Evaluation of fostering network Scottish care mentoring projects

Looked after children and young people are some of the most vulnerable in our society. For Scotland’s Children highlighted the ‘continuing failure of many local authorities as ‘corporate parents’ to provide these young people with the care and education they are entitled to by law’ (Scottish Executive, 2001, p. 10). One of the major issues facing looked after young people is the process of transition from care to independence. It is a time when they have ‘a right to expect the sort of help that loving parents would provide for their children, help to reach their full potential, and the same chance to make mistakes secure in the knowledge that there is a safety net of support’ (Jamieson, 2002, p. 2). However, over a number of years, research has highlighted the poor outcomes for children leaving care. Longitudinal studies which have followed up children and young people in care as part of national cohort studies present the stark contrast in life outcomes between those who have experienced care and those who have not. Cheung and Heath (1994) compare these two groups at age 33. Only one fifth of those who had been in care had achieved O levels compared to one-third of those who had not; only half as many had achieved A levels. Only one in a hundred of those who had been in care achieved a university degree compared to one on ten of those who had not. Two fifths of those who had been in care had no formal qualifications compared to one in seven (Cheung and Heath, 1994). This lack of qualifications converted into lack of success in the job market with three times as many being unemployed (10.8 % compared to 3.6 %) and larger proportions having manual jobs as opposed to professional or non-manual jobs

Interactions between toothbrush and toothpaste particles during simulated abrasive cleaning

Most people clean their teeth using toothpaste, consisting of abrasive particles in a carrier fluid, and a filament based toothbrush to remove plaque and stain. In order to optimise cleaning efficiency it is important to understand how toothbrush filaments, abrasive particles and fluid interact in a tooth cleaning contact. Work has been carried out to visualise, simulate, and model the processes in teeth cleaning. Laboratory cleaning contacts were created between a toothbrush and a transparent surface. Video and short duration flash photography were used to study the processes by which a toothbrush traps abrasive particles, loads them against the counterface, and removes material. Small abrasive particles tend to be trapped at the contact between the filament tip and the counterface, whilst larger particles are trapped by clumps of filaments or at the contact with the side of a bent filament. Measurements of brush friction force were recorded during cleaning for a range of operating conditions. The presence of abrasive particles in the cleaning mixture increased the coefficient of friction, but the absolute particle concentration showed a lesser effect. It is surmised that only a few particles carry any load and cause any abrasion; increasing the particle concentration does not directly increase the number of load bearing particles. Abrasive scratch tests were also carried out, using PMMA as a wearing substrate. The scratches produced during these tests were studied. The microscopy images were used to deduce how the filaments deflect and drag, and how particles are trapped by filaments and scratch the surface. Again, it was observed that few of the brush filaments loaded particles to produce scratches, and that when a filament changes direction of travel the trapped particle is lost. Results of these studies were used to develop both qualitative and quantitative models of the process by which material is removed in teeth cleaning. The quantitative model contains, by necessity, several empirical factors, but nonetheless predictions compare well with in vitro wear results from the literature. The results were also used to draw some broad conclusions on appropriate brushing techniques for optimum tooth cleaning

New Limits on Local Lorentz Invariance in Mercury and Cesium

We report new bounds on Local Lorentz Invariance (LLI) violation in Cs and Hg. The limits are obtained through the observation of the the spin- precession frequencies of 199Hg and 133Cs atoms in their ground states as a function of the orientation of an applied magnetic field with respect to the fixed stars. We measure the amplitudes of the dipole couplings to a preferred direction in the equatorial plane to be 19(11) nHz for Hg and 9(5) microHz for Cs. The upper bounds established here improve upon previous bounds by about a factor of four. The improvement is primarily due to mounting the apparatus on a rotating table. New bounds are established on several terms in the standard model extension including the first bounds on the spin-couplings of the neutron and proton to the z direction, <7e-30 GeV and <7e-29 GeV, respectively.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figure

Partial discharge testing of defective three-phase PILC cable under rated conditions

The ability to accurately monitor the health of power distribution plant is a very attractive prospect for utility companies. This capability would provide a system that engineers could use to assess the real-time state of the network. Analysis of the data produced could allow for more informed decisions to be made in the areas of asset replacement and maintenance scheduling amongst others. It is widely accepted that partial discharge activity is linked with the electrical ageing/degradation of high voltage equipment. Work at Southampton is focused on obtaining a better understanding of the characteristics and trends of partial discharge events associated with medium voltage cables under, 'real life' conditions. An experiment has been developed that allows for service conditions to be applied to defective paper insulated lead covered cable samples. The samples under investigation were exposed to mechanical damage designed to replicate typical problems found on an active circuit. Partial discharge measurement was undertaken during the stressing process

