Cruel Britannia: a personal critique of nursing in the United Kingdom

The United Kingdom (UK) once led the world in nursing but because of the exigencies of the funding mechanisms of the National Health Service (NHS), it has fallen a long way behind other countries. We aim to raise awareness inside and outside the UK about the decline in nursing as a profession there. We are purposely contentious, in an attempt to raise questions, both for the UK and for countries which are recruiting British nurses who are leaving because of job losses caused by the funding crisis in the NHS. This paper discusses where the problems that have led to the decline have come from, where nursing is going and poses questions for the future. We hope that the UK government and those who influence the development of nursing will bring it back to the standard it once bad

Autism and Computer Assisted Learning

Autism is a learning and social disorder that has seen increased diagnosis within school-age populations. As educators grapple with overwhelmed and understaffed classrooms, finding ways to address the educational needs of this particular population can be very challenging. However, technology may serve to create alternative “virtual” world opportunities and thus, begin to expand learning possibilities for these students

Accuracy of Measurement for Counting and Intensity-Correlation Experiments

A quantum-mechanical analysis is made of the experimental accuracy to be expected for particle-counting and intensity-correlation experiments. The mean-square fluctuation for an ensemble, consisting of a large number of experiments each conducted over a time interval T, is calculated

Fluctuations and Relationships of Selected Physiochemical Parameters in Dardanelle Reservoir, Arkansas, 1975-1982

Annual and seasonal fluctuations and relationships are described for discharge, turbidity, chloride, total hardness, conductivity and suspended solids over an eight-year period in Dardanelle Reservoir. The parameters fluctuated rather widely primarily in response to seasonal patterns of rainfall. Chloride and conductivity were related and generally fluctuated together as did turbidity and suspended solids. Hardness appeared to vary independently of the others prior to 1979 then varied more closely with chloride after March 1979. Inherent differences between the Illinois Bayou arm and the main Arkansas River sections complicated the precise identification of any overall impact of power plant operation. No significant long term changes were seen, but chloride declined gradually whereas hardness and conductivity increased slightly. Suspended solids exhibited a significant rise in 1982

A Primary Ecological Survey of Dardanelle Reservoir Prior to Nuclear Facility Effluent Discharge

A preliminary ecological survey of Dardanelle Reservoir during the construction phase of Arkansas Power and Light Company\u27s nuclear generating facility was conducted from January 1970 through June 1974. The reservoir is characterized by relatively shallow depths and a high flow-thru rate. A number of features were associated with these characteristics. The reservoir carried a great deal of suspended material and exhibited high turbidities throughout most of the year. Typical thermal stratification and oxygen depletion were only rarely observed. Many of the physico-chemical parameters exhibited relatively high values in comparison to other Arkansas lakes and reservoirs, but due to absence of prolonged periods of stratification and stagnation, they did not undergo the extreme fluctuations sometimes observed in other reservoirs. Plankton and benthic samples were collected at least nine times per year from ten stations. These stations were selected to include both shallow and deep locations and to include points both within and outside the projected area of thermal influence when the plant became operational. There were a great variety of forms in the phytoplankton with the diatoms making up a considerable portion. The level of turbidity appeared to dampen somewhat the extreme fluctuations sometimes found in bloom periods. In the zooplankton the rotifers Brachionus, Keratella, and Polyarthra predominated followed by the microcrustaceans Cyclops and Bosmina. Both the plankton and the benthic fauna showed great seasonal variation. The benthic fauna consisted primarily of Chironomidae, Oligochaeta, and Hexagenia with the Chironomidae predominating in the shallower depths and the Oligochaeta exhibiting increased abundance and importance in the deeper stations

Mathematical morphology and applications in automated sunspot detection

This presentation discusses the mathematical morphology and applications in automated sunspot detection

From individualism to co-construction and back again:Rethinking research methodology for children with profound and multiple learning disabilities

