Some impressions of British farming

Reports by sponsored delegates to the 8th International Grassland Congress.My main impression from a visit to Britain in 1960 is that British farming is acquiring a “new look”. This new look is not universal and does not apply to a large number of small, poor farms, but the upper strata of British farmers are making so much headway that New Zealanders could learn a great deal from them. The basic factor in this new look is money, mainly from subsidies

The Partisan Politics of New Social Risks in Advanced Postindustrial Democracies: Social Protection for Labor Market Outsiders

Advanced postindustrialization generates numerous challenges for the European social model. Central among these challenges is declining income, unstable employment, and inadequate training of semi- and unskilled workers. In this chapter, I assess the partisan basis of support for social policies that address the needs of these marginalized workers. I specifically consider the impacts of postindustrial cleavages among core constituencies of social democratic parties on the capacity of these parties to pursue inclusive social policies. I argue – and find support for in empirical analyses – that encompassing labor organization is the most important factor in strengthening the ability of left parties to build successful coalitions in support of outsider-friendly policies. I go beyond existing work on the topic by considering the full array of postindustrial cleavages facing left parties, by more fully elaborating why encompassing labor organization is crucial, and by considering a more complete set of measures of outsider policies than extant work. I compare my arguments and findings to important new work that stresses coalition building and partisan politics but minimizes the role of class organization

A qualitative study in rural and urban areas on whether - and how - to consult during routine and out of hours

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Simultaneous quantization of bulk conduction and valence states through adsorption of nonmagnetic impurities on Bi2Se3

Exposing the (111) surface of the topological insulator Bi2Se3 to carbon monoxide results in strong shifts of the features observed in angle-resolved photoemission. The behavior is very similar to an often reported `aging' effect of the surface and it is concluded that this aging is most likely due to the adsorption of rest gas molecules. The spectral changes are also similar to those recently reported in connection with the adsorption of the magnetic adatom Fe. All spectral changes can be explained by a simultaneous confinement of the conduction band and valence band states. This is only possible because of the unusual bulk electronic structure of Bi2Se3. The valence band quantization leads to spectral features which resemble those of a band gap opening at the Dirac point.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Model-free reconstruction of magnetic correlations in frustrated magnets

Frustrated magnetic systems exhibit extraordinary physical properties but quantification of their magnetic correlations poses a serious challenge to experiment and theory. Current insight into frustrated magnetic correlations relies on modelling techniques such as reverse Monte Carlo methods, which require knowledge about the exact ordered atomic structure. Here we present a method for direct reconstruction of magnetic correlations in frustrated magnets by three-dimensional difference pair distribution function analysis of neutron total scattering data. The methodology is applied to the disordered frustrated magnet bixbyite, (Mn1-xFex)2O3, which reveals nearest-neighbor antiferromagnetic correlations for the metal sites up to a range of approximately 15 {\AA}. Importantly, this technique allows for magnetic correlations to be determined directly from the experimental data without any assumption about the atomic structure

Bayesian model search and multilevel inference for SNP association studies

Technological advances in genotyping have given rise to hypothesis-based association studies of increasing scope. As a result, the scientific hypotheses addressed by these studies have become more complex and more difficult to address using existing analytic methodologies. Obstacles to analysis include inference in the face of multiple comparisons, complications arising from correlations among the SNPs (single nucleotide polymorphisms), choice of their genetic parametrization and missing data. In this paper we present an efficient Bayesian model search strategy that searches over the space of genetic markers and their genetic parametrization. The resulting method for Multilevel Inference of SNP Associations, MISA, allows computation of multilevel posterior probabilities and Bayes factors at the global, gene and SNP level, with the prior distribution on SNP inclusion in the model providing an intrinsic multiplicity correction. We use simulated data sets to characterize MISA's statistical power, and show that MISA has higher power to detect association than standard procedures. Using data from the North Carolina Ovarian Cancer Study (NCOCS), MISA identifies variants that were not identified by standard methods and have been externally ``validated'' in independent studies. We examine sensitivity of the NCOCS results to prior choice and method for imputing missing data. MISA is available in an R package on CRAN.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/09-AOAS322 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org

Toxaemia of pregnancy and risk of mortality in later life : evidence from the Royal College of General Practitioners' Oral Contraception Study

Peer reviewedPostprin

Clinical features in primary care electronic records before diagnosis of ankylosing spondylitis : a nested case-control study

Background Ankylosing spondylitis (AS) often has a long period from first symptom presentation to diagnosis. We examined the occurrence of symptoms, prescriptions and diagnostic tests in primary care electronic records over time prior to a diagnosis of AS. Methods Nested case-control study using anonymised primary care electronic health records from Scotland. Cases were 74 adults with a first diagnosis of AS between 2000 and 2010. Controls were matched for age, sex and GP practice: (a) 296 randomly selected adults (b) 169 adults whose records contained codes indicating spinal conditions or symptoms. We extracted clinical features (symptoms, AS-related disorders, prescriptions and diagnostic tests). Conditional logistic regression was used to examine the association between clinical features (both individually and in combinations) and diagnosis of AS. We examined the associations between clinical features and diagnosis over time prior to diagnosis. Results Several new composite pointers were predictive of AS: including distinct episodes of axial pain separated by more than 6 months (OR 12.7, 95% CI 4.7 to 34.6); the occurrence of axial pain with and tendon symptoms within the same year (OR 21.7, 95% CI 2.6 to 181.5); and the co-occurrence (within 30 days) of axial pain and a prescription for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (OR 10.4, 95%CI 4.9 to 22.1). Coded episodes of axial pain increased steadily over the 3 years before diagnosis. In contrast, large joint symptoms and enthesopathy showed little or no time trend prior to diagnosis. Conclusions We identified novel composite pointers to a diagnosis of AS in GP records. These may represent valuable targets for diagnostic support systems