Evaluating a Shared Spaces Intervention. A Case Study of Street Users in Auckland, New Zealand

The environmental qualities of urban spaces have the potential to influence peoples’ behaviours, including mode of transport and physical activity patterns, shopper spending habits, and social engagement and behavioural characteristics. Increasingly, urban planners and transport engineers are integrating concepts such as self -­‐ explaining roads and shared spaces into environmental design approaches, for improved driver behaviour, pedestrian safety, and health behaviours. Despite this, research focusing on the effects of such interventions is limited, largely due to the substantial expense of implementing built environment infrastructure, and a general disconnect between researchers and regulatory bodies responsible for intervention implementation. Greater focu s needs to be on understanding the effects these interventions can have on the general population, to inform future infrastructural initiatives and investment. This study compares the profiles and perceptions of street users immediately post and sixteen mo nths after a major streetscape upgrade to a shared spaces mode in the the Fort Street precinct (central business district), in Auckland, New Zealand. A convenience sample strategy was employed for data collection and participants completed in -­‐ person survey s . Descriptive data treatment and inferential statistical analyses were undertaken to compare user profiles and opinions pre and post streetscape upgrades. In total , 373 street users in the Fort Street precinct participated in this research. Overall, findi ngs indicate positive perceptions of the Fort Street upgrades and positive impacts on health -­‐ related behaviours. Recommendations for further improvements to the area predominantly focused on improving pedestrian safety, including reducing traffic speeds, r educing car usage of the area, and providing better clarity on appropriate driver behaviours.Auckland Council and Auckland Transpor

A dusty pinwheel nebula around the massive star WR 104

Wolf-Rayet (WR) stars are luminous massive blue stars thought to be immediate precursors to the supernova terminating their brief lives. The existence of dust shells around such stars has been enigmatic since their discovery some 30 years ago; the intense radiation field from the star should be inimical to dust survival. Although dust-creation models, including those involving interacting stellar winds from a companion star, have been put forward, high-resolution observations are required to understand this phenomena. Here we present resolved images of the dust outflow around Wolf-Rayet WR 104, obtained with novel imaging techniques, revealing detail on scales corresponding to about 40 AU at the star. Our maps show that the dust forms a spatially confined stream following precisely a linear (or Archimedian) spiral trajectory. Images taken at two separate epochs show a clear rotation with a period of 220 +/- 30 days. Taken together, these findings prove that a binary star is responsible for the creation of the circumstellar dust, while the spiral plume makes WR 104 the prototype of a new class of circumstellar nebulae unique to interacting wind systems.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, Appearing in Nature (1999 April 08

Genes Suggest Ancestral Colour Polymorphisms Are Shared across Morphologically Cryptic Species in Arctic Bumblebees

email Suzanne orcd idCopyright: © 2015 Williams et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Extreme Food-Plant Specialisation in Megabombus Bumblebees as a Product of Long Tongues Combined with Short Nesting Seasons

© 2015 Huang et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ The attached file is the published version of the article

A Protocol for an economic evaluation of a polypill in patients with established or at high risk of cardiovascular disease in a UK NHS setting: RUPEE (NHS) study

Copyright © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2018. Introduction: The ‘Use of a Multi-drug Pill in Reducing cardiovascular Events’ (UMPIRE) trial was a randomised controlled clinical trial evaluating the impact of a polypill strategy on adherence to indicated medication in a population with established cardiovascular disease (CVD) of or at high risk thereof. The aim of Researching the UMPIRE Processes for Economic Evaluation in the National Health Service (RUPEE NHS) is to estimate the potential health economic impact of a polypill strategy for CVD prevention within the NHS using UMPIRE trial and other relevant data. This paper describes the design of a modelled economic evaluation of the impact of increased adherence to the polypill versus usual care among the UK UMPIRE participants. Methods and analysis: As recommended by the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research and the Society for Medical Decision Making modelling guidelines, a review of published CVD models was undertaken to identify the most appropriate modelling approach and structure. The review was carried out in the electronic databases, MEDLINE and EMBASE. 40 CVD models were identified from 57 studies, the majority of economic models were health state transition cohort models and individual-level simulation models. The findings were discussed with clinical experts to confirm the approach and structure. An individual simulation approach was identified as the most suitable method to capture the heterogeneity in the population at CVD risk. RUPEE-NHS will use UMPIRE trial data on adherence to estimate the long-term cost-effectiveness of the polypill strategy. Dissemination: The evaluation findings will be presented in open-access scientific and healthcare policy journals and at national and international conferences. We will also present findings to NHS policy makers and pharmaceutical companies

Severe Inflammation Following Vaccination Against Streptococcus pneumoniae in Patients With Cryopyrin-Associated Periodic Syndromes

