Blaming the victim, all over again: Waddell and Aylward's biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability

The biopsychosocial (BPS) model of mental distress, originally conceived by the American psychiatrist George Engel in the 1970s and commonly used in psychiatry and psychology, has been adapted by Gordon Waddell and Mansell Aylward to form the theoretical basis for current UK Government thinking on disability. Most importantly, the Waddell and Aylward version of the BPS has played a key role as the Government has sought to reform spending on out-of- work disability benefits. This paper presents a critique of Waddell and Aylward’s model, examining its origins, its claims and the evidence it employs. We will argue that its potential for genuine inter-disciplinary cooperation and the holistic and humanistic benefits for disabled people as envisaged by Engel are not now, if they ever have been, fully realized. Any potential benefit it may have offered has been eclipsed by its role in Coalition/Conservative government social welfare policies that have blamed the victim and justified restriction of entitlements

On 2-primitive triangle decompositions of cocktail party graphs

A decomposition of a graph Γ is a collection C of subgraphs, perhaps nonisomorphic, that partition the edges of Γ. Analogously, consider a group of truck drivers whose non-overlapping routes jointly cover all of the roads between a set of cities; that is, each road is traversed by precisely one driver. In this scenario, the cities are the vertices of the graph, the roads are the edges between vertices, and the drivers’ routes are the subgraphs in the decomposition. Given a graph H, we call C an H-decomposition of Γ if each subgraph in C is isomorphic to the graph H. Continuing with the previous analogy, this would imply that each truck driver travels a route which is identical in connectivity between neighboring cities, but differs in locale. A subdecomposition of C refers to a nonempty subset of C which partitions the edges of an induced subgraph of Γ, and C is said to be t-primitive when there exist no proper subdecompositions of C containing t or more subgraphs. To visualize this, we consider a scenario in which t of our truck drivers, along with their respective routes, are infected with an illness that spreads to any healthy driver that travels directly between two sick towns. Assuming that an infected driver will infect their entire route, we ask the natural question of whether this illness spreads to the entire collection of drivers and cities, or whether it ends up confined to some subset of them. If any t sick drivers result in universal infection, the highway network which their routes partition is t-primitive. In this work we examine decompositions of cocktail party graphs into triangles. In particular, we establish the existence of 2-primitive triangle decompositions of cocktail party graphs with 6k + 2 vertices for each nonnegative integer k. Coupled with the results of a recent undergraduate capstone, this work completes the classification of when such decompositions exist for all cocktail party graphs

An experimental and computational analysis of buoyancy driven flows by laser sheet tomography, particle image velocimetry and computational fluid dynamics

This paper contains details of a three pronged investigation into the development of a buoyant jet impinging on a wall in a closed vessel. The development of the flow was measured experimentally by particle image velocimetry (PIV) and laser sheet tomography. The experimental results are compared with a computational model of the flow calculated by the computational fluid dynamics (CFD) package PHOENICS

Microarray analysis of whole genome expression of intracellular Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Analysis of the changing mRNA expression profile of Mycobacterium tuberculosis though the course of infection promises to advance our understanding of how mycobacteria are able to survive the host immune response. The difficulties of sample extraction from distinct mycobacterial populations, and of measuring mRNA expression profiles of multiple genes has limited the impact of gene expression studies on our interpretation of this dynamic infection process. The development of whole genome microarray technology together with advances in sample collection have allowed the expression pattern of the whole M. tuberculosis genome to be compared across a number of different in vitro conditions, murine and human tissue culture models and in vivo infection samples. This review attempts to produce a summative model of the M. tuberculosis response to infection derived from or reflected in these gene expression datasets. The mycobacterial response to the intracellular environment is characterised by the utilisation of lipids as a carbon source and the switch from aerobic/microaerophilic to anaerobic respiratory pathways. Other genes induced in the macrophage phagosome include those likely to be involved in the maintenance of the cell wall and genes related to DNA damage, heat shock, iron sequestration and nutrient limitation. The comparison of transcriptional data from in vitro models of infection with complex in vivo samples, together with the use of bacterial RNA amplification strategies to sample defined populations of bacilli, should allow us to make conclusions about M. tuberculosis physiology and host microenvironments during natural infection

An inventory and condition survey of the Western Australian part of the Nullarbor region

