Mount for thermal control system Patent

Mounting apparatus for temperature control syste

High-temperature, zero-drop thyratron tube program Quarterly progress report, 1 Apr. - 31 May 1966

High temperature zero drop thyratron tube for thermionic converter generato

The introduction of a surgical safety checklist in a tertiary referral obstetric centre

Background: Surgery-related adverse events remain a significant and often under-reported problem. In a recent study, the introduction of a perioperative checklist by the WHO reduced deaths and complications by 46% and 36% respectively. The authors wished to evaluate the introduction of a surgical safety checklist in a busy obstetric tertiary referral centre by assessing staff attitudes, checklist compliance and effects upon patients. Methods: A questionnaire-based assessment was performed on staff working in obstetric theatres before and after the introduction of the surgical safety checklist. Checklist compliance was assessed at 3 months and 1 year. Patients were asked questions relating to the performance of the surgical safety checklist in order to evaluate any anxiety caused. Results: Non-medical staff were significantly more likely than medical staff to feel familiar with other team members both before (p<0.001) and after (

Multiple muon measurements with MACRO

The MACRO experiment at Gran Sasso provides means for detailed studies of multiple coincident penetrating cosmic ray muons. In this paper we concentrate on the studies of the ultrahigh energy primary cosmic ray composition using muon bundle multiplicities, muon pair lateral and angular separation distributions.Othe

Criminal neighbourhoods: does the density of prior offenders encourage others to commit crime?

Using crime data over a period of a decade for Glasgow, this paper explores whether the density of prior offenders in a neighbourhoods has an influence on the propensity of others to (re)commence offending. The study shows that the number of ‘newly active’ offenders in a neighbourhood in the current quarter is positively associated with the density of prior offenders for both violent and property crime from the previous two years. In the case of ‘newly active’ property offenders, the relationship with active prior offenders is only apparent when prior offender counts exceed the median. The paper postulates that intraneighbourhood social mechanisms may be at work to create these effects. The results suggest that policies which concentrate offenders in particular neighbourhoods may increase the number of ‘newly active’ offenders, and point to evidence of a threshold at which these effects take place

Fear of Sudden Stops: lessons from Australia and Chile

Latin American economies are exposed to ubstantial external vulnerability. Domestic imbalances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden financial distress. In this paper we explore ways of overcoming external vulnerability drawing lessons from a detailed comparison of the response of Chile and Australia to recent external shocks and from Australia’s historical experience. We argue that in order to understand sudden stops and the mechanisms to smooth them, it is useful to highlight and then draw a distinction between two dimensions of investors confidence: country-trust and currency-trust. While these two dimensions are interrelated, there are important distinctions. Lack of country-trust is a more fundamental and serious problem behind sudden stops. But lack of currency-trust may both be a source of country-trust problems as well as weaken a country’s ability to deal with sudden stops. We discuss steps to improve along these two dimensions of investors’ confidence in the medium run, and policies to reduce the impact of country-trust and currency-trust weaknesses in the short runsudden stops

Fear of Sudden Stops: Lessons from Australia and Chile

Latin American economies are exposed to substantial external vulnerability. Domestic imbalances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden financial distress. This paper explores ways of overcoming external vulnerability, drawing lessons from a detailed comparison of the response of Chile and Australia to recent external shocks and from Australia`s historical experience. It is argued that, in order to understand sudden stops and the mechanisms to smooth them, it is useful to highlight and then draw a distinction between two dimensions of investor confidence: country-trust and currency-trust. While these two dimensions are interrelated, there are important distinctions. Lack of country-trust is a more fundamental and serious problem behind sudden stops. But lack of currency-trust may be a source of country-trust problems as well as weaken a country`s ability to deal with sudden stops. The paper further discusses steps to improve investor confidence in the medium run along these two dimensions, as well as policies to reduce the impact of country-trust and currency-trust weaknesses in the short run.

Fear of Sudden Stops: Lessons from Australia and Chile

Latin American economies are exposed to substantial external vulnerability. Domestic imbalances and terms of trade shocks are often exacerbated by sudden stops of capital inflow. In this paper we explore ways of overcoming external vulnerability, drawing lessons from a detailed comparison of the response of Chile and Australia to recent external shocks and from Australia’s historical experience. We argue that in order to understand sudden stops and the mechanisms to smooth them, it is useful to identify and then distinguish between two inter-related dimensions of investors’ confidence: country-trust and currency-trust . Lack of country-trust is a more fundamental and serious problem behind sudden stops. But lack of currency-trust may both be a source of country-trust problems and weaken a country’s ability to deal with sudden stops. We discuss steps to improve along these two dimensions of investors’ confidence in the medium run, and policies to reduce the impact of country-trust and currency-trust weaknesses in the short run.sudden stops; Australia; Chile

Language-universal constraints on the segmentation of English

Two word-spotting experiments are reported that examine whether the Possible-Word Constraint (PWC) [1] is a language-specific or language-universal strategy for the segmentation of continuous speech. The PWC disfavours parses which leave an impossible residue between the end of a candidate word and a known boundary. The experiments examined cases where the residue was either a CV syllable with a lax vowel, or a CVC syllable with a schwa. Although neither syllable context is a possible word in English, word-spotting in both contexts was easier than with a context consisting of a single consonant. The PWC appears to be language-universal rather than language-specific

Smoking and intention to quit in deprived areas of Glasgow: is it related to housing improvements and neighbourhood regeneration because of improved mental health?

Background: People living in areas of multiple deprivation are more likely to smoke and less likely to quit smoking. This study examines the effect on smoking and intention to quit smoking for those who have experienced housing improvements (HI) in deprived areas of Glasgow, UK, and investigates whether such effects can be explained by improved mental health. Methods: Quasi-experimental, 2-year longitudinal study, comparing residents’ smoking and intention to quit smoking for HI group (n=545) with non-HI group (n=517), adjusting for baseline (2006) sociodemographic factors and smoking status. SF-12 mental health scores were used to assess mental health, along with self-reported experience of, and General Practitioner (GP) consultations for, anxiety and depression in the last 12 months. Results: There was no relationship between smoking and HI, adjusting for baseline rates (OR=0.97, 95% CI 0.57 to 1.67, p=0.918). We found an association between intention to quit and HI, which remained significant after adjusting for sociodemographics and previous intention to quit (OR 2.16, 95% CI 1.12 to 4.16, p=0.022). We found no consistent evidence that this association was attenuated by improvement in our three mental health measures. Conclusions: Providing residents in disadvantaged areas with better housing may prompt them to consider quitting smoking. However, few people actually quit, indicating that residential improvements or changes to the physical environment may not be sufficient drivers of personal behavioural change. It would make sense to link health services to housing regeneration projects to support changes in health behaviours at a time when environmental change appears to make behavioural change more likely