Inequalities in premature mortality in Britain: observational study from 1921 to 2007

Objective To report on the extent of inequality in premature mortality as measured between geographical areas in Britain. Design Observational study of routinely collected mortality data and public records. Population subdivided by age, sex, and geographical area (parliamentary constituencies from 1991 to 2007, pre-1974 local authorities over a longer time span). Setting Great Britain. Participants Entire population aged under 75 from 1990 to 2007, and entire population aged under 65 in the periods 1921-39, 1950-3, 1959-63, 1969-73, and 1981-2007. Main outcome measure Relative index of inequality (RII) and ratios of inequality in age-sex standardised mortality ratios under ages 75 and 65. The relative index of inequality is the relative rate of mortality for the hypothetically worst-off compared with the hypothetically best-off person in the population, assuming a linear association between socioeconomic position and risk of mortality. The ratio of inequality is the ratio of the standardised mortality ratio of the most deprived 10% to the least deprived 10%. Results When measured by the relative index of inequality, geographical inequalities in age-sex standardised rates of mortality below age 75 have increased every two years from 1990-1 to 2006-7 without exception. Over this period the relative index of inequality increased from 1.61 (95% confidence interval 1.52 to 1.69) in 1990-1 to 2.14 (2.02 to 2.27) in 2006-7. Simple ratios indicated a brief period around 2001 when a small reduction in inequality was recorded, but this was quickly reversed and inequalities up to the age of 75 have now reached the highest levels reported since at least 1990. Similarly, inequalities in mortality ratios under the age of 65 improved slightly in the early years of this century but the latest figures surpass the most extreme previously reported. Comparison of crudely age-sex standardised rates for those below age 65 from historical records showed that geographical inequalities in mortality are higher in the most recent decade than in any similar time period for which records are available since at least 1921. Conclusions Inequalities in premature mortality between areas of Britain continued to rise steadily during the first decade of the 21st century. The last time in the long economic record that inequalities were almost as high was in the lead up to the economic crash of 1929 and the economic depression of the 1930s. The economic crash of 2008 might precede even greater inequalities in mortality between areas in Britain

Lattice QCD Calculations of Hadron Structure: Constituent Quarks and Chiral Symmetry

New data from parity-violating experiments on the deuteron now allow isolation of the strange-quark contribution to the nucleon magnetic moment, G_M^s(0), without the uncertainty surrounding the anapole moment of the nucleon. Still, best estimates place G_M^s(0) > 0. It is illustrated how this experimental result challenges the very cornerstone of the constituent quark model. The chiral physics giving rise to G_M^s(0) \sim 0 is illustrated.Comment: Invited talk presented by DBL at the 16th Int. Conf. on Few Body Problems (Taipei, March 6-10, 2000); 9 pages, 5 figure

Hadron structure on the back of an envelope

In order to remove a little of the mysticism surrounding the issue of strangeness in the nucleon, we present simple, physically transparent estimates of both the strange magnetic moment and charge radius of the proton. Although simple, the estimates are in quite good agreement with sophisticated calculations using the latest input from lattice QCD. We further explore the possible size of systematic uncertainties associated with charge symmetry violation (CSV) in the recent precise determination of the strange magnetic moment of the proton. We find that CSV acts to increase the error estimate by 0.003 \mu_N such that G_M^s = -0.046 +/- 0.022 \mu_N.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, Invited talk at First Workshop on Quark-Hadron Duality and the Transition to pQCD, Frascati, June 6-8 200

Chiral extrapolation and physical insights

It has recently been established that finite-range regularisation in chiral effective field theory enables the accurate extrapolation of modern lattice QCD results to the chiral regime. We review some of the highlights of extrapolations of quenched lattice QCD results, including spectroscopy and magnetic moments. The $\Delta$ resonance displays peculiar chiral features in the quenched theory which can be exploited to demonstrate the presence of significant chiral corrections.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, presented at LHP2003, Cairns, Australi

Extrapolation of lattice QCD results beyond the power-counting regime

Resummation of the chiral expansion is necessary to make accurate contact with current lattice simulation results of full QCD. Resummation techniques including relativistic formulations of chiral effective field theory and finite-range regularization (FRR) techniques are reviewed, with an emphasis on using lattice simulation results to constrain the parameters of the chiral expansion. We illustrate how the chiral extrapolation problem has been solved and use FRR techniques to identify the power-counting regime (PCR) of chiral perturbation theory. To fourth-order in the expansion at the 1% tolerance level, we find 0 \le m_pi \le 0.18 GeV for the PCR, extending only a small distance beyond the physical pion mass.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, plenary talk at BARYONS 2004, Paris, Oct. 25-2

