User guide : Aquifer Productivity (Scotland) GIS Datasets. Version 2

This report describes a revised version (Version 2) of the aquifer productivity (Scotland) datasets produced by the British Geological Survey (BGS). There are two maps: bedrock aquifer productivity and superficial deposits aquifer productivity. Version 1 of these datasets was produced in 2004. Version 2 uses updated geological linework and a slightly modified methodology. The aquifer productivity maps describe the potential of aquifers across Scotland to sustain various levels of borehole water supply, and the dominant groundwater flow types in each aquifer. The bedrock aquifer productivity map has five aquifer productivity classes (very high, high, moderate, low and very low); and three groundwater flow categories (significant intergranular flow; mixed fracture/intergranular flow; and fracture flow). The superficial deposits productivity map has four productivity classes (high; moderate to high; moderate; and a category to signify that a deposit is ‘not a significant aquifer’). All superficial deposits aquifers in Scotland are assumed to have primarily intergranular groundwater flow. The aquifer productivity maps are a tool to indicate the location and productivity of aquifers across Scotland. They have been used to help characterise groundwater bodies as required by the Water Framework Directive, and may have several other uses, including in policy analysis and development; to prioritise aquifer and site investigations; to inform planning decisions; and to improve awareness of groundwater in general. The complexity and heterogeneity of geological formations means that the maps are only a guide. They are designed to be used at a scale of 1:100,000, and not to assess aquifer conditions at a single point

Stability of hexagonal solidification patterns

We investigate the dynamics of cellular solidification patterns using three-dimensional phase-field simulations. The cells can organize into stable hexagonal patterns or exhibit unsteady evolutions. We identify the relevant secondary instabilities of regular hexagonal arrays and find that the stability boundaries depend significantly on the strength of crystalline anisotropy. We also find multiplet states that can be reached by applying well-defined perturbations to a pre-existing hexagonal array.Comment: Minor changes, mainly in introduction and conclusion, one reference adde

Knowledge transfer and exchange: a look at the literature in relation to research and policy

Within the field of health policy, there have been widespread calls for the increased or improved use of evidence within policy making. This reflects an ambition to deliver better policy in terms of outcomes, resource efficiency and effectiveness, and a belief that this can be achieved through utilising the available evidence to inform and guide decision making. For those tasked with improving the uptake of a piece or body of evidence, for policy makers aiming to improve their evidence use, or for researches investigating this question, a number of conceptual questions remain on how to actually achieve this, such as: What should count as evidence for policy making? Who should govern (or steer) the use of research evidence for policy? What is ‘good evidence’ for decision making? What is the ‘good use’ of evidence from a governance perspective? How is research knowledge typically translated into policy? How can one ‘improve’ the use or uptake of evidence in policy making? The GRIP-Health Project is a 5 year, European Research Council supported programme of work that aims to improve the use of research evidence in health policy through undertaking research on the political aspects of health policy making and evidence use. The project has developed a number of working papers that engage with some of these topics.1 This current paper is concerned with the last two of the questions listed above, specifically reviewing key aspects of Knowledge Transfer and Exchange (KTE) related to getting research into policy and practice. While the health sector is increasingly motivated by a desire to get research evidence into policy, outside the field of health there is a much broader body of work that is specifically concerned with how evidence and knowledge are transferred, translated, or taken up by different policy actors. Various theories attempt to establish how KTE works, the contextual factors that influence the process, and how to achieve maximum impact for relevant bodies of evidence. Acronyms and terminology used in this field vary accordingly, and can include knowledge transfer, knowledge translation, knowledge management, and knowledge brokering. These various terms have been grouped together under the rubric ‘K*’ by some authors to reflect the multiple overlapping terms 2 Prior working papers in this series deal with aspects of: Stewardship of health evidence; hierarches and appropriateness of evidence; and institutional approaches to evidence uptake research. Working papers and other outputs of the programme are available at the GRIP-Health website http://www.lshtm.ac.uk/groups/griphealth/resources/index.html 3 (c.f. Shaxson et al., 2012). However, in this paper, we use the term KTE to refer to the general body of literature focused on issues of knowledge production, dissemination, uptake and use in policymaking. As the body of work on KTE is extensive, it was decided not to attempt a complete or systematic review of the literature. There are, however, several papers which attempt to synthesise the existing literature or systematically review elements of the KTE field. These reviews provide a starting point for mapping the field to help inform efforts to improve the use of research evidence in policy. The current paper therefore has two objectives. First, it summarises and synthesises a set of identified KTE review papers in order to undertake a comparison of their similarities and their differences on the main areas they cover, to provide a basic mapping of key KTE concepts. After this, it then explores some key themes that emerge from the KTE literature which are of particular relevance to the GRIP-Health programme and other researchers or stakeholders who are tasked with improving evidence uptake

