Reducing the health risks of severe winter weather among older people in the United Kingdom: an evidence-based intervention

Excess winter morbidity and mortality among older people remain significant public health issues in those European countries which experience relatively mild winter temperatures, particularly the United Kingdom (UK), Ireland, Portugal and Spain. In the UK, episodes of severe winter weather, when ambient temperatures fall below 5x C, are associated with peaks in general practitioner consultations,hospital admissions, and cardiovascular deaths among those aged over 65. While research indicates that such health risks could be substantially reduced by the adoption of appropriate behavioural strategies, accessible and credible advice on how older people can reduce risk during ‘cold snaps’ is lacking. This paper describes a programme of research that aimed: (a) to translate the relevant scientific literature into practical advice for older people in order to reduce health risk during episodes of severe winter weather ; and (b) to integrate this advice with a severe winter weather ‘Early Warning System’ developed by the UK Met Office. An advice booklet was generated through a sequential process of systematic review, consensus development, and focus group discussions with older people. In a subsequent field trial, a combination of the Met Office ‘Early Warning System’ and the advice booklet produced behavioural change among older people consistent with risk reduction. The results also show that long-held convictions about ‘healthy environments ’ and anxieties about fuel costs are barriers to risk reduction

Measuring the Ethical Cognition Effects of a Videotape Livestock Show Ethics Education Program

As Extension educators and agriculture education teachers address the sensitive issues of livestock show ethics and quality assurance of the food animals produced and marketed to the public through the youth livestock program, they must ensure that their educational efforts are effective. Everyone has an opinion about what should or should not be done in order to improve the situation related youth livestock ethics. This study examines the effectiveness of a video educational program that has been in widespread use since its inception in 1996

A Path to Resolution Regarding the Show Lamb Tail Docking Controversy

Short dock length in show lambs increases health risks and creates animal welfare concerns. The study reported here was conducted to 1) describe a population of lambs that were docked at the distal end of the caudal fold in terms of a linear measurement, and 2) determine the changes in tail length between docking, weaning, and market. A total of 782 lambs docked at the distal end of the caudal fold, comprised the population of lambs in the study. The results provide descriptive statistics to help guide industry leaders and Extension professionals concerned with docking standards at shows and sales

Impulse Response Estimation for the Auralisation of Vehicle Engine Sounds Using Dual Channel FFT Analysis

A method is presented to estimate the impulse response of a filter that describes the transformation in sound that takes place between a close-mic recording of a vehicle engine and the sound of the same engine at another point in or near to the vehicle. The proposed method makes use of the Dual Channel FFT Analysis technique and does not require the use of loudspeakers, computer modelling or mechanical devices. Instead, a minimum of two microphones is required and the engine itself is used as the source of sound. This is potentially useful for virtual reality applications or in sound design for computer games, where users select their virtual position at points inside or outside the vehicle. A case study is described to examine the method in practice and the results are discussed. The described method can be readily extended for surround sound applications using spatial microphone array recording techniques

Coordinating talk and practical action: The case of hair salon service assessments

This paper investigates how talk and practical action are coordinated during one type of activity involving professional communication: the service-­assessment sequence in hair salons. During this activity, a practical inspection of the haircut must be coupled with sequentially produced verbal acts. Our analysis of four examples reveals that there is no fixed relationship between the organization of talk and practical action. Instead, people manipulate this relationship on a moment-by-moment basis, often coordinating the two into a single, integral package, or relying on one stream of action to achieve progress in the other. These findings imply that some multimodal activities that are brought into alignment may have their own, separate and independent procedural logic and sequencing patterns and that these can be brought into play to create or deal with constraints in each other

The Inclusion of Pupils with Special Educational Needs: A Study of the Formulation and Implementation of the National Curriculum Physical Education in Britain

