Paid Sick Days Improve Public Health by Reducing the Spread of Disease

Paid sick days can reduce the spread of disease at work and in child-care settings, creating significant public health benefits and a more productive workforce. That's why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that workers with the flu stay home. Yet many workers cannot do so without losing income or their job

Psychological and sociodemographic correlates of communicative anxiety in L2 and L3 production

This paper analyses foreign language anxiety in the French L2 and English L3 speech production of 100 Flemish students. The findings suggest that foreign language anxiety is not a stable personality trait among experienced language learners. The societal as well as the individual contexts were found to determine levels of communicative anxiety. The perception of French as the former prestige language in Flanders and its function as a social marker was found to be linked to the participants' social class, which was, in turn, linked to levels of anxiety in French - but not in English. This social effect appeared to be a stronger predictor of communicative anxiety in French than three personality variables (extraversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism). Psychoticism, extraversion, and, to a lesser extent, neuroticism did however significantly predict levels of communicative anxiety in English L3 production. Students who scored high on the extraversion and psychoticism scales reported significant lower levels of communicative anxiety in English. Those who scored low on the neuroticism scale also tended to report lower levels of communicative anxiety in English. The same pattern emerged for communicative anxiety in French without reaching statistical significance

Current developments: Public international law I. Conflicts of criminal jurisdiction

The expansion of claims of extended territorial and extraterritorial criminal legislative jurisdiction and the increasing facility with which States are able to obtain custody over defendants by way of more effective extradition arrangements is leading to a new problem in transnational criminal law. The result of these developments is that more than one State may have legitimate jurisdiction to legislate for the same conduct and the courts of more than one State may be entitled to exercise judicial jurisdiction over those persons charged with crimes arising from that conduct. For prosecutors, the problem may present itself as one of prosecutorial efficiency—how may the case be proceeded with expeditiously, in particular, in which jurisdiction is a conviction most likely to be secured? Considerations such as the availability of witnesses or the admissibility of evidence may influence the prospects of conviction and prospective punishments may be a factor when deciding in which system prosecutors prefer the case to go ahead. Defendants have different perspectives. In many cases involving extradition to face a charge based on an exercise of extended jurisdiction, the defendant will be removed from the place where he lives and works to another State. There may be adverse consequences for him compared to facing a trial where he is usually located. Criminal proceedings abroad will be in an unfamiliar legal system; bail may be harder to obtain because of a perceived greater danger of flight; the impossibility to continue working during the period in which the trial is being prepared may impose financial hardship; defendants will be removed from their families and social networks for considerable periods

Aggregating multiple body sensors for analysis in sports

Real time monitoring of the wellness of sportspersons, during their sporting activity and training, is important in order to maximise performance during the sporting event itself and during training, as well as being important for the health of the sportsperson overall. We have combined a suite of common, off-the-shelf sensors with specialist body sensing technology we are developing ourselves and constructed a software system for recording, analysing and presenting sensed data gathered from a single player during a sporting activity, a football match. We gather readings for heart rate, galvanic skin response, motion, heat flux, respiration, and location (GPS) using on-body sensors, while simultaneously tracking player activity using a combination of a playercam video and pitch-wide video recording. We have aggregated all this sensed data into a single overview of player performance and activity which can be reviewed, post-event. We are currently working on integrating other non-invasive methods for real-time on-body monitoring of sweat electrolytes and pH via a textile-based sweat sampling and analysis platform. Our work is heading in two directions; firstly from post-event data aggregation to real-time monitoring, and secondly, to convert raw sensor readings into performance indicators that are meaningful to practitioners in the field

Legume seed production and research in Europe

Legume seed production and research in Europ

Retail and leisure flows in the East Midlands

This report is the second phase of research for emda, analysing retail and leisure patterns around the East Midlands region, which follows on from phase one analysing commuter flows. Understanding city and town regions is important to understanding the dynamics of the economy in a region. City and town regions are characterised by flows (travel patterns) into and out of them, and these flows differ depending on the dataset / activity being monitored. Good data already exists about commuting flows, but there is less good data available about the flows to retail and leisure facilities

Evaluation of rice–legume–rice cropping system on grain yield, nutrient uptake, nitrogen fixation, and chemical, physical, and biological properties of soil

To achieve higher yields and better soil quality under rice–legume–rice (RLR) rotation in a rainfed production system, we formulated integrated nutrient management (INM) comprised of Azospirillum (Azo), Rhizobium (Rh), and phosphate-solubilizing bacteria (PSB) with phosphate rock (PR), compost, and muriate of potash (MOP). Performance of bacterial bioinoculants was evaluated by determining grain yield, nitrogenase activity, uptake and balance of N, P, and Zn, changes in water stability and distribution of soil aggregates, soil organic C and pH, fungal/bacterial biomass C ratio, casting activities of earthworms, and bacterial community composition using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) fingerprinting. The performance comparison was made against the prevailing farmers’ nutrient management practices [N/P2O5/K2O at 40:20:20 kg ha−1 for rice and 20:30:20 kg ha−1 for legume as urea/single super-phosphate/MOP (urea/SSP/MOP)]. Cumulative grain yields of crops increased by 7–16% per RLR rotation and removal of N and P by six crops of 2 years rotation increased significantly (P < 0.05) in bacterial bioinoculants-based INM plots over that in compost alone or urea/SSP/MOP plots. Apparent loss of soil total N and P at 0–15 cm soil depth was minimum and apparent N gain at 15–30 cm depth was maximum in Azo/Rh plus PSB dual INM plots. Zinc uptake by rice crop and diethylenetriaminepentaacetate-extractable Zn content in soil increased significantly (P < 0.05) in bacterial bioinoculants-based INM plots compared to other nutrient management plots. Total organic C content in soil declined at 0–15 cm depth and increased at 15–30 cm depth in all nutrient management plots after a 2-year crop cycle; however, bacterial bioinoculants-based INM plots showed minimum loss and maximum gain of total organic C content in the corresponding soil depths. Water-stable aggregation and distribution of soil aggregates in 53–250- and 250–2,000 μm classes increased significantly (P < 0.05) in bacterial bioinoculants-based INM plots compared to other nutrient management plots. Fungal/bacterial biomass C ratio seems to be a more reliable indicator of C and N dynamics in acidic soils than total microbial biomass C. Compost alone or Azo/Rh plus PSB dual INM plots showed significantly (P < 0.05) higher numbers of earthworms’ casts compared to urea/SSP/MOP alone and bacterial bioinoculants with urea or SSP-applied plots. Hierarchical cluster analysis based on similarity matrix of DGGE profiles revealed changes in bacterial community composition in soils due to differences in nutrient management, and these changes were seen to occur according to the states of C and N dynamics in acidic soil under RLR rotation