Common conservation works used in Western Australia

This booklet is presented to assist proponents and planners of conservation works by describing the common types used in Western Australia. For each common type, design criteria are listed along with the variables affecting increased risks associated with degradation or structural failure. This information will be useful in choosing appropriate conservation works to alleviate specific degradation in a safe manner

Plan for Neridup Creek catchment Neridup Soil Conservation Group

This report was initiated at the request of the Neridup Soil Conservation Group as an aid to overcoming the degradation problems of the catchment known as the Neridup Creek Catchment.Work was commenced on collecting data about the catchment in May 1990 and has continued on a part-time basis as workload has permitted. This report outlines the physical details of the catchment, predicts runoff peak flows and contains recommendations as a framework for stable land use within the catchment.Attached to this report are: a set of maps of physical details, a set of plans related to individual degradation problems requiring solutions and two Land Management Plans completed as examples of intergrating this report\u27s recommendations.The solutions to the degradation problems of the Neridup Creek Catchment lie in Land Management Planning for individual properties. The recommendatios of this report can be incorporated into these plans. Individual Land Management Plans will need to be finalized by the landholders but any design work for drainage, contouring or waterway defining will need to be done by the Department of Agriculture. Landcare technicians,contractors, surveyors or consultants can implement the designs on site with additional help from the Department of Agriculture where necessary

Do the UK government's new Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF) scores adequately measure primary care performance? A cross-sectional survey of routine healthcare data

BACKGROUND General practitioners' remuneration is now linked directly to the scores attained in the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF). The success of this approach depends in part on designing a robust and clinically meaningful set of indicators. The aim of this study was to assess the extent to which measures of health observed in practice populations are correlated with their QOF scores, after accounting for the established associations between health outcomes and socio-demographics. METHODS QOF data for the period April 2004 to March 2005 were obtained for all general practices in two English Primary Care Trusts. These data were linked to data for emergency hospital admissions (for asthma, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary hear disease, diabetes, stroke and all other conditions) and all cause mortality for the period September 2004 to August 2005. Multilevel logistic regression models explored the association between health outcomes (hospital admission and death) and practice QOF scores (clinical, additional services and organisational domains), age, sex and socio-economic deprivation. RESULTS Higher clinical domain scores were generally associated with lower admission rates and this was significant for cancer and other conditions in PCT 2. Higher scores in the additional services domain were associated with higher admission rates, significantly so for asthma, CHD, stroke and other conditions in PCT 1 and cancer in PCT 2. Little association was observed between the organisational domain scores and admissions. The relationship between the QOF variables and mortality was less clear. Being female was associated with fewer admissions for cancer and CHD and lower mortality rates. Increasing age was mainly associated with an increased number of events. Increasing deprivation was associated with higher admission rates for all conditions and with higher mortality rates. CONCLUSION The associations between QOF scores and emergency admissions and mortality were small and inconsistent, whilst the impact of socio-economic deprivation on the outcomes was much stronger. These results have implications for the use of target-based remuneration of general practitioners and emphasise the need to tackle inequalities and improve the health of disadvantaged groups and the population as a whole

Dynamics from diffraction

A model-independent approach for the extraction of detailed lattice dynamical information from neutron powder diffraction data is described. The technique is based on a statistical analysis of atomistic configurations generated using reverse Monte Carlo structural refinement. Phonon dispersion curves extracted in this way are shown to reproduce many of the important features found in those determined independently using neutron triple-axis spectroscopy. The extent to which diffraction data are sensitive to lattice dynamics is explored in a range of materials. The prospect that such detailed dynamical information might be accessible using comparatively facile experiments such as neutron powder diffraction is incredibly valuable when studying systems for which established spectroscopic methods are prohibitive or inappropriate

MIS RESEARCH: REFERENCE DISCIPLINES AND A CUMULATIVE TRADITION

This paper discusses what is needed to make MIS into a coherent research field. It defines 3 main needs: 1. Clarification of reference disciplines. 2. Definition of the dependent variable. 3. Building a cumulative tradition. It reviews the relationship of MIS to computer technology and to practice and assess the publishing inlets for MIS research. The author would like to acknowledge with warm gratitude the contribution of Phillip Smith in helping shape the ideas expressed in this paper

Bifurcated polarization rotation in bismuth-based piezoelectrics

ABO3 perovskite-type solid solutions display a large variety of structural and physical properties, which can be tuned by chemical composition or external parameters such as temperature, pressure, strain, electric, or magnetic fields. Some solid solutions show remarkably enhanced physical properties including colossal magnetoresistance or giant piezoelectricity. It has been recognized that structural distortions, competing on the local level, are key to understanding and tuning these remarkable properties, yet, it remains a challenge to experimentally observe such local structural details. Here, from neutron pair-distribution analysis, a temperature-dependent 3D atomic-level model of the lead-free piezoelectric perovskite Na0.5Bi0.5TiO3 (NBT) is reported. The statistical analysis of this model shows how local distortions compete, how this competition develops with temperature, and, in particular, how different polar displacements of Bi3+ cations coexist as a bifurcated polarization, highlighting the interest of Bi-based materials in the search for new lead-free piezoelectrics

Parabolic groups acting on one-dimensional compact spaces

Given a class of compact spaces, we ask which groups can be maximal parabolic subgroups of a relatively hyperbolic group whose boundary is in the class. We investigate the class of 1-dimensional connected boundaries. We get that any non-torsion infinite f.g. group is a maximal parabolic subgroup of some relatively hyperbolic group with connected one-dimensional boundary without global cut point. For boundaries homeomorphic to a Sierpinski carpet or a 2-sphere, the only maximal parabolic subgroups allowed are virtual surface groups (hyperbolic, or virtually $\mathbb{Z} + \mathbb{Z}$).Comment: 10 pages. Added a precision on local connectedness for Lemma 2.3, thanks to B. Bowditc