Studies of noble-metal thermocouple stability at high temperatures

Two investigatory studies on performance characteristics of noble-metal thermocouples are described. (1) thermoelectric stability as affected by preferential oxidation of iridium in the system iridium-40% rhodium versus iridium, and (2) the effects of temperature gradients on the emf stability of the systems platinum-13% rhodium versus platinum and iridium-40% rhodium versus iridium, operating in air. The stability investigation was carried out at three temperatures - 1700, 1850, and 2000 C - by comparing the output of the test thermocouple in air with the output of an identically constructed reference thermocouple in nitrogen. The results show that no calibration shift was observed producing a change in output greater than that corresponding to a 2.0% change in the indicated temperature for all samples tested. The investigation of gradient effects was carried out by subjecting test thermocouples to both severe and mild gradients for periods up to 200 hours. For the platinum system, the operating temperature was 1500 C with gradients of 1475 and 700 C/cm; for the iridium system, 2000 C with gradients of 700, 1500, and 1975 C/cm. Exposure to temperature gradients was found to introduce significant changes in calibration for both systems. In both investigations, the thermoelements were examined by means of electron-probe analysis and by metallographic methods to detect chemical and structural changes. Data and micrographs are presented

Lidar measurements of thermal structure

Rayleigh backscatter observations at 532 nm and 355 nm of relative atmospheric density above Aberystwyth on a total of 93 nights between Dec. 1982 and Feb. 1985 were used to derive the height variation of temperature in the upper stratosphere and mesosphere. Preliminary results for height up to about 25 km were also obtained from observations of Raman backscattering from nitrogen molecules. Comparisons were carried out for stratospheric heights with satellite borne measurements; good agreement was found between equivalent black body temperatures derived from the lidar observations and those obtained from nadir measurements in three channels of the stratosphere sounder units on NOAA satellites; the lidar based atmospheric temperatures have shown general agreement with but a greater degree of structure than the limb sounding measurements obtained using the SAMS experiment on the NOAA-7 satellite. In summer, stratospheric and mesospheric temperatures showed a smooth height variation similar to that of the CIRA model atmosphere. In contrast, the winter data showed a great variability with height, and marked temperature changes both from night to night and within a given night

Chiral extrapolation of nucleon magnetic form factors

The extrapolation of nucleon magnetic form factors calculated within lattice QCD is investigated within a framework based upon heavy baryon chiral effective-field theory. All one-loop graphs are considered at arbitrary momentum transfer and all octet and decuplet baryons are included in the intermediate states. Finite range regularisation is applied to improve the convergence in the quark-mass expansion. At each value of the momentum transfer ($Q^2$), a separate extrapolation to the physical pion mass is carried out as a function of $m_\pi$ alone. Because of the large values of $Q^2$ involved, the role of the pion form factor in the standard pion-loop integrals is also investigated. The resulting values of the form factors at the physical pion mass are compared with experimental data as a function of $Q^2$ and demonstrate the utility and accuracy of the chiral extrapolation methods presented herein.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figure

Observations of stratospheric aerosols associated with the El Chichon eruption

Lidar observations of aerosols were carried out at Aberystwyth between Nov. 1982 and Dec. 1985 using a frequency doubled and frequency tripled Nd/Yag laser and a receiver incorporating a 1 m diameter in a Newtonian telescope configuration. In analyses of the experimental data attention is paid to the magnitude of the coefficient relating extinction and backscatter, the choice being related to the possible presence of aerosols in the upper troposphere and the atmospheric densities employed in the normalisation procedure. The aerosol loading showed marked day to day changes in early months and an overall decay was apparent only after April 1983, this decay being consistent with an e sup -1 time of about 7 months. The general decay was accompanied by a lowering of the layer but layers of aerosols were shown intermittently at heights above the main layer in winter months. The height variations of photon counts corrected for range, or of aerosol backscatter ratio, showed clear signatures of the tropopause. A strong correlation was found between the heights of the tropopause identified from the lidar measurements and from radiosonde-borne temperature measurements. A notable feature of the observations is the appearance of very sharp height gradients of backscatter ratio which seem to be produced by differential advection