2,147 research outputs found
Craig Goch Report No. 13 Invertebrate studies: Ystwyth and Rheidol
The Rivers Ystwyth and Rheidol have a history of metal pollution (Carpenter, 1924, 1925; Newton, 1944) and many reaches still receive substantial contamination from heavy metals, principally zinc and lead, although there has been considerable improvement in water quality and biological status in recent years, particularly in the r. Rheidol (Jones and Howells 1975). As a consequence of proposals to divert uncontaminated water from the headstreams of both rivers in order to provide a refill source for the enlarged Craig Goch reservoir, a surveillance programme was instituted to provide base-line data for water quality, fisheries and invertebrates. U.W.I.S.T. has implemented a programme designed to provide information on the variety, distribution and relative abundance of aquatic invertebrates: the study of other aspects has been undertaken by South West Wales River Division (1976)
Modelling the distribution and transmission intensity of lymphatic filariasis in sub-Saharan Africa prior to scaling up interventions: Integrated use of geostatistical and mathematical modelling
Craig Goch Report No. 12 The production of two species of Ephemeropters (Ephemerella ignita PODA and Rhithrogena semicolorata CURTIS) in the upper reaches of the R. Wye, Wales
As part of a base-line ecological study of the R. Wye related to the construction of an
enlarged Craig Goch, a proposed major regulating reservoir in the upper catchment which
will be filled from a variety of sources, two sites (W2 and W3) in the headwaters were
intensively studied during the period March 1975 – April 1976 and estimates of production
made for two species of Ephemeroptera. Both study sites are typical salmon nursery
areas with a substrate of cobbles and coarse gravel forming a ‘riffle’ habitat. The water,
similar at both sides, is soft (mean calcium concentration = 4.1 mg/l) and low in inorganic
nutrients.
Samples, taken weekly during the summer and less frequently at other times, were
collected from each riffle on a stratified random basis using a cylinder sampler (area,
0.05m2
) modified after Neill (1938). Seven replicate samples were taken with weekly
sampling and 14 at other sampling frequencies. The wetted area of each site was
measured frequently throughout the study
Local perceptions of intermittent screening and treatment for malaria in school children on the south coast of Kenya.
BACKGROUND: The intermittent screening and treatment (IST) of school children for malaria is one possible intervention strategy that could help reduce the burden of malaria among school children. Future implementation of IST will not only depend on its efficacy and cost-effectiveness but also on its acceptability to parents of the children who receive IST, as well as those responsible for its delivery. This study was conducted alongside a cluster-randomized trial to investigate local perceptions of school-based IST among parents and other stakeholders on the Kenyan south coast. METHODS: Six out of the 51 schools receiving the IST intervention were purposively sampled, based on the prevalence of Plasmodium infection, to participate in the qualitative study. Twenty-two focus group discussions and 17 in-depth interviews were conducted with parents and other key stakeholders involved in the implementation of school health programmes in the district. Data analysis was guided by the framework analysis method. RESULTS: High knowledge of the burden of clinical malaria on school children, the perceived benefits of preventing clinical disease through IST and previous positive experiences and interactions with other school health programmes facilitated the acceptability of IST. However, lack of understanding of the consequences of asymptomatic parasitaemia for apparently healthy school children could potentially contribute to non-adherence to treatment, and use of alternative anti-malarial drugs with simpler regimens was generally preferred. The general consensus of stakeholders was that health workers were best placed to undertake the screening and provide treatment, and although teachers' involvement in the programme is critical, most participants were opposed to teachers taking finger-prick blood samples from children. There was also a strong demand for the distribution of mosquito nets to augment IST. CONCLUSION: School-based malaria control through IST was acceptable to most parents and other stakeholders, but careful consideration of the various roles of teachers, community health workers, and health workers, and the use of anti-malarial drugs with simpler regimens are critical to its future implementation
Playing with the future: social irrealism and the politics of aesthetics
