Schools in the Community: Action Research on Safety (SCARS) Project. Deliverable Number 2, Report on Before Surveys

This document represents the second deliverable of the Schools in the Community: Action Research on Safety (SCARS) project. The project is a joint one between Leeds City Council's Road Safety Promotion Unit (RSPU), the Faculty of Health and Social Care at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds (ITS). The objectives of the project are: To develop a whole school approach to road safety To raise awareness among adults about their responsibilities for road safety To evaluate the benefits of the approach This document outlines the way the project team has approached the last of these, the evaluation of the benefits. In particular it gives details on the selection of study sites, the various studies that were undertaken and some preliminary results from these studies. This document does not give information on the interventions that have and are taking place. It is inevitable that, as part of these interventions additional information about the success or otherwise of the initiative may be obtained, such as how much information has been successfully imparted to children, how many meetings of community groups have occurred etc. The studies outlined in this document, therefore, only form part of the evaluation process. As the project is only part way through, this document does not include any evaluation of the success or otherwise of the initiative as a whole for the very simple reason that no 'after' studies have yet taken place. The initiative as a whole will be evaluated in the Final Report of the project

Schools in the Community: Action Research on Safety (SCARS) Project. Deliverable Number 2, Report on Before Surveys

This document represents the second deliverable of the Schools in the Community: Action Research on Safety (SCARS) project. The project is a joint one between Leeds City Council's Road Safety Promotion Unit (RSPU), the Faculty of Health and Social Care at Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds (ITS). The objectives of the project are: To develop a whole school approach to road safety To raise awareness among adults about their responsibilities for road safety To evaluate the benefits of the approach This document outlines the way the project team has approached the last of these, the evaluation of the benefits. In particular it gives details on the selection of study sites, the various studies that were undertaken and some preliminary results from these studies. This document does not give information on the interventions that have and are taking place. It is inevitable that, as part of these interventions additional information about the success or otherwise of the initiative may be obtained, such as how much information has been successfully imparted to children, how many meetings of community groups have occurred etc. The studies outlined in this document, therefore, only form part of the evaluation process. As the project is only part way through, this document does not include any evaluation of the success or otherwise of the initiative as a whole for the very simple reason that no 'after' studies have yet taken place. The initiative as a whole will be evaluated in the Final Report of the project

8Be Nuclear Data Evaluation

An R-matrix analysis of experimental nuclear data on the reactions 4He(alpha,alpha), 4He(alpha,p), 4He(alpha,d), 7Li(p,alpha), 7Li(p,p), 7Li(p,n), 7Be(n,p), 6Li(d,alpha), 6Li(d,p), 6Li(d,n) and 6Li(d,d), leading to the 8Be intermediate state, has been completed in the last two years. About 4700 data points from 69 experimental references are included. The excitation energy above the 8Be ground state is 25-26 MeV for all reactions except 4He(alpha,alpha) and 7Be(n,p). The data for the reactions 4He(alpha,alpha) and 6Li(d,d) do not fit well, but the other reactions fit with a chi^2/(point) of less than the overall value of 7.9. Most of the 19 resonances found in the R-matrix analysis correspond to resonances formerly known from experiment. Evaluated integrated 4He(alpha,p), 4He(alpha,d), 7Li(p,alpha), 7Li(p,n), 7Be(n,p), 6Li(d,alpha), 6Li(d,p) and 6Li(d,n) reaction cross-sections are presented. Evaluated cross-section and angular dependence files in ENDF format were prepared for the twelve reactions p 7Li, n 7Be, d 6Li -> alpha 4He, p 7Li, n 7Be, d 6Li. Maxwellian averaged temperature-dependent cross-sections in NDI format were prepared for the six reactions 7Li(p,alpha), 7Li(p,n), 7Be(n,p), 6Li(d,alpha), 6Li(d,p) and 6Li(d,n).Comment: Published in proceedings of International Conference on Nuclear Data for Science and Technology (ND2004), Santa Fe, NM, 26 September - 1 October 2004, LaTeX, 4 pages, 8 encapsulated postscript figure

Shock-induced separation of adiabatic turbulent boundary layers in supersonic axially symmetric internal flow

An experimental investigation at Mach 4 of shock-induced turbulent boundary layer separation at the walls of axially symmetric flow passages is discussed, with particular emphasis placed on determining the shock strengths required for incipient separation. The shock waves were produced by interchangeable sting-mounted cones placed on the axes of the flow passages and aligned with the freestream flow. The interactions under study simulate those encountered in axially symmetric engine inlets of supersonic aircraft. Knowledges of the shock strengths required for boundary layer separation in inlets is important since for shocks of somewhat greater strength rather drastic alterations in the inlet flow field may occur