The paper examines the planned and unplanned outcomes associated with the inclusion of pupils with special educational needs (SEN) in the National Curriculum Physical Education (NCPE) in Britain. This involves the use of key concepts from figurational sociology, and documentary analysis, to examine the emergence of disability as a social issue in British society and in secondary school education. Norbert Elias’ game models (Elias, 1978) are then used to analyse the NCPE 1992, 1995 and 2000 documents, and their associated consultation materials. This allows the researcher to identify all the major players involved in the formulation of the NCPEs, and the extent to which the objectives of each player, and their subsequent power struggles with each other, impacted upon the overall objectives and content of the NCPEs. The game models are then used to examine the extent to which the objectives of the players involved in the implementation of the NCPE generated outcomes which none of the players planned for, or could have foreseen

Escaping stars from young low-N clusters

With the use of N-body calculations the amount and properties of escaping stars from low-N (N = 100 and 1000) young embedded star clusters prior to gas expulsion are studied over the first 5 Myr of their existence. Besides the number of stars also different initial radii and binary populations are examined as well as virialised and collapsing clusters. It is found that these clusters can loose substantial amounts (up to 20%) of stars within 5 Myr with considerable velocities up to more than 100 km/s. Even with their mean velocities between 2 and 8 km/s these stars will still be travelling between 2 and 30 pc during the 5 Myr. Therefore can large amounts of distributed stars in star-forming regions not necessarily be counted as evidence for the isolated formation of stars.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication by MNRA

The spatial distribution of star and cluster formation in M51

Aims. We study the connection between spatially resolved star formation and young star clusters across the disc of M51. Methods. We combine star cluster data based on B, V, and I-band Hubble Space Telescope ACS imaging, together with new WFPC2 U-band photometry to derive ages, masses, and extinctions of 1580 resolved star clusters using SSP models. This data is combined with data on the spatially resolved star formation rates and gas surface densities, as well as Halpha and 20cm radio-continuum (RC) emission, which allows us to study the spatial correlations between star formation and star clusters. Two-point autocorrelation functions are used to study the clustering of star clusters as a function of spatial scale and age. Results. We find that the clustering of star clusters among themselves decreases both with spatial scale and age, consistent with hierarchical star formation. The slope of the autocorrelation functions are consistent with projected fractal dimensions in the range of 1.2-1.6, which is similar to other galaxies, therefore suggesting that the fractal dimension of hierarchical star formation is universal. Both star and cluster formation peak at a galactocentric radius of 2.5 and 5 kpc, which we tentatively attribute to the presence of the 4:1 resonance and the co-rotation radius. The positions of the youngest (<10 Myr) star clusters show the strongest correlation with the spiral arms, Halpha, and the RC emission, and these correlations decrease with age. The azimuthal distribution of clusters in terms of kinematic age away from the spiral arms indicates that the majority of the clusters formed 5-20 Myr before their parental gas cloud reached the centre of the spiral arm.Comment: 14 pages, 21 figures, accepted for publication in A&

Monte Carlo Simulations of Star Clusters - VII. The globular cluster 47 Tuc

We describe Monte Carlo models for the dynamical evolution of the massive globular cluster 47 Tuc (NGC 104). The code includes treatments of two-body relaxation, most kinds of three- and four-body interactions involving primordial binaries and those formed dynamically, the Galactic tide, and the internal evolution of both single and binary stars. We arrive at a set of initial parameters for the cluster which, after 12Gyr of evolution, gives a model with a fairly satisfactory match to surface brightness and density profiles, the velocity dispersion profile, the luminosity function in two fields, and the acceleration of pulsars. Our models appear to require a relatively steep initial mass function for stars above about turnoff, with an index of about 2.8 (where the Salpeter mass function has an index of 2.35), and a relatively flat initial mass function (index about 0.4) for the lower main sequence. According to the model, the current mass is estimated at 0.9 million solar masses, of which about 34% consists of remnants. We find that primordial binaries are gradually taking over from mass loss by stellar evolution as the main dynamical driver of the core. Despite the high concentration of the cluster, core collapse will take at least another 20Gyr.Comment: 16 pages, 16 figures, revised version submitted to MNRA