Five years of social security reforms in the UK

The current Labour Government was elected in 1997 with few specific social security proposals. This paper argues that after five years, consistent trends in social security policy have emerged: there is a willingness to increase benefits; a “work-first” focus; increasing centrality for benefits that relate to ‘need’, which has involved expanded means-testing; a downgrading of contributory benefits; and, a desire to reduce poverty by redistributing to particular demographic groups. Many of these characteristics of Labour policy, such as the size of caseloads or aggregate expenditure, are yet to show up in various aggregate data, and we argue that this is probably due to various counter-balancing socio-economic changes since 1997. Looking forward, we discuss what the introduction of new forms of means-test might achieve. We also suggest that it might be considered odd that Labour has left Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit unreformed, especially since a good chance to reform them without significant cost or low-income losers, has been missed.

Assessing Changes in Freshwater and Marine Food Web Connections Following Restoration on the Penobscot River, Maine, Using Stable Isotope Analysis

Oiadromous fish provide ecological subsidies to freshwater and marine food webs, connecting both ecosystems. A main goal of the Penobscot River Restoration Project was to increase connectivity between food webs by removing two mainstem dams, improving fish passage, and reintroducing river herring through stocking. Oiadromous fish now reach historic spawning habitat that was not accessible for centuries. As a result, river herring runs in the Penobscot River increased from 2,336 fish in 2009 to over 3 million fish by 2018. To assess food web connectivity in the Penobscot watershed, I analyzed stable isotopes from samples collected before (2009-2010) and after (2020-2021) dam removals by sampling species ranging in trophic level from piscivorous fish to baseline primary consumers from three mainstem and three major upstream tributary sites. I targeted top fish predators that can consume adult river herring directly. Pre-restoration, I found little evidence of marine derived nutrient (MON) assimilation in freshwater food webs, with the exception of a mainstem site below all dams. Post-restoration, MON assimilation increased only below what is now the lowest dam on the river, likely due to migration delays aggregating more fish for a longer period of time than in free-flowing river sections. Where changes in MON assimilation occurred, I saw evidence of bottom-up enrichment of the food web. This pattern of enrichment has been measured in smaller rivers with spawning runs dominated by river herring. These results may be one of the first in a river of this size (watershed area 22,300 km2) and restoration of this magnitude, suggesting that even in larger rivers with greater dilution effects, effects of river herring on the transfer of nutrients from marine to freshwaters are detectable. In the Penobscot Watershed, river herring currently dominates the sea-run fish population but only comprise 20% of conservative estimates of historic run size based on spawning habitat available before dam construction. As sea-run species increase in abundance, I expect MDN to be detectable beyond points of aggregation

Observations and Simulations of Fire Weather Phenomena Across Scales

The need for a better understanding of wildfires and how the atmosphere affects them provided the motivation for this work. The November 2018 Camp Fire quickly became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. In chapter 1, we investigate the contribution of meteorological conditions and a downslope windstorm event that occurred during the 2018 Camp Fire. Results show that this event was associated with mid-level and surface synoptic scale processes which created conditions favorable for a North wind event. Sustained surface winds between 3–6 m s-1 were observed with gusts of over 25 m s-1. The meteorological conditions of the event were well forecasted, and the severity of the fire was not surprising given the fire danger potential for that day. The usage of small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), may help to provide new observations in extreme environments such as the Camp Fire. The Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment offered a unique opportunity of a large controlled wildfire, which allowed measurements that cannot generally be taken during an active wildfire. This study highlights the use of DJI Matrice 200 that was equipped with a TriSonica Mini Wind and Weather station sonic anemometer in order to sample the fire environment in an experimental and controlled setting. The system was tested against an RM-Young 81000 sonic anemometer mounted at 6 and 2 m AGL to assess any bias in the sUAS platform. Preliminary data show that this system can be useful for taking vertical profiles, in addition to being used in place of tower measurements

Entropic Priors and Bayesian Model Selection

We demonstrate that the principle of maximum relative entropy (ME), used judiciously, can ease the specification of priors in model selection problems. The resulting effect is that models that make sharp predictions are disfavoured, weakening the usual Bayesian "Occam's Razor". This is illustrated with a simple example involving what Jaynes called a "sure thing" hypothesis. Jaynes' resolution of the situation involved introducing a large number of alternative "sure thing" hypotheses that were possible before we observed the data. However, in more complex situations, it may not be possible to explicitly enumerate large numbers of alternatives. The entropic priors formalism produces the desired result without modifying the hypothesis space or requiring explicit enumeration of alternatives; all that is required is a good model for the prior predictive distribution for the data. This idea is illustrated with a simple rigged-lottery example, and we outline how this idea may help to resolve a recent debate amongst cosmologists: is dark energy a cosmological constant, or has it evolved with time in some way? And how shall we decide, when the data are in?Comment: Presented at MaxEnt 2009, the 29th International Workshop on Bayesian Inference and Maximum Entropy Methods in Science and Engineering (July 5-10, 2009, Oxford, Mississippi, USA

