Why Local Authorities should prepare Food Brexit Plans

The UK’s food supply will be affected by Brexit whatever the outcome of the Parliamentary vote on the Draft Withdrawal Agreement. As the 29 March 2019 date for leaving the EU approaches, preparations to ensure we maintain a safe, adequate and sustainable food supply need to start urgently. Local Authorities (LAs) have a vital part to play in these preparations. More guidance, paying attention to the food specifics, is felt to be needed. LAs have a key role in the UK’s food system, with responsibilities including the enforcement of food safety and standards regulation, the control of imported food at ports and airports and the certification of foods for export. They also have unique knowledge of relevant local professionals, institutions, businesses and networks. This briefing aims to help Local Authorities prepare for Food Brexit. It shows why LAs should prepare Food Brexit Plans, and outlines five courses of action they could consider. The briefing recommends that Local Authorities: • Create Food Resilience Teams • Anticipate and reduce the impact of Food Brexit, particularly on SMEs • Narrow the information gap and treat the public openly and fairly • Prepare for public engagement • Be a local food voice so that central government knows the local realities

Results of post-test psychological examinations of the crewmen from the 90-day manned test of an advanced regenerative life support system

The following material presents the results of two temporally remote administrations of an identical projective personality assessment device (Rorschach Inkblot) using crew members aboard the 90-day test. The first administration took place during preselection crew psychodiagnostic testing in the period extending from mid-December 1969 through mid-January 1970. Second administration took place in late May and early June, 1971, approximately one year after termination of the test. During the 90-day program duration, the subjects participated in the crew training program, were selected and served as onboard crew during the 90-day test. The testing was undertaken in order to determine the character and extent of change (if any) in basic personality dynamics accompanying or caused by participation in the 90-day test program. Results indicate that significant personality changes occurred in three of the four onboard crew members. A detailed discussion of the results is provided. Objective scores which served as the basis for the discussion are presented in the Appendix

Sex Industry and Sex Workers in Nevada

Las Vegas has long been known as the symbolic center of the commercial sex industry. Nevada is host to the only legal system of prostitution in the United States. From the early legalization of quickie divorce and marriage to the marketing of its large resorts, sexuality has been a key component of Nevada’s tourist economy. If trends continue, for good or for ill, the sex industry will be an even larger part of the economy in the future. The sex industry refers to all legal and illegal adult businesses that sell sexual products, sexual services, sexual fantasies, and actual sexual contact for profit in the commercial marketplace. The sex industry encompasses an exceedingly wide range of formal and informal, legal and illegal businesses, as well as a wide range of individuals who work in and around the industry. This report will review the context in which sexually oriented commercial enterprises have flourished, discuss general trends in the Nevada sex industry, and make policy recommendations

Sex Industry and Sex Workers in Nevada

Las Vegas has long been known as the symbolic center of the commercial sex industry. Nevada is host to the only legal system of prostitution in the United States. From the early legalization of quickie divorce and marriage to the marketing of its large resorts, sexuality has been a key component of Nevada’s tourist economy. If trends continue, for good or for ill, the sex industry will be an even larger part of the economy in the future

Real Forms of the Oscillator Quantum Algebra and its Representations

We consider the conditions under which the $q$-oscillator algebra becomes a Hopf $*$-algebra. In particular, we show that there are at least two real forms associated with the algebra. Furthermore, through the representations, it is shown that they are related to ${\text {su}}_{q^{1/2}}(2)$ with different conjugations.Comment: 10 pages, Ams-Tex, To be published in Letters in Mathematical physic

Musculoskeletal pain is associated with a long-term increased risk of cancer and cardiovascular-related mortality

Objectives. To test the hypothesis that individuals with regional and widespread pain disorders have an increased risk of mortality

The OmegaWhite Survey for Short-Period Variable Stars IV: Discovery of the warm DQ white dwarf OW J175358.85-310728.9

We present the discovery and follow-up observations of the second known variable warm DQ white dwarf OW J175358.85-310728.9 (OW J1753-3107). OW J1753-3107 is the brightest of any of the currently known warm or hot DQ and was discovered in the OmegaWhite Survey as exhibiting optical variations on a period of 35.5452 (2) mins, with no evidence for other periods in its light curves. This period has remained constant over the last two years and a single-period sinusoidal model provides a good fit for all follow-up light curves. The spectrum consists of a very blue continuum with strong absorption lines of neutral and ionised carbon, a broad He I 4471 A line, and possibly weaker hydrogen lines. The C I lines are Zeeman split, and indicate the presence of a strong magnetic field. Using spectral Paschen-Back model descriptions, we determine that OW J1753-3107 exhibits the following physical parameters: T_eff = 15430 K, log(g) = 9.0, log(N(C)/N(He)) = -1.2, and the mean magnetic field strength is B_z =2.1 MG. This relatively low temperature and carbon abundance (compared to the expected properties of hot DQs) is similar to that seen in the other warm DQ SDSS J1036+6522. Although OW J1753-3107 appears to be a twin of SDSS J1036+6522, it exhibits a modulation on a period slightly longer than the dominant period in SDSS J1036+6522 and has a higher carbon abundance. The source of variations is uncertain, but they are believed to originate from the rotation of the magnetic white dwarf.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication by MNRA

A systematic review of electronic patient records using the meta-narrative approach: Empirical findings and methodological challenges.

