A Feasibility Study of Airborne Radiometric Survey for UK Fallout

Brief details are presented of a feasibility study of the use of aerial radiometric survey techniques to map local variations of fallout and natural radioactivity in Scotland

Chinese older people in Haringey: meeting the needs of an ‘invisible’ community

Haringey has a long established population of Chinese people, some of whom have been living in the borough for many decades. They represent a significant proportion of Haringey’s total population: 1.5% overall but over 2.5% in some wards. Many have become well settled and have been highly successful in business, professions or in other fields but others have experienced exclusion, poverty and isolation. As more of these people are reaching retirement age and beyond, and thus experiencing health and mobility issues connected with ageing, these problems are increasing and are likely to worsen still further in the future. Many of this group also have limited English language skills and thus find it difficult to access appropriate services. In addition, many have low incomes because the nature of their working lives did not allow them to make provision for adequate pensions. In spite of their numbers and the urgency of their needs, Chinese people have had a low profile in relation to the public policy agenda, both in Haringey and in Britain as a whole and have tended to be largely invisible in relation to the planning of services. This research project was conducted by researchers based at Middlesex University in partnership with the Haringey Chinese Centre and we are grateful for the funding received from the Business and Community Interaction programme at Middlesex University which enabled us to carry out this work. The aims were to provide evidence of current and future needs for health and social care services by Chinese older people and to identify issues which policy makers need to be aware of in planning services. This was an exploratory study and limited in scale and thus we cannot claim that it provides a comprehensive picture of the situation of Chinese older people in the borough. Nevertheless, it identified some important issues which deserve more detailed examination from researchers and policy makers. The project took place during a major process of restructuring of services for older people, arising from both national and local policy developments. We hope that our findings will help to inform the development of these services. This report begins by describing the study methods used. We then briefly discuss some of the characteristics of Haringey’s population before focusing more particularly on the Chinese population in Haringey and in London as a whole. We discuss first the different waves of migration which have brought a diverse Chinese population and then focus on the problems of social exclusion and isolation. The next section focuses on the elderly Chinese people, their needs, experience and aspirations and use of services. We then discuss the policy agenda in relation to the care of the elderly and its implications for this group. Finally we draw some general conclusions about the need to plan for this group and suggest some recommendations to policy makers, Chinese organisations and other concerned with the welfare of the elderly

Common neural basis for phoneme processing in infants and adults

Investigating the degree of similarity between infants' and adults' representation of speech is critical to our understanding of infants' ability to acquire language. Phoneme perception plays a crucial role in language processing, and numerous behavioral studies have demonstrated similar capacities in infants and adults, but are these subserved by the same neural substrates or networks? In this article, we review event-related potential (ERP) results obtained in infants during phoneme discrimination tasks and compare them to results from the adult literature. The striking similarities observed both in behavior and ERPs between initial and mature stages suggest a continuity in processing and neural structure. We argue that infants have access at the beginning of life to phonemic representations, which are modified without training or implicit instruction, but by the statistical distributions of speech input in order to converge to the native phonemic categories

Why are slip lengths so large in carbon nanotubes?

The enhanced flow in carbon nanotubes is explained using a mathematical model that includes a depletion layer with reduced viscosity near the wall. In the limit of large tubes the model predicts no noticeable enhancement. For smaller tubes the model predicts enhancement that increases as the radius decreases. An analogy between the reduced viscosity and slip-length models shows that the term slip-length is misleading and that on surfaces which are smooth at the nanoscale it may be thought of as a length-scale associated with the size of the depletion region and viscosity ratio. The model therefore provides a physical interpretation of the classical Navier slip condition and explains why 'slip-lengths' may be greater than the tube radius

An approximate solution method for boundary layer flow of a power law fluid over a flat plate

The work in this paper deals with the development of momentum and thermal boundary layers when a power law fluid flows over a flat plate. At the plate we impose either constant temperature, constant flux or a Newton cooling condition. The problem is analysed using similarity solutions, integral momentum and energy equations and an approximation technique which is a form of the Heat Balance Integral Method. The fluid properties are assumed to be independent of temperature, hence the momentum equation uncouples from the thermal problem. We first derive the similarity equations for the velocity and present exact solutions for the case where the power law index n = 2. The similarity solutions are used to validate the new approximation method. This new technique is then applied to the thermal boundary layer, where a similarity solution can only be obtained for the case n = 1

Zika virus: New clinical syndromes and its emergence in the western hemisphere

Zika virus (ZIKV) had remained a relatively obscure flavivirus until a recent series of outbreaks accompanied by unexpectedly severe clinical complications brought this virus into the spotlight as causing an infection of global public health concern. In this review, we discuss the history and epidemiology of ZIKV infection, recent outbreaks in Oceania and the emergence of ZIKV in the Western Hemisphere, newly ascribed complications of ZIKV infection, including Guillain-Barré syndrome and microcephaly, potential interactions between ZIKV and dengue virus, and the prospects for the development of antiviral agents and vaccines

Sexual orientation and symptoms of common mental disorder or low wellbeing: combined meta-analysis of 12 UK population health surveys

Background Previous studies have indicated increased risk of mental disorder symptoms, suicide and substance misuse in lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) adults, compared to heterosexual adults. Our aims were to determine an estimate of the association between sexual orientation identity and poor mental health and wellbeing among adults from 12 population surveys in the UK, and to consider whether effects differed for specific subgroups of the population. Methods Individual data were pooled from the British Cohort Study 2012, Health Survey for England 2011, 2012 and 2013, Scottish Health Survey 2008 to 2013, Longitudinal Study of Young People in England 2009/10 and Understanding Society 2011/12. Individual participant meta-analysis was used to pool estimates from each study, allowing for between-study variation. Results Of 94,818 participants, 1.1 % identified as lesbian/gay, 0.9 % as bisexual, 0.8 % as ‘other’ and 97.2 % as heterosexual. Adjusting for a range of covariates, adults who identified as lesbian/gay had higher prevalence of common mental disorder when compared to heterosexuals, but the association was different in different age groups: apparent for those under 35 (OR = 1.78, 95 % CI 1.40, 2.26), weaker at age 35–54.9 (OR = 1.42, 95 % CI 1.10, 1.84), but strongest at age 55+ (OR = 2.06, 95 % CI 1.29, 3.31). These effects were stronger for bisexual adults, similar for those identifying as ‘other’, and similar for 'low wellbeing'. Conclusions In the UK, LGB adults have higher prevalence of poor mental health and low wellbeing when compared to heterosexuals, particularly younger and older LGB adults. Sexual orientation identity should be measured routinely in all health studies and in administrative data in the UK in order to influence national and local policy development and service delivery. These results reiterate the need for local government, NHS providers and public health policy makers to consider how to address inequalities in mental health among these minority groups

Amalgamation, absoluteness, and categoricity

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt"

A characterization of two weight norm inequalities for maximal singular integrals

"Vegeu el resum a l'inici del document del fitxer adjunt"