Injection of coal by screw feed

The use of the screw feeder for injecting solids through a 20 to 30 psi barrier is common practice in the cement making industry. An analytical extrapolation of that design, accounting for pressure holding characteristics of a column of solids, shows that coal can be fed to zones at several hundred psi with minimal or no loss of gas. A series of curves showing the calculated pressure gradient through a moving column of solids is presented. Mean particle size, solids velocity, and column length are parameters. Further study of this system to evaluate practicality is recommended

Negotiating the prescribing role: District Nurses reveal strategies for managing conflict.

Background: Nurse prescribing by District Nurses is well established in the United Kingdom. Although considerable work has been undertaken which discusses nurse prescribing, there is little which focuses on relationships between prescribers and those with whom they interact, in particular the ways in which prescribing can appear to question established professional boundaries. Aims: This project seeks to explain how District Nurses negotiate difficult conflicts related to prescribing. Methods: Using qualitative semi-structure interviews, District Nurses, Pharmacists and General Practitioners explained their working activities associated with prescribing. Data were analysed after Morrell’s (2004) notion of naïve functionalism. Critical realism, as espoused by McEvoy and Richards (2003) was used as a bridging strategy in order to link findings to the works of Weber and Foucault. Results: For many District Nurses, prescribing appears unproblematic; however, for others there was evidence showing that GPs were explicit in the control they exerted over prescribers, even when they had no authority to do so. Discussion: Despite having no legal ‘authority’ over nurse prescribers, some prescribers reveal practices that show a clearly authoritarian approach to nurse prescribing, by some GPs. These range from GPs stipulating times when they were available for professional dialogue, to direct supervision and (dis) approval of a nurse prescribers’s activities. Conclusions: Although nurse prescribing was expected to enhance inter-professional working and collaboration in the interest of improved service to patients, there is an indication that, for some nurses and GPs, relationships focussed on nurse prescribing are less than harmonious. Contribution to the development of knowledge and policy and practice within health and health care: As a result of these research findings, relationships within Primary Care may be re-evaluated. For educators there is an opportunity to explore inter-professional relationships from a practitioner perspective

Instantiation in Trope Theory

The concept of instantiation is realized differently across a variety of metaphysical theories. A certain realization of the concept in a given theory depends on what roles are specified and associated with the concept and its corresponding term as well as what entities are suited to fill those roles. In this paper, the classic realization of the concept of instantiation in a one-category ontology of abstract particulars or tropes is articulated in a novel way and defended against unaddressed objections

Self directed disability support (SDDS): building community capacity through action research

Disability support has historically been organised and financially managed through government and service provider agencies (agency funding). Increasingly it is offered through individualised, person - centred packages of support (individual or self directed funding), which allow people to manage how their own funds are spent. Opportunities for self directed disability support (SDDS) – in both agency and individual funding approaches – are expanding across Australian states and territories, in line with the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reforms. This project explores how people with disability manage the transition towards self directed disability support. Australian evidence on this critical topic is thin. We know little about the impact of self directed options on people requiring support, informal carers and support providers (Prideaux et al 2009). Likewise, there is little systematic information about the effectiveness of existing disability support systems (Baxter et al 2010). Such information is gathered in this project, and it is important for assessing the impact of new approaches on equity of access, quality and availability of support, and community outcomes (Ungerson & Yeandle 2007) . The Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC), University of New South Wales (UNSW), in collaboration with People With Disability Australia (PWDA) and the Centre for Children and Young People (CCYP), Southern Cross University (SCU), is conducting the project. This plan explains the project methodology and management. Authors: Karen R. Fisher, Sam Cooper, Christiane Purcal, Ngila Bevan and Ariella Meltzer

What happened to risk dispersion?

The turbulence in credit and funding markets in the second half of 2007 is disturbing evidence that risk dispersion in financial markets has been less effective than expected. Investors appear to have acquired risks that they did not understand. Much more worrisome, however, is the evidence that major financial firms did not succeed in shedding risks so much as in transferring them among their own business lines, resulting in an unintended concentration of risks on their own balance sheets. In order to restore confidence in the near term, and to put credit creation on a more sustainable path in the future, supervisory authorities, central banks and governments will first need to understand why the much-vaunted dispersion of risk fell so far short of expectations. The “reluctance to lend” which underlies these strains in money markets was widely attributed to concerns about the financial condition of borrowers, as a consequence of uncertainty about the value of assets on the borrowers’ balance sheets, and also to insuffi cient attention to liquidity management by financial firms. But the focus on uncertainty about borrowers ignores the awkward fact that the major financial intermediaries are both lenders and borrowers themselves and their reluctance to lend significantly reflects a defensive reaction to their own uncertainties about their own balance sheets. Better stress testing for liquidity as well as solvency would certainly be beneficial. Yet a major cause of the strains in credit and funding markets has been the apparent inability of many firms to anticipate the interaction of their various on- and off-balance sheet exposures and, particularly, to understand the velocity of their off-balance sheet activities and how these affected their overall exposures. In considering potential remedies to the credit market’s turbulence and to the apparent failure of risk dispersion, the authorities should first reflect on their own role in the trend of pushing risks off of bank balance sheets.