The importance of the express delivery industry for the East Midlands economy

This report assesses the importance of the express delivery industry for the economy of the East Midlands. It complements a similar report looking at the economic importance of the express industry for the UK as a whole. As well as quantifying the direct economic contribution made by companies in the express industry to employment and Gross Value Added (GVA) in the East Midlands, it also considers the importance of express services to businesses in other sectors in the region based on a detailed survey of 75 companies (a sample that we consider is appropriate to a study of this type and robust enough to help highlight key trends). This survey illustrates the contribution that the express industry makes to the capabilities and competitiveness of other sectors of the East Midlands economy

The effectiveness of Atraumatic Restorative Treatment versus conventional restorative treatment for permanent molars and premolars A critical assessment of existing systematic reviews and report of a new systematic review

Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Background: Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART) is the removal of caries using hand instruments and restoration of the resulting cavity using an adhesive restorative material. It was designed to restore teeth in communities without access to conventional dental clinics in poorer countries but has come to be used by dentists in the developed world too, as an alternative to conventional restorative treatment. Objectives: 1) to assess the scope and the methodological and reporting quality of existing systematic reviews of the effectiveness of ART compared to conventional restorative treatment; 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of ART compared to conventional treatment in permanent teeth with class I and II cavities. Methods: Searches: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: Electronic searches were conducted of OVID Medline, OVID Embase, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) databases (DARE, NHSEED and HTA), Google Scholar, and the CNKI and CAOD Chinese databases; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: the above searches were supplemented by searches of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), LILAC, BBO, IMEAR (WHO Index Medicus for South East Region), WPRIM (WHO Western Pacific Region Index Medicus) and IndMed, Current Controlled Trials, Clinical Trials, OpenSIGLE, IADR conference abstracts and NLM Gateway. Hand searches were conducted of six dental journals known to have reported ART studies. References from retrieved systematic reviews, trials and other related papers were searched for additional reports. Authors were contacted. There were no language restrictions. Selection criteria: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: systematic reviews that compared ART to conventional treatment for the restoration of dental cavities; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: randomised controlled trials that compared ART using any adhesive material to conventional treatment using amalgam or any adhesive material Data collection: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: Reviews were selected and data was extracted by a single reviewer using a custom made data extraction sheet. Scope was assessed in terms of materials used, teeth and cavity type. Methodological quality was assessed using AMSTAR. Reporting quality was assessed using the PRISMA guidelines; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: reports of trials were screened and selected independently by two reviewers and data would have been extracted on a custom made data extraction sheet had there been eligible trials. Results: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: three systematic reviews were identified. Two of these were restricted to comparing ART with glass-ionomer to conventional treatment with amalgam; two allowed for inclusion of all cavity types in both deciduous and permanent teeth. None was of high methodological quality and reporting quality was good in one of the reviews only; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: no eligible trials were identified. Author’s conclusions: 1) existing systematic reviews do not have sufficient scope to allow for the inclusion of potentially eligible trials that would assess ARTs effectiveness and they have been of high to medium risk of bias; 2) it is disappointing that there are no properly conducted randomised controlled trials comparing ART to conventional treatment in class I and II cavities in the permanent dentition

Quench characteristics of a stabilizer-free 2G HTS conductor

The prospect of medium/high field superconducting magnets using second generation (2G) HTS tapes is approaching reality with continued enhancement in the performance of these conductors. While the cryogenic stability and quench propagation are fundamental issues for the design and safe operation of superconducting magnets, there is insufficient understanding and experimental data for 2G HTS conductors, in particular for the high field scenario at low temperature (<77 K) where the current sharing regime is much larger than in low temperature superconductors. The present work includes a systematic characterization of the relevant thermal-electrical properties used for both qualitative discussion and numerical analysis. Direct measurements of one dimensional adiabatic quench initiation and propagation of a stabilizer-free 2G conductor have been carried out with spatial-temporal recording of temperature and voltage following the deposition of varying local heat pulses to the conductor at different temperatures between 30 K and 77 K carrying different transport currents. The minimum quench energy, and the heat generation in the minimum propagation zone (MPZ) have been obtained as a function of temperature and transport current. The results show quench features unique to HTS such as an increasing MPZ with transport current and higher quench energies at lower temperatures. The experimental results are discussed in the context of current sharing over a large temperature range

Book Review: Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough

Review of Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough by Leah Brione

Renormalizability of Effective Scalar Field Theory

We present a comprehensive discussion of the consistency of the effective quantum field theory of a single $Z_2$ symmetric scalar field. The theory is constructed from a bare Euclidean action which at a scale much greater than the particle's mass is constrained only by the most basic requirements; stability, finiteness, analyticity, naturalness, and global symmetry. We prove to all orders in perturbation theory the boundedness, convergence, and universality of the theory at low energy scales, and thus that the theory is perturbatively renormalizable in the sense that to a certain precision over a range of such scales it depends only on a finite number of parameters. We then demonstrate that the effective theory has a well defined unitary and causal analytic S--matrix at all energy scales. We also show that redundant terms in the Lagrangian may be systematically eliminated by field redefinitions without changing the S--matrix, and discuss the extent to which effective field theory and analytic S--matrix theory are actually equivalent. All this is achieved by a systematic exploitation of Wilson's exact renormalization group flow equation, as used by Polchinski in his original proof of the renormalizability of conventional $\varphi^4$-theory.Comment: 80 pages, TeX, OUTP-93-23P, CERN-TH.7067/93. Many minor revisions, and several new paragraph

