Geographical variation in certification rates of blindness and sight impairment in England, 2008-2009

To examine and interpret the variation in the incidence of blindness and sight impairment in England by PCT, as reported by the Certificate of Vision Impairment (CVI). Design: Analysis of national certification data. Setting: All Primary Care Trusts, England. Participants: 23 773 CVI certifications issued from 2008 to 2009. Main Outcome measures: Crude and Age standardised rates of CVI data for blindness and sight loss by PCT. Methods: The crude and age standardised CVI rates per 100 000 were calculated with Spearman's rank correlation used to assess whether there was any evidence of association between CVI rates with Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) and the Programme Spend for Vision. Results: There was high-level variation, almost 11-fold (coefficient of variation 38%) in standardised CVI blindness and sight impairment annual certification rates across PCTs. The mean rate was 43.7 and the SD 16.7. We found little evidence of an association between the rate of blindness and sight impairment with either the IMD or Programme Spend on Vision. Conclusions: The wide geographical variation we found raises questions about the quality of the data and whether there is genuine unmet need for prevention of sight loss. It is a concern for public health practitioners who will be interpreting these data locally and nationally as the CVI data will form the basis of the public health indicator ‘preventable sight loss’. Poor-quality data and inadequate interpretation will only create confusion if not addressed adequately from the outset. There is an urgent need to address the shortcomings of the current data collection system and to educate all public health practitioners

Bounds on minors of binary matrices

We prove an upper bound on sums of squares of minors of {+1, -1} matrices. The bound is sharp for Hadamard matrices, a result due to de Launey and Levin (2009), but our proof is simpler. We give several corollaries relevant to minors of Hadamard matrices, and generalise a result of Turan on determinants of random {+1,-1} matrices.Comment: 9 pages, 1 table. Typo corrected in v2. Two references and Theorem 2 added in v

BlueBeats

Our group’s senior project is called BlueBeats. The BlueBeats product was created in order to provide a wireless audio gateway between Bluetooth enabled devices. Users of BlueBeats can use an Android or computer application to interface with the BlueBeats device. The Android and computer applications allow the user to easily scan for devices, add/remove devices from their personal list, and pair/connect with a selected Bluetooth enabled device. Once the user is connected to the BlueBeats device, he/she has two options. The first option occurs when the user connects the BlueBeats device to a device with speakers (using 3.5mm audio jack or RCA cable) which will allow the user to wirelessly transmit audio to the BlueBeats device so it can be played through the device’s speakers. The second option occurs when the user connects a TV to the BlueBeats device (using 3.5mm audio jack or RCA cable) and chooses to wirelessly (using Bluetooth) connect the BlueBeats device to a headphones Bluetooth device. This allows the user to wirelessly transmit the audio from the TV to the user’s Bluetooth enabled headphones. As a result, BlueBeats gives users more flexibility with audio applications by allowing users to wirelessly transmit audio from their phone to a device with speakers or from a device with speakers to a pair of Bluetooth enabled headphones. The software for both the Android and computer applications were written in Java. The Android application uses the public Bluetooth APIs in order to make the connection between the phones and BlueBeats. The computer application uses the Bluecove Bluetooth APIs in order to make the connection between the computer and BlueBeats. Both applications contain the same options for the user and follow the same layout in order to increase the usability of both applications for the user. Additionally, both applications hide a lot of the complex Bluetooth functionality from users so that they just have to select devices they want to add to their personal list and then select a device from their list that they want to connect to. The hardware consists of a WT-32 BlueGiga chip that is used to communicate with the microcontroller board in order to play and receive audio. The design for the microcontroller board was created using the Eagle software. The microcontroller board and the WT-32 chip is placed inside an enclosure that keeps all of the hardware out of sight and keeps all of the delicate parts of the circuit board properly contained. The enclosure for the hardware is 2.6 inches by 2.5 inches and it has holes for the buttons, LED lights, and the audio jack. There are 3 LED lights that include one for power, one for bluetooth connection, and one if the battery needs charging. The four buttons consists of play/pause, next song, volume up, and volume down. Our team decided to further develop our project into a company after graduating. Since the team consists of only technical students, we had to learn the business side of our project on our own. We were able to see a glimpse of the business aspect through the resources that Cal Poly provides. The resources that were the most useful were the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE) and the Student Startup Assistance Team (SSAT). We were given useful information about the basic process of starting a company, and how to setup a vision that the company could follow. We were also able to draft a provisional patent application from the resources that we received through the CIE. The original estimated cost for the BlueBeats was based on two main items for development, the Arduino Uno ($30) and Bluetooth chip WT-32 ($60), which is turns out to be around $90. The final cost for our senior project was$732.74 with the hardware development cost being $252.44. The most expensive part of our senior project was creating five BlueBeats devices using the 3D prototype printer and our own circuit board. At the end of our project, each BlueBeats device cost was cut down to a cost of$96.06

