Emergency first responders and professional wellbeing: a qualitative systematic review

Emergency first responders (EFRs) such as police officers, firefighters, paramedics and logistics personnel often suffer high turnover due to work-related stress, high workloads, fatigue, and declining professional wellbeing. As attempts to counter this through resilience programmes tend to have limited success, there is a need for further research into how organisational policies could change to improve EFRs’ professional wellbeing. Aim: To identify the factors that may contribute to or affect EFRs’ professional wellbeing. Methods: A systematic literature review has been carried out. Three databases (Science Direct, ProQuest, and PubMed) were searched using keywords developed based on the PICo (population, interest, and context) framework. A total of 984 articles were extracted. These were then critically appraised for the quality of the evidence presented, leading to a total of five being ultimately included for review. Results: Thematic analysis revealed that although EFRs may be exposed daily to traumatic events, factors that contribute to a decline in professional wellbeing emerge from within the organisational environment, rather than from the event itself. Conclusion: The study concludes that organisational and team relations factors significantly impact EFRs ability to cope with stress. As such, organisational policy should evolve to emphasise team relations over resilience programmes

The activity of employer unions in perspective

As two of the employer representatives thanked by the authors of the article The inactivitesof employer unions by P Brosnan. P Walsh and P Rowe for their advice. we are prevented by modesty (and other sentiment) from bearing the burden of any credit for its contents and interpretations

Asymptotic motion of a single vortex in a rotating cylinder

We study numerically the behavior of a single quantized vortex in a rotating cylinder. We study in particular the spiraling motion of a vortex in a cylinder that is parallel to the rotation axis. We determine the asymptotic form of the vortex and its axial and azimuthal propagation velocities under a wide range of parameters. We also study the stability of the vortex line and the effect of tilting the cylinder from the rotation axis.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures. Considerable changes, now close to the published versio

Capital structure and its determinants in the United Kingdom – a decompositional analysis

Prior research on capital structure by Rajan and Zingales (1995) suggests that the level of gearing in UK companies is positively related to size and tangibility, and negatively correlated with profitability and the level of growth opportunities. However, as argued by Harris and Raviv (1991), 'The interpretation of results must be tempered by an awareness of the difficulties involved in measuring both leverage and the explanatory variables of interest'. In this study the focus is on the difficulties of measuring gearing, and the sensitivity of Rajan and Zingales' results to variations in gearing measures are tested. Based on an analysis of the capital structure of 822 UK companies, Rajan and Zingales' results are found to be highly definitional-dependent. The determinants of gearing appear to vary significantly, depending upon which component of debt is being analysed. In particular, significant differences are found in the determinants of long- and short-term forms of debt. Given that trade credit and equivalent, on average, accounts for more than 62% of total debt, the results are particularly sensitive to whether such debt is included in the gearing measure. It is argued, therefore, that analysis of capital structure is incomplete without a detailed examination of all forms of corporate debt

Dynamic Remanent Vortices in Superfluid 3He-B

We investigate the decay of vortices in a rotating cylindrical sample of 3He-B, after rotation has been stopped. With decreasing temperature vortex annihilation slows down as the damping in vortex motion, the mutual friction dissipation \alpha(T), decreases almost exponentially. Remanent vortices then survive for increasingly long periods, while they move towards annihilation in zero applied flow. After a waiting period \Delta t at zero flow, rotation is reapplied and the remnants evolve to rectilinear vortices. By counting these lines, we measure at temperatures above the transition to turbulence ~0.6T_c the number of remnants as a function of \alpha(T) and \Delta t. At temperatures below the transition to turbulence T \lesssim 0.55 T_c, remnants expanding in applied flow become unstable and generate in a turbulent burst the equilibrium number of vortices. Here we measure the onset temperature T_on of turbulence as a function of \Delta t, applied flow velocity, and length of sample L.Comment: Submitted to the proceedings of the Quantum Fluids and Solids Conference 2006 (to be published in Journal of Low Temperature Physics 2007) New data are adde

