Competition in the British domestic gas market: efficiency and equity

The British domestic gas market is to be opened to competition from April 1996; within 24 hours of enabling legislation being confirmed (Queen’s Speech, 1994),British Gas (BG) announced the first significant change in gas tariff structure since it had been privatised nine years earlier. The changes introduced cheaper tariffs for some of those who paid promptly and so were cheaper for BG to supply. These are likely to be the first of many such changes, as the threat of competition leads BG to abandon its previous policy of charging similar tariffs to a wide range of consumers even when they incur different costs of supply. It is clear that competition will have a much more dramatic effect on domestic tariffs than did the flotation of the industry. While it retained its monopoly in the domestic market, even the privatised BG continued its policy of crosssubsidisation between consumers, using a single charging structure despite cost differences. (One reason for this may have been to avoid signalling cost

New data and the hard pomeron

New structure-function data are in excellent agreement with the existence of a hard pomeron, with intercept about 1.4. It gives a very economical description of the data. Having fixed 2 parameters from the data for the real-photon cross section $\sigma^{\gamma p}$, we need just 5 further parameters to fit the data for $F_2(x,Q^2)$ with $x\leq 0.001$. The available data range from $Q^2=0.045$ to 35 GeV$^2$. With guesses consistent with dimensional counting for the $x$ dependences of our three separate terms, the fit extends well to larger $x$ and to $Q^2=5000$ GeV$^2$. With no additional parameters, it gives a good description of data for the charm structure function $F_2^c(x,Q^2)$ from $Q^2=0$ to 130 GeV$^2$. The two pomerons also give a good description of both the $W$ and the $t$ dependence of $\gamma p\to J/\psi p$.Comment: 11 pages, plain tex, with 10 figures embedded using epsf. (Spurious figure removed.

Oral corticosteroids in asthma and beyond : moving forward

Peer reviewedPostprin

Comparing a controlled levelled vocabulary with a language rich vocabulary in a beginner reading scheme

The primary aim of this research was to compare the effect of using vocabulary that is within a child’s current decoding ability in a reading text, with vocabulary that is beyond it. The original contribution to knowledge presented here is the discovery that children of all abilities and both genders can make greater gains in early reading when using reading books that go beyond their current phonic decoding ability (Intervention A), than from reading books that have a controlled, levelled vocabulary (Intervention P). The secondary aim of this research was to compare the use of a synthetic-phonics only approach with mixed teaching methods. Three separate, but related studies were completed in schools across two counties. In total, there were 16 schools and 372 children who participated (4 schools acting as controls). A novel reading intervention, which had been purposely developed for the research (weebee Reading Programme), was used in 12 classes randomised to one of two possible Intervention strands (A or P). Measures of word reading and comprehension were used at both pre-test and post-test. All three studies were carried out over a 12-month period, although they began at staggered intervals. The main findings were: first, children who used vocabulary that included many words which were beyond their current decoding ability, made greater gains in word decoding and comprehension than children using only vocabulary within their current decoding ability. Second, those children who had been taught using a mixed approach in addition to synthetic phonics made greater gains (particularly in comprehension) than those children taught using only synthetic phonics. In addition, gender analyses for all three studies, which included a small group of struggling readers, indicated greater gains for boys compared to girls, from using both the mixed approach to teaching as well as the non-decodable vocabulary

The Nordic romantic: a contextualized study of Niels W. Gade's Sonata No. 2 in D minor, Op. 21a, for viola and piano

The career of violinist, conductor, and composer Niels Wilhelm Gade (1817–-1890) encompassed the Romantic period, in which artists were increasingly associated with a national identity. Although he is primarily remembered as a Danish composer, Gade rose to international renown as a conductor and composer based in Leipzig, where he worked closely with Felix Mendelssohn. Inspired by Danish poetry, Gade’s first published symphony (Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 5) was considered too German in style by Copenhagen’s music society but was warmly received by the Gewandhaus orchestra’s audience in Leipzig in 1843. After Gade’s return to Copenhagen in 1848, he conducted the Copenhagen Music Society (Musikforeningen) Orchestra and established a conservatory, as Mendelssohn had done in Leipzig, raising the level of musicianship in his hometown, and solidifying his role as a pioneer in Danish music history. In addition to compiling biographical information about Gade, my research delves into his compositional style by analyzing his Sonata No. 2 in D minor for Violin and Piano, Op. 21 — a piece dedicated to Robert Schumann that was widely popular during the composer’s lifetime. My analysis examines Gade’s use of cyclic form and traces motivic development and integration across all three movements of the piece. The sonata was arranged by Heinrich Dessauer (1863-–1917), a student of Joseph Joachim, for viola and piano (Op. 21a) during Gade’s lifetime. By analyzing the viola arrangement and exploring its place in the Romantic viola repertoire, my aim is to encourage violists to add this piece to their recital repertoire