Mandatory public benefit reporting as a basis for charity accountability: findings from England & Wales

Charitable status is inherently linked in many jurisdictions with the requirement that an entity must be established for public benefit. But, until recently the public benefit principle had relatively little impact on the operations of most established charities. However, in England and Wales, reforms linked to the Charities Act 2006 led to a new requirement for public benefit reporting in the trustees’ annual report (TAR) of every registered charity. This new narrative reporting requirement had the potential to affect the understanding of accountability by charities. The paper investigates the impact of that requirement through a study of over 1400 sets of charity reports and account

Arcuate nucleus homeostatic systems reflect blood leptin concentration but not feeding behaviour during scheduled feeding on a high-fat diet in mice

Acknowledgements T.B. was funded by a CASE studentship from the BBSRC and AstraZeneca. J.B. was a summer student from Bordeaux Sciences Agro and funded by student laboratory experience grant from the British Society of Neuroendocrinology. The authors are also grateful for funding from the Scottish Government, and from the European Union Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreements 266408 (Full4Health) and 245009 (NeuroFAST).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Design considerations for thermostatic fin spacecraft temperature control

Design considerations for thermostatic fin spacecraft temperature contro

Unpowered Aerodynamic Characteristics of a 15-Percent Scale Model of a Twin-Engine Commuter Aircraft

An experimental investigation was conducted in the Ames 12-Foot Pressure Wind Tunnel to determine the unpowered aerodynamic characteristics of a 15-percent-scale model of a twin-engine commuter aircraft. Model longitudinal aerodynamic characteristics were examined at discrete flap deflections for various angle-of-attack and wind-tunnel-velocity ranges with the empennage on and off. Data are presented for the basic model configuration consisting of the fuselage, wing, basic wing leading edge, double slotted flaps, midengine nacelles, and empennage. Other configurations tested include a particle-span drooped leading edge (dropped outboard of the engine nacelles), a full-span drooped leading edge, low- and high-mounted engine nacelles, and a single-slotted flap. An evaluation was made of the model mounting system by comparing data obtained with the model mounted conventionally on the wind-tunnel model-support struts and the model inverted

Calibration of Viking imaging system pointing, image extraction, and optical navigation measure

Pointing control and knowledge accuracy of Viking Orbiter science instruments is controlled by the scan platform. Calibration of the scan platform and the imaging system was accomplished through mathematical models. The calibration procedure and results obtained for the two Viking spacecraft are described. Included are both ground and in-flight scan platform calibrations, and the additional calibrations unique to optical navigation

Development of Ground-testable Phase Fresnel Lenses in Silicon

Diffractive/refractive optics, such as Phase Fresnel Lenses (PFL's), offer the potential to achieve excellent imaging performance in the x-ray and gamma-ray photon regimes. In principle, the angular resolution obtained with these devices can be diffraction limited. Furthermore, improvements in signal sensitivity can be achieved as virtually the entire flux incident on a lens can be concentrated onto a small detector area. In order to verify experimentally the imaging performance, we have fabricated PFL's in silicon using gray-scale lithography to produce the required Fresnel profile. These devices are to be evaluated in the recently constructed 600-meter x-ray interferometry testbed at NASA/GSFC. Profile measurements of the Fresnel structures in fabricated PFL's have been performed and have been used to obtain initial characterization of the expected PFL imaging efficiencies.Comment: Presented at GammaWave05: "Focusing Telescopes in Nuclear Astrophysics", Bonifacio, Corsica, September 2005, to be published in Experimental Astronomy, 8 pages, 3 figure

Free-space quantum key distribution

A working free-space quantum key distribution (QKD) system has been developed and tested over a 205-m indoor optical path at Los Alamos National Laboratory under fluorescent lighting conditions. Results show that free-space QKD can provide secure real-time key distribution between parties who have a need to communicate secretly.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. To be published in Physical review A on or about 1 April 199

Practical quantum key distribution over a 48-km optical fiber network

The secure distribution of the secret random bit sequences known as "key" material, is an essential precursor to their use for the encryption and decryption of confidential communications. Quantum cryptography is a new technique for secure key distribution with single-photon transmissions: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle ensures that an adversary can neither successfully tap the key transmissions, nor evade detection (eavesdropping raises the key error rate above a threshold value). We have developed experimental quantum cryptography systems based on the transmission of non-orthogonal photon states to generate shared key material over multi-kilometer optical fiber paths and over line-of-sight links. In both cases, key material is built up using the transmission of a single-photon per bit of an initial secret random sequence. A quantum-mechanically random subset of this sequence is identified, becoming the key material after a data reconciliation stage with the sender. Here we report the most recent results of our optical fiber experiment in which we have performed quantum key distribution over a 48-km optical fiber network at Los Alamos using photon interference states with the B92 and BB84 quantum key distribution protocols.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figures, .pdf format submitted to Journal of Modern Optic