CLEAR design: developing an electronic copyright management system for Project ACORN

Outlines the copyright clearance difficulties faced by librarians in the development of the Electronic Library and states the need for an electronic copyright management system (ECMS) to log the clearance process and to protect electronic documents. Reports the absence of a suitably priced commercially available ECMS for the academic sector and describes the design process for the eLib project ACORN's Rights Management system entitled CLEAR (Copyright Licensed Electronic Access to Readings) based on Microsoft Access. Describes the functionality of the CLEAR database and concludes that it might provide a template for other institutions in the design of subsequent ECMSs

Prospective Analysis of the Aquaculture Sector in the EU. PART 1: Synthesis Report

This report is based on the outcome of the study on "Prospective analysis of the aquaculture sector in the EU", launched and coordinated by the JRC (IPTS) and carried out by the University of Stirling. The report consists of two parts: 1) "Prospective analysis of the aquaculture sector in the EU – Part 1: Synthesis report", and 2) "Prospective analysis of the aquaculture sector in the EU – Part 2: Characterisation of emerging aquaculture systems" This first report sets out the context for the future role of aquaculture in the EU, and the potential directions to be taken within the sector. It builds from materials reported in Part 2, and is structured by the outcomes of a review/expert panel meeting carried out in Sevilla, in November 2006 in which a process and system of synthesis was agreed. It follows a format in which we: • Project potential future demand for aquaculture-derived product, recognising domestic supply and international trade features, emerging consumer trends, and expected price positioning commensurate with sector production costs. • Develop further detail with respect to species, subsectors, systems, locations, and their interactions. • Set out issues and discussions on implications for future policy. • Develop conclusions. These projections and details were further developed through a process of discussion and comment with the expert panel during the period March-August 2007. The study was conducted between January 2006 and November 2007, the data collection taking place in the early stages followed by the analysis in the later stages

Brief chilling to subzero temperature increases cold hardiness in the hatchling painted turtle (Chrysemys picta)

Although many studies of ectothermic vertebrates have documented compensatory changes in cold hardiness associated with changes of season, much less attention has been paid to adjustment of physiological functions and survival limits following more acute exposure to cold. We investigated the ability of hatchling painted turtles (Chrysemys picta) to increase cold hardiness in response to brief exposure to a subzero temperature. Winter‐acclimated turtles were “cold conditioned” by chilling them in the supercooled (unfrozen) state to −7°C over a few days before returning them to 4°C. These turtles fared no better than control animals in resisting freezing when cooled in the presence or absence of ice and exogenous ice nuclei. Survival following tests of freeze tolerance (freezing for about 70 h; minimum body temperature, −3.75°C) was nominally higher in cold‐conditioned turtles than in controls (36% vs. 13%, respectively), although the difference was not statistically significant. Of the survivors, cold‐conditioned turtles apparently recovered sooner. Turtles subjected to cold shock (supercooling to −13°C for 24 h, followed by rewarming to 0°C) were strongly affected by cold conditioning: all controls died, but 50% of cold‐conditioned turtles survived. We investigated potential mechanisms underlying the response to cold conditioning by measuring changes in levels of putative cryoprotectants. Plasma levels of glucose and lactate, but not urea, were higher in cold‐conditioned turtles than in controls, although the combined increase in these solutes was only 23 mmol L−1. Cold conditioning attenuated cold‐shock injury to brain cells, as assessed using a vital‐dye assay, suggesting a link between protection of the nervous system and cold hardiness at the organismal level

Regeneration and poverty: evidence and policy review. Final report

First paragraph: This review assesses the impact of regeneration on poverty. It is one of a series of evidence reviews produced for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) as part of a programme of work to develop an anti-poverty strategy for the UK