Laboratory studies of interplanetary dust

Interplanetary dust particles (IDPs) are a form of primitive extraterrestrial material. In spite of the formidable experimental problems in working with particles that are too small to be seen with the naked eye, it has proven possible to obtain considerable information concerning their properties and possible origins. Dust particles collected in the stratosphere were reviewed. These particles are the best available samples of interplanetary dust and were studied using a variety of analytical techniques

Comments of a paper on 'elastically scattered recoil nuclei in solid state detectors'

Utilization of elastically scattered recoil ions to measure solid state track detector registration characteristics and particle trajectory analysi

Britain's New Deal and the Next Round of U.S. Welfare Reform

The United States will begin another round of debate on welfare reform during the 107th Congress, which convened in January 2001. The new congress and administration must decide on reauthorization of funding for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, the program established in 1996 as a replacement for Aid to Families with Dependent Children. Among other things, the reauthorization debate will focus on issues of program funding, rationalization, performance, best practice, and direction. This paper argues that all phases of this debate would benefit from more widespread understanding and appreciation of the British Labour government's welfare reform program, including both the New Deal welfare-to-work programs and related changes in benefits and coverage. This paper reviews the ideology, strategy, and implementation of British innovations with regard to links to U.S. reforms and as a source of new perspectives and ideas for the reauthorization debate.

Active Shooter Events: The Guardian Plan

The decision on how to protect the children and youth while at schools is a serious conversation with varying agreements on the best practices. Some feel that school personnel should not be trained nor expected to be able to react to an armed person while others believe that training of school personnel and allowing them to be armed will deter armed assailants in schools. Ultimately, each school board and district leadership need to choose an emergency safety plan that fits their community. The number of school shootings has brought emergency safety discussions to the forefront again. One school district, highlighted in this article, chose the implementation of a plan called the Guardian Plan

Thermoluminescence of Antarctic meteorites: A rapid screening technique for terrestrial age estimation, pairing studies and identification of specimens with unusual prefall histories

Thermoluminescence (TL) is a promising technique for rapid screening of the large numbers of Antarctic meteorites, permitting identification of interesting specimens that can then be studied in detail by other, more definite techniques. Specifically, TL permits determination of rough terrestrial age, identification of potential paired groups and location of specimens with unusual pre-fall histories. Meteorites with long terrestrial ages are particularly valuable for studying transport and weathering mechanisms. Pairing studies are possible because TL variations among meteorites are large compared to variations within individual objects, especially for natural TL. Available TL data for several L3 fragments, three of which were paired by other techniques, are presented as an example of the use of TL parameters in pairing studies. Additional TL measurements, specifically a blind test, are recommended to satisfactorily establish the reliability of this pairing property. The TL measurements also identify fragments with unusual pre-fall histories, such an near-Sun orbits

Photoproduction of K^+ Mesons in Hydrogen

The photoproduction of K^+ mesons in hydrogen has been measured with the purpose of extending the previous CalTech measurements to smaller angles, and obtaining better absolute values for the cross sections. The technique of Donoho and Walker, using a magnetic spectrometer and a time-of-flight measurement to detect the K^+ mesons, was modified so as to achieve a better discrimination against pions and scattered protons. The results obtained are in fairly good agreement with the more extensive measurements made at Cornell by a somewhat different method

Facilitating a ‘non-judgmental’ skills-based co-design environment

This paper reflects on a pilot study for the design of a series of e-textiles workshops developed for the Nottinghamshire Mind Network community of mental health and wellbeing service users, managers and volunteers. The final workshops will form part of ‘An Internet of Soft Things’ (IoSofT) project, which seeks to develop a Person-Centred Approach (PCA) to design. The workshops should be experienced by participants as a non-judgemental environment, as one of the conditions of the Person-Centred Approach – unconditional positive regard (UPR) (Rogers, 1957). While the research team agree in theory that participants should feel safe and supported, putting non-judgement into practice in a multi - disciplinary environment, in which skills form the basis of workshop activity, has proved to be challenging. The paper introduces the key criteria of the PCA in psychotherapy, and describes the particular challenges that being non-judgemental presented to the textile designers and therapeutic practitioners who designed and facilitated the workshops. It presents an analysis of the design artefacts produced in the course of six workshop sessions (such as the ‘group agreement’), and participant feedback, and discusses the resulting framework that will be applied in the next iteration of workshops to enable participants’ comfort, creativity and autonomy

The effects on health of a publicly funded domestic heating programme: a prospective controlled study

<b>Objective</b>: To assess the effect of a publicly funded domestic heating programme on self-reported health. <b>Design, setting and participants</b>: A prospective controlled study of 1281 households in Scotland receiving new central heating under a publicly funded initiative, and 1084 comparison households not receiving new heating. The main outcome measures were self-reported diagnosis of asthma, bronchitis, eczema, nasal allergy, heart disease, circulatory problems or high blood pressure; number of primary care encounters and hospital contacts in the past year; and SF-36 Health Survey scores. <b>Results</b>: Usable data were obtained from 61.4% of 3849 respondents originally recruited. Heating recipients reported higher scores on the SF-36 Physical Functioning scale (difference 2.51; 95% CI 0.67 to 4.37) and General Health scale (difference 2.57; 95% CI 0.90 to 4.34). They were less likely to report having received a first diagnosis of heart disease (OR 0.69; 95% CI 0.52 to 0.91) or high blood pressure (OR 0.77; 95% CI 0.61 to 0.97), but the groups did not differ significantly in use of primary care or hospital services. <b>Conclusions</b>: Provision of central heating was associated with significant positive effects on general health and physical functioning; however, effect sizes were small. Evidence of a reduced risk of first diagnosis with heart disease or high blood pressure must be interpreted with caution, due to the self-reported nature of the outcomes, the limited time period and the failure to detect any difference in health service use