Systematic reviews are central to the enterprise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). However, traditional ‘Cochrane’ reviews have major limitations, especially when dealing with heterogeneous methodologies or an applied setting. The meta-narrative review (see Soc Sci Med 2005; 61: 417-30) is one of several new methods that seek to address pragmatic policy-level questions via broad-based literature reviews. Inspired by Kuhn, meta-narrative review takes a historical and paradigmatic approach to considering different areas of research activity. As an interpretive tool, the approach seeks distinct research traditions, each with its own meta-narrative. We then use these ‘stories of how research unfolded’ as a way of making sense of a diverse literature. Incommensurability between different traditions is seen not as a problem to be lamented or resolved but as a window to higher-order explanations about the nuances of empirical data and what these nuances mean for different applied situations. Having originally developed the meta-narrative method for a study of the diffusion of innovations in healthcare, we are now applying it in a review of the electronic patient record (EPR) in an organizational context. We have collated some 600 papers and books across multiple research traditions including health informatics, information systems research, computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and sociology. This very contemporary topic area is raising interesting methodological questions. For example, the EPR literature does not comprise as cleanly delineable traditions for four main reasons: 1. Information and communications technology research is a particularly fast-moving field, so paradigm shifts are relatively common (e.g. the rise of CSCW out of human-computer interaction research). 2. In the electronic age, it is easy for researchers to explore beyond their own discipline and ‘borrow’ theories, ideas and methods from elsewhere. Journal editors may commission overviews from experts in another tradition; authors may explicitly address an audience in another tradition. Research traditions can begin to converge (e.g. papers bringing together CSCW, information systems research and STS). 3. Some researchers are adept ‘boundary spanners’, writing for a number of different academic audiences and adapting their theoretical pedigree to fit (e.g. Marc Berg). 4. Some traditions are characterized not by a single unified paradigm but by active dialogue between competing paradigms (e.g. ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ perspectives on knowledge management). This work contributes to the STS literature by critically questioning the nature of rigour in secondary research. The EBM movement values ‘Cochrane’ reviews because they meet positivist criteria (e.g. they are rational, objective, replicable, data-led, and transferable across contexts). In contrast, the meta-narrative review is interpretive, reflexive, problem-oriented and work-led, and makes no claim to either replicability or transferability. Rigour is redefined in terms of plausibility, authenticity and usefulness – raising the radical suggestion that the evidence base for key policy decisions can never be set in stone. Systematic reviews are central to the enterprise of evidence-based medicine (EBM). However, traditional ‘Cochrane’ reviews have major limitations, especially when dealing with heterogeneous methodologies or an applied setting. The meta-narrative review (see Soc Sci Med 2005; 61: 417-30) is one of several new methods that seek to address pragmatic policy-level questions via broad-based literature reviews. Inspired by Kuhn, meta-narrative review takes a historical and paradigmatic approach to considering different areas of research activity. As an interpretive tool, the approach seeks distinct research traditions, each with its own meta-narrative. We then use these ‘stories of how research unfolded’ as a way of making sense of a diverse literature. Incommensurability between different traditions is seen not as a problem to be lamented or resolved but as a window to higher-order explanations about the nuances of empirical data and what these nuances mean for different applied situations. Having originally developed the meta-narrative method for a study of the diffusion of innovations in healthcare, we are now applying it in a review of the electronic patient record (EPR) in an organizational context. We have collated some 600 papers and books across multiple research traditions including health informatics, information systems research, computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) and sociology. This very contemporary topic area is raising interesting methodological questions. For example, the EPR literature does not comprise as cleanly delineable traditions for four main reasons: 1. Information and communications technology research is a particularly fast-moving field, so paradigm shifts are relatively common (e.g. the rise of CSCW out of human-computer interaction research). 2. In the electronic age, it is easy for researchers to explore beyond their own discipline and ‘borrow’ theories, ideas and methods from elsewhere. Journal editors may commission overviews from experts in another tradition; authors may explicitly address an audience in another tradition. Research traditions can begin to converge (e.g. papers bringing together CSCW, information systems research and STS). 3. Some researchers are adept ‘boundary spanners’, writing for a number of different academic audiences and adapting their theoretical pedigree to fit (e.g. Marc Berg). 4. Some traditions are characterized not by a single unified paradigm but by active dialogue between competing paradigms (e.g. ‘hard’ versus ‘soft’ perspectives on knowledge management). This work contributes to the STS literature by critically questioning the nature of rigour in secondary research. The EBM movement values ‘Cochrane’ reviews because they meet positivist criteria (e.g. they are rational, objective, replicable, data-led, and transferable across contexts). In contrast, the meta-narrative review is interpretive, reflexive, problem-oriented and work-led, and makes no claim to either replicability or transferability. Rigour is redefined in terms of plausibility, authenticity and usefulness – raising the radical suggestion that the evidence base for key policy decisions can never be set in stone

Algebraic structure of the Green's ansatz and its q-deformed analogue

The algebraic structure of the Green's ansatz is analyzed in such a way that its generalization to the case of q-deformed para-Bose and para-Fermi operators is becoming evident. To this end the underlying Lie (super)algebraic properties of the parastatistics are essentially used.Comment: plain TeX, Preprint INRNE-TH-94/4, 13