Written evidence to the House of Commons Business and Skills Committee (ed) Local enterprise partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund

The Business, Innovation and Skills Committee announced an inquiry looking into the Local Enterprise Partnerships and the Regional Growth Fund. In particular, the Committee examined how the proposed new structures would work, alongside issues such as distribution of funding, value for money, accountability, timing, transitional arrangements and required legislation. A Report on the Local Enterprise Partnerships was published on 26 April 2013

Shielding of Space Vehicles by Magnetic Fields

Spacecraft shielding by magnetic field

Genetic Study of Alkane Production and Oxic Nitrogen Fixation in Anabaena SP. PCC 7120

Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 is a filamentous, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium that uses spatial separation to perform photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation simultaneously. Under fixed nitrogen limiting conditions, Anabaena 7120 forms specialized cells, called heterocysts, to fix nitrogen. In this research, I sought to add to the knowledge surrounding the process of heterocystous nitrogen fixation in Anabaena 7120. Cyanobacteria universally produce alkanes, which have been suggested to play a role in helping the organism adapt to abiotic stress, such as diazotrophic conditions. In my first study, I sought to identify the genes required for production of the hydrocarbon heptadecane (C17H36). Through using a double crossover approach and determining loss of function, I identified two genes (alr5283 and alr5284) responsible for heptadecane production in Anabaena 7120. In my second study, I employed the alkane knockout mutant to study the impact of alkanes in nitrogen-fixing conditions. My results showed that heptadecane production spikes immediately following nitrogen starvation. Correspondingly, the mutant, which is unable to produce heptadecane, exhibited a fragmented phenotype with a lower nitrogenase activity in the days immediately following nitrogen starvation. These results suggested that heptadecane may play an important role in maintaining membrane integrity for cell-to-cell connections, especially during the initial response to nitrogen starvation. In my last study, I knocked out 16 genes whose encoded proteins had been found only in heterocysts (Qiu 2018). Two of these gene mutants (for all3132 and alr0731) were unable to grow under aerobic nitrogen-fixing conditions. I was able to complement the alr0731 mutant, and it regained its ability to grow in diazotrophic conditions. Therefore, I categorized alr0731 as a Fox gene (unable to fix nitrogen in the presence of oxygen). This gene encodes an anaerobic ribocucleoside triphosphate reductase activating protein that is needed for conversion of ribonucleoside triphosphates (NTPs) to deoxyribonucleoside triphosphates (dNTPs). Because cell division (requiring DNA replication) and gene rearrangements have been linked to heterocyst differentiation, Alr0731 may be primarily important in the process of heterocyst differentiation. Future work will continue to add to the understanding of key regulators and contributors to the process of heterocyst differentiation and nitrogen fixation in cyanobacteria

What We Can Learn about Multiculturalism from Latin American Psychology

Latin American psychology, although greatly under-represented in international journals, can provide important lessons for international psychologists. Mexican psychologist Rogelio Díaz-Guerrero was one of the first to describe would now be labeled an indigenous psychology. Latin American theorists such as Paolo Freire and Ignacio Martín-Baró have provided frameworks for understanding diversity and multiculturalism among groups with unequal power. Only by critical thinking and critical analysis can we understand and challenge disparate conditions. Relatedly, Latin American psychology often focuses on achieving social justice and solving practical real-world problems. Thus, community and political psychology are strengths of Latin American psychology and have made contributions to the understanding of multiculturalism and activism. Finally, the high proportion of youth in Latin American countries makes their well-being a priority and innovative research has worked to identify and promote talent among young people. Examples of Latin American contributions, personal lessons learned, and suggestions for incorporating knowledge and perspectives from Latin America are highlighted

Perceptions of Nurse-Physician Collaboration: A Rural/Urban Comparison

Physicians and nurses are major members and central to the healthcare team, thus, it is reasonable to advocate for collaboration between these two disciplines. However, prior to this advocacy, it is essential to identify perceptions of collaboration among nurses and physicians before any possible interventions can be implemented. The purpose of this study was to assess and compare perceptions of nurse-physician collaboration among nurses and physicians in rural and urban hospital settings, settings that have not received prior research. Thomas\u27 conceptual model for collaboration guided this study. This model suggests a person uses one of five modes in resolving conflict: competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding, and accommodating and can be utilized to study interpersonal problem solving behavior. A nonrandom, convenience sample was utilized and included 19 nurses and 5 physicians working in rural hospitals and 25 nurses and 23 physicians working with medical-surgical patients in urban hospitals. Nurses and physicians were given one survey titled either “Nurse Perception of Nurse-Physician Collaboration” or “Physician Perceptions of Nurse-Physician Collaboration”. Each survey consisted of two tools, the Collaborative Behavior Scale (CBS) Part 1 and the Collaborative Practice Scale (CPS), which is composed of two separate scales—one for nurses and one for physicians. Demographic information was also included along with two open-ended questions. The tools measured the extent nurses and physicians perceive that nurse-physician collaboration exists in their work setting and the perceived use of collaborative practice behavior by nurses and physicians. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to describe and synthesize data for this study. The Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was used to produce statistical results. A Mann-Whitney test showed no statistically significant difference how rural physicians and nurses perceive collaboration exists in their hospital setting. A statistically significant difference was shown between how urban physicians and nurses perceive collaboration exists in their hospital setting. No statistically significant difference was shown between how participants in rural and urban settings perceive collaboration exists in their work setting. There was also no statistically significant difference in how rural physicians and nurses perceive the use of collaborative practice behaviors, however, there was a statistically significant difference in how urban physicians and nurses perceive the use of collaborative practice behaviors in their work setting. A Mann-Whitney test showed no statistically significant difference between how participants in rural and urban settings perceive the use of collaborative practice behaviors by nurses and physicians in their work settings. There were no statistically significant differences in the demographic variables and how participants perceive that collaboration exists in their work setting and also how participants perceive that collaborative practice behaviors are used in their work setting

