Suburban solutions: The other side of the story

How much does urban form affect levels of active travel and transport carbon emissions? It is all too easy for policy-makers to jump to simple conclusions, but the answer is both complex and contested. Here Hugh Barton, Marcus Grant and Michael Horswell report on recent research which casts new light on the impact of neighbourhood planning

Reshaping suburbs

A report produced as part of the EPSRC solutions project - the sustainability of land use and transport in outer neighberhoods

Morphological Adaptation and Digestion in Relation to Raptor Feeding Ecology

1. An integral part of the study was to relate intestinal morphology to digestive efficiency in raptors. The source of morphology data was carcasses handed in by the public. The environmental conditions and time for which carcasses were exposed were unknown, as were the storage procedures following collection. The validity of using gut morphology data from carcass analysis was tested by assessing the extent to which small intestine length and weight in two-week old cockerels (Gallus gallus) changed under different experimental conditions of time and temperature post-mortem. Intestine weight decreased significantly with increases in time and temperature. Intestine length changed to a lesser extent and was chosen as the preferred measure when restricted to using carcass data. 2. Having determined which measure of gross gut morphology to use, data from Falconiformes and Strigiformes were used to quantify interspecific differences in small intestine length, the region of the gut responsible for food absorption. The study assessed the influence of predatory behaviour and prey type on morphological adaptations of the flight musculature and gut. Falconiform species were categorised as either 'attackers' or 'searchers' depending on the degree to which active, powered pursuit is required for prey capture. Attacking species feed predominantly on avian prey, requiring extreme agility, speed and acceleration for prey capture. Searchers feed largely on relatively slow-moving mammals and carrion. Weight minimisation is very important in terms of flight energetics and it was hypothesised that attackers would minimise the weight of internal organs which are not important for flight, such as intestinal mass. Searchers which do not require such agility and acceleration for prey capture would be expected to have longer, heavier intestines. It is further considered whether the absolute length or weight of the gut is important or whether it is the weight associated with gut contents that influences the size of the digestive tract. A skeletal body-size measure was determined to enable calculation of intestine length independent of body-size and shape differences. Attacking species were found to have a snail intestine which was up to 50% shorter than found in searchers of equivalent body- size. Strigiformes which locate prey by active flight also had intestinal tracts shorter than expected. It is hypothesised that these interspecific differences in gross gut morphology result in corresponding differences in digestive efficiency. 3. The size of the small intestine, stomach, liver, kidney and heart were compared between species and considered in relation to hunting strategy and body size for several raptor species. The extent to which these organs are affected by differences in body condition and parasite burden was examined. No relationship was found between parasite burden and intestine length. There was a strong correlation between body condition and organ size. Condition, fat content and parasite burden were shown to be related. Attacking species were found to have a small stomach and intestine for their size; searchers had large, heavy digestive organs. The more active owl species also had a lighter digestive tract. The scaling of intestine length, area and volume with body-mass was discussed. 4. It was hypothesised that the relatively long small intestine found in searchers such as the Red Kite (Milvus milvus) and Common Buzzard (Biiteo buteo) is adaptive and results in increased digestive efficiency, whereas a short digestive tract as found in the Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus), Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus) and Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) is selected for higher flight performance but results in reduced digestive efficiency. In order to test this hypothesis, it was necessary to find an appropriate method to measure digestion. The study aimed to test the suitability of titanium dioxide as a nutritional marker for measuring digestive efficiency in raptors. Such a method would enable a larger sample of birds to be used since it would allow the use of birds which could not be tethered under experimental conditions and those which are permanently kept in large aviaries. Birds which had been trained by falconry techniques were used to compare the use of a marker with results based on total faecal collection. Titanium dioxide is supposedly inert. However, complete recovery of the marker was not achieved and titanium dioxide was determined not to be a suitable marker for digestion studies in raptors. Total faecal collection was therefore used throughout the remainder of the study for measuring food passage and digestive efficiency. (Abstract shortened by ProQuest.)

