A 21st century metropolitan green belt

The Metropolitan Green Belt (henceforth MGB) has been proposed since the late nineteenth century but was first realised in the 1930s, and expanded under Abercrombie’s 1944 Greater London Plan. After decades of growth the MGB measures 5,160 square kilometres and covers parts of 68 local districts and London boroughs. Local planning authorities do have the power to modify the MGB through ad hoc reviews, although only in ‘exceptional circumstances’. These can include a shortage of housing land (though this alone doesn’t guarantee that change will be permitted). An early reason for proposing a MGB was to give access to the countryside but later it was to physically constrain the growth of London. The current aims of the policy are set out in the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), which says that “The fundamental aim of Green Belt policy is to prevent urban sprawl by keeping land permanently open”. To do this it seeks to check unrestricted sprawl of large built up areas, keep neighbouring towns from merging, safeguard the countryside from encroachment, preserve the setting and special character of historic towns and promote urban regeneration by encouraging the recycling of derelict and other urban land. Despite the name, Green Belt is not an environmental designation — in fact Duncan Sandys, the minister responsible for its expansion in the 1950s, said Green Belt land did not have to be green or even particularly attractive, as its purpose was to stop urban development. However, government guidance suggests that after establishing a Green Belt, the local authority might want to improve public access, provide recreation opportunities or improve the appearance or quality of the land — but actual use or enjoyment of the Green Belt is clearly seen as an incidental benefit of the policy. In the post-war period there was a two-pronged approach to directing development in South East England: the MGB constrained the supply of land, and at the same time New Towns were created to house people dispersed from larger cities including London. This link between state planned constraint and development (and the cross regional approach), although never perfectly realised, has long since been broken

Why nanofibers are a good adsorptive surface – fundamental understanding and industrial applications for mAb bioprocessing

Over the years, chromatography has proven to be a powerful and versatile technique for the purification of high value biotherapeutics. Yet, today’s preparative chromatography of biologics still, in principle, looks the same as it did several decades ago. Any improvements made have been incremental; constrained by the stationary phase format (porous beads), associated column size (bed height and pressure drop), and historical modes of operation. To address future manufacturing challenges such as high cost of goods, diversity in product portfolios, market dynamics and manufacturing flexibility, new, more radical approaches to the development of chromatography materials and towards associated modes of operations are needed. With the biotechnology industry maturing, wide spread adoption of new high tech tools/products such as high throughput analytics, automated process control, single use materials and real time data analysis is already taking place, which in turn will lead towards revisiting and a subsequent improvement of how chromatography will be operated in the future. Examples of such improvements that are already considered include high productivity operations such as simulated moving bed and rapid, or extreme, cycling regimes. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract

Representations of an incidental learning framework to support mobile learning

This paper discusses how the particular features of mobile learning can be harnessed to provide new informal learning opportunities in relation to context aware and location based learning. The MASELTOV project is developing representations of an incidental learning framework to enable software developers and researchers to both design and analyse learning journeys to support social inclusion and language learning. Visual representations act as boundary objects that enable interdisciplinary conversations and reveal potential issues. Mobile learning offers the possibility of scaffolding the transfer between settings, and we identify location as a key element of making learning relevant to the user’s situation. This affordance is illustrated with the example of the application of mobile learning, and in particular, incidental learning, to assist the target audience (recent immigrants) in the MASELTOV project. This project is developing an incidental learning framework which we have used to explore in detail the potential incidental learning journeys which may be undertaken by the immigrants, and in this paper we discuss the current framework, and the challenges in generating representations that support useful debate

Should there be a future for Tablet PCs in schools?

Tablet PCs are a relatively new format of computer, which seem to offer features which may be beneficial to schools. The uptake of Tablet PCs by schools has been somewhat limited, not least due to their greater cost than laptops of a 'similar' specification. This paper explores the key question of the extent to which schools should be investing in Tablet PCs, if at all, in preference to other formats of fully functional PCs, drawing on evidence from a Becta funded evaluation of the use of Tablet PCs in schools in England conducted in 2004-2005. The Computer Practice Framework was used to develop a set of questions which helped structure a meta-analysis of the data from 12 case studies that formed part of this evaluation. The methodology used and some limitations of the evaluation are outlined, and the key findings are described. The paper concludes that Tablet PCs do appear to offer significant potential to schools, though this potential was not being fully realised in most of the case study schools. A number of specific circumstances in which Tablet PCs do appear to be the most cost effective option are also identified

