Guts, instinct and knowledge ... at the critical moment : the role of the paramedic in technical rescue environments

Since the professionalisation of the role of paramedic with the advent of Health Professions Council (HPC) registration the scope of paramedic practice has expanded and broadened. Following the issue of benchmark standards for paramedic science by the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) [1] paramedic education and training have changed beyond all recognition. Paramedic degree and diploma courses and specialist courses such as Paediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS), Pre Hospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) and Medicine in Remote Areas (MIRA) etc. now see paramedics able to carry out a range of clinical interventions and procedures that would, in the past, have been unheard of. The knock-on effect has been the creation of a range of paramedics with extra training in a variety of specialist areas; for example, emergency care practitioners, remote area and forensic paramedics. This article aims to explore another specialisation: that of the technical rescue paramedic

Brave Brave Men

Brave Brave Men is a collection of short fiction exploring the emotional walls of masculinity. The tone is intended to instill slight discomfort, to push the reader. The mixture of realism and fantastical elements aims at a sense of childlike uncertainty. This uncertainty, coupled with the tone works to establish a quiet frustration, and a sense of isolation

Current State of Economics of Southwest Michigan Blueberries

Master of AgribusinessDepartment of Agricultural EconomicsKeith D. HarrisHighbush Blueberries are a perennial crop that typically take 4-8 years to produce fruit and 6-12 years to produce as a mature bush. Highbush blueberries account for about 98% of fresh blueberries in North America and about 46% of the processed market for US blueberry consumption. In Southwest Michigan, the blueberry industry is experiencing narrower profit margin as a result of declining product prices through oversupply from global production and increased costs of production. The economic model developed examines historical data and analyses its implications to Michigan blueberry market. Results indicate that to be able to stay in business producers need to find ways to increase per unit average production, and/or find ways to reduce costs. A sensitivity analysis is used to show the effects of changes to some of the largest expenses, labor and chemicals, and also sensitivity to income fluctuations. Income is looked at with a 10% increase or decrease to total income and pounds produced. Labor and chemical expenses were looked at with a 20% increase or decrease in costs

A Robust Finite Element Vector Formulation of the Semiconductor Drift-Diffusion Equations Incorporating Anisotropic Transport Properties

The majority of commercial and academic licence semiconductor CAD software employs the one dimensional Scharfetter Gummel technique to estimate carrier flow between pairs of adjacent nodes coupled with a control volume method to effect integration of the continuity equations. Although applied successfully to 2-D and trapezoidal 3-D codes the technique suffers from a number of drawbacks. Firstly vector current densities can only be obtained by a process of averaging of the 1-D currents. This necessarily creates a degree of ambiguity in the method of averaging applied and casts doubt upon the simulated accuracy of physical effects which require an explicit knowledge of the current vector magnitude and direction (e.g. impact ionisation, thermal source terms, hydrodynamic models). Secondly, implementation of the control volume method requires particular care with respect to element shape. In 2-D the well documented obtuse angle problem has been identified as a source of solution instability whilst for 3-D simulations, employing arbitrary tetrahedral meshes, the problem of selecting an appropriate control volume is yet more difficult. Finally, many semiconductors have transport properties which are significantly affected by the orientation of the crystal lattice relative to the direction of carrier flux. For example, 4H-Sic exhibits a 20% higher mobility in the direction of the principle crystal axis [l]. A method based on an assembly of one dimensional currents cannot hope to provide accurate vector current estimates for material characterised by an arbitrary mobility tensor. Anisotropic behaviour has been successfully incorporated into Monte-Carlo simulations [2] but the computational cost of this technique rules it out for many CAD applications. In this paper, a new finite element vector formulation of the drift-diffusion model, including anisotropic effects, is introduced. Stability criteria for the model are described and a methodology is presented for providing stable solutions for spatial discretisations that include both acute and obtuse triangles, including cases where there is a large stretching of the element. Anisotropic effects are incorporated into the basic drift-diffusion equations by representing the mobilities with second rank tensors e.g. where ei is the unit vector along the i axis and E , is defined as The values yrl, ~2 , pln and pZn account for the fact that not all of the phenomena incorporated into the model necessarily exhibit the same degree of anisotropicity. The finite element expression of (1) is derived by adopting assumptions in keeping with the methods of Scharfetter and Gummel where N is the number of nodes associated with the element, (Pk is the interpolation function for node k and p,,~ is the tensorial form of the mobility. Using equations (3), (4) and (5) the current can be expressed as: 13