Self reported aggravating activities do not demonstrate a consistent directional pattern in chronic non specific low back pain patients: An observational study

Question: Do the self-reported aggravating activities of chronic non-specific low back pain patients demonstrate a consistent directional pattern? Design: Cross-sectional observational study. Participants: 240 chronic non specific low back pain patients. Outcome measure: We invited experienced clinicians to classify each of the three self-nominated aggravating activities from the Patient Specific Functional Scale by the direction of lumbar spine movement. Patients were described as demonstrating a directional pattern if all nominated activities moved the spine into the same direction. Analyses were undertaken to determine if the proportion of patients demonstrating a directional pattern was greater than would be expected by chance. Results: In some patients, all tasks did move the spine into the same direction, but this proportion did not differ from chance (p = 0.328). There were no clinical or demographic differences between those who displayed a directional pattern and those who did not (all p > 0.05). Conclusion: Using patient self-reported aggravating activities we were unable to demonstrate the existence of a consistent pattern of adverse movement in patients with chronic non-specific low back pain

Gas micro-well track imaging detectors for gamma-ray astronomy

We describe our program to develop gas micro-well detectors (MWDs) as three-dimensional charged particle trackers for use in advanced gamma-ray telescope concepts. A micro-well detector consists of an array of individual micro-patterned gas proportional counters opposite a planar drift electrode. The well anodes and cathodes may be connected in X and Y strips, respectively, to provide two-dimensional imaging. When combined with transient digitizer electronics, which record the time signature of the charge collected in the wells of each strip, full three-dimensional reconstruction of charged-particle tracks in large gas volumes is possible. Such detectors hold great promise for advanced Compton telescope (ACT) and advanced pair telescope (APT) concepts due to the very precise measurement of charged particle momenta that is possible (Compton recoil electrons and electron-positron pairs, respectively). We present preliminary lab results, including detector fabrication, prototype electronics, and initial detector testing. We also discuss applications to the ACT and APT mission concepts, based on GEANT3 and GEANT4 simulations

Partial discharge analysis of defective three-phase cable

Power distribution cable networks represent a dynamic and complex challenge with regard to the issues of maintenance and providing a reliable, high quality supply of electrical power. Utilities historically used regular off-line testing to investigate the health of their assets. This method of testing is reasonably effective for this purpose but does have certain drawbacks associated with it; customer supply can be interrupted during the testing process and the cables are generally not tested under normal operating conditions. Meaning that the test data is not representative of the Partial discharge (PD) activity that is apparent under on-line conditions and the testing activity itself could trigger previously dormant PD sources. The modern approach for understanding the health of medium voltage (MV) cable distribution networks is to continuously monitor the assets whilst on-line. Analysis if the field data is then used to inform decisions regarding asset replacement and maintenance strategies. PD activity is widely recognised as a symptom linked to the degradation of the dielectric properties of high voltage plant. UK Power Networks sponsored research is being undertaken to investigate the evolution of PD activity within three-phase paper insulated lead covered (PILC) cables containing introduced defects. An experiment has been designed to stress cable lengths in a manner that is representative of the conditions met by on-line circuits [1]. A cable section containing a defect that is known to lead to the premature failure of in-service cables has been PD tested over a range of operating temperatures. The experiment utilizes three-phase energization at rated voltage as well as thermal cycling of the cable to replicate the daily load pattern experienced by circuits in the field. The extension to this work involves PD testing cable samples containing a range of defects to produce a data set consisting of PD pulses produced by varied sources. Analysis of this data should lead to a better understanding of the signals produced by the premature ageing of these types of cable

A new method for automatic Multiple Partial Discharge Classification

A new wavelet based feature parameter have been developed to represent the characteristics of PD activities, i.e. the wavelet decomposition energy of PD pulses measured from non-conventional ultra wide bandwidth PD sensors such as capacitive couplers (CC) or high frequency current transformers (HFCT). The generated feature vectors can contain different dimensions depending on the length of recorded pulses. These high dimensional feature vectors can then be processed using Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to map the data into a three dimensional space whilst the first three most significant components representing the feature vector are preserved. In the three dimensional mapped space, an automatic Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm is then applied to classify the data cluster(s) produced by the PCA. As the procedure is undertaken in a three dimensional space, the obtained clustering results can be easily assessed. The classified PD sub-data sets are then reconstructed in the time domain as phase-resolved patterns to facilitate PD source type identification. The proposed approach has been successfully applied to PD data measured from electrical machines and power cables where measurements were undertaken in different laboratories