In this paper we wish to explore the political possibilities of video games. Numerous scholars now take seriously the place of popular culture in the remaking of our geographies, but video games still lag behind. For us, this tendency reflects a general response to them as imaginary spaces that are separate from everyday life and 'real' politics. It is this disconnect between abstraction and lived experience that we complicate by defining play as an event of what Brian Massumi calls lived abstraction. We wish to short-circuit the barriers that prevent the aesthetic resonating with the political and argue that through their enactment, video games can animate fantastical futures that require the player to make, and reflect upon, profound ethical decisions that can be antagonistic to prevailing political imaginations. We refer to this as social irrealism to demonstrate that reality can be understood through the impossible and the imagined
The generalized non-conservative model of a 1-planet system - revisited
We study the long-term dynamics of a planetary system composed of a star and
a planet. Both bodies are considered as extended, non-spherical, rotating
objects. There are no assumptions made on the relative angles between the
orbital angular momentum and the spin vectors of the bodies. Thus, we analyze
full, spatial model of the planetary system. Both objects are assumed to be
deformed due to their own rotations, as well as due to the mutual tidal
interactions. The general relativity corrections are considered in terms of the
post-Newtonian approximation. Besides the conservative contributions to the
perturbing forces, there are also taken into account non-conservative effects,
i.e., the dissipation of the mechanical energy. This dissipation is a result of
the tidal perturbation on the velocity field in the internal zones with
non-zero turbulent viscosity (convective zones). Our main goal is to derive the
equations of the orbital motion as well as the equations governing
time-evolution of the spin vectors (angular velocities). We derive the
Lagrangian equations of the second kind for systems which do not conserve the
mechanical energy. Next, the equations of motion are averaged out over all fast
angles with respect to time-scales characteristic for conservative
perturbations. The final equations of motion are then used to study the
dynamics of the non-conservative model over time scales of the order of the age
of the star. We analyze the final state of the system as a function of the
initial conditions. Equilibria states of the averaged system are finally
discussed.Comment: 37 pages, 13 figures, accepted to Celestial Mechanics and Dynamical
Astronom
Craig Goch Report No. 9 Mass mortalities of adult salmon (Salmo salar L.) in the R. Wye, 1976
The physical, biological and chemical conditions leading to a mass mortality of adult salmon (Salmo salar L.) in the lower reaches of the R. Wye are described. As a result of sunny and low flow conditions during late June, 1976, water temperatures increased to a maximum of 27.6oC and accelerated the decay of substantial plant stands, the growth of which had been enhanced by the prevailing conditions: this resulted in severe de-oxygenation of the water. It is concluded that the low oxygen concentration in the water at this time was the principal factor in causing mass mortalities of fish and was probably accentuated by high water temperatures
Effects of Dementia Care Mapping on well-being and quality of life of older people with intellectual disability:A quasi-experimental study
BACKGROUND: The ageing of people with intellectual disability, accompanied with consequences like dementia, challenges intellectual disability-care staff and creates a need for supporting methods, with Dementia Care Mapping (DCM) as a promising possibility. This study examined the effect of DCM on the quality of life of older people with intellectual disability.METHODS: We performed a quasi-experimental study in 23 group homes for older people with intellectual disability in the Netherlands, comparing DCM (n = 113) with care-as-usual (CAU; n = 111). Using three measures, we assessed the staff-reported quality of life of older people with intellectual disability.RESULTS: DCM achieved no significantly better or worse quality of life than CAU. Effect sizes varied from 0.01 to -0.22. Adjustments for covariates and restriction of analyses to people with dementia yielded similar results.CONCLUSION: The finding that DCM does not increase quality of life of older people with intellectual disability contradicts previous findings and deserves further study.</p
Electrical Conductivity of Fermi Liquids. II. Quasiparticle Transport
We develop a general theory of Fermi liquids to discuss the Kadowaki-Woods
relation . We derive a formula for the ratio
which is expressed as a product of two dimensionless parameters and
, where represents a coupling constant for quasiparticle scattering
and is a geometric factor determined by the shape of the Fermi surface.
Then we argue that the universal ratio observed in heavy fermion compounds is
reproduced under the conditions and . The former is
regarded as a universality of Fermi liquids in a strong coupling regime, and
the latter is corroborated by evaluating definitely in simple cases. It is
noted that the proportional relation is just an example of the universal
phenomena to be expected for the whole class of strong coupling Fermi liquids.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures; J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. Vol.67, No.1
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