The contribution of rural community businesses to integrated rural development: “Local services for local people”

Policy responses to the problems facing rural areas across Europe have involved the replacement of “productivist” measures that subsidise agriculture to strategies promoting “integrated rural development”, emphasising the interconnections between various facets of the rural economy. Thus farm modernisation and product processing and marketing are linked with the promotion of a more diversified economic base centred on tourism and recreation and the maintenance of services for local residents. An essential element of this model is its reliance on collaborative actions involving a range of community or civil society actors. This paper examines the extent to which the operation of community-owned businesses in rural parts of the Yorkshire and Humber region in the UK corresponds to these ideals of integrated rural development. Evidence is presented on their geographical footprint with respect to both direct economic impacts and linkages with social and institutional networks. This allows an assessment to be made of the contribution that such enterprises make to rural economic development as a whole. The conclusion is that they do have the potential to assist integrated rural development, but only as a small part of a much wider series of economic, social and environmental actions.integrated rural development, rural community businesses, economic impacts, geographical footprint, volunteering

Picture Perfect, Perfect Pictures

Two photojournalists share a sampling of their work

Assessment of Pain in adults with cognitive impairment : a review of the tools

The aim of this paper is to discuss the results of a review into the literature related to chronic pain and the older adult. Several themes within the review have been identified and reported elsewhere and the final report has been published by the University of Sheffield in the form of an annotated bibliography. This report focuses upon the findings of the in relation to the assessment of pain in the adult with cognitive impairment. Issues surrounding assessment in the non-cognitively impaired older adult have also been reported elsewhere. For this paper nine studies will be discussed which report the development and testing of pain assessment scales the focus of which is upon behavioural indicators of pain. Some scales have been omitted from the review and the rationale for this decision will be discussed. Each of the selected scales will be discussed and the authors will make recommendations for both clinical practice and for future research based upon the validity, reliability and user friendliness of the scales. From the paper it can be concluded that the Abbey, DOLOPLUS-2 and PACSLAC appear to be the most reliable and valid and in terms of the “user friendliness” would be appropriate to explore further. Recommendations are made for further multi-centre evaluation of these scales.University of Sheffiel

Assessment of pain in older people : where are we now and what needs to be done?

The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of a review of the literature into pain and older people. The funded study was part of the development of an annotated bibliography published in August 2005. The review included all major databases and involved the collection of 214 papers between the dates of 1995 and 2005. The papers were divided into several major themes, which include experiences, management (pharmacological and non-pharmacological), assessment, and attitudes. Within this paper, the results of the review into pain assessment will be discussed, which includes 42 of the collected papers. The other sections will be published later. The paper will discuss issues pertaining to the development of specific tools for older people, a discussion of tools already available, comparisons of staff versus older people’s perceptions of pain scales, and articles with cognitive impairment as a focus. Recommendations for further study are made.University of Sheffiel

Commissioning for better outcomes in mental health care: testing Alliance Contracting as an enabling framework

Purpose Commissioning has been a central plank of health and social are policy in England for many years now, yet there are still debates about how effective it is in delivering improvements in care and outcomes. Social inclusion of people with experience of mental health is one of the goals that commissioners would like to help services to improve but such a complex outcome for people can often be undermined by contractual arrangements that fragment service responses rather than deliver holistic support. In this paper we discuss a form of commissioning, Alliance Contracting, and how it has been allied with a Social Inclusion Outcomes Framework (SIOF)in Stockport to begin to improve services and outcomes. Design/methodology/approach The paper is a conceptual discussion and case description of the use of Alliance Contracts to improve recovery services and social inclusion in mental health care in one locality. Findings The paper finds that the Alliance Contracting approach fits well with the SIOF and is beginning to deliver some promising results in terms of improving services Research limitations/implications This is a case study of one area and, as such, it is hard to generalise beyond that. Practical implications The paper discusses a promising approach for commissioners to develop locally to guide service improvements and better social inclusion outcomes for people. Originality/value This is the first paper to set out the use of alliance contracting and social inclusion measures to help improve services and outcomes for people experiencing mental health problem

Novel muon imaging techniques

Owing to the high penetrating power of high-energy cosmic ray muons, muon imaging techniques can be used to image large bulky objects, especially objects with heavy shielding. Muon imaging systems work just like CT scanners in the medical imaging field—that is, they can reveal information inside of a target. There are two forms of muon imaging techniques: muon absorption imaging and muon multiple scattering imaging. The former is based on the flux attenuation of muons, and the latter is based on the multiple scattering of muons in matter. The muon absorption imaging technique is capable of imaging very large objects such as volcanoes and large buildings, and also smaller objects like spent fuel casks; the muon multiple scattering imaging technique is best suited to inspect smaller objects such as nuclear waste containers. Muon imaging techniques can be applied in a broad variety of fields, i.e. from measuring the magma thickness of volcanoes to searching for secret cavities in pyramids, and from monitoring the borders of countries checking for special nuclear materials to monitoring the spent fuel casks for nuclear safeguards applications. In this paper, the principles of muon imaging are reviewed. Image reconstruction algorithms such as Filtered Back Projection and Maximum Likelihood Expectation Maximization are discussed. The capability of muon imaging techniques is demonstrated through a Geant4 simulation study for imaging a nuclear spent fuel cask

Mentoring the Mentors: Implementation and Evaluation of Four Fogarty-Sponsored Mentoring Training Workshops in Low-and Middle-Income Countries.

A growing body of evidence highlights the importance of competent mentoring in academic research. We describe the development, implementation, and evaluation of four regional 2-day intensive workshops to train mid- and senior-level investigators conducting public health, clinical, and basic science research across multiple academic institutions in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) on tools and techniques of effective mentoring. Sponsored by the Fogarty International Center, workshops included didactic presentations, interactive discussions, and small-group problem-based learning and were conducted in Lima, Peru; Mombasa, Kenya; Bangalore, India; and Johannesburg, South Africa, from 2013 to 2016. Mid- or senior-level faculty from multiple academic institutions within each region applied and were selected. Thirty faculty from 12 South America-based institutions, 29 faculty from eight East Africa-based institutions, 37 faculty from 14 South Asia-based institutions, and 36 faculty from 13 Africa-based institutions participated, with diverse representation across disciplines, gender, and academic rank. Discussions and evaluations revealed important comparisons and contrasts in the practice of mentoring, and specific barriers and facilitators to mentoring within each cultural and regional context. Specific regional issues related to hierarchy, the post-colonial legacy, and diversity arose as challenges to mentoring in different parts of the world. Common barriers included a lack of a culture of mentoring, time constraints, lack of formal training, and a lack of recognition for mentoring. These workshops provided valuable training, were among the first of their kind, were well-attended, rated highly, and provided concepts and a structure for the development and strengthening of formal mentoring programs across LMIC institutions

Real-time Terrain Mapping

We present an interactive, real-time mapping system for digital elevation maps (DEMs), which allows Earth scientists to map and therefore understand the deformation of the continental crust at length scales of 10m to 1000km. Our system visualizes the surface of the Earth as a 3D~surface generated from a DEM, with a color texture generated from a registered multispectral image and vector-based mapping elements draped over it. We use a quadtree-based multiresolution method to be able to render high-resolution terrain mapping data sets of large spatial regions in real time. The main strength of our system is the combination of interactive rendering and interactive mapping directly onto the 3D~surface, with the ability to navigate the terrain and to change viewpoints arbitrarily during mapping. User studies and comparisons with commercially available mapping software show that our system improves mapping accuracy and efficiency, and also enables qualitatively different observations that are not possible to make with existing systems