Older People Have Their Say! Survey of Older People’s Needs in Westgate Ward, Canterbury

Although a lot of effort in the last few years has been made to address the needs of people in old age, surprisingly not much is known about the views of this age group in the Canterbury City Council area. To address this lack of knowledge, the Canterbury and District Pensioners’ Forum was funded by the Canterbury City Council to explore the needs of older people living in this area. Our Forum decided to collaborate with the University of Kent to produce a survey on the needs of older people within the District of Canterbury. During the process of the project, we decided to base the survey on the Westgate Ward in Canterbury because we felt that older people living in this area represent a good example for highlighting needs that involve ‘ordinary’ older people. This ward is quite diverse in many ways; it spreads from a semi-rural area through to town dwelling. It is not seen as an area of deprivation, thereby has not generated any special money from the Government to help with social problems in the provision of social centres, community learning, social activities etc. Yet we know from our own experience that what may appear in many parts as fairly affluent is quite deprived of places for people to meet; and has large public housing areas with no amenities at all. The present Government put through legislation, which said that public services should be surveyed, and the part of that legislation that we are particularly interested in is “The National Service Framework for Older People”. That framework asks that older people are treated with dignity by NHS and Social Care organisations; and that Councils –County and District, examine existing services- housing, leisure and transport – to identify opportunities to promote health and well-being. We felt that Westgate Ward would be representative of many other areas within our District that had not received any special investment. The work that has been done in producing this survey has been done by members of the Canterbury & District Pensioners’ Forum with help from the University of Kent. It is a survey of older people, carried out by older people. It is our work. Information generated by this project will be assisting the Forum’s work to promote important issues related to older people’s quality of life and access to health and social care services. A comment from J.F. Kennedy we believe sums up the approach that we took at the start of this survey: “It is not enough for a nation to have added years of life. Our object must be to add new life to those years

School Segregation, Educational Attainment, and Crime: Evidence from the End of Busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg

We study the impact of the end of race-based busing in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools (“CMS”) on academic achievement, educational attainment, and young adult crime. In 2001, CMS was prohibited from using race in assigning students to schools. School boundaries were redrawn dramatically to reflect the surrounding neighborhoods, and half of its students received a new assignment. Using addresses measured prior to the policy change, we compare students in the same neighborhood that lived on opposite sides of a newly drawn boundary. We find that both white and minority students score lower on high school exams when they are assigned to schools with more minority students. We also find decreases in high school graduation and four-year college attendance for whites, and large increases in crime for minority males. The impacts on achievement and attainment are smaller in younger cohorts, while the impact on crime remains large and persistent for at least nine years after the re-zoning. We show that compensatory resource allocation policies in CMS likely played an important role in mitigating the impact of segregation on achievement and attainment, but had no impact on crime. We conclude that the end of busing widened racial inequality, despite efforts by CMS to mitigate the impact of increases in segregation

Vicarious Religion: A Response

This is a postprint of an article whose final and definitive form has been published in the Journal of Contemporary Religion © 2010 Copyright Taylor & Francis; Journal of Contemporary Religion is available online at http://www.informaworld.co

Rapid Oscillations in Cataclysmic Variables. XV. HT Camelopardalis (= RX J0757.0+6306)

We present photometry and spectroscopy of HT Camelopardalis, a recently discovered X-ray-bright cataclysmic variable. The spectrum shows bright lines of H, He I, and He II, all moving with a period of 0.059712(1) d, which we interpret as the orbital period. The star's brightness varies with a strict period of 515.0592(2) s, and a mean full amplitude of 0.11 mag. These properties qualify it as a /bona fide/ DQ Herculis star (intermediate polar) -- in which the magnetism of the rapidly rotating white dwarf channels accretion flow to the surface. Normally at V=17.8, the star shows rare and very brief outbursts to V=12-13. We observed one in December 2001, and found that the 515 s pulse amplitude had increased by a factor of ~100 (in flux units). A transient orbital signal may also have appeared.Comment: PDF, 19 pages, 3 tables, 6 figures; accepted, in press, to appear June 2002, PASP; more info at http://cba.phys.columbia.edu

Multi-scale continuum mechanics: from global bifurcations to noise induced high-dimensional chaos

