The outsourcing of social care in Britain : what does it mean for voluntary sector workers?

While recent decades have witnessed a growth in the outsourcing of public services in Britain, the post-1997 UK Labour governments have sought to put in place mechanisms aimed at encouraging long-term collaborative contracting relationships marked by less reliance on cost-based competition. This article explores empirically how far these mechanisms have achieved their aims and thereby acted to protect the employment conditions of staff, and links this exploration to debates concerning the employment implications of organizational reforms within public sectors internationally. It concludes that in terms of bringing income security to the voluntary sector and stability to employment terms and conditions these efforts have been unsuccessful, and consequently casts doubts on more optimistic interpretations of the employment effects of organizational restructuring in the British public sector

Randall-Sundrum black holes and strange stars

It has recently been suggested that the existence of bare strange stars is incompatible with low scale gravity scenarios. It has been claimed that in such models, high energy neutrinos incident on the surface of a bare strange star would lead to catastrophic black hole growth. We point out that for the flat large extra dimensional case, the parts of parameter space which give rise to such growth are ruled out by other methods. We then go on to show in detail how black holes evolve in the the Randall-Sundrum two brane scenario where the extra dimensions are curved. We find that catastrophic black hole growth does not occur in this situation either. We also present some general expressions for the growth of five dimensional black holes in dense media.Comment: 16 pages, more numerics has lead to different path to same conclusion. Accepted in PR

Restricting quark matter models by gravitational wave observation

We consider the possibilities for obtaining information about the equation of state for quark matter by using future direct observational data on gravitational waves. We study the nonradial oscillations of both fluid and spacetime modes of pure quark stars. If we observe the $f$ and the lowest $w_{\rm II}$ modes from quark stars, by using the simultaneously obtained radiation radius we can constrain the bag constant $B$ with reasonable accuracy, independently of the $s$ quark mass.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev.

The Science of Sungrazers, Sunskirters, and Other Near-Sun Comets

This review addresses our current understanding of comets that venture close to the Sun, and are hence exposed to much more extreme conditions than comets that are typically studied from Earth. The extreme solar heating and plasma environments that these objects encounter change many aspects of their behaviour, thus yielding valuable information on both the comets themselves that complements other data we have on primitive solar system bodies, as well as on the near-solar environment which they traverse. We propose clear definitions for these comets: We use the term near-Sun comets to encompass all objects that pass sunward of the perihelion distance of planet Mercury (0.307 AU). Sunskirters are defined as objects that pass within 33 solar radii of the Sun’s centre, equal to half of Mercury’s perihelion distance, and the commonly-used phrase sungrazers to be objects that reach perihelion within 3.45 solar radii, i.e. the fluid Roche limit. Finally, comets with orbits that intersect the solar photosphere are termed sundivers. We summarize past studies of these objects, as well as the instruments and facilities used to study them, including space-based platforms that have led to a recent revolution in the quantity and quality of relevant observations. Relevant comet populations are described, including the Kreutz, Marsden, Kracht, and Meyer groups, near-Sun asteroids, and a brief discussion of their origins. The importance of light curves and the clues they provide on cometary composition are emphasized, together with what information has been gleaned about nucleus parameters, including the sizes and masses of objects and their families, and their tensile strengths. The physical processes occurring at these objects are considered in some detail, including the disruption of nuclei, sublimation, and ionisation, and we consider the mass, momentum, and energy loss of comets in the corona and those that venture to lower altitudes. The different components of comae and tails are described, including dust, neutral and ionised gases, their chemical reactions, and their contributions to the near-Sun environment. Comet-solar wind interactions are discussed, including the use of comets as probes of solar wind and coronal conditions in their vicinities. We address the relevance of work on comets near the Sun to similar objects orbiting other stars, and conclude with a discussion of future directions for the field and the planned ground- and space-based facilities that will allow us to address those science topics

Mobilise-D insights to estimate real-world walking speed in multiple conditions with a wearable device

This study aimed to validate a wearable device’s walking speed estimation pipeline, considering complexity, speed, and walking bout duration. The goal was to provide recommendations on the use of wearable devices for real-world mobility analysis. Participants with Parkinson’s Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Proximal Femoral Fracture, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, and healthy older adults (n = 97) were monitored in the laboratory and the real-world (2.5 h), using a lower back wearable device. Two walking speed estimation pipelines were validated across 4408/1298 (2.5 h/laboratory) detected walking bouts, compared to 4620/1365 bouts detected by a multi-sensor reference system. In the laboratory, the mean absolute error (MAE) and mean relative error (MRE) for walking speed estimation ranged from 0.06 to 0.12 m/s and − 2.1 to 14.4%, with ICCs (Intraclass correlation coefficients) between good (0.79) and excellent (0.91). Real-world MAE ranged from 0.09 to 0.13, MARE from 1.3 to 22.7%, with ICCs indicating moderate (0.57) to good (0.88) agreement. Lower errors were observed for cohorts without major gait impairments, less complex tasks, and longer walking bouts. The analytical pipelines demonstrated moderate to good accuracy in estimating walking speed. Accuracy depended on confounding factors, emphasizing the need for robust technical validation before clinical application. Trial registration: ISRCTN – 12246987