The Collaborative Development of New CFD Methods Adapted for Tilt Rotor Aircraft in the HiPerTilt Project

No abstract available

A decade of ejecta dust formation in the Type IIn SN 2005ip

In order to understand the contribution of core-collapse supernovae to the dust budget of the early universe, it is important to understand not only the mass of dust that can form in core-collapse supernovae but also the location and rate of dust formation. SN 2005ip is of particular interest since dust has been inferred to have formed in both the ejecta and the post-shock region behind the radiative reverse shock. We have collated eight optical archival spectra that span the lifetime of SN 2005ip and we additionally present a new X-shooter optical-near-IR spectrum of SN 2005ip at 4075d post-discovery. Using the Monte Carlo line transfer code DAMOCLES, we have modelled the blueshifted broad and intermediate width H$\alpha$, H$\beta$ and He I lines from 48d to 4075d post-discovery using an ejecta dust model. We find that dust in the ejecta can account for the asymmetries observed in the broad and intermediate width H$\alpha$, H$\beta$ and He I line profiles at all epochs and that it is not necessary to invoke post-shock dust formation to explain the blueshifting observed in the intermediate width post-shock lines. Using a Bayesian approach, we have determined the evolution of the ejecta dust mass in SN 2005ip over 10 years presuming an ejecta dust model, with an increasing dust mass from ~10$^{-8}$ M$_{\odot}$ at 48d to a current dust mass of $\sim$0.1 M$_{\odot}$.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 17 pages, 11 figures. Author accepted manuscript. Accepted on 04/03/19. Deposited on 07/03/1

In the Interests of clients or commerce? Legal aid, supply, demand, and 'ethical indeterminacy' in criminal defence work

As a professional, a lawyer's first duty is to serve the client's best interests, before simple monetary gain. In criminal defence work, this duty has been questioned in the debate about the causes of growth in legal aid spending: is it driven by lawyers (suppliers) inducing unnecessary demand for their services or are they merely responding to increased demand? Research reported here found clear evidence of a change in the handling of cases in response to new payment structures, though in ways unexpected by the policy's proponents. The paper develops the concept of 'ethical indeterminacy' as a way of understanding how defence lawyers seek to reconcile the interests of commerce and clients. Ethical indeterminacy suggests that where different courses of action could each be said to benefit the client, the lawyer will tend to advise the client to decide in the lawyer's own interests. Ethical indeterminacy is mediated by a range of competing conceptions of 'quality' and 'need'. The paper goes on to question the very distinction between 'supply' and 'demand' in the provision of legal services

Vortex vs spinning string: Iordanskii force and gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect

We discuss the transverse force acting on the spinning cosmic string, moving in the background matter. It comes from the gravitational Aharonov-Bohm effect and corresponds to the Iordanskii force acting on the vortex in superfluids, when the vortex moves with respect to the normal component of the liquid.Comment: Latex file, 9 pages, no figures, references are added, version submitted to JETP Let

UK Large-scale Wind Power Programme from 1970 to 1990: the Carmarthen Bay experiments and the Musgrove Vertical-Axis Turbines

This article describes the development of the Musgrove Vertical Axis Wind Turbine (VAWT) concept, the UK ‘Carmarthen Bay’ wind turbine test programme, and UK government’s wind power programme to 1990. One of the most significant developments in the story of British wind power occurred during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, with the development of the Musgrove vertical axis wind turbine and its inclusion within the UK Government’s wind turbine test programme. Evolving from a supervisor’s idea for an undergraduate project at Reading University, the Musgrove VAWT was once seen as an able competitor to the horizontal axis wind systems that were also being encouraged at the time by both the UK government and the Central Electricity Generating Board, the then nationalised electricity utility for England and Wales. During the 1980s and 1990s the most developed Musgrove VAWT system, along with three other commercial turbine designs was tested at Carmarthen Bay, South Wales as part of a national wind power test programme. From these developmental tests, operational data was collected and lessons learnt, which were incorporated into subsequent wind power operations.http://dx.doi.org/10.1260/03095240677860621