Optical Sensor for Diverse Organic Vapors at ppm Concentration Ranges

A broadly responsive optical organic vapor sensor is described that responds to low concentrations of organic vapors without significant interference from water vapor. Responses to several classes of organic vapors are highlighted, and trends within classes are presented. The relationship between molecular properties (vapor pressure, boiling point, polarizability, and refractive index) and sensor response are discussed

Vulnerability, mental health, and the energy sector:A guide to help identify and support consumers

This guide aims to help gas and electricity suppliers to better identify, understand, and support consumers who are in vulnerable situations.It provides practical tools which can be used with consumers in a range of vulnerable situations.It also offers specific guidance on helping consumers with mental health problems, or with mental capacity limitations

School de-segregation and the Politics of ‘Forced Integration’

Using the programme for creating the controversial school academies, local governments in the UK have attempted to force an integration of schools with majority white and ethnic minority pupil cohorts via new mergers. This has largely been as a response to analysts’ fears about self-segregation and insufficient community cohesion, following riots in northern towns in 2001 and the spectre of radicalisation among young Muslims following 9/11 and 7/7. An examination of school mergers in Burnley, Blackburn, Leeds and Oldham reveals how they have amplified racial attacks on Muslim pupils and their feelings of insecurity, while also fuelling a backlash against what is perceived by some members of the white working class as a form of social engineering that endangers white privilege

Vitamin D C3-epimer levels are proportionally higher with oral vitamin D supplementation compared to ultraviolet irradiation of skin in mice but not humans

A proportion of circulating 25-hydroxy vitamin D3 (25(OH)D3)) undergoes epimerization to form C3-epi 25(OH)D3 and C3-epi 1,25(OH)2D3. These epimers have less calcaemic activity than non-epimerized metabolites and are not differentiated by many immunoassays when reporting total 25(OH)D3 levels. This study aimed to compare the effect of exposure to ultraviolet radiation (UVR) and oral vitamin D3 supplementation on vitamin D C3-epimer levels. C57Bl/6 female mice were fed either vitamin D-sufficient (vitamin D3 2000 IU/kg) or -deficient diets (no vitamin D3) for 4 weeks. Among the vitamin D-deficient group, the shaved backs of half were irradiated daily for 4 days with 1 kJ/m2 UVR, followed by twice weekly irradiation for 4 weeks. Despite similar 25(OH)D3 levels, the UV-irradiated group had a lower proportion of C3-epi 25(OH)D3 at week 7 (p