Unifying Parsimonious Tree Reconciliation

Evolution is a process that is influenced by various environmental factors, e.g. the interactions between different species, genes, and biogeographical properties. Hence, it is interesting to study the combined evolutionary history of multiple species, their genes, and the environment they live in. A common approach to address this research problem is to describe each individual evolution as a phylogenetic tree and construct a tree reconciliation which is parsimonious with respect to a given event model. Unfortunately, most of the previous approaches are designed only either for host-parasite systems, for gene tree/species tree reconciliation, or biogeography. Hence, a method is desirable, which addresses the general problem of mapping phylogenetic trees and covering all varieties of coevolving systems, including e.g., predator-prey and symbiotic relationships. To overcome this gap, we introduce a generalized cophylogenetic event model considering the combinatorial complete set of local coevolutionary events. We give a dynamic programming based heuristic for solving the maximum parsimony reconciliation problem in time O(n^2), for two phylogenies each with at most n leaves. Furthermore, we present an exact branch-and-bound algorithm which uses the results from the dynamic programming heuristic for discarding partial reconciliations. The approach has been implemented as a Java application which is freely available from http://pacosy.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/coresym.Comment: Peer-reviewed and presented as part of the 13th Workshop on Algorithms in Bioinformatics (WABI2013

Biodiversity informatics: the challenge of linking data and the role of shared identifiers

A major challenge facing biodiversity informatics is integrating data stored in widely distributed databases. Initial efforts have relied on taxonomic names as the shared identifier linking records in different databases. However, taxonomic names have limitations as identifiers, being neither stable nor globally unique, and the pace of molecular taxonomic and phylogenetic research means that a lot of information in public sequence databases is not linked to formal taxonomic names. This review explores the use of other identifiers, such as specimen codes and GenBank accession numbers, to link otherwise disconnected facts in different databases. The structure of these links can also be exploited using the PageRank algorithm to rank the results of searches on biodiversity databases. The key to rich integration is a commitment to deploy and reuse globally unique, shared identifiers (such as DOIs and LSIDs), and the implementation of services that link those identifiers

Agnesi Weighting for the Measure Problem of Cosmology

The measure problem of cosmology is how to assign normalized probabilities to observations in a universe so large that it may have many observations occurring at many different spacetime locations. I have previously shown how the Boltzmann brain problem (that observations arising from thermal or quantum fluctuations may dominate over ordinary observations if the universe expands sufficiently and/or lasts long enough) may be ameliorated by volume averaging, but that still leaves problems if the universe lasts too long. Here a solution is proposed for that residual problem by a simple weighting factor 1/(1+t^2) to make the time integral convergent. The resulting Agnesi measure appears to avoid problems other measures may have with vacua of zero or negative cosmological constant.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX; discussion is added of how Agnesi weighting appears better than other recent measure

Control of rotordynamic instability in a typical gas turbine's power system

The effect of rotor internal friction on the system's stability was studied when operated above the first critical speed. This internal friction is commonly caused by sliding press fits or sliding splines. Under conditions of high speed and low bearing damping, these systems will occassionally whirl at a frequency less than the shaft's rotational speed. This subsynchronous precession is a self excited phenomenon and stress reversals are created. This phenomenon was observed during engine testing. The reduction of spline friction and/or the inclusion of squeeze film damping have controlled the instability. Case history and the detail design of the squeeze film dampers is discussed

Enhancing HIV prevention and care among men who have sex with men: insights from social psychology

Men who have sex with men (MSM) are a key population in the HIV epidemic in Western industrialised societies. Significant strides have been made in preventing HIV infection in MSM—indeed, a 60% decrease in HIV incidence was observed in London at the end of 2016. This can be attributed to the combined effect of treatment as prevention and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in high-risk MSM. However, sexual risk-taking, inconsistent condom use and low uptake of PrEP remain obstacles to eradicating new HIV transmissions. Advances have also been made in enhancing HIV care. In England, 87% of MSM living with HIV have been diagnosed and over 90% are now on effective antiretroviral therapy (ART). Yet, some patients struggle to accept and adjust to their HIV diagnosis. Some decide not to initiate ART. Some are lost to follow-up. Often, the underlying causes are psychosocial in nature. We believe that social psychology has a role to play in developing steps to improve HIV prevention efforts and patient engagement with HIV care