"There's no place like home" A pilot study of perspectives of international health and social care professionals working in the UK

Background Many countries are reporting health workforce shortages across a range of professions at a time of relatively high workforce mobility. Utilising the global market to supply shortage health skills is now a common recruitment strategy in many developed countries. At the same time a number of countries report a 'brain drain' resulting from professional people leaving home to work overseas. Many health and social care professionals make their way to the UK from other countries. This pilot study utilises a novel 'e-survey' approach to explore the motives, experiences and perspectives of non-UK health and social care professionals who were working or had worked in the UK. The study aims to understand the contributions of international health and social care workers to the UK and their 'home' countries. The purpose of the pilot study is also in part to test the appropriateness of this methodology for undertaking a wider study. Results A 24-item questionnaire with open-ended and multiple choice questions was circulated via email to 10 contacts who were from a country outside the UK, had trained outside the UK and had email access. These contacts were requested to forward the email to other contacts who met these criteria (and so on). The email was circulated over a one month pilot period to 34 contacts. Responses were from physiotherapists (n = 11), speech therapists (n = 4), social workers (n = 10), an occupational therapist (n = 1), podiatrists (n = 5), and others (n = 3). Participants were from Australia (n = 20), South Africa (n = 10), New Zealand (n = 3) and the Republic of Ireland (n = 1). Motives for relocating to the UK included travel, money and career opportunities. Participants identified a number of advantages and disadvantages of working in the UK compared to working in their home country health system. Respondents generally reported that by working in the UK, they had accumulated skills and knowledge that would allow them to contribute more to their profession and health system on their return home. Conclusion This pilot study highlights a range of issues and future research questions for international learning and comparison for the health and social care professions as a result of international workforce mobility. The study also highlights the usefulness of an e-survey technique for capturing information from a geographically diverse and mobile group of professionals

Gamma-Ray Burst Dust Echoes Revisited: Expectations at Early Times

Gamma-ray burst (GRB) dust echoes were first proposed as an alternative explanation for the supernova-like (SN-like) components to the afterglows of GRB 980326 and GRB 970228. However, the spectroscopic identification of Type Ic SN 2003dh associated with GRB 030329, as well as the identification of SN-like components to the afterglows of other GRBs, appears to have confirmed the GRB/SN paradigm. However, the likely progenitors of Type Ic SNe are Wolf-Rayet WC stars, and late-type WC stars have been observed to be surrounded by dust, at a distance of 10^14 -- 10^15 cm from the star. Consequently, we revisit the possibility of GRB dust echoes, not on a timescale of weeks after the burst but on a timescale of minutes to hours. We find that if the optical flash is sufficiently bright and the jet sufficiently wide, GRB afterglows may be accompanied by chromatic variations on this timescale. From these signatures, such model parameters as the inner radius of the dust distribution, the initial opening angle of the jet, etc., may be deduced. With rapid and regular localizations of GRBs by HETE-2, Integral, and now Swift, and new and improved robotic telescope systems, these early-time GRB dust echoes may soon be detected. We describe one such robotic telescope system, called PROMPT, that the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is building at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in greater detail.Comment: Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal, 15 pages, 5 figures, LaTe

alpha-helix E of Spo0A is required for sigma(A)- but not for sigma(H)-dependent promoter activation in Bacillus subtilis

At the onset of endospore formation in Bacillus subtilis, the DNA binding protein Spo0A activates transcription from two types of promoters. The first type includes the spoIIG and spoIIE promoters, which are used by sigma(A)-RNA polymerase, whereas the second type includes the spoIIA promoter, which is used by RNA polymerase containing the secondary sigma factor sigma(H). Previous genetic analyses have identified specific amino acids in alpha-helix E of Spo0A that are important for activation of Spo0A-dependent, sigma(A)-dependent promoters. However, these amino acids are not required for activation of the sigma(H)-dependent spoIIA promoter. We now report the effects of additional single-amino-acid substitutions and the effects of deletions in alpha-helix E. The effects of alanine substitutions revealed one new position (239) in Spo0A that appears to be specifically required for activation of the sigma(A)-dependent promoters. Based on the effects of a deletion mutation, we suggest that alpha-helix E in Spo0A is not directly involved in interaction with sigma(H)-RNA polymerase

