Institutionalizing health impact assessment in London as a public health tool for increasing synergy between policies in other areas

Objectives: To describe the background to the inclusion of health impact assessment (HIA) in the development process for the London mayoral strategies, the HIA processes developed, how these evolved, and the role of HIA in identifying synergies between and conflicting priorities of different strategies.Study design: Case series.Methods: Early HIAs had just a few weeks for the whole HIA process. A rapid appraisal approach was developed. Stages included: scoping, reviewing published evidence, a stakeholder workshop, drafting a report, review of the report by the London Health Commission, and submission of the final report to the Mayor. The process evolved as more assessments were conducted. More recently, an integrated impact assessment (IIA) method has been developed that fuses the key aspects of this HIA method with sustainability assessment, strategic environmental assessment and equalities assessment.Results: Whilst some of the early strategy drafts encompassed some elements of health, health was not a priority. Conducting HIAs was important both to ensure that the strategies reflected health concerns and to raise awareness about health and its determinants within the Greater London Authority (GLA). HIA recommendations were useful for identifying synergies and conflicts between strategies. HIA can be successfully integrated into other impact assessment processes.Conclusions: The HIAs ensured that health became more integral to the strategies and increased understanding of determinants of health and how the GLA impacts on health and health inequalities. Inclusion of HIA within IIA ensures that health and health inequalities impacts are considered robustly within statutory impact assessments. (C) 2010 The Royal Society for Public Health. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved

Warped metrics for location-scale models

This paper argues that a class of Riemannian metrics, called warped metrics, plays a fundamental role in statistical problems involving location-scale models. The paper reports three new results : i) the Rao-Fisher metric of any location-scale model is a warped metric, provided that this model satisfies a natural invariance condition, ii) the analytic expression of the sectional curvature of this metric, iii) the exact analytic solution of the geodesic equation of this metric. The paper applies these new results to several examples of interest, where it shows that warped metrics turn location-scale models into complete Riemannian manifolds of negative sectional curvature. This is a very suitable situation for developing algorithms which solve problems of classification and on-line estimation. Thus, by revealing the connection between warped metrics and location-scale models, the present paper paves the way to the introduction of new efficient statistical algorithms.Comment: preprint of a submission to GSI 2017 conferenc

A spectral method for elliptic equations: the Dirichlet problem

An elliptic partial differential equation Lu=f with a zero Dirichlet boundary condition is converted to an equivalent elliptic equation on the unit ball. A spectral Galerkin method is applied to the reformulated problem, using multivariate polynomials as the approximants. For a smooth boundary and smooth problem parameter functions, the method is proven to converge faster than any power of 1/n with n the degree of the approximate Galerkin solution. Examples in two and three variables are given as numerical illustrations. Empirically, the condition number of the associated linear system increases like O(N), with N the order of the linear system.Comment: This is latex with the standard article style, produced using Scientific Workplace in a portable format. The paper is 22 pages in length with 8 figure

Domain-specific textual meta-modelling languages for model driven engineering

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-31491-9_20Proceedings of 8th European Conference, ECMFA 2012, Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark, July 2-5, 2012Domain-specific modelling languages are normally defined through general-purpose meta-modelling languages like the MOF. While this is satisfactory for many Model-Driven Engineering (MDE) projects, several researchers have identified the need for domain-specific meta-modelling (DSMM) languages providing customised meta-modelling primitives aimed at the definition of modelling languages in a specific domain, as well as the construction of meta-model families. In this paper, we discuss the potential of multi-level meta-modelling for the systematic engineering of DSMM architectures. For this purpose, we present: (i) several primitives and techniques to control the meta-modelling facilities offered to the users of the DSMM languages, (ii) a flexible approach to define textual concrete syntaxes for DSMM languages, (iii) extensions to model management languages enabling the practical use of DSMM in MDE, and (iv) an implementation of these ideas in the metaDepth tool.This work was funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity (project “Go Lite” TIN2011-24139) and the R&D programme of the Madrid Region (project “e-Madrid” S2009/TIC-1650

Building Their Stories: Electronic Case Studies of Struggling Readers

Ten university graduate students created electronic case studies describing the learning of struggling readers as a part of this study designed to yield insights about literacy education and the efficacy of electronic case study development. A variety of data, analyzed through a qualitative content analysis, revealed understandings regarding participants\u27 perceptions about themselves as learners, ideas about their influences on students, and revelations about literacy instruction. A final theme revealed that, as participants reflected upon their own learning; they also voiced a commitment to literacy teaching that went beyond their personal classroom settings. Further, researchers gained insights about how to better prepare literacy educators, as well as how to more effectively integrate technology into the case study process

