Quality of life, well-being and regional economic development: a thought piece

This think piece, sets out the case that the next round of Regional Economic Strategies (RESs) produced by RDAs, should explicitly make quality of life and well-being the organising principles at the heart of their visions and their strategies. An explicit focus on people’s quality of life potentially offers rigorous methodologies for differentiating between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ growth. In addition enhancing people’s well-being will support RDAs in successfully achieving their goals regarding enterprise, investment, skills, productivity and sustainable communities

Measuring regional progress: regional index of sustainable economic well-being (R-ISEW) for all the English regions

This report describes the development and application of a Regional Index of Sustainable Economic Well-Being (R-ISEW), and calculates it for all English regions

The 2008 R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) for all the English regions

This report presents new data calculated in 2008 for the years 1994–2006. The latest data, which also includes the updating of several sets of figures which previously had to be estimated for 2005, show that a 10-year increase in R-ISEW since 1994 has come to a halt, and that R-ISEW per capita actually began declining between 2004 and 2006 despite increasing GVA

The 2009 R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) for all the English regions

This latest report presents new data calculated in 2009 for the years 1994–2007. The data, which also includes the updating of several sets of figures that previously had to be estimated for 2006, show that a nine-year increase in the English R-ISEW since 1994, began to peter out in 2003, such that total per capita growth between 2003 and 2007 was only 2.4%. Indeed, between 2005 and 2006, per capita R-ISEW fell slightly

The 2010 R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) for all the English regions

This is the fourth consecutive report presenting R-ISEW (regional index of sustainable economic well-being) calculations for the nine Government Office Regions (GORs) of England.1 New data available in the summer of 2010 allows a continuous time series from 1994 to 2008 – 15 years. Because of the nature of the data required for the R-ISEW, there is always a two-year lag before results for any given year can be completed

Power supplies and accelerators

The paper is intended to provide an introduction to the magnets employed in a circular particle accelerator to bend and steer the charged-particle beam. These are the principal loads that power converter engineers will encounter and the basic concepts of the accelerator lattice are presented, without assuming any prior knowledge. The interface with the power converters is examined and the need to optimize the supply and the load together is highlighted

Power converters for cycling accelerators

Cycling accelerators require power converters which are capable of storing the energy which oscillates between lattice magnets and converter during the acceleration process. The paper presents the basic requirements for such systems and reviews the various electrical circuits that have been used for a variety of differing applications. The designs currently used for fast, medium, and slow cycling accelerators are presented

Future challenges

The paper first reviews the perceived trends and likely developments in particle accelerator applications. The impact on the power converters that will be needed is then examined in closer detail and areas of development that can be expected or which will improve the accelerators’ performances are reviewed. Other lecturers were asked to contribute their thoughts on likely developments in their areas of specialization; where such contributions are used in this paper, due acknowledgement is made. The presentation was prepared in early 2004 and only material on new projects that was publicly available at that time was included. These details have now been incorporated in the text below, which is written in early 2005. During the intervening period, some projects featured in the presentation have changed in technical detail or political support; these changes are not reflected in the text