Many mechanical systems consist of continuum mechanical structures, having either linear or nonlinear elasticity or geometry, coupled to nonlinear oscillators. In this paper, we consider the class of linear continua coupled to mechanical pendula. In such mechanical systems, there often exist several natural time scales determined by the physics of the problem. Using a time scale splitting, we analyze a prototypical structural–mechanical system consisting of a planar nonlinear pendulum coupled to a flexible rod made of linear viscoelastic material. In this system both low-dimensional and high-dimensional chaos is observed. The low-dimensional chaos appears in the limit of small coupling between the continua and oscillator, where the natural frequency of the primary mode of the rod is much greater than the natural frequency of the pendulum. In this case, the motion resides on a slow manifold. As the coupling is increased, global motion moves off of the slow manifold and high-dimensional chaos is observed. We present a numerical bifurcation analysis of the resulting system illustrating the mechanism for the onset of high-dimensional chaos. Constrained invariant sets are computed to reveal a process from low-dimensional to high-dimensional transitions. Applications will be to both deterministic and stochastic bifurcations. Practical implications of the bifurcation from low-dimensional to high-dimensional chaos for detection of damage as well as global effects of noise will also be discussed

Stochastic bifurcation in a driven laser system: Experiment and theory

We analyze the effects of stochastic perturbations in a physical example occurring as a higher-dimensional dynamical system. The physical model is that of a class-B laser, which is perturbed stochastically with finite noise. The effect of the noise perturbations on the dynamics is shown to change the qualitative nature of the dynamics experimentally from a stochastic periodic attractor to one of chaoslike behavior, or noise-induced chaos. To analyze the qualitative change, we apply the technique of the stochastic Frobenius-Perron operator [L. Billings et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 234101 (2002)] to a model of the experimental system. Our main result is the identification of a global mechanism to induce chaoslike behavior by adding stochastic perturbations in a realistic model system of an optics experiment. In quantifying the stochastic bifurcation, we have computed a transition matrix describing the probability of transport from one region of phase space to another, which approximates the stochastic Frobenius-Perron operator. This mechanism depends on both the standard deviation of the noise and the global topology of the system. Our result pinpoints regions of stochastic transport whereby topological deterministic dynamics subjected to sufficient noise results in noise-induced chaos in both theory and experiment

Preliminary Findings: Issues in Surface Movement

The final report for the grant is presented. The recent goals for this project have been: (1) To identify common surface movement challenges which affect the airlines and Air Traffic Control; (2) To map out possible solutions to these challenges; (3) To start generalizing about the information we are receiving so that major, abstract categories of challenges and potential solutions will begin to emerge. In particular, there are several areas of opportunity which are beginning to emerge from the data, dealing with the need for: (1) Tools to support information exchange regarding priorities (both within an individual airline and between the ATC tower and airlines). Such priorities include both concerns affecting departure throughput as well as the ordering of departures to accommodate other airline considerations; (2) Planning tools to help ATC and airline Ramp staff deal with information about priorities; (3) Implementation of strategies to enable greater flexibility in queueing flights for departures; (4) Tools to provide better coordination and situation awareness during taxiing (within an airline as well as between airlines and between the airlines); (5) Tools to support planning and to deal with the interactions between departures and arrivals. Thus far, the initial interviews and observations at three airlines and two ATC facilities have been completed

A comparative study of condominium and single family house price appreciation in the Salt Lake Valley

Thesis (S.M. in Real Estate Development)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2003.Includes bibliographical references (leaf 60).This study examines whether the form of ownership affects the appreciation rate of housing units. The specific test conducted is whether condominiums and single family homes in the Salt Lake Valley have appreciated at the same rate over the past six and a half years. To test this hypothesis, a sample of 10,134 condominium and 48,913 house transactions was analyzed. The sales were grouped into eight geographic analysis areas. Hedonic models were used to quantify the contributory effect on value of the time of sale, age of the unit, and other significant housing characteristics. The price indices created by the hedonic models for each housing type are then compared within geographic areas and across the valley. The paper shows that condominium price appreciation is significantly below the appreciation of single family houses in seven of the eight areas examined, which represents 80% of the sample. Valley wide regressions were then conducted utilizing geographic dummy variables for the individual analysis areas. These models indicate a strong premium for units of both housing types located in the downtown area.by John D. Billings.S.M

In Situ Localization and Characterization of Active Proteases in Chronically Inflamed and Healthy Human Gingival Tissues

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/141400/1/jper1303.pd