Public health coming home

The article on Public Health ‘Coming Home’ to English local government states that it provides a historical perspective.1 It is, however, limited and fails to address some of the issues that were important in 1974, when it joined the NHS. This letter gives the views of one ‘who was There’ and involved at both central and local level. Bevan is said to have favoured the future NHS to be based outside local government on ‘grounds of efficiency and quality’. But there was another reason. Most of the medical profession were opposed to governance by local authorities (LA), in particular those working in the voluntary hospital sector. Bevan was anxious to retain their willingness to serve in an NHS. There were some very innovative LA Health departments, such as those developing health centres and co-ordinated working with general practice.2 There were some outstanding public health practitioners, identified by Sir George Godber, the Chief Medical Officer at the time,3,4 but these were exceptions. In Counties, PH practitioners were usually treated as professionals, in urban authorities they were more likely to

Public health coming home

The article on Public Health ‘Coming Home’ to English local government states that it provides a historical perspective.1 It is, however, limited and fails to address some of the issues that were important in 1974, when it joined the NHS. This letter gives the views of one ‘who was There’ and involved at both central and local level. Bevan is said to have favoured the future NHS to be based outside local government on ‘grounds of efficiency and quality’. But there was another reason. Most of the medical profession were opposed to governance by local authorities (LA), in particular those working in the voluntary hospital sector. Bevan was anxious to retain their willingness to serve in an NHS. There were some very innovative LA Health departments, such as those developing health centres and co-ordinated working with general practice.2 There were some outstanding public health practitioners, identified by Sir George Godber, the Chief Medical Officer at the time,3,4 but these were exceptions. In Counties, PH practitioners were usually treated as professionals, in urban authorities they were more likely to

The Calamus Root: American Gay Poetry Since World War II

This dissertation argues that there is a clear gay poetic tradition dating back to nineteenth century Europe, and it describes an historical taxonomy for gay poetry in America since 1945 by reference to its characteristic themes, influences and leading figures. After a brief discussion of early precursors such as Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, Walt Whitman, C. P. Cavafy, Hart Crane, Langston Hughes and W. H. Auden, the dissertation traces, through close explication of texts, the works of Harold Norse, Allen Ginsberg, Tennessee Williams, Frank O\u27Hara, Adrian Stanford, Richard Howard, Alfred Corn and Essex Hemphill. The influences on such poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969, the women\u27s movement, the proliferation of small gay presses, AIDS activism and queer theory are considered. An argument is made for a separate gay esthetic and poetic, and its development is traced from the late nineteenth century to the end of the twentieth. The influence of pre-World War II homosexual poets on post-World War II gay poets is discussed, as well as the crucial emergence of a gay urbanity and a gay intelligentsia. Bloom\u27s anxiety of influence, issues of marginality, the representation of masculinity and homoeroticism, Bakhtin\u27s theory of the carnivalesque (specifically in relation to AIDS literature), and the poetry of multiculturalism, are explored as well for the purpose of establishing the extensive literary, critical and theoretical intertextuality of gay poetic works

SCUBA - A submillimetre camera operating on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

The Submillimetre Common-User Bolometer Array (SCUBA) is one of a new generation of cameras designed to operate in the submillimetre waveband. The instrument has a wide wavelength range covering all the atmospheric transmission windows between 300 and 2000 microns. In the heart of the instrument are two arrays of bolometers optimised for the short (350/450 microns) and long (750/850 microns) wavelength ends of the submillimetre spectrum. The two arrays can be used simultaneously, giving a unique dual-wavelength capability, and have a 2.3 arc-minute field of view on the sky. Background-limited performance is achieved by cooling the arrays to below 100 mK. SCUBA has now been in active service for over a year, and has already made substantial breakthroughs in many areas of astronomy. In this paper we present an overview of the performance of SCUBA during the commissioning phase on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT).Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures (1 JPEG), Proc SPIE vol 335