Olanzapine Attenuates Cue-elicited Craving for Tobacco

Rationale: Recent biological conceptualizations of craving and addiction have implicated mesolimbic dopamine activity as a central feature of the process of addiction. Imaging, and pharmacological studies have supported a role for dopaminergic structures in cue-elicited craving for tobacco. Objective: If mesolimbic dopamine activity is associated with cue-elicited craving for tobacco, a dopamine antagonist should attenuate cueelicited craving for tobacco. Thus, the aim of the present study was to determine whether an atypical antipsychotic (olanzapine, 5 mg) decreased cue-elicited craving for tobacco. Method: Participants were randomly assigned to 5 days of pretreatment with olanzapine (5 mg; n=31) or were randomly assigned to 5 days of a matching placebo (n=28). Approximately 8 h after the last dose, participants were exposed to a control cue (pencil) followed by exposure to smoking cues. Participants subsequently smoked either nicotine cigarettes or de-nicotinized cigarettes. Results: Olanzapine attenuated cue-elicited craving for tobacco but did not moderate the subjective effects of smoking. Discussion: This study represents one of the first investigations of the effect of atypical antipsychotics on cue-elicited craving for tobacco. The results suggest that medications with similar profiles may reduce cue-elicited craving, which in turn, may partially explain recent observations that atypical antipsychotics may reduce substance use

A systems approach to the development and use of FMEA in complex automotive applications

YesThe effective deployment of FMEAs within complex automotive applications faces a number of challenges, including the complexity of the system being analysed, the need to develop a series of coherently linked FMEAs at different levels within the systems hierarchy and across intrinsically interlinked engineering disciplines, and the need for coherent linkage between critical design characteristics cascaded through the systems levels with their counterparts in manufacturing. The approach presented in this paper to address these challenges is based on a structured Failure Mode Avoidance (FMA) framework which promotes the development of FMEAs within an integrated Systems Engineering approach. The effectiveness of the framework is illustrated through a case study, centred on the development of a diesel exhaust aftertreatment system. This case study demonstrates that the structured FMA framework for function analysis supports an effective decomposition of complex interdisciplinary systems facilitating the DFMEA deployment through a series of containable, structured DFMEAs developed at successive system levels, with clear vertical integration of functional requirements and critical parameters cascade. The paper also discusses the way in which the approach supports deployment across engineering disciplines and domains, ensuring the integrity of information flow between the design and manufacturing activities

Big food and the World Health Organization:A qualitative study of industry attempts to influence global-level non-communicable disease policy

Introduction There is an urgent need for effective action to address the over 10 million annual deaths attributable to unhealthy diets. Food industry interference with policies aimed at reducing non-communicable diseases (NCDs) is widely documented at the national level but remains under-researched at the global level. Thus, this study explores how ultra-processed food industry actors have attempted to influence NCD policy at WHO.Methods A combination of inductive and deductive thematic coding of internal industry documents, academic literature and interviews with key informants from international organisations and global civil society was used to identify action-based strategies ultra-processed food industry actors employ to influence global-level policy.Results Ultra-processed food industry actors have attempted to influence WHO and its policies through three main action-based strategies: coalition management, involvement in policy formulation, and information management. Coalition management includes the creation and use of overt alliances between corporations—business associations—and more covert science-focused and policy-focused intermediaries, the hiring of former WHO staff and attempted co-option of civil society organisations. Industry involvement in policy formulation is operationalised largely through the lobbying of Member States to support industry positions, and business associations gaining access to WHO through formal consultations and hearings. Information management involves funding and disseminating research favourable to commercial interests, and challenging unfavourable evidence.Conclusion We provide novel insights into how ultra-processed food industry actors shape global-level NCD policy and identify a clear need to guard against commercial interference to advance NCD policy. In their approach, the political behaviour of multinational food corporations bears similarities to that of the tobacco industry. Increased awareness of, and safeguarding against, commercial interference at the national as well as the global level have the potential to strengthen the crucial work of WHO

Meteoroid hazards in deep space Final report

Design and development of Sisyphus meteoroid detection system for interplanetary spacecraf

Towards a topology-shape-metrics framework for ortho-radial drawings

Ortho-Radial drawings are a generalization of orthogonal drawings to grids that are formed by concentric circles and straight-line spokes emanating from the circles' center. Such drawings have applications in schematic graph layouts, e.g., for metro maps and destination maps. A plane graph is a planar graph with a fixed planar embedding. We give a combinatorial characterization of the plane graphs that admit a planar ortho-radial drawing without bends. Previously, such a characterization was only known for paths, cycles, and theta graphs, and in the special case of rectangular drawings for cubic graphs, where the contour of each face is required to be a rectangle. The characterization is expressed in terms of an ortho-radial representation that, similar to Tamassia's orthogonal representations for orthogonal drawings describes such a drawing combinatorially in terms of angles around vertices and bends on the edges. In this sense our characterization can be seen as a first step towards generalizing the Topology-Shape-Metrics framework of Tamassia to ortho-radial drawings