Online participation: the Woodberry Down experiment

The internet and world wide web are generating radical changes in the way we are able tocommunicate. Our ability to engage communities and individuals in designing theirenvironment is also beginning to change as new digital media provide ways in whichindividuals and groups can interact with planners and politicians in exploring their future.This paper tells the story of how the residents of one of the most disadvantagedcommunities in Britain ? the Woodberry Down Estate in the London borough ofHackney ? have begun to use an online system which delivers everything from routineservices about their housing to ideas about options for their future. Woodberry Down isone of the biggest regeneration projects in Western Europe. It will take at least 10 years,probably much longer, to complete, at a cost of over £150 million. Online participation isone of the many ways in which this community is being engaged but as we will show, itis beginning to act as a catalyst. The kinds of networks which are evolving aroundsystems like these will change the nature of participation itself, the ways we need to thinkabout it, and the ways we need to respond. Before the experiment is described, we set thecontext by describing the wide range of digital media for communicating plans andplanning which suggests a new typology for web participation consistent with this fastemerging network culture

Reaction time and incident cancer: 25 years of follow-up of study members in the UK Health and Lifestyle Survey

<b>Objectives</b><p></p> To investigate the association of reaction time with cancer incidence.<p></p> <b>Methods</b><p></p> 6900 individuals aged 18 to 94 years who participated in the UK Health and Lifestyle Survey in 1984/1985 and were followed for a cancer registration for 25 years.<p></p> <b>Results</b><p></p> Disease surveillance gave rise to 1015 cancer events from all sites. In general, there was essentially no clear pattern of association for either simple or choice reaction time with cancer of all sites combined, nor specific malignancies. However, selected associations were found for lung cancer, colorectal cancer and skin cancer.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b><p></p> In the present study, reaction time and its components were not generally related to cancer risk

Antiprotonic Potentials from Global Fits to the PS209 Data

The experimental results for strong interaction effects in antiprotonic atoms by the PS209 collaboration consist of high quality data for several sequences of isotopes along the periodic table. Global analysis of these data in terms of a $\bar p$-nucleus optical potential achieves good description of the data using a s-wave finite-range \bar p N interaction. Equally good fits are also obtained with a poorly-defined zero-range potential containing a p-wave term.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, talk at LEAP03, to appear in NIM(B

Reaction Time and Mortality from the Major Causes of Death:The NHANES-III Study

Studies examining the relation of information processing speed, as measured by reaction time, with mortality are scarce. We explored these associations in a representative sample of the US population

Narrow deeply bound K−K^- atomic states

Using optical potentials fitted to a comprehensive set of strong interaction level shifts and widths in $K^-$ atoms, we predict that the $K^-$ atomic levels which are inaccessible in the atomic cascade process are generally narrow, spanning a range of widths about 50 - 1500 keV over the entire periodic table. The mechanism for this narrowing is different from the mechanism for narrowing of pionic atom levels. Examples of such `deeply bound' $K^-$ atomic states are given, showing that in many cases these states should be reasonably well resolved. Several reactions which could be used to form these `deeply bound' states are mentioned. Narrow deeply bound states are expected also in $\bar{p}$ atoms.Comment: Revised, Phys. Lett B. in pres

Evolution and turnover in scaling systems

Scaling has been discovered in the long tails of size distributions characterizing a variety of diverse systems, many of which evolve in terms of the size of their components through competition. Such time-invariant macro distributions, however, often obscure the micro-dynamics of change, such as continual turnover in the rank order of the constituents. Here we show how a model drawn from evolutionary theory can explain this change, such that the time spent in the top ranked constituents is finite and also characterized by longtailed distributions. To show the broad applicability of this model, we compare typical model runs to real-world examples including US boys’ names, UK Number One for pop albums, journal article keywords, and city sizes

On the determination of the pion effective mass in nuclei from pionic atoms

The binding energies of the deeply bound 1s and 2p states in pionic atoms of $^{207}$Pb, recently established experimentally in the $^{208}$Pb(d,$^3$He) reaction, have been used by several groups to derive the pion effective mass in nuclear matter. We show that these binding energies are fully consistent with `normal' pionic atoms and that the real part of the pion-nucleus potential at the center of $^{207}$Pb is 28$\pm$3 MeV and not 20 MeV as suggested previously.Comment: 8 pages, Revtex, 2 figures, accepted by Physics Letters

Key challenges in agent-based modelling for geo-spatial simulation

Agent-based modelling (ABM) is fast becoming the dominant paradigm in social simulation due primarily to a worldview that suggests that complex systems emerge from the bottom-up, are highly decentralised, and are composed of a multitude of heterogeneous objects called agents. These agents act with some purpose and their interaction, usually through time and space, generates emergent order, often at higher levels than those at which such agents operate. ABM however raises as many challenges as it seeks to resolve. It is the purpose of this paper to catalogue these challenges and to illustrate them using three somewhat different agent-based models applied to city systems. The seven challenges we pose involve: the purpose for which the model is built, the extent to which the model is rooted in independent theory, the extent to which the model can be replicated, the ways the model might be verified, calibrated and validated, the way model dynamics are represented in terms of agent interactions, the extent to which the model is operational, and the way the model can be communicated and shared with others. Once catalogued, we then illustrate these challenges with a pedestrian model for emergency evacuation in central London, a hypothetical model of residential segregation tuned to London data which elaborates the standard Schelling (1971) model, and an agent-based residential location built according to spatial interactions principles, calibrated to trip data for Greater London. The ambiguities posed by this new style of modelling are drawn out as conclusions

Cost-effectiveness of infant vaccination with RIX4414 (Rotarix) in the UK.

This study estimated the cost-effectiveness of infant rotavirus vaccination with Rotarix in the UK, taking into account community rotavirus infections that do not present to the healthcare system. A Markov model compared the costs and outcomes of vaccination versus no vaccination in a hypothetical birth cohort of children followed over a lifetime, from a societal perspective and the perspective of the National Health Service (NHS). The model estimated costs and quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs) lost due to death, hospitalisation, general practitioner (GP) consultation, emergency attendance and calls to NHS Direct for rotavirus infection in children aged <5 years. Time lost from work and parents' travel costs were also included in the societal perspective. The base case cost-effectiveness ratio for vaccination compared with no vaccination was pound23,298/QALY from the NHS perspective and pound11,459 from the societal perspective. In sensitivity analysis, the most important parameters were hospitalisation cost and number of GP consultations. Addition of Rotarix to the paediatric vaccination schedule would be a cost-effective policy option in the UK at the threshold range ( pound20,000-30,000/QALY) currently adopted by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence