Development of an Integrated Governance Strategy for the Voluntary and Community Sector

This report on governance provides a framework for thinking about how policy makers, funders,regulators and advisers can all work with Board members and staff to enhance the effectiveness of nonprofit organisations. It was commissioned by the Active Community Unit (ACU) of the Home Office, in parallel with other reviews designed to improve the capacity of the voluntary and community sector, at a time when the sector plays an increasingly important role in the delivery of services using public funds. That role has recently been investigated in two Government reports, the Cross Cutting Review carried out by the Treasury, and the Strategy Unit review of charities and nonprofits. Our report proposes actions of three types: some that can be taken immediately, some that require further discussion with key interests, and some integration with the other ACU reviews. Taken together they provide the starting point for an evolving strategy to improve governance across the sector. We recommend ACU chairs a group charged with the responsibility for planning and implementing this. Our focus is on governance as 'the systems and processes concerned with ensuring the overall direction, supervision and accountability of an organisation'. This is often taken to mean the way that a Board, management committee or other governing body steers the overall development of an organisation, where day-to-day management is in the hands of staff or volunteers. Sometimes, of course, the committee and volunteers are the same. They – like all governing bodies – have to balance the interests of the organisation and those they are trying to serve, while being conscious of financial and legal responsibilities, and the requirements of funders and other supporters

Electron Holes and Heating in the Reconnection Dissipation Region

Using particle-in-cell simulations and kinetic theory, we explore the current-driven turbulence and associated electron heating in the dissipation region during 3D magnetic reconnection with a guide field. At late time the turbulence is dominated by the Buneman and lower hybrid instabilities. Both produce electron holes that co-exist but have very different propagation speeds. The associated scattering of electrons by the holes enhances electron heating in the dissipation region.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted to GR

Efficient indexing of necklaces and irreducible polynomials over finite fields

We study the problem of indexing irreducible polynomials over finite fields, and give the first efficient algorithm for this problem. Specifically, we show the existence of poly(n, log q)-size circuits that compute a bijection between {1, ... , |S|} and the set S of all irreducible, monic, univariate polynomials of degree n over a finite field F_q. This has applications in pseudorandomness, and answers an open question of Alon, Goldreich, H{\aa}stad and Peralta[AGHP]. Our approach uses a connection between irreducible polynomials and necklaces ( equivalence classes of strings under cyclic rotation). Along the way, we give the first efficient algorithm for indexing necklaces of a given length over a given alphabet, which may be of independent interest

Heme oxygenase is induced in nephrotoxic nephritis and hemin, a stimulator of heme oxygenase synthesis, ameliorates disease

Heme oxygenase is induced in nephrotoxic nephritis and hemin, a stimulator of heme oxygenase synthesis, ameliorates disease. Heme oxygenase (HO) catalyses degradation of heme to biliverdin, iron and carbon monoxide (CO). Two isoforms exist, a constitutive form and an inducible form (HO-1). Induction of HO-1 may have protective effects in inflammation. We studied heterologous (HNTN) and accelerated (ANTN) nephrotoxic nephritis in Lewis rats. Hemin, an inducer of HO-1, (30 μmol/kg) was administered 18 hours before induction of nephritis and 72 hours later in ANTN. HO-1 was not detected immunohistochemically in normal glomeruli but was present in HNTN and ANTN in cells with the morphology of macrophages. HO-1 induction was confirmed by RT-PCR. In normal rats hemin induced glomerular HO-1 mRNA at 18 hours. In HNTN hemin markedly reduced proteinuria at 24 hours (10 ± 4 mg/24 hr; control 54 ± 16; P < 0.05), neutrophil infiltration at two hours (29.8 ± 1.8 vs. 22.3 ± 1.5 neutrophils/glomerulus, P < 0.05), and glomerular macrophage number at two hours (2.1 ± 0.1 vs. 3.1 ± 0.4 cells/glomerulus, P < 0.05). In ANTN proteinuria was reduced at day 1 and day 4 (36 ± 11 vs. 60 ± 15 and 35 ± 7 vs. 86 ± 9mg protein/24 hr, respectively, P < 0.001), glomerular thrombi were reduced by hemin at day 1 and 4 (1.5 ± 2.7 vs. 2.7 ± 0.2 and 1.3 ± 0.01 vs. 2.9 ± 0.02, respectively, P < 0.001) and glomerular macrophage infiltration was reduced on day 4 (11.2 ± 0.8 cells/glom; control 15.9 ± 0.8, P < 0.01). Possible mechanisms by which HO-1 ameliorates disease include anti-complement or anti-oxidant effects of bilirubin and vasodilator and anti-platelet effects of carbon monoxide

Electromagnetic detection and real-time DMLC adaptation to target rotation during radiotherapy.

PURPOSE: Intrafraction rotation of more than 45° and 25° has been observed for lung and prostate tumors, respectively. Such rotation is not routinely adapted to during current radiotherapy, which may compromise tumor dose coverage. The aim of the study was to investigate the geometric and dosimetric performance of an electromagnetically guided real-time dynamic multileaf collimator (DMLC) tracking system to adapt to intrafractional tumor rotation. MATERIALS/METHODS: Target rotation was provided by changing the treatment couch angle. The target rotation was measured by a research Calypso system integrated with a real-time DMLC tracking system employed on a Varian linac. The geometric beam-target rotational alignment difference was measured using electronic portal images. The dosimetric accuracy was quantified using a two-dimensional ion chamber array. For each beam, the following five delivery modes were tested: 1) nonrotated target (reference); 2) fixed rotated target with tracking; 3) fixed rotated target without tracking; 4) actively rotating target with tracking; and 5) actively rotating target without tracking. Dosimetric performance of the latter four modes was measured and compared to the reference dose distribution using a 3 mm/3% γ-test. RESULTS: Geometrically, the beam-target rotational alignment difference was 0.3° ± 0.6° for fixed rotation and 0.3° ± 1.3° for active rotation. Dosimetrically, the average failure rate for the γ-test for a fixed rotated target was 11% with tracking and 36% without tracking. The average failure rate for an actively rotating target was 9% with tracking and 35% without tracking. CONCLUSIONS: For the first time, real-time target rotation has been accurately detected and adapted to during radiation delivery via DMLC tracking. The beam-target rotational alignment difference was mostly within 1°. Dose distributions to fixed and actively rotating targets with DMLC tracking were significantly superior to those without tracking

Electron-acoustic plasma waves: oblique modulation and envelope solitons

Theoretical and numerical studies are presented of the amplitude modulation of electron-acoustic waves (EAWs) propagating in space plasmas whose constituents are inertial cold electrons, Boltzmann distributed hot electrons and stationary ions. Perturbations oblique to the carrier EAW propagation direction have been considered. The stability analysis, based on a nonlinear Schroedinger equation (NLSE), reveals that the EAW may become unstable; the stability criteria depend on the angle $\theta$ between the modulation and propagation directions. Different types of localized EA excitations are shown to exist.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures; to appear in Phys. Rev.

Social Roles and Baseline Proxemic Preferences for a Domestic Service Robot

© The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. The work described in this paper was conducted within the EU Integrated Projects LIREC (LIving with Robots and intEractive Companions, funded by the European Commission under contract numbers FP7 215554, and partly funded by the ACCOMPANY project, a part of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement n287624The goal of our research is to develop socially acceptable behavior for domestic robots in a setting where a user and the robot are sharing the same physical space and interact with each other in close proximity. Specifically, our research focuses on approach distances and directions in the context of a robot handing over an object to a userPeer reviewe