MASELTOV Deliverable Report 7.1.2: Incidental Learning Framework

This document describes progress in the development of an ‘Incidental Learning Framework’, building on the work reported in Deliverable D7.1.1, submitted July 2012. The goal of the Incidental Learning Framework (ILF) is to facilitate the creation of technology rich learning opportunities for immigrants within cities. The framework is a descriptive mechanism that permits analysis, and a generative tool to support software system design, and it facilitates the communication of learning design ideas both visually and textually. The framework focuses on incidental learning i.e. learning that is spontaneous and unplanned, in the knowledge domains of interest to the MASELTOV project including health care, culture, and language and information access. Its use should encourage links and triggers to structured and reflective learning to back up and deepen learning that happens incidentally. This document describes the Incidental Learning Framework developed for the MASELTOV project, presents a examples of its use, and describes some conclusions and recommendations for future work - Introduction - Purpose of the framework - Challenges with ILF from its initial conception - Work carried out developing ILF for use in the project --Literature --Alternative visualisations --Focus workshops in OU --Partner testing --Template for testing --Examples of the partners’ testing their tools against the template -Reporting on incidental learning reflections with language learning and serious games - Conclusions and recommendations It should be noted that this document is a high level review, identifying significant literature and the on-going development of the framework through dialogue with educational experts and MASELTOV partners. This document offers recommendations therefore in general terms. Decisions about the specific implementation of the learner’s journey as framed by an incidental learning approach will be made in coordination with technical partners as the dialogue progresses

Adsorption of formate species on Cu(h,k,l) low index surfaces

We report a density functional theory study on the relative stability of formate species on Cu(h,k,l) low index surfaces using a range of exchange-correlation functionals. We find that these functionals predict similar geometries for the formate molecule adsorbed on the Cu surface. A comparison of the calculated vibrational transition energies of a perpendicular configuration of formate on Cu surface shows an excellent agreement with the experimental spectrum obtained from inelastic neutron spectroscopy. From the calculations on adsorption energy we find that formate is most stable on the Cu(110) surface as compared to Cu(111) and Cu(100) surfaces. Bader analysis shows that this feature could be related to the higher charge transfer from the Cu(110) surface and optimum charge density at the interfacial region due to bidirectional electron transfer between the formate and the Cu surface. Analysis of the partial density of states finds that in the –5.5 eV to –4.0 eV region, hybridization between O p and the non-axial Cu dyz and dxz orbitals takes place on the Cu(110) surface, which is energetically more favourable than on the other surfaces

Assessment of Geological Storage Capacity of the Southeastern U.S. for CO2 in Brines and Economic Use for EOR

Bureau of Economic Geolog

Paediatric patient safety and the need for aviation black box thinking to learn from and prevent medication errors

Since the publication of To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System in 1999, there has been much research conducted into the epidemiology, nature and causes of medication errors in children, from prescribing and supply to administration. It is reassuring to see growing evidence of improving medication safety in children; however, based on media reports, it can be seen that serious and fatal medication errors still occur. This critical opinion article examines the problem of medication errors in children and provides recommendations for research, training of healthcare professionals and a culture shift towards dealing with medication errors. There are three factors that we need to consider to unravel what is missing and why fatal medication errors still occur. (1) Who is involved and affected by the medication error? (2) What factors hinder staff and organisations from learning from mistakes? Does the fear of litigation and criminal charges deter healthcare professionals from voluntarily reporting medication errors? (3) What are the educational needs required to prevent medication errors? It is important to educate future healthcare professionals about medication errors and human factors to prevent these from happening. Further research is required to apply aviation’s ‘black box’ principles in healthcare to record and learn from near misses and errors to prevent future events. There is an urgent need for the black box investigations to be published and made public for the benefit of other organisations that may have similar potential risks for adverse events. International sharing of investigations and learning is also needed

Fundamental principles of an effective diabetic retinopathy screening program

Background: Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the leading cause of blindness among working-age adults worldwide. Early detection and treatment are necessary to forestall vision loss from DR. Methods: A working group of ophthalmic and diabetes experts was established to develop a consensus on the key principles of an effective DR screening program. Recommendations are based on analysis of a structured literature review. Results: The recommendations for implementing an effective DR screening program are: (1) Examination methods must be suitable for the screening region, and DR classification/grading systems must be systematic and uniformly applied. Two-field retinal imaging is sufficient for DR screening and is preferable to seven-field imaging, and referable DR should be well defined and reliably identifiable by qualified screening staff; (2) in many countries/regions, screening can and should take place outside the ophthalmology clinic; (3) screening staff should be accredited and show evidence of ongoing training; (4) screening programs should adhere to relevant national quality assurance standards; (5) studies that use uniform definitions of risk to determine optimum risk-based screening intervals are required; (6) technology infrastructure should be in place to ensure that high-quality images can be stored securely to protect patient information; (7) although screening for diabetic macular edema (DME) in conjunction with DR evaluations may have merit, there is currently insufficient evidence to support implementation of programs solely for DME screening. Conclusion: Use of these recommendations may yield more effective DR screening programs that reduce the risk of vision loss worldwide