Council of deans of health report: guidance notes on disability issues in relation to healthcare education

The Executive of the Council of Deans of Health established a working group to produce a guide on disability issues for academic and practice staff in health care higher education to enhance the experience of potential applicants and students. The following guidance should be used in conjunction with current institutional policy on disability issues and is designed to enhance best practice.The guidance is designed to provide a professional prompt to academic and practice staff and is no way a definitive text on disability issues in higher education. Contributors to this guide are members from the Council of Deans of Health who have considerable, first hand experience of disabilities issues and related policy documents. In considering this guidance cognisance needs to be taken of the findings of The Disability Rights Commission Formal Investigation into teaching, nursing and social work

First observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production in a heavy-ion collider

We report the first observations of beam losses due to bound-free pair production at the interaction point of a heavy-ion collider. This process is expected to be a major luminosity limit for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) when it operates with 208Pb82+ ions because the localized energy deposition by the lost ions may quench superconducting magnet coils. Measurements were performed at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) during operation with 100 GeV/nucleon 63Cu29+ ions. At RHIC, the rate, energy and magnetic field are low enough so that magnet quenching is not an issue. The hadronic showers produced when the single-electron ions struck the RHIC beampipe were observed using an array of photodiodes. The measurement confirms the order of magnitude of the theoretical cross section previously calculated by others.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Added journal ref. Corrected typos. Fixed fig 1. Minor improvements to fig. 1,3,4. Rephrased a small number of sentences (p1,3,4). Added numerical values of the aperture and the displacement for Au (p 2). Changed reference 5, added name in acknowledgments (p 4

Beam losses from ultra-peripheral nuclear collisions between Pb ions in the Large Hadron Collider and their alleviation

Electromagnetic interactions between colliding heavy ions at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN will give rise to localized beam losses that may quench superconducting magnets, apart from contributing significantly to the luminosity decay. To quantify their impact on the operation of the collider, we have used a three-step simulation approach, which consists of optical tracking, a Monte-Carlo shower simulation and a thermal network model of the heat flow inside a magnet. We present simulation results for the case of Pb ion operation in the LHC, with focus on the ALICE interaction region, and show that the expected heat load during nominal Pb operation is 40% above the quench level. This limits the maximum achievable luminosity. Furthermore, we discuss methods of monitoring the losses and possible ways to alleviate their effect.Comment: 17 pages, 20 figure

Initial evidence for the criterion-related and structural validity of the long versions of the direct and meta-perspectives of the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2010 Taylor & Francis.The aim of the present study was to develop and initially validate a longer version of the direct (Jowett & Ntoumanis, 2004) and meta-perspectives (Jowett, 2009a, 2009b) of the Coach-Athlete Relationship Questionnaire (CART-Q). In Study 1, instruments (e.g. questionnaires, scales, and inventories) that have been used to assess relationship quality in the broader psychological literature were examined and items potentially relevant to the coach-athlete relationship were identified. The content validity of the identified items was then assessed using expert panels. A final questionnaire was subsequently prepared and administered to 693 participants (310 coaches and 383 athletes). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to assess the multidimensional nature of the questionnaire based on the 3Cs (i.e. closeness, commitment, and complementarity) model of the coach-athlete relationship. The findings indicated that the direct and meta-perspective items of the long versions of the CART-Q approached an adequate data fit. Moreover, evidence for the internal consistency and criterion validity of the new instruments was also obtained. In Study 2, the newly developed measure was administered to an independent sample of 251 individuals (145 athletes and 106 coaches). Further statistical support was gained for the factorial validity and reliability of the longer version of the CART-Q

Attachment Styles Within the Coach-Athlete Dyad: Preliminary Investigation and Assessment Development

