Optimisation of Grease Application to Railway Track

Trackside lubricators are designed to deliver grease to passing wheel flanges to reduce wheel and rail wear on curves. Ensuring that they are set up to deliver sufficient grease for the range of vehicles passing a site can be a challenge. For example, vehicle dynamics modelling and site investigations have shown that the wheels of passenger vehicles do not run as close to the rail face as those of freight vehicles, meaning that they are less likely to contact the grease and lubricate subsequent curves. To investigate the effects of different trackside devices, and the influence of parameters governing grease pickup, including lateral wheel displacement and pump durations, a bespoke test rig was built at the University of Sheffield. The rig used a scaled wheel, a short section of rail and a modern trackside lubricator set-up. Experiments involving different lateral wheel displacements and pumping durations were carried out, in addition to the visualisation of the size of the grease bulb. This showed how a grease bulb grows. It also indicated that a worn profile is likely to require greater wheel displacement to make contact with grease bulbs when compared to a new wheel profile. The experimental results showed that increasing pickup of grease can be expected when an additional component called a GreaseGuide™ was fitted to a regular grease delivery unit (GDU) on the rail. The efficiency of grease pickup was investigated, and test results exploring increasing pump durations have indicated a relationship between pickup and bulb size. To validate the use of the scaled rig, similar tests were carried out using a full-scale test rig. The full-scale results were compared to the experimental results of the scaled wheel rig. This showed that whilst there were differences between the two test rigs in absolute values and anomalous results, overall trends were the same on both test scales. The effect of temperature on bulb size and pumpability of grease was also investigated. This work can be extended further by using the same method to investigate other parameters that affect the lubrication of curves. This can lead to optimised lubricator set-up to ensure that the track is fully lubricated all the time

Madness decolonized?: Madness as transnational identity in Gail Hornstein’s Agnes’s Jacket

The US psychologist Gail Hornstein’s monograph Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness (2009) is an important intervention in the identity politics of the mad movement. Hornstein offers a resignified vision of mad identity that embroiders the central trope of an “anti-colonial” struggle to reclaim the experiential world “colonized” by psychiatry. A series of literal and figurative appeals make recourse to the inner world and (corresponding) cultural world of the mad, as well as to the ethno-symbolic cultural materials of dormant nationhood. This rhetoric is augmented by a model in which the mad comprise a diaspora without an origin, coalescing into a single transnational community. The mad are also depicted as persons displaced from their metaphorical homeland, the “inner” world “colonized” by the psychiatric regime. There are a number of difficulties with Hornstein’s rhetoric, however. Her “ethnicity-and-rights” response to the oppression of the mad is symptomatic of Western parochialism, while her proposed transmutation of putative psychopathology from limit upon identity to parameter of successful identity is open to contestation. Moreover, unless one accepts Hornstein’s porous vision of mad identity, her self-ascribed insider status in relation to the mad community may present a problematic “re-colonization” of mad experience

‘Dead people don’t claim’: A psychopolitical autopsy of UK austerity suicides

One of the symptoms of post financial crisis austerity in the UK has been an increase in the numbers of suicides, especially by people who have experienced welfare reform. This article develops and utilises an analytic framework of psychopolitical autopsy to explore media coverage of ‘austerity suicide’ and to take seriously the psychic life of austerity (internalisation, shame, anxiety), embedding it in a context of social dis-ease. Drawing on three distinct yet interrelated areas of literature (the politics of affect and psychosocial dynamics of welfare, post and anti-colonial psychopolitics, and critical suicidology), the article aims to better understand how austerity ‘kills’. Key findings include understanding austerity suicides as embedded within an affective economy of the anxiety caused by punitive welfare retrenchment, the stigmatisation of being a recipient of benefits, and the internalisation of market logic that assigns value through ‘productivity’ and conceptualises welfare entitlement as economic ‘burden’. The significance of this approach lies in its ability to widen analytic framing of suicide from an individual and psychocentric focus, to illuminate culpability of government reforms while still retaining the complexity of suicide, and thus to provide relevant policy insights about welfare reform

Military deployment, masculinity and trauma : reviewing the connections

This article reviews the literature on deployment trauma and examines the limitations of conventional understandings of trauma as they relate to veterans’ experiences. It suggests that the failure to take into account social influences and social relationships limits the usefulness of conventional approaches to trauma. The article considers the role that masculinity plays in male veterans’ experience of and sense making about trauma. It is suggested that while formal recognition of posttraumatic stress disorder in the DSM has provided a helpful language for veterans, it is an incomplete response. A new model of masculinity that better enables the male veteran to speak about trauma and to reconnect with others has implications for counselling practice with veterans

Hepatitis C Virus infection in Irish drug users and prisoners : a scoping review

Background: Hepatitis C infection is a major public health concern globally. In Ireland, like other European countries, people who use drugs (PWUD) and prisoners carry a larger HCV disease burden than the general population. Recent advances in HCV management have made HCV elimination across Europe a realistic goal. Engaging these two marginalised and underserved populations remains a challenge. The aim of this review was to map key findings and identify gaps in the literature (published and unpublished) on HCV infection in Irish PWUD and prisoners.Methods: A scoping review guided by the methodological framework set out by Levac and colleagues (based on previous work by Arksey & O’Malley).Results: A total of 58 studies were identified and divided into the following categories; Epidemiology, Guidelines and Policy, Treatment Outcomes, HCV -related Health Issues and qualitative research reporting on Patients’ and Health Providers’ Experiences. This review identified significantly higher rates of HCV infection among Irish prisoners and PWUD than the general population. There are high levels of undiagnosed and untreated HCV infection in both groups. There is poor engagement by Irish PWUD with HCV services and barriers have been identified. Prison hepatology nurse services have a positive impact on treatment uptake and outcomes. Identified gaps in the literature include; lack of accurate epidemiological data on incident infection, untreated chronic HCV infection particularly in PWUD living outside Dublin and those not engaged with OST. Conclusion: Ireland like other European countries has high levels of undiagnosed and untreated HCV infection. Collecting, synthesising and identifying gaps in the available literature is timely and will inform national HCV screening, treatment and prevention strategies