Urban planning for healthy cities a review of the progress of the european healthy cities programme

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the progress made by European cities in relation to Healthy Urban Planning (HUP) during Phase IV of the World Health Organization's Healthy Cities programme (2003-2008). The introduction sets out the general principle of HUP, identifying three levels or phases of health and planning integration. This leads on to a more specific analysis of the processes and substance of HUP, which provide criteria for assessment of progress. The assessment itself relies on two sources of data provided by the municipalities: the Annual Review Templates (ARTs) 2008 and the response to the Phase IV General Evaluation Questionnaire. The findings indicate that the evidence from different sources and questions in different sections are encouragingly consistent. The number of cities achieving a good level of understanding and activity inHUP has risen very substantially over the period. In particular, those achieving effective strategic integration of health and planning have increased. A key challenge for the future will be to develop planning frameworks which advance public health concerns in a spatial policy context driven often by market forces. A health in all policies approach could be valuable. © 2012 The New York Academy of Medicine

Towards optimum smoking cessation interventions during pregnancy: a household model to explore cost‐effectiveness

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Previous economic evaluations of smoking cessation interventions for pregnant women are limited to single components, which do not in isolation offer sufficient potential impact to address smoking cessation targets. To inform the development of more appropriate complex interventions, we (1) describe the development of the Economics of Smoking in Pregnancy: Household (ESIP.H) model for estimating the life‐time cost‐effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions aimed at pregnant women and (2) use a hypothetical case study to demonstrate how ESIP.H can be used to identify the characteristics of optimum smoking cessation interventions. METHODS: The hypothetical intervention was based on current evidence relating to component elements, including financial incentives, partner smoking, intensive behaviour change support, cigarettes consumption and duration of support to 12 months post‐partum. ESIP.H was developed to assess the life‐time health and cost impacts of multi‐component interventions compared with standard National Health Service (NHS) care in England. ESIP.H considers cigarette consumption, partner smoking and some health conditions (e.g. obesity) that were not included in previous models. The Markov model's parameters were estimated based on published literature, expert judgement and evidence‐based assumptions. The hypothetical intervention was evaluated from an NHS perspective. RESULTS: The hypothetical intervention was associated with an incremental gain in quitters (mother and partner) at 12 months postpartum of 249 [95% confidence interval (CI) = 195–304] per 1000 pregnant smokers. Over the long‐term, it had an incremental negative cost of £193 (CI = –£779 to 344) and it improved health, with a 0.50 (CI = 0.36–0.69) increase in quality‐adjusted life years (QALYs) for mothers, partners and offspring, with a 100% probability of being cost‐effective. CONCLUSIONS: The Economics of Smoking in Pregnancy: Household model for estimating cost‐effectiveness of smoking cessation interventions aimed at pregnant women found that a hypothetical smoking cessation intervention would greatly extend reach, reduce smoking and be cost‐effective

Quantifying the Concentration of Glucose, Urea, and Lactic Acid in Mixture by Confocal Raman Microscopy

Raman spectroscopy has numerous applications in the field of biology. One such application is the simultaneously measurement of the concentration of multiple biochemical components in low volume aqueous mixtures, for example, a single drop of blood serum. Over twenty years ago, it was shown for the first time that it was possible to estimate the concentration of glucose, urea, and lactic acid in mixture by combining Raman Spectroscopy with Partial Least Squares Regression analysis. This was followed by numerous contributions in the literature designed to increase the number of components and reduce the limits of concentration that could be simultaneously measured using Raman spectroscopy, by developing various optical architectures to maximise the signal to noise ratio. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate the potential of a confocal Raman microscopy system for multicomponent analysis for the case of physiologically relevant mixtures of glucose, urea, and lactic acid

Discussion: Potential for carfree development in the UK

Discussion: Potential for carfree development in the U

Improved Performance of Near infrared Excitation Raman Spectroscopy Using Reflective Thin-film Gold on Glass Substrates for Cytology Samples

Confocal near-infrared Raman spectroscopy has been shown to have applications in the area of clinical biology. A source wavelength in the near infrared is preferred over visible wavelengths for inspecting biological samples due to superior wave number resolution and reduced photo damage. However, these excitation sources have a number of drawbacks when compared to lasers in the visible wavelength region, including the requirement to use expensive highly pure crystal substrates such as Raman grade calcium fluoride as well as long acquisition times due to the lower Raman scattering efficiency. This paper investigates the use of a reflective substrate comprising a low cost 100 nm thin-film gold on glass substrate, as an alternative. Similar to recent work that used stainless steel substrates, it is demonstrated that the thin-film gold coated substrates, which are relatively inexpensive, produce cell spectra with 1.65 times the signal to noise ratio when compared with spectra obtained from calcium fluoride under identical conditions, with no apparent background signal in the fingerprint region. Two prostate cell lines are examined having been deposited on glass, calcium fluoride, and thin-film gold on glass substrates using the Thin Prep standard. Background spectra from, and cell adhesion on, these three substrates are compared. A comparison of the intensities and signal to noise ratios of the resulting spectra, and their viability for classification using principle components analysis is performed, which further demonstrates the benefit of reflective substrates