Children with profound and multiple learning disabilities (PMLD) are said to experience severe congenital impairments to consciousness and cognition stemming from neurological damage. Such children are understood as operating at the pre-verbal stages of development, and research in the field typically draws conceptual resources from psychology to devise educational interventions and assessment tools. Criticism has been levelled at studies that treat children with PMLD as objects of research rather than subjects to be consulted. Proponents of the latter view have attempted to redress the situation by exploring how personal experiences can be gleaned through adapted qualitative methods. Debate about methodology in the PMLD field tends to coalesce around these individualist polemics: either children with PMLD are positioned as incompetent and lacking voice; or researchers are positioned as lacking the appropriate tools to gain access to such voice. This paper offers an alternative position to the individualism of post-positivist/constructivist approaches, identifying the need for a critical and participatory approach that sees knowledge about children with PMLD as situated and co-constructed through regular and longitudinal interaction between the researcher, children with PMLD, and significant others. Context to this argument is provided by exploring the application of this approach to an inclusive education research project for a child with PMLD

Phytoplankton Community Structure in Dardanelle Reservoir, Arkansas, 1975-1982

Phytoplankton data were collected with standard equipment and procedures over an eight-year period (1975-1982) in Dardanelle Reservoir, Arkansas. Community abundance and diversity at the genus level are described. Sixty-five genera representing 35 families and five divisions were identified. Total phytoplankton abundance and diversity were quite uniform among the stations but fluctuated considerably with time. These fluctuations did not correspond clearly with season. Dominant taxa were seasonal, though, with diatoms being usually dominant in January, April and October, and blue-greens dominant in July. The phytoplankton community structure has not been significantly altered by the operation of ANO Unit I

Bringing Isolated Dark Matter Out of Isolation: Late-time Reheating and Indirect Detection

In standard cosmology, the growth of structure becomes significant following matter-radiation equality. In non-thermal histories, where an effectively matter-dominated phase occurs due to scalar oscillations prior to Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, a new scale at smaller wavelengths appears in the matter power spectrum. Density perturbations that enter the horizon during the matter-dominated phase grow linearly with the scale factor prior to the onset of radiation domination, which leads to enhanced inhomogeneity on small scales if dark matter thermally and kinetically decouples during the matter-dominated phase. The microhalos that form from these enhanced perturbations significantly boost the self-annihilation rate for dark matter. This has important implications for indirect detection experiments: the larger annihilation rate will result in observable signals from dark matter candidates that are usually deemed untestable. As a proof of principle, we consider Binos in heavy supersymmetry with an intermediate extended Higgs sector and all other superpartners decoupled. We find that these isolated Binos, which lie under the neutrino floor, can account for the dark matter relic density while also leading to observable predictions for Fermi-LAT. Current limits on the annihilation cross section from Fermi-LAT's observations of dwarf spheroidal galaxies may already constrain Bino dark matter up to masses $\mathcal{O}(300)$ GeV, depending on the internal structure of the microhalos. More extensive constraints are possible with improved gamma-ray bounds and boost calculations from $N$-body simulations

A comparison of matrix methods for calculating eigenvalues in acoustically lined ducts

Three approximate methods - finite differences, weighted residuals, and finite elements - were used to solve the eigenvalue problem which arises in finding the acoustic modes and propagation constants in an absorptively lined two-dimensional duct without airflow. The matrix equations derived for each of these methods were solved for the eigenvalues corresponding to various values of wall impedance. Two matrix orders, 20 x 20 and 40 x 40, were used. The cases considered included values of wall admittance for which exact eigenvalues were known and for which several nearly equal roots were present. Ten of the lower order eigenvalues obtained from the three approximate methods were compared with solutions calculated from the exact characteristic equation in order to make an assessment of the relative accuracy and reliability of the three methods. The best results were given by the finite element method using a cubic polynomial. Excellent accuracy was consistently obtained, even for nearly equal eigenvalues, by using a 20 x 20 order matrix