Human Behavior and Performance Support for ISS Operations and Astronaut Selections: NASA Operational Psychology for Six-Crew Operations

The Behavioral Health and Performance group at NASA Johnson Space Center provides psychological support services and behavioral health monitoring for ISS astronauts and their families. The ISS began as an austere outpost with minimal comforts of home and minimal communication capabilities with family, friends, and colleagues outside of the Mission Control Center. Since 1998, the work of international partners involved in the Space Flight Human Behavior and Performance Working Group has prepared high-level requirements for behavioral monitoring and support. The "buffet" of services from which crewmembers can choose has increased substantially. Through the process of development, implementation, reviewing effectiveness and modifying as needed, the NASA and Wyle team have proven successful in managing the psychological health and well being of the crews and families with which they work. Increasing the crew size from three to six brought additional challenges. For the first time, all partners had to collaborate at the planning and implementation level, and the U.S. served as mentor to extrapolate their experiences to the others. Parity in available resources, upmass, and stowage had to be worked out. Steady progress was made in improving off-hours living and making provisions for new technologies within a system that has difficulty moving quickly on certifications. In some respect, the BHP support team fell victim to its previous successes. With increasing numbers of crewmembers in training, requests to engage our services spiraled upward. With finite people and funds, a cap had to placed on many services to ensure that parity could be maintained. The evolution of NASA BHP services as the ISS progressed from three- to six-crew composition will be reviewed, and future challenges that may be encountered as the ISS matures in its assembly-complete state will be discussed

An Intensive Observation of Calving at Helheim Glacier, East Greenland

Calving of glacial ice into the ocean from the Greenland Ice Sheet is an important component of global sea level rise. The calving process itself is relatively poorly observed, understood, and modeled; as such, it represents a bottleneck in improving future global sea level estimates in climate models. We organized a pilot project to observe the calving process at Helheim Glacier in East Greenland in an effort to better understand it. During an intensive one-week survey, we deployed a suite of instrumentation including a terrestrial radar interferometer, GPS receivers, seismometers, tsunameters, and an automated weather station. This effort captured a calving process and measured various glaciological, oceanographic, and atmospheric parameters before, during, and after the event. One outcome of our observations is evidence that the calving process actually consists of a number of discrete events, spread out over time, in this instance over at least two days. This time span has implications for models of the process. Realistic projections of future global sea level will depend on accurate parametrization of calving, which will require more sustained observations

NASA's Astronant Family Support Office

During the NASAMir program of the 1990s and due to the challenges inherent in the International Space Station training schedule and operations tempo, it was clear that a special focus on supporting families was a key to overall mission success for the ISS crewmembers pre, in and postflight. To that end, in January 2001 the first Family Services Coordinator was hired by the Behavioral Health and Performance group at NASA JSC and matrixed from Medical Operations into the Astronaut Office's organization. The initial roles and responsibilities were driven by critical needs, including facilitating family communication during training deployments, providing missionspecific and other relevant trainings for spouses, serving as liaison for families with NASA organizations such as Medical Operations, NASA management and the Astronaut Office, and providing assistance to ensure success of an Astronaut Spouses Group. The role of the Family Support Office (FSO) has modified as the ISS Program matured and the needs of families changed. The FSO is currently an integral part of the Astronaut Office's ISS Operations Branch. It still serves the critical function of providing information to families, as well as being the primary contact for US and international partner families with resources at JSC. Since crews launch and return on Russian vehicles, the FSO has the added responsibility for coordinating with Flight Crew Operations, the families, and their guests for Soyuz launches, landings, and Direct Return to Houston postflight. This presentation will provide a summary of the family support services provided for astronauts, and how they have changed with the Program and families the FSO serves. Considerations for future FSO services will be discussed briefly as NASA proposes one year missions and beyond ISS missions. Learning Objective: 1) Obtain an understanding of the reasons a Family Support Office was important for NASA. 2) Become familiar with the services provided for astronauts and their families and how they changed with the Program and family needs