Development of a bead-agglutination assay for rapid detection of Tritrichomonas foetus

Tritrichomonas foetus is a flagellated protozoan parasite that causes inflammation of the reproductive tract leading to early embryonic death and abortion in cattle, thereby resulting in significant economic losses. Testing and culling infected bulls is an important strategy for parasite control. Routine testing is mainly limited to bulls that are traveling across state lines or within states that have specific control programs. Both culture and PCR detection methods are available, but they are not typically conducted as part of a yearly breeding soundness program and are not easily conducted in the field. In the present study, we developed a bead agglutination assay for detection of T. foetus antigens. Our experiments revealed that latex beads conjugated to T. foetus lipophosphoglycan-binding antibodies visibly clump in the presence of T. foetus. The detection limit of the assay, determined using both field and laboratory isolates of the parasite, was 0.25 μg/mL and 1.0 μg/mL total T. foetus antigen, respectively. Our results indicate that an antigen detection test could offer a tool for screening bulls under field conditions

Praziquantel Resistance in the Zoonotic Cestode Dipylidium caninum

Dipylidium caninum is a cosmopolitan cestode infecting dogs, cats, and humans. Praziquantel is a highly effective cestocidal drug and resistance in adult cestodes has not been reported. From 2016 to 2018, a population of dogs with cestode infections that could not be eliminated despite multiple treatments with praziquantel or epsiprantel was identified. Cases of D. caninum were clinically resistant to praziquantel and could not be resolved despite increasing the dose, frequency, and duration of treatment. Resistant isolates were identified and characterized by sequencing the 28S, 12S, and voltage-gated calcium channel beta subunit genes. Cases were only resolved following treatment with nitroscanate or a compounded pyrantel/praziquantel/oxantel product. Clinicians should be aware of this alarming development as treatment options for cestodes are limited in both human and veterinary medicine

Newly-Discovered Planets Orbiting HD~5319, HD~11506, HD~75784 and HD~10442 from the N2K Consortium

Initially designed to discover short-period planets, the N2K campaign has since evolved to discover new worlds at large separations from their host stars. Detecting such worlds will help determine the giant planet occurrence at semi-major axes beyond the ice line, where gas giants are thought to mostly form. Here we report four newly-discovered gas giant planets (with minimum masses ranging from 0.4 to 2.1 MJup) orbiting stars monitored as part of the N2K program. Two of these planets orbit stars already known to host planets: HD 5319 and HD 11506. The remaining discoveries reside in previously-unknown planetary systems: HD 10442 and HD 75784. The refined orbital period of the inner planet orbiting HD 5319 is 641 days. The newly-discovered outer planet orbits in 886 days. The large masses combined with the proximity to a 4:3 mean motion resonance make this system a challenge to explain with current formation and migration theories. HD 11506 has one confirmed planet, and here we confirm a second. The outer planet has an orbital period of 1627.5 days, and the newly-discovered inner planet orbits in 223.6 days. A planet has also been discovered orbiting HD 75784 with an orbital period of 341.7 days. There is evidence for a longer period signal; however, several more years of observations are needed to put tight constraints on the Keplerian parameters for the outer planet. Lastly, an additional planet has been detected orbiting HD 10442 with a period of 1043 days.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

The 2018 Camp Fire: Meteorological analysis using in situ observations and numerical simulations

The November 2018 Camp Fire quickly became the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in California history. In this case study, we investigate the contribution of meteorological conditions and, in particular, a downslope windstorm that occurred during the 2018 Camp Fire. Dry seasonal conditions prior to ignition led to 100-h fuel moisture contents in the region to reach record low levels. Meteorological observations were primarily made from a number of remote automatic weather stations and a mobile scanning Doppler lidar deployed to the fire on 8 November 2018. Additionally, gridded operational forecast models and high-resolution meteorological simulations were synthesized in the analysis to provide context for the meteorological observations and structure of the downslope windstorm. Results show that this event was associated with mid-level anti-cyclonic Rossby wave breaking likely caused by cold air advection aloft. An inverted surface trough over central California created a pressure gradient which likely enhanced the downslope winds. Sustained surface winds between 3-6 m s1 were observed with gusts of over 25 m s-1 while winds above the surface were associated with an intermittent low-level jet. The meteorological conditions of the event were well forecasted, and the severity of the fire was not surprising given the fire danger potential for that day. However, use of surface networks alone do not provide adequate observations for understanding downslope windstorm events and their impact on fire spread. Fire management operations may benefit from the use of operational wind profilers to better understand the evolution of downslope windstorms and other fire weather phenomena that are poorly understood and observed