Public Health Powers in Relation to Tuberculosis in England and France: A Comparison of Approaches

Peer reviewe

Emotion, not economics: the ‘Australian-style’ points system

The new ‘Australian-style’ points system for migration is a policy founded on emotion rather than economic reality, write Paul James Cardwell and Sylvie Da Lomba (University of Strathclyde). It will not simplify the immigration regime and will leave businesses struggling to fill shortages

Matéria orgânica e a relação com os solos da Reunião Brasileira de Classificação e Correlação: Pantanal e Cerrado do Estado do Mato Grosso do Sul.

A matéria orgânica é um importante elemento para a separação e classificação de horizontes dos solos nos diversos sistemas taxonômicos, devido à relação com a morfologia, atributos químicos, físicos e mineralógicos. Este trabalho teve como objetivo avaliar os teores de carbono orgânico e as rações húmicas dos horizontes superficiais e subsuperficiais dos solos da X Reunião Brasileira de Classificação e Correlação. Foram selecionados perfis e nestes, horizontes superficiais e subsuperficias que identificam as classes de solo. Em amostras de terra, foram determinados os teores do carbono orgânico do solo e das frações húmicas. A fração humina predominou, seguido da fração ácidos húmicos nos pedoambientes Salina e Capão (sedimentos arenosos e calcário), enquanto, para os demais pedoambientes a fração humina é seguida da fração ácidos fúlvicos. Exceção com o predomínio das frações alcalinosolúveis no horizonte A2 do perfil MS03 (Capão) e horizontes A2 e Bw1 do perfil MS17 (Planalto). Com base na distribuição das frações húmicas não foi detectado acúmulo das frações alcalinosolúveis para os horizontes subsuperficiais caracterizados como Bh dos perfis MS01 e MS12 (Salina).bitstream/item/125334/1/BPD-226-Materia-Organica-RCC.pd

Pregnant and seeking asylum; exploring experiences ‘from booking to baby’

YesPregnant women seeking asylum in the UK may be particularly vulnerable with poor underlying health, more complex pregnancies and an increased risk of maternal and perinatal mortality. Studies have shown that some women seeking asylum have poor experiences of maternity care. This is despite the implementation of NICE guidelines to improve care for women with complex social factors. This article reports on a phenomenological study undertaken in West Yorkshire, aiming to explore the maternity care experiences of local pregnant asylum seeking women, to inform service development. Six women were interviewed over a three-month period. The findings focused more broadly on their experiences of living in the UK whilst being an asylum seeker and pregnant rather than focusing on maternity care, although this was included. Five key themes emerged: ‘pre-booking challenges’, ‘inappropriate accommodation’, ‘being pregnant and dispersed’, ‘being alone and pregnant’ and ‘not being asked or listened to’. These findings could be used as the basis for training midwives to understand how the difficulties women experience can impact on their health and social needs

‘I Feel Like a Beggar’: Asylum Seekers Living in the Australian Community Without the Right to Work

While numbers of asylum seekers received by Australia are small compared to global figures, a range of deterrence measures have been implemented in response to increasing numbers arriving by boat in recent years. One of the more recent measures was denying asylum seekers who arrived by boat after 13 August 2012 the right to work upon their release from immigration detention into the community. There are around 26,000 asylum seekers who have been subject to this policy with most still waiting for their initial interview for refugee status and none have had their refugee claims resolved. This paper examines the findings of a study that explored the implications of this policy for asylum seekers. It draws on 29 semi-structured interviews with asylum seekers and highlights the distress and fear that many are enduring, caused by the denial of the right to work and ongoing uncertainty about their refugee claims. The study’s findings provide support for the conclusions of earlier research that highlight the importance of the right to work and securing employment for the mental health of asylum seekers, as well as studies that found there were negative mental health consequences of forcing asylum seekers to live for long periods with uncertainty around their protection claims

Population inversion of a NAHS mixture adsorbed into a cylindrical pore

A cylindrical nanopore immersed in a non-additive hard sphere binary fluid is studied by means of integral equation theories and Monte Carlo simulations. It is found that at low and intermediate values of the bulk total number density the more concentrated bulk species is preferentially absorbed by the pore, as expected. However, further increments of the bulk number density lead to an abrupt population inversion in the confined fluid and an entropy driven prewetting transition at the outside wall of the pore. These phenomena are a function of the pore size, the non-additivity parameter, the bulk number density, and particles relative number fraction. We discuss our results in relation to the phase separation in the bulk.Comment: 7 pages, 8 Figure

Consequences of excessive glucosylsphingosine in glucocerebrosidase-deficient zebrafish

