Does perceived organisational support influence career intentions?:The qualitative stories shared by UK early career doctors

Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the interviews. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directorate staff in the Scotland Deanery, NHS Education for Scotland, for sending out the email correspondence to the two regions involved in the interviews. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC) and for funding the open-access fee for this paper.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Does initial postgraduate career intention and social demographics predict perceived career behaviour?:A national cross-sectional survey of UK postgraduate doctors

Acknowledgements: Our thanks to all those FP2 doctors who participated in the survey. Our thanks also to the Foundation Programme Directors across the UK for allowing permission to conduct research on this data set. No patients or any members of the public were involved in this study. Funding: Our thanks go to NHS Education for Scotland for funding Gillian Scanlan’s programme of work through the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC). Data sharing statement: The data reported is from the UKFPO dataset, and any data shared would need the permission of the UK Foundation Programme directorsPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Objective `Safe' Grazing Capacities for South-West Queensland Australia: Development of a Model for Individual Properties

Few tools are available to assist graziers, land administrators and financiers in making objective grazing capacity decisions on Australian rangelands, despite existing knowledge regarding stocking rate theory and the impact of stocking rates on land condition. To address this issue a model for objectively estimating 'safe' grazing capacities on individual grazing properties in south-west Queensland was developed. The method is based on 'safe' levels of utilisation (15%-20%) by domestic livestock of average annual forage grown for each land system on a property. Average annual forage grown (kglha) was calculated as the product of the rainfall use efficiency (kglhdmm) and average annual rainfall (mm) for a land system. This estimate included the impact of tree and shrub cover on forage production. The 'safe' levels of forage utilisation for south- west Queensland pastures were derived from the combined experience of (1) re-analysis of the results of grazing trials, (2) reaching a consensus on local knowledge and (3) examination of existing grazing practice on 'benchmark' grazing properties. We recognise the problems in defining, determining and using grazing capacity values, but consider that the model offers decision makers a tool that can be used to assess the grazing capacity of individual properties

Climate Change in Queensland's Grazing Lands: II. An Assessment of the Impact on Animal Production From Native Pastures

The 160 million ha of grazing land in Queensland support approximately 10 million beef equivalents (9.8 million cattle and 10.7 million sheep) with treed and cleared native pastures as the major forage source. The complexity of these biophysical systems and their interaction with pasture and stock management, economic and social forces limits our ability to easily calculate the impact of climate change scenarios. We report the application of a systems approach in simulating the flow of plant dry matter and utilisation of forage by animals. Our review of available models highlighted the lack of suitable mechanistic models and the potential role of simple empirical relationships of utilisation and animal production derived from climatic and soil indices. Plausible climate change scenarios were evaluated by using a factorial of rainfall (f 10%) * 3260C temperature increase * doubling CO, in sensitivity studies at property, regional and State scales. Simulation of beef cattle liveweight gain at three locations in the Queensland black speargrass zone showed that a *lo% change in rainfall was magnified to be a f 15% change in animal production (liveweight gain per ha) depending on location, temperature and CO, change. Models of 'safe' carrying capacity were developed from property data and expert opinion. Climate change impacts on 'safe' carrying capacity varied considerably across the State depending on whether moisture, temperature or nutrients were the limiting factors. Without the effect of doubling CO,, warmer temperatures and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in -35 to +70% changes in 'safe' carrying capacity depending on location. With the effect of doubling CO, included, the changes in 'safe' carrying capacity ranged from -12 to +115% across scenarios and locations. When aggregated to a whole-of-State carrying capacity, the combined effects of warmer temperature, doubling CO, and +lo% changes in rainfall resulted in 'safe' carrying capacity changes of +3 to +45% depending on rainfall scenario and location. A major finding of the sensitivity study was the potential importance of doubling CO, in mitigating or amplifying the effects of warmer temperatures and changes in rainfall. Field studies on the impact of CO, are therefore a high research priority. Keywords: climate change, Queensland, simulation, rangelands, beef production, cattle, carrying capacity, CO,, utilisatio

