Can a nudge keep you warm? Using nudges to reduce excess winter deaths: insight from the Keeping Warm in Later Life Project (KWILLT)

Nudges are interventions that aim to change people's behaviour through changing the environment in which they choose rather than appealing to their reasoning. Nudges have been proposed as of possible use in relation to health-related behaviour. However, nudges have been criticized as ethically dubious because they bypass peoples reasoning and (anyway) are of little help in relation to affecting ill-health that results from social determinants, such as poverty. Reducing the rate of excess winter deaths (EWDs) is a public health priority; however, EWD seems clearly to be socially determined such that nudges arguably have little role. This article defends two claims: (i) nudges could have a place in tackling even the heavily socially determined problem of EWD. We draw on evidence from an empirical study, the Keeping Warm in Later Life Project (KWILLT), to argue that in some cases the risk of cold is within the person’s control to some extent such that environmental modifications to influence behaviour such as nudges are possible. (ii) Some uses of behavioural insights in the form of nudges are acceptable, including some in the area of EWD. We suggest a question-based framework by which to judge the ethical acceptability of nudges

How should public health professionals engage with lay epidemiology?

"Lay epidemiology" is a term used to describe the processes through which health risks are understood and interpreted by laypeople. It is seen as a barrier to public health when the public disbelieves or fails to act on public health messages. Two elements to lay epidemiology are proposed: (a) empirical beliefs about the nature of illness and (b) values about the place of health and risks to health in a good life. Both elements have to be dealt with by effective public health schemes or programmes, which would attempt to change the public's empirical beliefs and values. This is of concern, particularly in a context in which the lay voice is increasingly respected. Empirically, the scientific voice of standard epidemiology should be deferred to by the lay voice, provided a clear distinction exists between the measurement of risk, which is empirical, and its weighting, which is based on values. Turning to engagement with values, health is viewed to be an important value and is discussed and reflected on by most people. Public health professionals are therefore entitled and advised to participate in that process. This view is defended against some potential criticisms

Quaternary geology along the Eastern margin of the Scioto lobe in Central Ohio

Originally prepared for the 1998 North-Central Section meeting of the Geological Society of America

Scalar--flat K\"ahler metrics with conformal Bianchi V symmetry

We provide an affirmative answer to a question posed by Tod \cite{Tod:1995b}, and construct all four-dimensional Kahler metrics with vanishing scalar curvature which are invariant under the conformal action of Bianchi V group. The construction is based on the combination of twistor theory and the isomonodromic problem with two double poles. The resulting metrics are non-diagonal in the left-invariant basis and are explicitly given in terms of Bessel functions and their integrals. We also make a connection with the LeBrun ansatz, and characterise the associated solutions of the SU(\infty) Toda equation by the existence a non-abelian two-dimensional group of point symmetries.Comment: Dedicated to Maciej Przanowski on the occasion of his 65th birthday. Minor corrections. To appear in CQ

Collapsing Shells and the Isoperimetric Inequality for Black Holes

Recent results of Trudinger on Isoperimetric Inequalities for non-convex bodies are applied to the gravitational collapse of a lightlike shell of matter to form a black hole. Using some integral identities for co-dimension two surfaces in Minkowski spacetime, the area $A$ of the apparent horizon is shown to be bounded above in terms of the mass $M$ by the $16 \pi G^2 M^2$, which is consistent with the Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis. The results hold in four spacetime dimensions and above.Comment: 16 pages plain TE

Complete Calabi-Yau metrics from Kahler metrics in D=4

In the present work the local form of certain Calabi-Yau metrics possessing a local Hamiltonian Killing vector is described in terms of a single non linear equation. The main assumptions are that the complex $(3,0)$-form is of the form $e^{ik}\widetilde{\Psi}$, where $\widetilde{\Psi}$ is preserved by the Killing vector, and that the space of the orbits of the Killing vector is, for fixed value of the momentum map coordinate, a complex 4-manifold, in such a way that the complex structure of the 4-manifold is part of the complex structure of the complex 3-fold. The link with the solution generating techniques of [26]-[28] is made explicit and in particular an example with holonomy exactly SU(3) is found by use of the linearization of [26], which was found in the context of D6 branes wrapping a holomorphic 1-fold in a hyperkahler manifold. But the main improvement of the present method, unlike the ones presented in [26]-[28], does not rely in an initial hyperkahler structure. Additionally the complications when dealing with non linear operators over the curved hyperkahler space are avoided by use of this method.Comment: Version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Einstein-Weyl structures and Bianchi metrics

We analyse in a systematic way the (non-)compact four dimensional Einstein-Weyl spaces equipped with a Bianchi metric. We show that Einstein-Weyl structures with a Class A Bianchi metric have a conformal scalar curvature of constant sign on the manifold. Moreover, we prove that most of them are conformally Einstein or conformally K\"ahler ; in the non-exact Einstein-Weyl case with a Bianchi metric of the type $VII_0, VIII$ or $IX$, we show that the distance may be taken in a diagonal form and we obtain its explicit 4-parameters expression. This extends our previous analysis, limited to the diagonal, K\"ahler Bianchi $IX$ case.Comment: Latex file, 12 pages, a minor modification, accepted for publication in Class. Quant. Gra