In Gaucher disease (GD), the deficiency of glucocerebrosidase causes lysosomal accumulation of glucosylceramide (GlcCer), which is partly converted by acid ceramidase to glucosylsphingosine (GlcSph) in the lysosome. Chronically elevated blood and tissue GlcSph is thought to contribute to symptoms in GD patients as well as to increased risk for Parkinson's disease. On the other hand, formation of GlcSph may be beneficial since the water soluble sphingoid base is excreted via urine and bile. To study the role of excessive GlcSph formation during glucocerebrosidase deficiency, we studied zebrafish that have two orthologs of acid ceramidase, Asah1a and Asah1b. Only the latter is involved in the formation of GlcSph in glucocerebrosidase-deficient zebrafish as revealed by knockouts of Asah1a or Asah1b with glucocerebrosidase deficiency (either pharmacologically induced or genetic). Comparison of zebrafish with excessive GlcSph (gba1-/- fish) and without GlcSph (gba1-/-:asah1b-/- fish) allowed us to study the consequences of chronic high levels of GlcSph. Prevention of excessive GlcSph in gba1-/-:asah1b-/- fish did not restrict storage cells, GlcCer accumulation, or neuroinflammation. However, GD fish lacking excessive GlcSph show an ameliorated course of disease reflected by significantly increased lifespan, delayed locomotor abnormality, and delayed development of an abnormal curved back posture. The loss of tyrosine hydroxylase 1 (th1) mRNA, a marker of dopaminergic neurons, is slowed down in brain of GD fish lacking excessive GlcSph. In conclusion, in the zebrafish GD model, excess GlcSph has little impact on (neuro)inflammation or the presence of GlcCer-laden macrophages but rather seems harmful to th1-positive dopaminergic neurons.Animal science

A multi-scale modelling framework to guide management of plant invasions in a transboundary context

Background Attention has recently been drawn to the issue of transboundary invasions, where species introduced and naturalized in one country cross international borders and become problematic in neighbouring countries. Robust modelling frameworks, able to identify the environmental drivers of invasion and forecast the current and future potential distribution of invasive species, are needed to study and manage invasions. Limitations due to the lack of species distribution and environmental data, or assumptions of modelling tools, often constrain the reliability of model predictions. Methods We present a multiscale spatial modelling framework for transboundary invasions, incorporating robust modelling frameworks (Multimodel Inference and Ensemble Modelling) to overcome some of the limitations. The framework is illustrated using Hakea sericea Schrad. (Proteaceae), a shrub or small tree native to Australia and invasive in several regions of the world, including the Iberian Peninsula. Two study scales were considered: regional scale (western Iberia, including mainland Portugal and Galicia) and local scale (northwest Portugal). At the regional scale, the relative importance of environmental predictors sets was evaluated and ranked to determine the main general drivers for the species distribution, while the importance of each environmental predictor was assessed at the local scale. The potential distribution of H. sericea was spatially projected for both scale areas. Results Model projections for western Iberia suggest that a large area is environmentally suitable in both Portugal and Spain. Climate and landscape composition sets were the most important determinants of this regional distribution of the species. Conversely, a geological predictor (schist lithology) was more important in explaining its local-scale distribution. Conclusions After being introduced to Portugal, H. sericea has become a transboundary invader by expanding in parts of Galicia (Spain). The fact that a larger area is predicted as environmentally suitable in Spain raises concerns regarding its potential continued expansion. This highlights the importance of transboundary cooperation in the early management of invasions. By reliably identifying drivers and providing spatial projections of invasion at multiple scales, this framework provides insights for the study and management of biological invasions, including the assessment of transboundary invasion risk.This work was funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors - COMPETE and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology under the project PTDC/AAGMAA/4539/2012 / FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-027863 (IND_CHANGE). J. Vicente is supported by POPH/FSE funds and by National Funds through FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology through Post-doctoral grant SFRH/BPD/84044/2012. D.M. Richardson acknowledges support from the DST-NRF Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biology and the National Research Foundation (grant 85417).info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Measurement of antiproton production from antihyperon decays in pHe collisions at √sNN=110GeV

The interpretation of cosmic antiproton flux measurements from space-borne experiments is currently limited by the knowledge of the antiproton production cross-section in collisions between primary cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. Using collisions of protons with an energy of 6.5 TeV incident on helium nuclei at rest in the proximity of the interaction region of the LHCb experiment, the ratio of antiprotons originating from antihyperon decays to prompt production is measured for antiproton momenta between 12 and 110GeV\!/c . The dominant antihyperon contribution, namely Λ¯ → p¯ π+ decays from promptly produced Λ¯ particles, is also exclusively measured. The results complement the measurement of prompt antiproton production obtained from the same data sample. At the energy scale of this measurement, the antihyperon contributions to antiproton production are observed to be significantly larger than predictions of commonly used hadronic production models