OBJECTIVE: Pneumococcal vaccination is recommended for patients receiving immunosuppressive drugs. We describe unusually severe adverse reactions to pneumococcal vaccination in each of 7 consecutive patients with cryopyrin-associated periodic syndromes (CAPS). METHODS: Seven consecutive patients with CAPS were vaccinated with pneumococcal polysaccharide or conjugate vaccines. Clinical information was collected retrospectively. RESULTS: Within a few hours after the vaccination, all 7 patients developed severe local reactions at the injection site. Two patients had to be hospitalized for systemic reactions including fever. All symptoms resolved in a period of 3–17 days. CONCLUSION: Our findings indicate that pneumococcal vaccines can trigger a severe local and systemic inflammatory reaction in patients with CAPS and possibly patients with other autoinflammatory diseases. Careful consideration is warranted when implementing current European League Against Rheumatism immunization guidelines in this patient population

Spontaneous Stratification in Granular Mixtures

Granular materials size segregate when exposed to external periodic perturbations such as vibrations. Moreover, mixtures of grains of different sizes spontaneously segregate in the absence of external perturbations: when a mixture is simply poured onto a pile, the large grains are more likely to be found near the base, while the small grains are more likely to be near the top. Here, we report a spontaneous phenomenon arising when we pour a mixture between two vertical plates: the mixture spontaneously stratifies into alternating layers of small and large grains whenever the large grains are rougher than the small grains. In contrast, we find only spontaneous segregation when the large grains are more rounded than the small grains. The stratification is related to the occurrence of avalanches; during each avalanche the grains comprising the avalanche spontaneously stratify into a pair of layers through a "kink" mechanism, with the small grains forming a sublayer underneath the layer of large grains.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, http://polymer.bu.edu/~hmakse/Home.htm

MetaboLab - advanced NMR data processing and analysis for metabolomics

Background\ud Despite wide-spread use of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) in metabolomics for the analysis of biological samples there is a lack of graphically driven, publicly available software to process large one and two-dimensional NMR data sets for statistical analysis.\ud \ud Results\ud Here we present MetaboLab, a MATLAB based software package that facilitates NMR data processing by providing automated algorithms for processing series of spectra in a reproducible fashion. A graphical user interface provides easy access to all steps of data processing via a script builder to generate MATLAB scripts, providing an option to alter code manually. The analysis of two-dimensional spectra (1H,13C-HSQC spectra) is facilitated by the use of a spectral library derived from publicly available databases which can be extended readily. The software allows to display specific metabolites in small regions of interest where signals can be picked. To facilitate the analysis of series of two-dimensional spectra, different spectra can be overlaid and assignments can be transferred between spectra. The software includes mechanisms to account for overlapping signals by highlighting neighboring and ambiguous assignments.\ud \ud Conclusions\ud The MetaboLab software is an integrated software package for NMR data processing and analysis, closely linked to the previously developed NMRLab software. It includes tools for batch processing and gives access to a wealth of algorithms available in the MATLAB framework. Algorithms within MetaboLab help to optimize the flow of metabolomics data preparation for statistical analysis. The combination of an intuitive graphical user interface along with advanced data processing algorithms facilitates the use of MetaboLab in a broader metabolomics context.\ud \u

Scotland, NATO, and transatlantic security

This article explores the political and strategic implications of Scottish Independence for existing transatlantic security arrangements. It examines the potential institutional, legal and political obstacles Scotland might face during the transition to independence and discusses the specific challenges in the area of security and defence, including the nuclear issue and the question of what form an independent Scottish Defence Force (SDF) would need to take to allow and facilitate integration in transatlantic security structures. It argues that a number of strategic and political issues could be mitigated in the course of negotiations between Edinburgh and London. Moreover, Scotland's geostrategic position and political orientation make it an important prospective partner in international security cooperation across the Eastern Atlantic, High North and North Sea, which suggests that an advanced partnership with NATO, and eventually full membership, seems like an option that is both politically viable and more likely than any scenario that predicts seeing an independent Scotland (IS) outside these structures. This challenges some of the main strategic and security political arguments against independence and thus seeks to spark a debate about the realistic options for Scotland should it become independent after 2016

‘20 tins of Stella for a fiver’: The making of class through Labour and Coalition government alcohol policy

Alcohol use in the UK has been a key concern to both the Labour and Coalition governments, and commands considerable attention in the media and academic discussions. This article analyses how recent government policy discussions have defined particular forms of drinking as problematic, and how these definitions and associated policy initiatives can be seen as part of a wider symbolic economy through which people come to be valued differently, incorporating ideas of economic, cultural and social capital. Therefore, I argue that government policies and discussions of drinking are a key way in which class is constituted in contemporary Britain