HST optical polarimetry of the Vela pulsar & nebula

Polarisation measurements of pulsars offer an unique insight into the geometry of the emission regions in the neutron star magnetosphere. Therefore, they provide observational constraints on the different models proposed for the pulsar emission mechanisms. Optical polarisation data of the Vela pulsar was obtained from the {\em Hubble Space Telescope} ({\em HST}) archive. The data, obtained in two filters (F606W; central wavelength = 590.70 nm, and F550M; central wavelength = 558.15 nm), consists of a series of observations of the pulsar taken with the {\em HST}/Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and covers a time span of 5 days. This data have been used to carry out the first high-spatial resolution and multi-epoch study of the polarisation of the pulsar. We produced polarisation vector maps of the region surrounding the pulsar and measured the degree of linear polarisation (P.D.) and the position angle (P.A.) of the pulsar's integrated pulse beam. %This yielded We obtained $\rm P.D.=8.1\%\pm0.7\%$ and \rm P.A.=146.3\degr\pm2.4\degr, averaged over the time span covered by these observations. These results not only confirm those originally obtained by \citeauthor{Wagner00} and \citeauthor{Mignani07}, both using the Very Large Telescope (VLT), but are of greater precision. Furthermore, we confirm that the P.A. of the pulsar polarisation vector is aligned with the direction of the pulsar proper-motion. The pulsar wind nebula (PWN) is undetected in polarised light as is the case in unpolarised light, down to a flux limit of 26.8 magnitudes arcsec$^{-2}$.Comment: 11 pages accepted for publication in MNRAS. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1305.682

Expedition 302 summary

The first scientific drilling expedition to the central Arctic Ocean was completed in September 2004. Integrated Ocean Drilling Program Expedition 302, Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX), recovered sediment cores to 428 meters below seafloor (mbsf) in water depths of ~1300 m, 250 km from the North Pole. Expedition 302’s destination was the Lomonosov Ridge, hypothesized to be a sliver of continental crust that broke away from the Eurasian plate at ~56 Ma. As the ridge moved northward and subsided, marine sedimentation occurred and continues to the present, resulting in what was anticipated from seismic data to be a continuous paleoceanographic record. The elevation of the ridge above the surrounding abyssal plains (~3 km) ensured that sediments atop the ridge were free of turbidites. The primary scientific objective of Expedition 302 was to continuously recover this sediment record and to sample the underlying sedimentary bedrock by drilling and coring from a stationary drillship. The biggest challenge during Expedition 302 was maintaining the drillship’s location while drilling and coring in 2–4 m thick sea ice that moved at speeds approaching 0.5 kt. Sea-ice cover over the Lomonosov Ridge moves with one of the two major Arctic sea-ice circulation systems, the Transpolar Drift, and responds locally to wind, tides, and currents. Until now, the high Arctic Ocean Basin, known as “mare incognitum” within the scientific community, had never before been deeply cored because of these challenging sea-ice conditions. Initial results reveal that biogenic carbonate is present only in the Holocene–Pleistocene interval. The upper 198 mbsf represents a relatively high sedimentation rate record of the past 18 m.y. and is composed of sediment with ice-rafted debris and dropstones, suggesting that ice-covered conditions extended at least this far back in time. Details of the ice type (e.g., iceberg versus sea ice), timing, and characteristics (e.g., perennial versus seasonal) await further study. A hiatus occurs at 193.13 mbsf, spanning a 25 m.y. interval from the early Miocene to the middle Eocene between ~18 Ma and 43 Ma. The sediment record during the middle Eocene is of dark, organic-rich biosiliceous composition. Isolated pebbles, interpreted as ice-rafted dropstones, are present down to 239 mbsf, well into this middle Eocene interval. Around the lower/middle Eocene boundary an abundance of Azolla spp. occurs, suggesting that a fresh and/or low-salinity surface water setting dominated the region during this time period. Although predrilling predictions based on geophysical data had placed the base of the sediment column at 50 Ma, drilling revealed that the uppermost Paleocene to lowermost Eocene boundary interval, well known as the Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), was recovered. During the PETM, the temperature of the Arctic Ocean surface waters exceeded 20°C. Drilling during Expedition 302 also penetrated into the underlying sedimentary bedrock, revealing a shallow-water depositional environment of Late Cretaceous age

The Inhomogeneous Hall's Ray

We show that the inhomogenous approximation spectrum, associated to an irrational number \alpha\ always has a Hall's Ray; that is, there is an \epsilon>0 such that [0,\epsilon) is a subset of the spectrum. In the case when \alpha\ has unbounded partial quotients we show that the spectrum is just a ray.Comment: Fixed typos in bibliograph

Test program to demonstrate the stability of hydrazine in propellant tanks

A 24-month coupon test program to evaluate the decomposition of propellant tanks is reported. The propellant fuel evaluated was monopropellant-grade hydrazine (N2H4), which is normally a colorless, fuming, corrosive, strongly reducing liquid. The degree of hydrazine decomposition was determined by means of chemical analyses of the liquid and evolved gases at the end of the test program. The experimental rates of hydrazine decomposition were determined to be within acceptable limits. The propellant tank materials and material combinations were not degraded by a 2-year exposure to hydrazine propellant. This was verified using change-of-weight determinations and microscopic examination of the specimen surface before and after exposure, and by posttest chemical analyses of hydrazine liquid for residual metal content

Investigations in space-related molecular biology

Improved instrumentation and preparation techniques for high resolution, high voltage cryo-electron microscopic and diffraction studies on terrestrial and extraterrestrial specimens are reported. Computer correlated ultrastructural and biochemical work on hydrated and dried cell membranes and related biological systems provided information on membrane organization, ice crystal formation and ordered water, RNA virus linked to cancer, lunar rock samples, and organometallic superconducting compounds. Apollo 11, 12, 14, and 15 specimens were analyze