The Richard commission and the financing of devolved government : the economics of devolution in Wales: Briefing No. 8

If the Barnett formula is rigorously applied to determine the budget of the Welsh Assembly Government, this will ultimately adversely affect the economy of Wales by limiting the growth in aggregate demand. This effect is reinforced now that population weights determining rises in expenditure in Wales (and Scotland and Northern Ireland) are regularly up-dated. There is some controversy in Wales about whether some form of needs-assessment exercise would favour Wales relative to its current position. What is clear is that the outcome of a rigorous, long term application of the Barnett formula would be a share of UK public expenditures in Wales (and Scotland and Northern Ireland) that was almost certainly below the level that would be dictated by any conventional understanding of 'needs'. The impact of the tax-varying power favoured by the Richard Commission is ambiguous, with the direction of effects dependent on the reaction of the current labour force and potential migrants. If workers insist on full compensation for loss of income to tax through a rise in gross wages a tax rise would lead to an economic contraction. However, if workers value the additional public services financed by the tax rise as equal to their loss of disposable income, this effect can be avoided. Much in other words would depend on how the proceeds of the tax rise were spen

A model of appraisal: Spanish interpretations of President Trump’s inaugural address 2017

This article analyses President Trump’s inaugural speech (2017) from the point of view of appraisal theory. It compares the source text appraisal profile with that of six Spanish target texts (five simultaneous interpretations and one written translation) in order to identify critical points of interpreter/translator intervention. The article replicates analysis of President Obama’s 2009 inaugural speech, enabling further generalisation of the earlier findings and a refinement of methodology. This new study concurs with the earlier one in revealing that expressions of attitude rarely shift; by contrast, shifts in graduation are less frequent in Trump’s speech, possibly because the reduced speed of delivery does not force the interpreter into so many omissions. More sensitive are shifts in engagement, particularly counter-expectancy indicators and pronouns, which affect deictic positioning. The article concludes with a discussion of the methodology and the role played by speech mode, since problems described by interpreters are found more frequently in Trump’s impromptu or unscripted speeches than in the more formal scripted inauguration

‘What I would like to say’ findings: Cancer care for everyone

As part of the ‘Whatever It Takes — Cancer Care for Everyone’ programme (Wessex Cancer Alliance [WCA], 2023), the ‘What I would like to say...’ project involved two disabled researchers carrying out creative and engaging workshops and interviews with 45 disabled and neurodivergent people, with the support of Bournemouth University’s Public Involvement in Education and Research [PIER] team. These individuals were from various community groups in the Wessex region, including Autism Hampshire’s Fareham Serendipity group; the Dorset Blind Association [DBA]; the Multiple Sclerosis [MS] Centre Dorset; the Royal National Institute of Blind People [RNIB]; and the Bournemouth and Poole Lymphoedema and Lipoedema Support attendees, which were facilitated by the PIER community researcher model, and which have already begun to impact practice. It is hoped that the outcomes of this project will contribute to improving disabled people’s experiences of accessing cancer services

Analytical and Numerical Demonstration of How the Drude Dispersive Model Satisfies Nernst's Theorem for the Casimir Entropy

In view of the current discussion on the subject, an effort is made to show very accurately both analytically and numerically how the Drude dispersive model, assuming the relaxation is nonzero at zero temperature (which is the case when impurities are present), gives consistent results for the Casimir free energy at low temperatures. Specifically, we find that the free energy consists essentially of two terms, one leading term proportional to T^2, and a next term proportional to T^{5/2}. Both these terms give rise to zero Casimir entropy as T -> 0, thus in accordance with Nernst's theorem.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures; minor changes in the discussion. Contribution to the QFEXT07 proceedings; matches version to be published in J. Phys.

On electrostatic and Casimir force measurements between conducting surfaces in a sphere-plane configuration

We report on measurements of forces acting between two conducting surfaces in a spherical-plane configuration in the 35 nm-1 micrometer separation range. The measurements are obtained by performing electrostatic calibrations followed by a residual analysis after subtracting the electrostatic-dependent component. We find in all runs optimal fitting of the calibrations for exponents smaller than the one predicted by electrostatics for an ideal sphere-plane geometry. We also find that the external bias potential necessary to minimize the electrostatic contribution depends on the sphere-plane distance. In spite of these anomalies, by implementing a parametrixation-dependent subtraction of the electrostatic contribution we have found evidence for short-distance attractive forces of magnitude comparable to the expected Casimir-Lifshitz force. We finally discuss the relevance of our findings in the more general context of Casimir-Lifshitz force measurements, with particular regard to the critical issues of the electrical and geometrical characterization of the involved surfaces.Comment: 22 pages, 15 figure