Falling Incapacity Benefit claims in a former industrial city: policy impacts or labour market improvement?

This article provides an in-depth study of Incapacity Benefit (IB) claims in a major city and of the factors behind their changing level. It relates to the regime prior to the introduction of the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) in 2008. Glasgow has had one of the highest levels of IB in Britain with a peak of almost one fifth of the working age population on IB or Severe Disablement Allowance (SDA). However, over the past decade the number of IB claimants in Glasgow, as in other high claiming areas, has fallen at a faster rate than elsewhere, and Glasgow now has twice the national proportion of working-age people on IB/SDA rather than its peak of three times. The rise in IB in Glasgow can be attributed primarily to deindustrialisation; between 1971 and 1991, over 100,000 manufacturing jobs were lost in the city. Policy response was belated. Lack of local statistics on IB led to a lengthy delay in official recognition of the scale of the issue, and targeted programmes to divert or return IB claimants to work did not begin on any scale until around 2004. Evidence presented in the article suggests that the reduction in claims, which has mainly occurred since about 2003, has been due more to a strengthening labour market than to national policy changes or local programmes. This gives strong support to the view that excess IB claims are a form of disguised unemployment. Further detailed evaluation of ongoing programmes is required to develop the evidence base for this complex area. However, the study casts some doubt on the need for the post-2006 round of IB reforms in high-claim areas, since rapid decline in the number of claimants was already occurring in these areas. The article also indicates the importance of close joint working between national and local agencies, and further development of local level statistics on IB claimants

Ab-initio determined electronic and magnetic properties of half-metallic NiCrSi and NiMnSi Heusler alloys; the role of interfaces and defects

Using state-of-the-art first-principles calculations we study the properties of the ferromagnetic Heusler compounds NiYSi where Y stands for V, Cr or Mn. NiCrSi and NiMnSi contrary to NiVSi are half-metallic at their equilibrium lattice constant exhibiting integer values of the total spin magnetic moment and thus we concentrate on these two alloys. The minority-spin gap has the same characteristics as for the well-known NiMnSb alloy being around $\sim$1 eV. Upon tetragonalization the gap is present in the density of states even for expansion or contraction of the out-of-plane lattice parameter by 5%. The Cr-Cr and Mn-Mn interactions make ferromagnetism extremely stable and the Curie temperature exceeds 1000 K for NiMnSi. Surface and interfaces with GaP, ZnS and Si semiconductors are not half-metallic but in the case of NiCrSi the Ni-based contacts present spin-polarization at the Fermi level over 90%. Finally, we show that there are two cases of defects and atomic-swaps. The first-ones which involve the Cr(Mn) and Si atoms induce states at the edges of the gap which persists for a moderate-concentration of defects. Defects involving Ni atoms induce states localized within the gap completely destroying the half-metallicity. Based on single-impurity calculations we associate these states to the symmetry of the crystal

3d-electron induced magnetic phase transition in half-metallic semi-Heusler alloys

We study the effect of the non-magnetic 3\textit{d} atoms on the magnetic properties of the half-metallic (HM) semi-Heusler alloys Co$_{1-x}$Cu$_{x}$MnSb and Ni$_{1-x}$Cu$_{x}$MnSb ($0 \leq x \leq 1$) using first-principles calculations. We determine the magnetic phase diagram of both systems at zero temperature and obtain a phase transition from a ferromagnetic to an antiferromagnetic state. For low Cu concentrations the ferromagnetic RKKY-like exchange mechanism is dominating, while the antiferromagnetic superexchange coupling becomes important for larger Cu content leading to the observed magnetic phase transition. A strong dependence of the magnetism in both systems on the position of the Fermi level within the HM gap is obtained. Obtained results are in good agreement with the available experimental data

Identification and characterisation of 17 polymorphic candidate genes for response to parasitic nematode (Trichostrongylus tenuis) infection in red grouse (Lagopus lagopus scotica)

Acknowledgements This study was funded by a BBSRC studentship (MA Wenzel) and NERC Grants NE/H00775X/1 and NE/D000602/1 (SB Piertney). We are grateful to Jacob Hoglund for providing willow grouse samples, Mario Roder, Keliya Bai, Marianne James, Matt Oliver, Gill Murray-Dickson, Francois Mougeot and Jesus Martınez-Padilla for help with fieldwork, and all grouse estate factors, owners and keepers, most particularly Alistair Mitchell, Shaila Rao, Christopher Murphy, Richard Cooke and Fred Taylor, for providing access to estate game larders.Peer reviewedPostprin

