Eradicating child poverty in Britain: welfare reform and children since 1997

Over the past 20 years the incidence of relative poverty among Britain’s children has tripled. These changes are related to increased earnings inequality, growth in the number of single (lone) parent households, and an increased share of households with children with no working adult. The Labour Government has responded by adopting as a policy objective ending child poverty by 2020. Initial steps toward this end include increasing direct financial support to families with children, creating financial incentives for work for parents, adopting more intensive case management for the welfare caseload, and ameliorating the long-term consequences of the deprivation poverty brings. The Working Families’ Tax Credit (WFTC) is the centerpiece of the financial support innovations but there is a broader swathe of welfare reforms which has received less attention. Overall, the U.K. system provides more generous support to the lowest-income families than is available in the U.S., and recent reforms have directly reduced child poverty. For most households, the reforms have reduced marginal benefit deduction rates and increased incentives to work. Preliminary evidence suggests the changes have had greatest effect on single parents. Continued progress requires the adoption of a more specific procedure for defining and measuring child poverty

METHOD OF MONITORING CHARGE CONDITION OF HEAT PUMP SYSTEM

A heat-pump circuit may include an indoor heat exchanger, an outdoor heat exchanger, a compressor adapted to circulate a working fluid between the indoor and outdoor heat exchangers, and an expansion device disposed between the indoor and outdoor heat exchangers. A monitor for the heat-pump system may include a return-air temperature sensor, a supply-air temperature sensor, and a processor. The return-air temperature sensor may be adapted to measure a first air temperature of air upstream of the indoor heat exchanger. The supply-air temperature sensor may be adapted to measure a second air temperature of air down stream of the indoor heat exchanger. The processor may be in communication with the return-air temperature sensor and the supply-air temperature sensor. The processor may be programmed to determine a working-fluid-charge condition of the heat-pump system based on the first and second air temperatures

Force networks and the dynamic approach to jamming in sheared granular media

Diverging correlation lengths on either side of the jamming transition are used to formulate a rheological model of granular shear flow, based on the propagation of stress through force chain networks. The model predicts three distinct flow regimes, characterized by the shear rate dependence of the stress tensor, that have been observed in both simulations and experiments. The boundaries separating the flow regimes are quantitatively determined and testable. In the limit of jammed granular solids, the model predicts the observed anomalous scaling of the shear modulus and a new relation for the shear strain at yield

An Engineering Approach to the Variable Fluid Property Problem in Free Convection

An analysis is made for the variable fluid property problem for laminar free convection on an isothermal vertical flat plate. For a number of specific cases, solutions of the boundary layer equations appropriate to the variable property situation were carried out for gases and liquid mercury. Utilizing these findings, a simple and accurate shorthand procedure is presented for calculating free convection heat transfer under variable property conditions. This calculation method is well established in the heat transfer field. It involves the use of results which have been derived for constant property fluids, and of a set of rules (called reference temperatures) for extending these constant property results to variable property situations. For gases, the constant property heat transfer results are generalized to the variable property situation by replacing beta (expansion coefficient) by one over T sub infinity and evaluating the other properties at T sub r equals T sub w minus zero point thirty-eight (T sub w minus T sub infinity). For liquid mercury, the generalization may be accomplished by evaluating all the properties (including beta) at this same T sub r. It is worthwhile noting that for these fluids, the film temperature (with beta equals one over T sub infinity for gases) appears to serve as an adequate reference temperature for most applications. Results are also presented for boundary layer thickness and velocity parameters

Collaborative Pacific Halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, Bycatch Control by Canada and the United States

ABSTRACT—Bycatch mortality of Pacific halibut, Hippoglossus stenolepis, in nontarget fisheries is composed primarily of immature fish, and substantial reductions in yield to directed halibut fisheries result from this bycatch. Distant-water bottomtrawl fleets operating off the North American coast, beginning in the mid 1960’s, experienced bycatch mortality of over 12,000 t annually. Substantial progress on reducing this bycatch was not achieved until the of extension fisheries jurisdictions by the United States and Canada in 1977. Bycatch began to increase again during the expansion of domestic catching capacity for groundfish, and by the early 1990’s it had returned to levels seen during the period of foreign fishing. Collaborative action by Canada and the United States through the International Pacific Halibut Commission has resulted in substantial reductions in bycatch mortality in some areas. Methods of control have operated at global, fleet, and individual vessel levels. We evaluate the hierarchy of effectiveness for these control measures and identify regulatory needs for optimum effects. New monitoring technologies offer the promise of more cost-effective approaches to bycatch reduction

Wetlands Evaluation for Philbrick\u27s Pond Marsh Drainage Evaluation North Hampton, NH

Philbrick’s Pond is a lagoon type estuary that formed landward of barrier beach spits in North Hampton, NH. Its inlet was stabilized and restricted by the road that is now Route 1A or Ocean Boulevard. Water flow from the Gulf of Maine passes through a culvert running under Route 1A and into a small waterway and is further restricted as it runs through a clay pipe under an old trolley berm. The lagoon is characterized as a 29 acre tidal marsh. The goal of the overall project is to evaluate the condition and hydrology of the two restrictions recognizing the conflicting needs for improved drainage from upstream flooding and limiting tidal flooding associated with extreme (i.e., storm surge) and normal flooding events due to sea level rise. The tidal marsh itself is a resource held in the public trust and therefore should be protected from any negative impacts associated with current conditions or predicted impacts due to future alternatives that may be chosen by the Town and its residents. Ditching of the marsh in the mid twentieth century rerouted drainage paths (e.g., Chapel Brook) and has resulted in large areas of vegetation loss between ditches in the past 60 years, as first reported by Short in 1984. The objectives of this report on the tidal marsh are threefold: 1) to evaluate the health of the tidal marsh by comparing existing and new data in Philbrick’s Pond with conditions found in the Little River tidal marsh just to the south; 2) characterize the relative benefits to the tidal marsh for the hydraulic alternatives evaluated by the hydrologic modeling; and 3) recommend management actions to restore marsh health using small scale drainage improvements (also known as runneling)