Referral patterns to the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital

This prospective descriptive study describes the referral patterns to the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. The study was conducted from 1st July to 31st December 1987 and entailed the collection of all referral letters presented (9288) to the hospital and the analysis of a sample of these letters (4702). The results indicated: * The patients are similar in terms of age and sex to those attending the Outpatients Department except that relatively fewer referred patients are Black. * The private sector, i.e. general practitioners, is the largest referral agency followed by Day Hospitals. * Most patients were ref erred to the Outpatients Department without an appointment. * Of the specialist clinics, the surgical clinics, i.e. Ophthalmology and Ear, Nose and Throat Clinics, were utilised the most. * The majority of patients (84,90%) were not admitted. * The contact made by the hospital with referral agents was poor (only in 30,30%). * The quality of information in referral letters was generally poor and did not contribute to patient care. Recommendations are made to the hospital and relevant health authorities

Canine babesiosis: from molecular taxonomy to control

Canine babesiosis is a clinically significant emerging vector-borne disease caused by protozoan haemoparasites. This review article considers recent literature pertaining to the taxonomic classification of Babesia and Theileria species affecting dogs and the geographical distribution of these parasites. The diagnosis of canine babesiosis by traditional, molecular and serological methods is reviewed, together with recent advances in our understanding of the pathophysiology of piroplasmosis, and of the treatment and prevention of this disease

A precise optical transmission spectrum of the inflated exoplanet WASP-52b

We have measured a precise optical transmission spectrum for WASP-52b, a highly inflated hot Jupiter with an equilibrium temperature of 1300 K. Two transits of the planet were observed spectroscopically at low resolution with the auxiliary-port camera (ACAM) on the William Herschel Telescope (WHT), covering a wide range of 4000-8750 \AA. We use a Gaussian process approach to model the correlated noise in the multi-wavelength light curves, resulting in a high precision relative transmission spectrum with errors on the order of a pressure scale height. We attempted to fit a variety of different representative model atmospheres to the transmission spectrum, but did not find a satisfactory match to the entire spectral range. For the majority of the covered wavelength range (4000-7750 \AA) the spectrum is flat, and can be explained by an optically thick and grey cloud layer at 0.1 mbar, but this is inconsistent with a slightly deeper transit at wavelengths $> 7750$ \AA. We were not able to find an obvious systematic source for this feature, so this opacity may be the result of an additional unknown absorber.Comment: Submitted to MNRAS 17 Jan 2017, revised version after comments from reviewer, 12 pages, 10 figure

NDM-547: RISK ANALYSIS OF WIND LOADING INCLUDING FUTURE CHANGES IN SURROUNDING BUILDINGS

Wind tunnel tests of tall buildings are capable of accurately determining the wind loads on a building in its current surroundings, since the surroundings are included in the wind tunnel modelling. The tests may also include some future developments if they are known to be imminent. However, the question of the effects of possible longer term changes in surroundings needs to be considered. In some cases the development of the city may be mature resulting in little likelihood of future changes, but in rapidly developing cities the possible changes may be significant. It is known that buildings very close to the building under test can have significant sheltering effects in some cases and may amplify wind loads in other cases. Cases have been seen where the removal of an important adjacent building more than doubled the wind loads. Wind tunnel testing can readily determine loads in the different scenarios but the question of how to treat the data requires some thought. This paper presents a method called the Combined Risk Method in which the results from the various test scenarios are combined to provide a single risk consistent relationship between load and return period. It does require that the various stakeholders agree on a reasonable probability for each scenario, but once this is done the method makes the path clear to developing appropriate design loads. The paper includes examples of application of the method to several projects

P5_6 White Elephants

The government recently gave the go ahead for the construction of Hinkley C, a 3260MW nuclear power plant. The project will cost £16bn. We investigate the power output achievable if the money was instead spent on constructing onshore wind farms. We find the total energy produced from the nuclear plant is 1.63 times that of the wind farms over an 80 year window