Attitudes towards welfare and welfare recipients are hardening

David Binder examines new research showing the hardening of public attitudes towards welfare recipients. He argues that the media has, and continues to play a major role in defining perceptions around welfare, making it easier for those in political power to pursue similar language and engage in policies that sit well with such perceptions

What should be done about the scourge of in-work poverty

Alan Milburn, the government’s social mobility ‘tsar’, last week released a report into child poverty and social mobility in which it was warned that, because work can no longer guarantee a way out of poverty, Britain risks seeing social mobility ‘go backwards’. David Binder looks at the findings of the report and examines some of the potential policy responses

Whilst there’s a worthwhile debate to be had around welfare fraud, chasing ‘benefits cheats’ misses the bigger picture

Benefit recipients are often portrayed negatively by politicians and the media. But if ‘balancing the books’ is the government’s primary aim, demonising specific groups is unlikely to be productive. David Binder suggests increasing the housing supply, introducing rent controls and looking into ways to boost incomes to reduce the need for tax credits would be a more effective approach

Conformational Dynamics Guides Coherent Exciton Migration in Conjugated Polymer Materials: A First-Principles Quantum Dynamical Study

We report on high-dimensional quantum dynamical simulations of torsion-induced exciton migration in a single-chain oligothiophene segment comprising twenty repeat units, using a first-principles parametrized Frenkel J-aggregate Hamiltonian. Starting from an initial inter-ring torsional defect, these simulations provide evidence of an ultrafast two-time scale process at low temperatures, involving exciton-polaron formation within tens of femtoseconds, followed by torsional relaxation on a ~300 femtosecond time scale. The second step is the driving force for exciton migration, as initial conjugation breaks are removed by dynamical planarization. The quantum coherent nature of the elementary exciton migration step is consistent with experimental observations highlighting the correlated and vibrationally coherent nature of the dynamics on ultrafast time scales.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Osmotic Edema Rapidly Increases Neuronal Excitability Through Activation of NMDA Receptor-Dependent Slow Inward Currents in Juvenile and Adult Hippocampus.

Cellular edema (cell swelling) is a principal component of numerous brain disorders including ischemia, cortical spreading depression, hyponatremia, and epilepsy. Cellular edema increases seizure-like activity in vitro and in vivo, largely through nonsynaptic mechanisms attributable to reduction of the extracellular space. However, the types of excitability changes occurring in individual neurons during the acute phase of cell volume increase remain unclear. Using whole-cell patch clamp techniques, we report that one of the first effects of osmotic edema on excitability of CA1 pyramidal cells is the generation of slow inward currents (SICs), which initiate after approximately 1 min. Frequency of SICs increased as osmolarity decreased in a dose-dependent manner. Imaging of real-time volume changes in astrocytes revealed that neuronal SICs occurred while astrocytes were still in the process of swelling. SICs evoked by cell swelling were mainly nonsynaptic in origin and NMDA receptor-dependent. To better understand the relationship between SICs and changes in neuronal excitability, recordings were performed in increasingly physiological conditions. In the absence of any added pharmacological reagents or imposed voltage clamp, osmotic edema induced excitatory postsynaptic potentials and burst firing over the same timecourse as SICs. Like SICs, action potentials were blocked by NMDAR antagonists. Effects were more pronounced in adult (8-20 weeks old) compared with juvenile (P15-P21) mice. Together, our results indicate that cell swelling triggered by reduced osmolarity rapidly increases neuronal excitability through activation of NMDA receptors. Our findings have important implications for understanding nonsynaptic mechanisms of epilepsy in relation to cell swelling and reduction of the extracellular space

Dynamically Triangulated Ising Spins in Flat Space

A model describing Ising spins with short range interactions moving randomly in a plane is considered. In the presence of a hard core repulsion, which prevents the Ising spins from overlapping, the model is analogous to a dynamically triangulated Ising model with spins constrained to move on a flat surface. It is found that as a function of coupling strength and hard core repulsion the model exhibits multicritical behavior, with first and second order transition lines terminating at a tricritical point. The thermal and magnetic exponents computed at the tricritical point are consistent with the exact two-matrix model solution of the random Ising model, introduced previously to describe the effects of fluctuating geometries.Comment: (10 pages + 4 figures), CERN-Th-7577/9