The effect of long-term care public benefits and insurance on informal care from outside the household: Empirical evidence from Italy and Spain

This article uses cross-sectional data from the Survey of Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) database to test the effect of both long-term care (LTC) public benefits and insurance on the receipt of informal care provided by family members living outside the household in Italy and Spain. The choice of Italy and Spain comes from the fact that informal care is rather similar in these two countries while their respective public LTC financing systems are different. Our results support the hypothesis of LTC public support decreasing the receipt of informal care for Spain while reject it for Italy. They tend to confirm that the effect of public benefits on informal care depends on the typology of public coverage for LTC whereby access to proportional benefits negatively influences informal care receipt while access to cash benefits exerts a positive effect. Our results also suggest that private LTC insurance complements the public LTC financing system in place

Search for associations containing young stars (SACY) VII. New stellar and substellar candidate members in the young associations

The young associations offer us one of the best opportunities to study the properties of young stellar and substellar objects and to directly image planets thanks to their proximity ($<$200 pc) and age ($\approx$5-150 Myr). However, many previous works have been limited to identifying the brighter, more active members ($\approx$1 M$_\odot$) owing to photometric survey sensitivities limiting the detections of lower mass objects. We search the field of view of 542 previously identified members of the young associations to identify wide or extremely wide (1000-100,000 au in physical separation) companions. We combined 2MASS near-infrared photometry ($J$, $H$, $K$) with proper motion values (from UCAC4, PPMXL, NOMAD) to identify companions in the field of view of known members. We collated further photometry and spectroscopy from the literature and conducted our own high-resolution spectroscopic observations for a subsample of candidate members. This complementary information allowed us to assess the efficiency of our method. We identified 84 targets (45: 0.2-1.3 M$_\odot$, 17: 0.08-0.2 M$_\odot$, 22: $<$0.08 M$_\odot$) in our analysis, ten of which have been identified from spectroscopic analysis in previous young association works. For 33 of these 84, we were able to further assess their membership using a variety of properties (X-ray emission, UV excess, H$_\alpha$, lithium and K I equivalent widths, radial velocities, and CaH indices). We derive a success rate of 76-88% for this technique based on the consistency of these properties. Once confirmed, the targets identified in this work would significantly improve our knowledge of the lower mass end of the young associations. Additionally, these targets would make an ideal new sample for the identification and study of planets around nearby young stars.Comment: 28 pages, 24 figures, accepted in A&

Fabrication of integrated planar gunn diode and micro-cooler on GaAs substrate

We demonstrate fabrication of an integrated micro cooler with the planar Gunn diode and characterise its performance. First experimental results have shown a small cooling at the surface of the micro cooler. This is first demonstration of an integrated micro-cooler with a planar Gunn diode

Micro-cooler Enhancements by Barrier Interface Analysis

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Smoke and fire dynamics in atria and large enclosures: An overview

The proliferation of atria within modern large buildings is relatively recent. An atrium can be defined as a large open space connecting two or more storeys. Atria are important architectonical features since the 60's and can be found, among others, in shopping centres, office buildings and high-rise buildings, airports, stations and sports centres. However, the atrium represents an innovative, complex and non conventional architectonical element that can lead to fire environments diverging significantly from those in conventional compartments used in the development of current codes and standards. They are a source of discussion in the fire safety community because smoke can easily spread from one floor to another making the traditional methodologies for compartmentation of little or null effect. The design of smoke management in atria has been based on prescriptive codes since the 70's. It was not until the mid 80's that the phenomena started to be the objective of both experimental and numerical studies. It is because of the subsequent improved understanding on fire dynamics and smoke management together with the increased computing power available nowadays, that there is a progressive movement from prescriptive-based to performance-based codes which is also chaning the way atria are designed. The aim of the present work is to provide a broad overview of the current state-of-the-art of fires in atria. A brief introduction to the characteristics and types of atrium structures is presented first. Then, a description of the fire dynamics as well as the main safety problems that arise in case of fire are considered. A historical discussion of the research, including experimental and numerical studies, is presented, and current design methodologies and fire safety strategies are discussed. The final part of the overview addresses the international tendencies towards the introduction of performance-based fire protection codes. This overview highlights the need for further experimental studies and validations of numerical simulations for a wider range of fire conditions. © 2010 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved

Planar gunn diode characterisation and resonators elements to realise oscillator circuits

The paper describes the planar Gunn diode, which is well suited to providing milli-metric and tera hertz sources using microwave monolithic integrated circuit (MMIC) technologies. Different planar Gunn electrode geometries are described along with DC, RF and thermal characterisation. To realize the planar high frequency sources there is requirement for high frequency planar resonators, the paper will describe both the radial and new diamond shaped geometries