Health effects of home energy efficiency interventions in England: a modelling study

Objective: To assess potential public health impacts of changes to indoor air quality and temperature due to energy efficiency retrofits in English dwellings to meet 2030 carbon reduction targets. Design: Health impact modelling study. Setting: England. Participants: English household population. Intervention: Three retrofit scenarios were modelled: (1) fabric and ventilation retrofits installed assuming building regulations are met. (2) As with scenario (1) but with additional ventilation for homes at risk of poor ventilation. (3) As with scenario (1) but with no additional ventilation to illustrate the potential risk of weak regulations and non-compliance. Main Outcome: Primary outcomes were changes in quality adjusted life years (QALYs) over 50 years from cardiorespiratory diseases, lung cancer, asthma and common mental disorders due to changes in indoor air pollutants, including: second-hand tobacco smoke, PM2.5 from indoor and outdoor sources, radon, mould, and indoor winter temperatures. Results: The modelling study estimates showed that scenario (1) resulted in positive effects on net mortality and morbidity of 2,241 (95% credible intervals (CI) 2,085 to 2,397) QALYs per 10,000 persons over 50 years due to improved temperatures and reduced exposure to indoor pollutants, despite an increase in exposure to outdoor–generated PM2.5. Scenario (2) resulted in a negative impact of -728 (95% CI -864 to -592) QALYs per 10,000 persons over 50 years due to an overall increase in indoor pollutant exposures. Scenario (3) resulted in -539 (95% CI -678 to -399) QALYs per 10,000 persons over 50 years due to an increase in indoor exposures despite targeting. Conclusions: If properly implemented alongside ventilation, energy efficiency retrofits in housing can improve health by reducing exposure to cold and air pollutants. Maximising the health benefits requires careful understanding of the balance of changes in pollutant exposures, highlighting the importance of ventilation to mitigate the risk of poor indoor air quality

Remarks on the extension of the Ricci flow

We present two new conditions to extend the Ricci flow on a compact manifold over a finite time, which are improvements of some known extension theorems.Comment: 9 pages, to appear in Journal of Geometric Analysi

Extreme gravitational lensing in vicinity of Schwarzschild-de Sitter black holes

We have developed a realistic, fully general relativistic computer code to simulate optical projection in a strong, spherically symmetric gravitational field. The standard theoretical analysis of optical projection for an observer in the vicinity of a Schwarzschild black hole is extended to black hole spacetimes with a repulsive cosmological constant, i.e, Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes. Influence of the cosmological constant is investigated for static observers and observers radially free-falling from the static radius. Simulations include effects of the gravitational lensing, multiple images, Doppler and gravitational frequency shift, as well as the intensity amplification. The code generates images of the sky for the static observer and a movie simulations of the changing sky for the radially free-falling observer. Techniques of parallel programming are applied to get a high performance and a fast run of the BHC simulation code

KlNESlOLOGlCAL ANALYSIS OF OVERARM THROWING FOR ACCURACY WITH DOMINANT AND NON-DOMINANT ARMS

The main aim of this study was to examine differences kinematically between dominant and non-dominant overarm throws for accuracy. Fourty-nine right-handed primaly school students served as the subjects who were requested to make overarm throws with dominant and non-dominant arms. A three-dimensional Motion Analysis System was used to collect all kinematic data of overarm throwing while performance errors were recorded by a video camera. Performance errors and kinematic variables of right and lefl hands were compaired with Paired t-test and the relation among performance errors and kinematic variables was evaluated with canonical correlation. It was found that significant differences in the accuracy existed between dominant and non-dominant overarm throws. The dominant hand shows much better throwing performance in terms of accuracy. Kinematic analysis also indicated that there were significant differences in velocity and acceleration even though there was a great similarity in the timing of velocity and acceleration in overarm throws for accuracy

Radio-frequency reflectometry on an undoped AlGaAs/GaAs single electron transistor

Radio frequency reflectometry is demonstrated in a sub-micron undoped AlGaAs/GaAs device. Undoped single electron transistors (SETs) are attractive candidates to study single electron phenomena due to their charge stability and robust electronic properties after thermal cycling. However these devices require a large top-gate which is unsuitable for the fast and sensitive radio frequency reflectometry technique. Here we demonstrate rf reflectometry is possible in an undoped SET.Comment: Four pages, three figures, one supplementary fil

Non-abelian Harmonic Oscillators and Chiral Theories

We show that a large class of physical theories which has been under intensive investigation recently, share the same geometric features in their Hamiltonian formulation. These dynamical systems range from harmonic oscillations to WZW-like models and to the KdV dynamics on $Diff_oS^1$. To the same class belong also the Hamiltonian systems on groups of maps. The common feature of these models are the 'chiral' equations of motion allowing for so-called chiral decomposition of the phase space.Comment: 1

Engagement With Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Components of a Web-Based Alcohol Intervention, Elicitation of Change Talk and Sustain Talk, and Impact on Drinking Outcomes: Secondary Data Analysis

Background: Down Your Drink (DYD) is a widely used unguided online alcohol moderation program for the general public based on cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) and motivational interviewing (MI), with many opportunities for free-text responses. / Objective: To assess participants’ use of key CBT and MI components, the presence of change and sustain talk within their responses, and whether these are associated with drinking outcomes after three months. / Methods: A secondary data-analysis was conducted on data from the definitive randomized trial of DYD, collected in 2008 (n=503). Past week alcohol use at baseline and three month follow-up was measured with the TOT-AL. Covariates included baseline alcohol use, age, gender, education level and word count of responses. Use of MI and CBT components and presence of change and sustain talk was coded by two independent coders (Cohen’s kappa range = 0.91-1). Linear model regressions on the full sample and a subsample of active users (n=411) are presented. / Results: Most commonly used components were the listing of pros and cons. Number of listed risky situations was associated with lower alcohol use at three months follow-up in both the full sample and the subsample (Badj = −2.10 95%CI −3.88 - −0.31, P = 0.02). Number of listed pros of drinking was only associated with higher alcohol use in the subsample (Badj = 3.12, 95%CI −0.55-6.80, P = 0.095). When the primary measure for alcohol use was log-transformed, number of strategies to deal with risky situations (Badj = 0.03, 95%CI 0.00 - 0.06, P = 0.02) and presence of any change talk (Badj =−0.46, 95%CI −0.86 - −0.06, P = 0.02) also predicted alcohol use. / Conclusions: An unguided online alcohol moderation program can elicit change and sustain talk. Number of noted risky situations can predict alcohol use at three month follow-up. Other components, namely number of strategies to deal with risky situations, number of listed pros, sustain talk and any presence of change talk, are also of interest, but need further research. Clinical Trial: Original trial registration: ISRCTN registry, ID ISRCTN31070347, http://www.isrctn.com/ISRCTN31070347

The social cognition of medical knowledge, with special reference to childhood epilepsy

This paper arose out of an engagement in medical communication courses at a Gulf university. It deploys a theoretical framework derived from a (critical) sociocognitive approach to discourse analysis in order to investigate three aspects of medical discourse relating to childhood epilepsy: the cognitive processes that are entailed in relating different types of medical knowledge to their communicative context; the types of medical knowledge that are constituted in the three different text types analysed; and the relationship between these different types of medical knowledge and the discursive features of each text type. The paper argues that there is a cognitive dimension to the human experience of understanding and talking about one specialized from of medical knowledge. It recommends that texts be studied in medical communication courses not just in terms of their discrete formal features but also critically, in terms of the knowledge which they produce, transmit and reproduce