Optical and transport properties in doped two-leg ladder antiferromagnet

Within the t-J model, the optical and transport properties of the doped two-leg ladder antiferromagnet are studied based on the fermion-spin theory. It is shown that the optical and transport properties of the doped two-leg ladder antiferromagnet are mainly governed by the holon scattering. The low energy peak in the optical conductivity is located at a finite energy, while the resistivity exhibits a crossover from the high temperature metallic-like behavior to the low temperature insulating-like behavior, which are consistent with the experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. B65 (2002) (April 15 issue

The significance of 'the visit' in an English category-B prison: Views from prisoners, prisoners' families and prison staff

A number of claims have been made regarding the importance of prisoners staying in touch with their family through prison visits, firstly from a humanitarian perspective of enabling family members to see each other, but also regarding the impact of maintaining family ties for successful rehabilitation, reintegration into society and reduced re-offending. This growing evidence base has resulted in increased support by the Prison Service for encouraging the family unit to remain intact during a prisoner’s incarceration. Despite its importance however, there has been a distinct lack of research examining the dynamics of families visiting relatives in prison. This paper explores perceptions of the same event – the visit – from the families’, prisoners’ and prison staffs' viewpoints in a category-B local prison in England. Qualitative data was collected with 30 prisoners’ families, 16 prisoners and 14 prison staff, as part of a broader evaluation of the visitors’ centre. The findings suggest that the three parties frame their perspective of visiting very differently. Prisoners’ families often see visits as an emotional minefield fraught with practical difficulties. Prisoners can view the visit as the highlight of their time in prison and often have many complaints about how visits are handled. Finally, prison staff see visits as potential security breaches and a major organisational operation. The paper addresses the current gap in our understanding of the prison visit and has implications for the Prison Service and wider social policy

Weak lensing, dark matter and dark energy

Weak gravitational lensing is rapidly becoming one of the principal probes of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. In this brief review we outline how weak lensing helps determine the structure of dark matter halos, measure the expansion rate of the universe, and distinguish between modified gravity and dark energy explanations for the acceleration of the universe. We also discuss requirements on the control of systematic errors so that the systematics do not appreciably degrade the power of weak lensing as a cosmological probe.Comment: Invited review article for the GRG special issue on gravitational lensing (P. Jetzer, Y. Mellier and V. Perlick Eds.). V3: subsection on three-point function and some references added. Matches the published versio

Constraints on the Timing and Extent of Deglacial Grounding Line Retreat in West Antarctica

Projections of Antarctica\u27s contribution to future sea level rise are associated with significant uncertainty, in part because the observational record is too short to capture long-term processes necessary to estimate ice mass changes over societally relevant timescales. Records of grounding line retreat from the geologic past offer an opportunity to extend our observations of these processes beyond the modern record and to gain a more comprehensive understanding of ice-sheet change. Here, we present constraints on the timing and inland extent of deglacial grounding line retreat in the southern Ross Sea, Antarctica, obtained via direct sampling of a subglacial lake located 150 km inland from the modern grounding line and beneath \u3e1 km of ice. Isotopic measurements of water and sediment from the lake enabled us to evaluate how the subglacial microbial community accessed radiocarbon-bearing organic carbon for energy, as well as where it transferred carbon metabolically. Using radiocarbon as a natural tracer, we found that sedimentary organic carbon was microbially translocated to dissolved carbon pools in the subglacial hydrologic system during the 4.5-year period of water accumulation prior to our sampling. This finding indicates that the grounding line along the Siple Coast of West Antarctica retreated more than 250 km inland during the mid-Holocene (6.3 ± 1.0 ka), prior to re-advancing to its modern position

Predicting substance use behavior among South African adolescents: The role of leisure experiences across time

Using seven waves of data, collected twice a year from the 8th through the 11th grades in a low-resource community in Cape Town, South Africa, we aimed to describe the developmental trends in three specific leisure experiences (leisure boredom, new leisure interests, and healthy leisure) and substance use (cigarettes, alcohol, and marijuana) behaviors and to investigate the ways in which changes in leisure experiences predict changes in substance use behaviors over time. Results indicated that adolescents’ substance use increased significantly across adolescence, but that leisure experiences remained fairly stable over time. We also found that adolescent leisure experiences predicted baseline substance use and that changes in leisure experiences predicted changes in substance use behaviors over time, with leisure boredom emerging as the most consistent and strongest predictor of alcohol, cigarette, and marijuana use. Implications for interventions that target time use and leisure experiences are discussed.Web of Scienc