Interaction Between Amino Propeptides of Type XI Procollagen 1 Chains

Type XI collagen is a quantitatively minor yet essential constituent of the cartilage extracellular matrix. The amino propeptide of the 1 chain remains attached to the rest of the molecule for a longer period of time after synthesis than the other amino propeptides of type XI collagen and has been localized to the surface of thin collagen fibrils. Yeast two-hybrid system was used to demonstrate that a homodimer of 1(XI) amino propeptide (1(XI)Npp) could form in vivo. Interaction was also confirmed using multi-angle laser light scattering, detecting an absolute weight average molar mass ranging from the size of a monomer to the size of a dimer (25,000–50,000 g/mol), respectively. Binding was shown to be saturable by ELISA. An interaction between recombinant 1(XI)Npp and the endogenous 1(XI)Npp was observed, and specificity for 1(XI)Npp but not 2(XI)Npp was demonstrated by co-precipitation. The interaction between the recombinant form of 1(XI)Npp and the endogenous 1(XI)Npp resulted in a stable association during the regeneration of cartilage extracellular matrix by fetal bovine chondrocytes maintained in pellet culture, generating a protein that migrated with an apparent molecular mass of 50–60 kDa on an SDS-polyacrylamide gel

Differential Expression of Collagen Type V and XI α-1 in Human Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysms

Background—The molecular mechanisms leading to ascending thoracic aortic aneurysms (ATAAs) remain unknown. We hypothesized that alterations in expression levels of specific fibrillar collagens occur during the aneurysmal process. Methods—Surgical samples from ascending aortas from patients with degenerative ATAAs were subdivided by aneurysm diameter: small, 5 to 6 cm; medium, 6 to 7 cm; and large, greater than 7 cm; and compared with nonaneurysmal aortas (mean diameter, 2.3 cm). Results—Histology, immunofluorescence, and electron microscopy demonstrated greater disorganization of extracellular matrix constituents in ATAAs as compared with control with an increase in collagen α1(XI) within regions of cystic medial degenerative lesions. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) showed collagens type V and α1(XI) were significantly and linearly increased in ATAAs as compared with control (p \u3c 0.001). There was no change in the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) expression levels of collagens type I and III. Western blot analysis showed collagens type I and III were significantly decreased and collagens α1(XI) and V were significantly increased and were linearly correlated with the size of the aneurysm (p \u3c 0.001 for both). Conclusions—These results demonstrate that increased collagen α1(XI) and collagen V mRNA and protein levels are linearly correlated with the size of the aneurysm and provide a potential mechanism for the generation and progression of aneurysmal enlargement

Mitochondrial differentiation, introgression and phylogeny of species in the Tegenaria atrica group (Araneae, Agelenidae)

The relationships between the three members of the Tegenaria atrica group (T. atrica, T. saeva and T. gigantea) were examined with DNA sequence data from mitochondrial CO1, 16S rRNA, tRNAleu(CUN) and ND1 genes. Members of this group of large house spiders have overlapping distributions in western Europe and hybridize with each other to a variable degree. The close relatedness of all three species was supported by all analyses. T. saeva and T. gigantea are more closely affiliated than either is to T. atrica. Haplotypes clearly assignable to T. gigantea were also present in many specimens of T. saeva suggesting asymmetrical introgression of mtDNA from T. gigantea into T. saeva. Molecular clock calibrations (CO1) suggest that deeper divisions within the genus Tegenaria may be in excess of 10 million years old, and that the evolutionary history of the T. atrica group has been moulded by Quaternary glacial-interglacial cycles

Light Neutralino Dark Matter in the NMSSM

Neutralino dark matter is generally assumed to be relatively heavy, with a mass near the electroweak scale. This does not necessarily need to be the case, however. In the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and other supersymmetric models with an extended Higgs sector, a very light CP-odd Higgs boson can naturally arise making it possible for a very light neutralino to annihilate efficiently enough to avoid being overproduced in the early Universe. In this article, we explore the characteristics of a supersymmetric model needed to include a very light neutralino, 100 MeV < \mcnone < 20 GeV, using the NMSSM as a prototype. We discuss the most important constraints from Upsilon decays, $b \to s \gamma$, $B_s \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ and the magnetic moment of the muon, and find that a light bino or singlino neutralino is allowed, and can be generated with the appropriate relic density. It has previously been shown that the positive detection of dark matter claimed by the DAMA collaboration can be reconciled with other direct dark matter experiments such as CDMS II if the dark matter particle is rather light, between about 6 and 9 GeV. A singlino or bino-like neutralino could easily fall within this range of masses within the NMSSM. Additionally, models with sub-GeV neutralinos may be capable of generating the 511 keV gamma-ray emission observed from the galactic bulge by the INTEGRAL/SPI experiment. We also point out measurements which can be performed immediately at CLEO, BaBar and Belle using existing data to discover or significantly constrain this scenario.Comment: References updated, accepted for publication in PR