Beyond Goods and Services: Competition Policy, Investment, Mutual Recognition, Movement of Persons, and Broader Cooperation Provisions of Recent FTAs involving ASEAN Countries

We discuss recent bilateral, regional, and country trade, partnership, and economic agreements involving both ASEAN as a single entity and individual ASEAN countries (Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia) focusing on their reach beyond conventional trade in goods and services issues. What emerges is of a picture of ill-defined general commitments and precise undertaking, which vary from element to element and country pair to country pair. These agreements are recent, but they are numerous and more are under negotiation. We separately synthesize and evaluate provisions in five areas: competition policy, investment, mutual recognition, movement of persons, and broader cooperation.

The influence of social class on the academic progress of boys within a boys' grammar school

Not availabl

Echocardiography service provision in New Zealand: capacity modelling the cardiac sonographer workforce

Aim: Regional disparity in both utilisation and the cardiac sonographer workforce has previously been identified. We sought to model the capacity of the cardiac sonographer workforce at a national and District Health Board level to better understand these regional differences. Method: In 2013, surveys were distributed to 18 hospitals who employ cardiac sonographers (return rate 100%). Questions related to cardiac sonographer demographics, echo utilisation and workflow. Actual clinical capacity was calculated from scan duration and annual scan volumes. New Zealand national actual capacity was compared to predicted capacity from three international models. Potential clinical capacity was calculated from the workforce size in fulltime equivalent (FTE) and clinical availability. Results: In New Zealand, scan duration and population-based clinical capacity varies between centres. The New Zealand capacity is similar to the UK 30:70 model, and consistently less than the US model for all scan types. There are marked regional differences in potential versus actual capacity, with 10/16 DHBs demonstrating excess potential capacity. Conclusion: There is regional disparity in the capacity of the cardiac sonographer workforce, which appears to be strongly related to scan duration. Workforce capacity modelling should be used with need and demand modelling to plan adequate levels of service provision

Detecting collisions in sets of moving particles: a survey and some experiments

Detecting and responding to collisions between particles is an important requirement for building simulations in computational science. Due to the large number of potential collisions it is impractical to check all possibilities, so the development of algorithms which narrow down the number of possible searches to a small number is important. In this paper we review various algorithms for this task, and give results from a number of experiments which demonstrate the relative efficiency of these algorithms on a fundamental problem of detecting collisions between particles undergoing Brownian motion. The general slant of the paper is towards the development of algorithms for simulating microbiological systems

The Scottish Mental Survey 1932 linked to the Midspan studies: a prospective investigation of childhood intelligence and future health

The Scottish Mental Survey of 1932 (SMS1932) recorded mental ability test scores for nearly all of the age group of children born in 1921 and at school in Scotland on 1st June 1932. The Collaborative and Renfrew/Paisley studies, two of the Midspan studies, obtained health and social data by questionnaire and a physical examination in the 1970s. Some Midspan participants were born in 1921 and may have taken part in the SMS1932, so might have mental ability data available from childhood. The 1921-born Midspan participants were matched with the computerised SMS1932 database. The total numbers successfully matched were 1032 out of 1251 people (82.5%). Of those matched, 938 (90.9%) had a mental ability test score recorded. The mean score of the matched sample was 37.2 (standard deviation [SD] 13.9) out of a possible score of 76. The mean (SD) for the boys and girls respectively was 38.3 (14.2) and 35.7 (13.9). This compared with 38.6 (15.7) and 37.2 (14.3) for boys and girls in all of Scotland. Graded relationships were found between mental ability in childhood, and social class and deprivation category of residence in adulthood. Being in a higher social class or in a more affluent deprivation category was associated with higher childhood mental ability scores and the scores reduced with increasing deprivation. Future plans for the matched data include examining associations between childhood mental ability and other childhood and adult risk factors for disease in adulthood, and modelling childhood mental ability, alongside other factors available in the Midspan database, as a risk factor for specific illnesses, admission to hospital and mortality

Excavations and the afterlife of a professional football stadium, Peel Park, Accrington, Lancashire: towards an archaeology of football

Association football is now a multi-billion dollar global industry whose emergence spans the post-medieval to the modern world. With its professional roots in late 19th-century industrial Lancashire, stadiums built for the professionalization of football first appear in frequency in the North of England. While many historians of sport focus on consumerism and ‘topophilia’ (attachment to place) regarding these local football grounds, archaeological research that has been conducted on the spectator experience suggests status differentiation within them. Our excavations at Peel Park confirm this impression while also showing a significant afterlife to this stadium, particularly through children’s play

Prevalence of pain flashbacks in post-traumatic stress disorder arising from exposure to multiple traumas or childhood traumatization

Background: Flashbacks are a form of multisensory memory that are experienced with a ‘happening in the present’ quality. Pain flashbacks are a re-experiencing of pain felt at the time of a traumatic event. It is unclear how common pain flashbacks are. Aims: The current study was designed primarily to assess the prevalence of pain flashbacks in a sample of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Methods: We assessed the prevalence of pain flashbacks over a period of two years in patients (n = 166) referred to a psychological trauma service in the UK. Patients underwent a clinical screen for PTSD, and completed a self-report measure of pain flashbacks. Results: Pain flashbacks were classified as present in 49% of a sample of complex trauma patients meeting criteria for PTSD. Pain flashbacks were positively associated with the extent of pain at the time of trauma. Conclusions: Pain re-experiencing in PTSD, and its relative absence in non-clinical populations, supports an account of memory in which perceptual details can be re- experienced when memories have been encoded under conditions of extreme stress. It may be possible to conceptualize some cases of unexplained pain as pain flashbacks, or of having a trauma origin