Vacuum decay via Lorentzian wormholes

We speculate about the spacetime description due to the presence of Lorentzian wormholes (handles in spacetime joining two distant regions or other universes) in quantum gravity. The semiclassical rate of production of these Lorentzian wormholes in Reissner-Nordstr\"om spacetimes is calculated as a result of the spontaneous decay of vacuum due to a real tunneling configuration. In the magnetic case it only depends on the field theoretical fine structure constant. We predict that the quantum probability corresponding to the nucleation of such geodesically complete spacetimes should be actually negligible in our physical Universe

Relative contribution of abundant and rare species to species–energy relationships

A major goal of ecology is to understand spatial variation in species richness. The latter is markedly influenced by energy availability and appears to be influenced more by common species than rare ones; species–energy relationships should thus be stronger for common species. Species–energy relationships may arise because high-energy areas support more individuals, and these larger populations may buffer species from extinction. As extinction risk is a negative decelerating function of population size, this more-individuals hypothesis (MIH) predicts that rare species should respond more strongly to energy. We investigate these opposing predictions using British breeding bird data and find that, contrary to the MIH, common species contribute more to species–energy relationships than rare ones

Inclusive decays B->DX and B->D*X

Complete Author List: Gibbons L, Johnson SD, Kwon Y, Roberts S, Thorndike EH, Jessop CP, Lingel K, Marsiske H, Perl ML, Schaffner SF, Ugolini D, Wang R, Zhou X, Coan TE, Fadeyev V, Korolkov I, Maravin Y, Narsky I, Shelkov V, Staeck J, Stroynowski R, Volobouev I, Ye J, Artuso M, Efimov A, Frasconi F, Gao M, Goldberg M, He D, Kopp S, Horwitz N, Moneti GC, Mountain R, Mukhin Y, Schuh S, Skwarnicki T, Stone S, Thulasidas M, Viehhauser G, Xing X, Bartelt J, Csorna SE, Jain V, Marka S, Freyberger A, Godang R, Kinoshita K, Lai IC, Pomianowski P, Schrenk S, Bonvicini G, Cinabro D, Greene R, Perera LP, Barish B, Chadha M, Chan S, Eigen G, Miller JS, OGrady C, Schmidtler M, Urheim J, Weinstein AJ, Wurthwein F, Asner DM, Bliss DW, Brower WS, Masek G, Paar HP, Sharma V, Gronberg J, Kutschke R, Lange DJ, Menary S, Morrison RJ, Nelson HN, Nelson TK, Qiao C, Richman JD, Roberts D, Ryd A, Witherell MS, Balest R, Behrens BH, Cho K, Ford WT, Park H, Rankin P, Roy J, Smith JG, Alexander JP, Bebek C, Berger BE, Berkelman K, Bloom K, Cassel DG, Cho HA, Coffman DM, Crowcroft DS, Dickson M, Drell PS, Ecklund KM, Ehrlich R, Elia R, Foland AD, Gaidarev P, Gittelman B, Gray SW, Hartill DL, Heltsley BK, Kandaswamy J, Katayama N, Kim PC, Kreinick DL, Lee T, Liu Y, Ludwig GS, Masui J, Mevissen J, Mistry NB, Ng CR, Nordberg E, Ogg M, Patterson JR, Peterson D, Riley D, Soffer A, Ward C, Athanas M, Avery P, Jones CD, Lohner M, Prescott C, Yang S, Yelton J, Zheng J, Brandenburg G, Briere RA, Gao YS, Kim DYJ, Wilson R, Yamamoto H, Browder TE, Li F, Li Y, Rodriguez JL, Bergfeld T, Eisenstein BI, Ernst J, Gladding GE, Gollin GD, Hans RM, Johnson E, Karliner I, Marsh MA, Palmer M, Selen M, Thaler JJ, Edwards KW, Bellerive A, Janicek R, MacFarlane DB, McLean KW, Patel PM, Sadoff AJ, Ammar R, Baringer P, Bean A, Besson D, Coppage D, Darling C, Davis R, Hancock N, Kotov S, Kravchenko I, Kwak N, Anderson S, Kubota Y, Lattery M, ONeill JJ, Patton S, Poling R, Riehle T, Savinov V, Smith A, Alam MS, Athar SB, Ling Z, Mahmood AH, Severini H, Timm S, Wappler F, Anastassov A, Blinov S, Duboscq JE, Fisher KD, Fujino D, Fulton R, Gan KK, Hart T, Honscheid K, Kagan H, Kass R, Lee J, Spencer MB, Sung M, Undrus A, Wanke R, Wolf A, Zoeller MM, Nemati B, Richichi SJ, Ross WR, Skubic P, Wood M, Bishai M, Fast J, Gerndt E, Hinson JW, Menon N, Miller DH, Shibata EI, Shipsey IPJ, Yurko M</p