurian political allegory

Magnetic bearings: Fifty years of progress

Magnetic bearings are just beginning to be flown in spacecraft systems, but their development spans more than 50 years. The promise of completely noncontacting, unlubricated rotating systems operating at speeds substantially beyond the range of conventional bearings, and with no wear and virtually no vibration, has provided the incentive to develop magnetic bearing technology for many diverse applications. Earnshaw theorized in 1842 that stable magnetic suspension is not possible in all three spatial directions unless the magnetic field is actively controlled. Since that time, researchers have attempted to successfully support spinning rotors in a stable manner. Development of magnetic suspension systems over the past fifty years has included progress on both passive (permanent magnet) and active (electromagnet) systems. The improvements in bearing load capacity, stiffness, and damping characteristics are traced. The trends in rotor size, rotational kinetic energy, and improvements in active control systems capabilities are also reviewed. Implications of superconductivity on suspension system design and performance are discussed