Rotation and Spin in Physics

We delineate the role of rotation and spin in physics, discussing in order Newtonian classical physics, special relativity, quantum mechanics, quantum electrodynamics and general relativity. In the latter case, we discuss the generalization of the Kepler formula to post-Newtonian order $(c^{-2}$) including spin effects and two-body effects. Experiments which verify the theoretical results for general relativistic spin-orbit effects are discussed as well as efforts being made to verify the spin-spin effects

The evolution of health policy guidelines for assisted reproduction in the Republic of Ireland, 2004-2009

This analysis reports on Irish regulatory policies for in vitro fertilisation (IVF) from 2004-2009, in the context of membership changes within the Medical Council of Ireland. To achieve this, the current (2009) edition of the Guide to Professional Conduct & Ethics was compared with the immediately preceding version (2004). The statutory composition of the Medical Council from 2004-2009 was also studied. Content analysis of the two editions identified the following differences: 1) The 2004 guide states that IVF "should only be used after thorough investigation has failed to reveal a treatable cause of the infertility", while the 2009 guide indicates IVF "should only be used after thorough investigation has shown that no other treatment is likely to be effective"; 2) The 2004 stipulation stating that fertilized ovum (embryo) "must be used for normal implantation and must not be deliberately destroyed" is absent from the 2009 guidelines; 3) The option to donate "unused fertilised ova" (embryos) is omitted from the 2009 guidelines; 4) The 2009 guidelines state that ART should be offered only by "suitably qualified professionals, in appropriate facilities, and according to the international best practice"; 5) The 2009 guidelines introduce criteria that donations as part of a donor programme should be "altruistic and non-commercial". These last two points represent original regulatory efforts not appearing in the 2004 edition. The Medical Practitioners Act 2007 reduced the number of physicians on the Medical Council to 6 (of 25) members. The ethical guidelines from 2004 preceded this change, while the reconstituted Medical Council published the 2009 version. Between 2004 and 2009, substantial modifications in reproductive health policy were incorporated into the Medical Council's ethical guidelines. The absence of controlling Irish legislation means that patients and IVF providers in Ireland must rely upon these guidelines by default. Our critique traces the evolution of public policy on IVF during a time when the membership of the Medical Council changed radically; reduced physician contribution to decision-making was associated with diminished protection for IVF-derived embryos in Ireland. Considerable uncertainty on IVF practice in Ireland remains

Potential of combined ultrasound and microneedles for enhanced transdermal drug permeation: A review

NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version will be subsequently published in European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics .Transdermal drug delivery (TDD) is limited by the outer layer of the skin, i.e., the stratum corneum. Research on TDD has become very active in recent years and various technologies have been developed to overcome the resistance of the stratum corneum to molecular diffusion. In particular, researchers have started to consider the possibility of combining the TDD technologies in order to have further increase in drug permeability. Microneedles (MNs) and ultrasound are both promising technologies. They achieve enhancement in drug permeation via different mechanisms and therefore give a good potential for combining with each other. This review will focus on discussing the potential of this combinational technique along with other important issues, e.g., the mechanisms of ultrasound and MNs as it is these mechanisms which are coupled via the two systems (i.e. MNs and ultrasound). We discuss the possible ways to achieve this combination as well as how this combination would increase the permeability. Some of the undeveloped (weaker) research areas of MNs and sonophoresis are also discussed in order to understand the true potential of combining the two technologies when they are developed further in the future. We propose several hypothetical combinations based on the possible mechanisms involved in MNs and ultrasound. Furthermore, we carry out a cluster analysis by which we determine the significance of this combinational method in comparison with some other selected combinational methods for TDD (e.g., MNs and iontophoresis). Using a time series analysis tool (ARIMA model), the current trend and the future development of combined MNs and ultrasound are also analysed. Overall, the review in this paper indicates that combining MNs and ultrasound is a promising TDD method for the future

'Community' in the sociology of religion : the case of Britain

The author’s aim is to offer some critical observations on usage of the terms ‘community’ and ‘faith community’. The central argument is that ‘community’ is a weasel word that occurs frequently in discourses at the levels of everyday life, public policy-making, welfare services and social scientific analysis. The article begins by reviewing relatively uncontentious uses of ‘community’. The second section of the article analyses the UK government’s usage of the term ‘faith community’ in policy documents since 1997. And the third section explores two particularly problematic issues: on the one hand a tension that arises within official discourses about faith communities and, on the other, the UK government’s practice of treating faith communities as if they were undifferentiated collectivities. The conclusion urges sociologists of religion to avoid uncritically reproducing official discourses about faith communities