Career pathways in Scottish social services : a pilot study

The main aim of this study, commissioned by the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC), was to explore social workers' career pathways, in order to inform future workforce planning. The objectives were first, to obtain some preliminary data on the factors influencing social workers' career moves, secondly, to increase understanding of workforce mobility and, thirdly, to test out ways of gathering longitudinal data to inform future development of modelling and skills foresight

An aphthous affection among dairy cows of the state

The following is an extract made from a report sent to the Governor’s office a few days ago, concerning a disease which has recently appeared on a number of farms in the eastern and southern counties of the state

Exploratory study of the use of community treatment orders with clients of an Ontario ACT team

Community Treatment Orders (CTOs) have raised questions about coercion, lack of autonomy, and effectiveness in reducing hospitalizations and improving service users’ quality of life. This study examined the experiences of clients and clinicians when CTOs are used in combination with Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) in a recovery oriented approach. Eleven clients who were or had previously been on a CTO and eight ACT clinicians were interviewed. Although most clients had negative feelings about CTOs, some acknowledged their lives had improved. Clinicians reported that the decision to employ a CTO is sometimes debated within the team but they agreed that combining CTOs and ACT resulted in regular access to mental health supports, fewer hospitalizations and overall improvement of quality of life for their clients

Investigation of Bovine Tuberculosis, with special reference to its existence in Iowa.

It is our intention to give in this Bulletin which is addressed especially to the farmers of the country, conclusions drawn from tests and experiments made at our station, as well as to present in a condensed form some additional and well established facts on the subject of tuberculosis

Platelets stop us leaking

In this issue of Blood, Welsh and colleagues determine how platelet thrombi limit the loss of plasma-borne proteins from the microvasculature. 1 The concept that platelets prevent leakage from blood vessels following a penetrating injury will come as little surprise to most readers, but exactly how platelets physically contribute to this process is not well understood. Such injuries result in the loss of blood cells and plasma into the surrounding tissues, and both forms of loss must be halted quickly. Platelets are believed to form the first line of defense in such situations, forming a thrombus that is capable of plugging the hole and supplying molecules that contribute to localized inflammation and wound healing

Children with complex support needs in healthcare settings for prolonged periods: their numbers, characteristics and experiences

This report details the findings of research conducted in England and Scotland to identify how many children with complex support needs are spending longer than one month in healthcare settings in Scotland and England, how and why they are in hospital, why they have not been discharged home or to appropriate alternative community-based facilities, and how well the hospital or healthcare setting is meeting their emotional, social and educational needs. It finds that many of these children could and should be discharged but are not, for a variety of reasons: primarily the lack of appropriate resources in the community and poor discharge planning processes, coupled with the inability of their families to manage their care and supervision without intensive support. Hospitals and healthcare settings in many cases are not meeting their needs and these children are being denied the protection offered by UK legislation governing children's rights and welfare

Effect of Boundary Layer Thickness and Entropy Layer on Boundary Layer Combustion

This project investigates the possibilities of scramjet combustor performance enhancement by reducing the skin friction through boundary layer combustion. Experiments were conducted in the T4 Stalker tube to investigate the influence of boundary layer thickness and entropy layers on the ignition of a hydrogen air mixture near the wall of a constant area duct. The hydrogen was injected tangentially from a slot of annular cross section after an “injector” of constant area captured flow from a Mach 4 nozzle. Injectors of two different lengths and nose radii were employed to vary the thickness of the boundary layer at the injection location as well as the temperature of the gas near the walls and within the entropy layer created by the leading edge shocks of blunted leading edges. Results are presented of CFD simulations of the injector as well as experimentally measured pressure coefficient profiles along the combustor wall. It is shown that a thicker boundary layer will promote combustion but that heating the gas near the walls through a leading edge shock is more effective for ignition. However, the shocks generated by the leading edge may also influence the core flow of the constant area combustor and possibly cause some main stream mixing

Shock tunnel studies of scramjet phenomena, supplement 6

Reports by the staff of the University of Queensland on various research studies related to the advancement of scramjet technology are presented. These reports document the tests conducted in the reflected shock tunnel T4 and supporting research facilities that have been used to study the injection, mixing, and combustion of hydrogen fuel in generic scramjets at flow conditions typical of hypersonic flight. In addition, topics include the development of instrumentation and measurement technology, such as combustor wall shear and stream composition in pulse facilities, and numerical studies and analyses of the scramjet combustor process and the test facility operation

What Have We Learnt About CO2 Leakage in the Context of Commercial-Scale CCS?

The viability of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) depends on the reliable containment of injected CO2 in the subsurface. Robust and cost-effective approaches to measure monitor and verify CO2 containment are required to demonstrate that CO2 has not breached the reservoir, and to comply with CCS regulations. This includes capability to detect and quantify any potential leakage to surface. It is useful to consider the range of possible leak rates for potential CO2 leak pathways from an intended storage reservoir to surface to inform the design of effective monitoring approaches. However, in the absence of a portfolio of leakage from engineered CO2 stores we must instead learn from industrial and natural analogues, numerical models, and laboratory and field experiments that have intentionally released CO2 into the shallow subsurface to simulate a CO2 leak to surface. We collated a global dataset of measured or estimated CO2 flux (CO2 emission per unit area) and CO2 leak rate from industrial and natural analogues and field experiments. We then examined the dataset to compare emission and flux rates and seep style, and consider the measured emission rates in the context of commercial scale CCS operations. We find that natural and industrial analogues show very wide variation in the scale of CO2 emissions, and tend to be larger than leaks simulated by CO2 release experiments. For all analogue types (natural, industrial, or experiment) the emission rates show greater variation between sites than CO2 flux rates. Quantitation approaches are non-standardized, and that measuring and reporting both the CO2 flux and seep rate is rare as it remains challenging, particularly in marine environments. Finally, we observe that CO2 fluxes tend to be associated with particular emission characteristics (vent, diffuse, or water-associated). We propose that characteristics could inform the design and performance requirements for CO2 leak monitoring approaches tailored to detect specific emission styles

Bioeconomic Factors of Beef Heifer Maturity to Consider when Establishing Criteria to Optimally Select and/or Retain Herd Replacements

Understanding the biology of heifer maturity and its relationship to calving difficulty and subsequent breeding success is a vital step in building abioeconomic model to identify optimal production and profitability. A limited dependent variable probit model is used to quantify the responses among heifer maturities, measured by a maturity index (MI), on dystocia and second pregnancy. The MI account for heifer age, birth BW, prebreeding BW, nutrition level, and dam size and age and is found to be inversely related to dystocia occurrence. On average there is a 2.2% increase in the probability of dystocia with every 1 point drop in the MI between the MI scores of 50 and 70. Statistically, MI does not directly alter second pregnancy rate; however, dystocia does. The presence of dystocia reduced second pregnancy rates by 10.67%. Using the probability of dystocia predicted from the MI in the sample, it is found that on average, every 1 point increase in MI added 0.62% to the probability of the occurrence of second pregnancy over the range represented by the data. Relationships among MI, dystocia, and second pregnancy are nonlinear and exhibit diminishing marginal effects. These relationships indicate optimal production and profitability occur at varying maturities, which are altered by animal type, economic environment, production system, and management regime. With these captured relationships, any single group of heifers may be ranked by profitability given their physical characteristics and the applicable production, management, and economic conditions