A Spectral Method for Elliptic Equations: The Neumann Problem

Let $\Omega$ be an open, simply connected, and bounded region in $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, $d\geq2$, and assume its boundary $\partial\Omega$ is smooth. Consider solving an elliptic partial differential equation $-\Delta u+\gamma u=f$ over $\Omega$ with a Neumann boundary condition. The problem is converted to an equivalent elliptic problem over the unit ball $B$, and then a spectral Galerkin method is used to create a convergent sequence of multivariate polynomials $u_{n}$ of degree $\leq n$ that is convergent to $u$. The transformation from $\Omega$ to $B$ requires a special analytical calculation for its implementation. With sufficiently smooth problem parameters, the method is shown to be rapidly convergent. For $u\in C^{\infty}(\overline{\Omega})$ and assuming $\partial\Omega$ is a $C^{\infty}$ boundary, the convergence of $\Vert u-u_{n}\Vert_{H^{1}}$ to zero is faster than any power of $1/n$. Numerical examples in $\mathbb{R}^{2}$ and $\mathbb{R}^{3}$ show experimentally an exponential rate of convergence.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure

Multiplicative renormalizability of gluon and ghost propagators in QCD

We reformulate the coupled set of continuum equations for the renormalized gluon and ghost propagators in QCD, such that the multiplicative renormalizability of the solutions is manifest, independently of the specific form of full vertices and renormalization constants. In the Landau gauge, the equations are free of renormalization constants, and the renormalization point dependence enters only through the renormalized coupling and the renormalized propagator functions. The structure of the equations enables us to devise novel truncations with solutions that are multiplicatively renormalizable and agree with the leading order perturbative results. We show that, for infrared power law behaved propagators, the leading infrared behavior of the gluon equation is not solely determined by the ghost loop, as concluded in previous studies, but that the gluon loop, the three-gluon loop, the four-gluon loop, and even massless quarks also contribute to the infrared analysis. In our new Landau gauge truncation, the combination of gluon and ghost loop contributions seems to reject infrared power law solutions, but massless quark loops illustrate how additional contributions to the gluon vacuum polarization could reinstate these solutions. Moreover, a schematic study of the three-gluon and four-gluon loops shows that they too need to be considered in more detail before a definite conclusion about the existence of infrared power behaved gluon and ghost propagators can be reached.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Ligand and membrane-binding behavior of the phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins PITPα and β

Phosphatidylinositol transfer proteins (PITPs) are believed to be lipid transfer proteins due to their ability to transfer either PI or PC between membrane compartments in vitro. However, the detailed mechanism of this transfer process is not fully established. To further understand the transfer mechanism of PITPs we examined the interaction of PITPs with membranes using dual polarization interferometry (DPI) which measures protein binding affinity on a flat immobilized lipid surface. In addition, a fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)-based assay was also employed to monitor how quickly PITPs transfer their ligands to lipid vesicles. DPI analysis revealed that PITPβ had a higher affinity to membranes compared to PITPα. Furthermore, the FRET-based transfer assay revealed that PITPβ has a higher ligand transfer rate compared to PITPα. However, both PITPα and PITPβ demonstrated a preference for highly curved membrane surfaces during ligand transfer. In other words, ligand transfer rate was higher when the accepting vesicles were highly curved

Even Between-Lap Pacing Despite High Within-Lap Variation During Mountain Biking

Purpose: Given the paucity of research on pacing strategies during competitive events, this study examined changes in dynamic high-resolution performance parameters to analyze pacing profiles during a multiple-lap mountain-bike race over variable terrain. Methods: A global-positioning-system (GPS) unit (Garmin, Edge 305, USA) recorded velocity (m/s), distance (m), elevation (m), and heart rate at 1 Hz from 6 mountain-bike riders (mean ± SD age = 27.2 ± 5.0 y, stature = 176.8 ± 8.1 cm, mass = 76.3 ± 11.7 kg, VO2max = 55.1 ± 6.0 mL · kg–1 . min–1) competing in a multilap race. Lap-by-lap (interlap) pacing was analyzed using a 1-way ANOVA for mean time and mean velocity. Velocity data were averaged every 100 m and plotted against race distance and elevation to observe the presence of intralap variation. Results: There was no significant difference in lap times (P = .99) or lap velocity (P = .65) across the 5 laps. Within each lap, a high degree of oscillation in velocity was observed, which broadly reflected changes in terrain, but high-resolution data demonstrated additional nonmonotonic variation not related to terrain. Conclusion: Participants adopted an even pace strategy across the 5 laps despite rapid adjustments in velocity during each lap. While topographical and technical variations of the course accounted for some of the variability in velocity, the additional rapid adjustments in velocity may be associated with dynamic regulation of self-paced exercise

Multiplicative renormalizability and quark propagator

The renormalized Dyson-Schwinger equation for the quark propagator is studied, in Landau gauge, in a novel truncation which preserves multiplicative renormalizability. The renormalization constants are formally eliminated from the integral equations, and the running coupling explicitly enters the kernels of the new equations. To construct a truncation which preserves multiplicative renormalizability, and reproduces the correct leading order perturbative behavior, non-trivial cancellations involving the full quark-gluon vertex are assumed in the quark self-energy loop. A model for the running coupling is introduced, with infrared fixed point in agreement with previous Dyson-Schwinger studies of the gauge sector, and with correct logarithmic tail. Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking is investigated, and the generated quark mass is of the order of the extension of the infrared plateau of the coupling, and about three times larger than in the Abelian approximation, which violates multiplicative renormalizability. The generated scale is of the right size for hadronic phenomenology, without requiring an infrared enhancement of the running coupling.Comment: 17 pages; minor corrections, comparison to lattice results added; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.