The inventory and condition survey of the Western Australian part of the Nullarbor region, undertaken by the Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) between 2005 and 2007, describes and maps the natural resources of the region. This survey report provides a baseline record of the existence and condition of the area\u27s natural resources, to assist with the planning and implementation of land management practices. The report identified and described the condition of soils, landforms, vegetation, habitat, ecosystems, and declared plants and animals. It also assessed the impact of pastoralism and made land management recommendations. The Nullarbor region has unique, extensive, gently undulating stony plains of limestone karst that form the Bunda Plateau. As well as vast treeless plains through the region\u27s centre, the Bunda Plateau is Australia’s largest karst and the world’s largest arid karst region (~250 000km²). An area of about 118 358km² was covered in the Nullarbor survey. The northern survey limits are defined by pastoral lease boundaries. The southern limits of the survey area are bounded by the Southern Ocean. The western limits of the survey area are defined by the western-most Nullarbor pastoral lease boundaries. The eastern limit of the survey is defined by the Western Australian–South Australian border. Pastoralism is the most extensive land use. Twenty pastoral leases fall wholly within the survey area and collectively occupy about 57 673km² (49% of the area). Eighteen soil groups are identified within the survey area. The most common soil group is calcareous shallow loams, occurring on all but coastal and sub-coastal land systems. In comparison with other biogeographic regions in the State, the flora of the Nullarbor area is not particularly diverse, with 426 vascular species recorded during the survey

Sickness presenteeism: measurement and management challenges

Since work can be restorative to health, attending work when unwell should not be viewed as an inherently negative phenomenon. However, the functional benefits are likely to depend on the health condition, and the psychosocial quality of the work provided. The current study used a workforce survey to explore differences in the pattern of presenteeism and absenteeism by health condition, the association of psychosocial work factors with presenteeism compared to absenteeism, and their interaction to predict health. Findings indicate that instead of substituting absenteeism for presenteeism, the two tend to coincide, but the balance differs by health condition. Presenteeism is more likely to occur in poorer psychosocial environments, reinforcing the importance of ensuring work is designed and managed in ways that are beneficial rather than detrimental to health. The findings also highlight the methodological importance of differentiating between the act and impact of presenteeism in future research and practice

A report on the Gascoyne River catchment following the 2010/11 flood events

In December 2010 an extreme tropical storm resulted in widespread flooding at Carnarvon and across the catchment. Another two flood events followed during the summer of 2010–11 The rationale for this assessment is to provide illustrative evidence on the role that perennial vegetation groundcover management has in influencing the risk of flooding and soil loss in the catchment. It may be possible that the impact of flooding associated with extreme storm events can be reduced. This report focuses on catchment condition and is not a review of the pastoral industry’s economic viability

Meteoritic Material Recovered from the 07 March 2018 Meteorite Fall into the Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary

On 07 March 2018 at 20:05 local time (08 March 03:05 UTC), a dramatic meteor occurred over Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary (OCNMS) off of the Washington state coast (OCNMS fall, henceforth). Data to include seismometry (from both on-shore and submarine seismometers), weather radar imagery (Figure 1), and a moored weather buoy, were used to accurately identify the fall site. The site was visited by the exploration vessel E/V Nautilus (Ocean Exploration Trust) on 01 July 2018 [1] and by the research vessel R/V Falkor (Schmidt Ocean Institute) from 03-06 June 2019. Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) from both vessels were used to search for meteorites and sample seafloor sediments. These expeditions performed the first attempts to recover meteorites from a specific observed fall in the open ocean. Analysis of weather radar data indicates that this fall was unusually massive and featured meteorites of unusually high mechanical toughness, such that large meteorites were disproportionately produced compared to other meteorite falls (Figure 2)[2-4]. We report the recovery of many (>100) micrometeorite-sized melt spherules and other fragments, and one small (~1mm3 ) unmelted meteorite fragment identified to date. Approximately 80% of the fragments were recovered from a single sample, collected from a round pit in the seafloor sediment. Melt spherules are almost exclusively type I iron-rich spherules with little discernible oxidation. Analyses are currently underway to attempt to answer the primary science question by identifying the parent meteorite type. Also, differences in the number and nature of samples collected by Nautilus and Falkor reveal a distinct loss rate to oxidation over the 15 months following the fall that is useful to inform future recovery efforts