Band engineering in dilute nitride and bismide semiconductor lasers

Highly mismatched semiconductor alloys such as GaNAs and GaBiAs have several novel electronic properties, including a rapid reduction in energy gap with increasing x and also, for GaBiAs, a strong increase in spin orbit- splitting energy with increasing Bi composition. We review here the electronic structure of such alloys and their consequences for ideal lasers. We then describe the substantial progress made in the demonstration of actual GaInNAs telecomm lasers. These have characteristics comparable to conventional InP-based devices. This includes a strong Auger contribution to the threshold current. We show, however, that the large spin-orbit-splitting energy in GaBiAs and GaBiNAs could lead to the suppression of the dominant Auger recombination loss mechanism, finally opening the route to efficient temperature-stable telecomm and longer wavelength lasers with significantly reduced power consumption.Comment: 27 pages, 11 figure

“We have gone recreation mad” : the consumption of leisure and popular entertainment in municipal public parks in early Twentieth Century Britain

This study examines the development of popular entertainment in the municipal public parks of a variety of British cities in the early decades of the twentieth century. It seeks to extend the debate about the social role of the urban park beyond the Victorian period and to challenge the idea that parks were mere mechanisms for social control. Their later developments were more complex and offered an increasing variety of popular entertainments such as dancing to a more discerning leisure consumer. In so doing, park managers found themselves in direct competition with private leisure providers and attempting to anticipate future trends in an expanding leisure population. The article concludes by considering how the determination to broaden the recreational value of the public park ultimately weakened its unique character and began a long cycle of decline

Review of Beers, Laura, Your Britain: Media and the Making of the Labour Party

Book review

Naming and blaming: civic shame and slum journalism in late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Manchester and Birmingham

This study analyses slum journalism in the British provincial press and reveals that it continued to be a major theme until well into the twentieth century. Instead of the rather moralising reporting of the earlier nineteenth century, this journalism used the device of civic shame to pressurise local government into taking action on slums as a matter of public health. It examines the discourses that resulted from civic shame in two newspapers – the Manchester Guardian and the Birmingham Daily Gazette – and challenges the idea that interest in reporting local political matters decreased during this period. Civic shame is shown to work in two ways – offering detailed vignettes of aspects of slum life based on personal observation and showing (some) slum dwellers as worthy of better living conditions; blaming the local authority directly for failing to address the problem. In this way, later slum writing sought to appeal directly to the reader in order not just to impart facts but to stimulate empathy and to develop a desire for action. Such in-depth studies of a particular social issue sought to address the local authorities directly, to apportion blame and to use slum writing as a tool for social action

Study-based registers of randomized controlled trials: starting a systematic review with data extraction or meta-analysis

Introduction: Despite years of use of study-based registers for storing reports of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), the methodology used in developing such registers/databases has not been documented. Such registers are integral to the process of scientific reviewing. We document and discuss methodological aspects of the development and use of study-based registers. Although the content is focused on the study-based register of randomized/controlled clinical trials, this work applies to developers of databases of all sorts of studies related to the human, animals, cells, genes, and molecules. Methods: We describe necessity, rationale, and steps for the development, utilization and maintenance of study-based registers as well as the challenges and gains for the organizations supporting systematic reviews of the published and unpublished literature. Conclusion: The ultimate goal of having a study-based register is to facilitate efficient production of systematic reviews providing rapid, yet accurate, evidence for the decision-makers. We argue that moving towards study-based registers is an inevitable welcome direction and that infrastructures are ready for such movement

The disappearance of the "revolving door" patient in Scottish general practice: successful policies

<b>Background</b> We describe the health of "revolving door" patients in general practice in Scotland, estimate changes in their number over the timescale of the study, and explore reasons for changes, particularly related to NHS and government policy.<p></p> <b>Methods</b> A mixed methods predominantly qualitative study, using a grounded theory approach, set in Scottish general practice. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with professional key informants, 6 Practitioner Services staff who administer the GP registration system and 6 GPs with managerial or clinical experience of working with "revolving door" patients. Descriptive statistical analysis and qualitative analysis of patient removal episodes linked with routine hospital admissions, outpatient appointments, drug misuse treatment episodes and deaths were carried out with cohorts of "revolving door" patients identified from 1999 to 2005 in Scotland.<p></p> <b>Results</b> A "revolving door" patient is removed 4 or more times from GP lists in 7 years. Patients had complex health issues including substance misuse, psychiatric and physical health problems and were at high risk of dying. There was a dramatic reduction in the number of "revolving door" patients during the course of the study.<p></p> <b>Conclusions</b> "Revolving door" patients in general practice had significant health problems. Their numbers have reduced dramatically since 2004 and this probably resulted from improved drug treatment services, pressure from professional bodies to reduce patient removals and the positive ethical regulatory and financial climate of the 2004 GMS GP contract. This is a positive development for the NHS

Bizarría guipuzcoana y Sitio de Fuenterrabía, 1474-1521-1635-1638 : apuntaciones históricas

Digitalización. Vitoria-Gasteiz : Archivos y Bibliotecas, Abril 199

A statistical model of the international spread of wild poliovirus in Africa used to predict and prevent outbreaks

Published versio

A highly prevalent equine glycogen storage disease is explained by constitutive activation of a mutant glycogen synthase

Background: Equine type 1 polysaccharide storage myopathy (PSSM1) is associated with a missense mutation (R309H) in the glycogen synthase (GYS1) gene, enhanced glycogen synthase (GS) activity and excessive glycogen and amylopectate inclusions in muscle. Methods: Equine muscle biochemical and recombinant enzyme kinetic assays in vitro and homology modelling in silico, were used to investigate the hypothesis that higher GS activity in affected horse muscle is caused by higher GS expression, dysregulation, or constitutive activation via a conformational change. Results: PSSM1-affected horse muscle had significantly higher glycogen content than control horse muscle despite no difference in GS expression. GS activity was significantly higher in muscle from homozygous mutants than from heterozygote and control horses, in the absence and presence of the allosteric regulator, glucose 6 phosphate (G6P). Muscle from homozygous mutant horses also had significantly increased GS phosphorylation at sites 2 + 2a and significantly higher AMPKα1 (an upstream kinase) expression than controls, likely reflecting a physiological attempt to reduce GS enzyme activity. Recombinant mutant GS was highly active with a considerably lower Km for UDP-glucose, in the presence and absence of G6P, when compared to wild type GS, and despite its phosphorylation. Conclusions: Elevated activity of the mutant enzyme is associated with ineffective regulation via phosphorylation rendering it constitutively active. Modelling suggested that the mutation disrupts a salt bridge that normally stabilises the basal state, shifting the equilibrium to the enzyme's active state. General significance: This study explains the gain of function pathogenesis in this highly prevalent polyglucosan myopathy