The present preliminary study aimed to develop and examine the psychometric properties of a new sport-specific self-report instrument designed to assess athletes’ and coaches’ attachment styles. The development and initial validation comprised three main phases. In Phase 1, a pool of items was generated based on pre-existing self-report attachment instruments, modified to reflect a coach and an athlete’s style of attachment. In Phase 2, the content validity of the items was assessed by a panel of experts. A final scale was developed and administered to 405 coaches and 298 athletes (N = 703 participants). In Phase 3, confirmatory factor analysis of the obtained data was conducted to determine the final items of the Coach-Athlete Attachment Scale (CAAS). Confirmatory factor analysis revealed acceptable goodness of fit indexes for a 3-first order factor model as well as a 2-first order factor model for both the athlete and the coach data, respectively. A secure attachment style positively predicted relationship satisfaction, while an insecure attachment style was a negative predictor of relationship satisfaction. The CAAS revealed initial psychometric properties of content, factorial, and predictive validity, as well as reliability

Phase-space Analysis by Multiple Resonance-Frequency Identification: Applications to the LHC and LEP

Many beam-dynamical phenomena are studied, experimentally or computationally, by means of spectral analysis of a time-series of values of a dynamical variable. When the underlying dynamics is regular, the frequencies appearing in the spectrum are integer combinations of a small set of basic frequencies, e.g., the three tunes in the case of single-particle orbital dynamics. For well-known reasons, identification of the frequencies can be ambiguous or subjective in practice. We present an algorithm that overcomes these difficulties by exploiting theoretical bounds on the spectral power density to transform time series into sets of labelled resonance lines. In our examples, the time series are orbits obtained by tracking single particles from many initial conditions. The method has been applied to off-momentum LHC injection optics. This is a deterministic Hamiltonian system. A second application, to orbits with strong quantum fluctuations in LEP2, shows that it also works well in a noisy, dissipative system

A functional role for small-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels in sensory pathways including nociceptive processes

We investigated the role of small-conductance calcium-activated potassium (SK) and intermediate-conductance calcium-activated potassium channels in modulating sensory transmission from peripheral afferents into the rat spinal cord. Subunit-specific antibodies reveal high levels of SK3 immunoreactivity in laminas I, II, and III of the spinal cord. Among dorsal root ganglion neurons, both peripherin-positive (C-type) and peripherin-negative (A-type) cells show intense SK3 immunoreactivity. Furthermore, dorsal root-stimulated sensory responses recorded in vitro are inhibited when SK channel activity is increased with 1-ethyl-2-benzimidazolinone (1-EBIO). In vivo electrophysiological recordings show that neuronal responses to naturally evoked nociceptive and nonnociceptive stimuli increase after application of the selective SK channel blocker 8,14-diaza-1,7( 1,4)-diquinolinacyclotetradecaphanedium ditrifluoroacetate (UCL 1848), indicating that SK channels are normally active in moderating afferent input. Conversely, neuronal responses evoked by mechanical stimuli are inhibited when SK channel activity is increased with 1-EBIO. These effects are reversed by the subsequent application of UCL 1848. Our data demonstrate that SK channels have an important role in controlling sensory input into the spinal cord

Measurements of heavy ion beam losses from collimation

The collimation efficiency for Pb ion beams in the LHC is predicted to be lower than requirements. Nuclear fragmentation and electromagnetic dissociation in the primary collimators create fragments with a wide range of Z/A ratios, which are not intercepted by the secondary collimators but lost where the dispersion has grown sufficiently large. In this article we present measurements and simulations of loss patterns generated by a prototype LHC collimator in the CERN SPS. Measurements were performed at two different energies and angles of the collimator. We also compare with proton loss maps and find a qualitative difference between Pb ions and protons, with the maximum loss rate observed at different places in the ring. This behavior was predicted by simulations and provides a valuable benchmark of our understanding of ion beam losses caused by collimation.Comment: 12 pages, 20 figure

Beam Loss Monitors for Heavy Ion Operation

The performance of the LHC as a heavy-ion collider is expected to be limited by a variety of beam loss mechanisms that are non-existent, or substantially different, in the case of protons. Among these are ultra-peripheral interactions of the colliding beams and the collimation inefficiency. Loss patterns are different and require additional installations of beam loss monitors. Further, the relation between energy deposition in superconducting magnet coils and the loss monitor signals has to be reassessed for heavy ions in order to determine the thresholds for dumping beams