Establishing the potential for using routine data on Incapacity Benefit to assess the local impact of policy initiatives

<i>Background</i>: Incapacity Benefit (IB) is the key contributory benefit for people who are incapable of work because of illness or disability. <i>Methods</i>: The aims were to establish the utility of routinely collected data for local evaluation and to provide a descriptive epidemiology of the IB population in Glasgow and Scotland for the period 2000–05 using data supplied by the Department for Work and Pensions. <i>Results</i>: Glasgow's IB population is large in absolute and relative terms but is now falling, mainly due to a decrease in on flow. Claimants, tend to be older, have a poor work history and suffer from mental health problems. The rate of decline has been greater in Glasgow than Scotland, although the rate of on flow is still higher. <i>Conclusions</i>: Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data can be used locally to provide important insights into the dynamics of the IB population. However, to be truly useful, more work needs to be undertaken to combine the DWP data with other information

Magnetism of mixed quaternary Heusler alloys: (Ni,T)2_{2}MnSn (T=Cu,Pd) as a case study

The electronic properties, exchange interactions, finite-temperature magnetism, and transport properties of random quaternary Heusler Ni$_{2}$MnSn alloys doped with Cu- and Pd-atoms are studied theoretically by means of {\it ab initio} calculations over the entire range of dopant concentrations. While the magnetic moments are only weakly dependent on the alloy composition, the Curie temperatures exhibit strongly non-linear behavior with respect to Cu-doping in contrast with an almost linear concentration dependence in the case of Pd-doping. The present parameter-free theory agrees qualitatively and also reasonably well quantitatively with the available experimental results. An analysis of exchange interactions is provided for a deeper understanding of the problem. The dopant atoms perturb electronic structure close to the Fermi energy only weakly and the residual resistivity thus obeys a simple Nordheim rule. The dominating contribution to the temperature-dependent resistivity is due to thermodynamical fluctuations originating from the spin-disorder, which, according to our calculations, can be described successfully via the disordered local moments model. Results based on this model agree fairly well with the measured values of spin-disorder induced resistivity.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figure

Isolation and characterisation of 17 microsatellite loci for the red-billed chough (Pyrrhocorax pyrrhocorax)

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Spatial and temporal stability of weed patches in cereal fields under direct drilling and harrow tillage

The adoption of conservation agriculture (CA) techniques by farmers is changing the dynamics of weed communities in cereal fields and so potentially their spatial distribution. These changes can challenge the use of site-specific weed control, which is based on the accurate location of weed patches for spraying. We studied the effect of two types of CA (direct drilling and harrow-tilled to 20 cm) on weed patches in a three-year survey in four direct-drilled and three harrow-tilled commercial fields in Catalonia (North-eastern Spain). The area of the ground covered by weeds (hereafter called “weed cover”) was estimated at 96 to 122 points measured in each year in each field, in 50 cm × 50 cm quadrats placed in a 10 m × 10 m grid in spring. Bromus diandrus, Lolium rigidum, and Papaver rhoeas were the main weed species. The weed cover and degree of aggregation for all species varied both between and within fields, regardless of the kind of tillage. Under both forms of soil management all three were aggregated in elongated patterns in the direction of traffic. Bromus was generally more aggregated than Lolium, and both were more aggregated than Papaver. Patches were stable over time for only two harrow-tilled fields with Lolium and one direct-drilled field with Bromus, but not in the other fields. Spatial stability of the weeds was more pronounced in the direction of traffic. Herbicide applications, crop rotation, and traffic seem to affect weed populations strongly within fields, regardless of the soil management. We conclude that site-specific herbicides can be applied to control these species because they are aggregated, although the patches would have to be identified afresh in each season.This research was funded by the Spanish National Program (project: AGL2010-22084-C02-0). A.E.M. was funded by the Institute Strategic Programme (ISP) grants, “Soils to Nutrition” (S2N) grant number BBS/E/C/000I0330, and the joint Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) ISP grant “Achieving Sustainable Agricultural Systems” (ASSIST) grant number BBS/E/C/000I0100, using facilities funded by the BBSRC

A transcriptomic investigation of handicap models in sexual selection

We are grateful to D. Calder and T. Helps for access to study sites, and G. Murray-Dickson and M. Oliver for help with fieldwork and comments on manuscript drafts. This work was funded by NERC grant NE/D000602/1 (SBP), a NERC advanced fellowship (FM) and a BBSRC studentship (MAW)Peer reviewedPostprin