Does the UK Local Finance Improvement Trust (Lift)Initiative Improve Risk Management in Public-Private Procurement?

The UK government introduced the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) and, latterly, the Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) in an attempt to improve public service provision. As a variant of PFI, LIFT seeks to create a framework for the effective provision of primary care facilities. Like conventional PFI procurement, LIFT projects involve long-term contracts, complex multi-party interactions and thus create various risks to public sector clients. This paper investigates the advantages and disadvantages of LIFT with a focus on how this approach facilitates or impedes risk management from the public sector client perspective. Our paper concludes that LIFT has a potential for creating additional problems, including the further reduction of public sector control, conflicts of interest, the inappropriate use of enabling funds, and higher than market rental costs affecting the uptake of space in the buildings by local health care providers. However, there is also evidence that LIFT has facilitated new investment and that Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) have themselves started addressing some of the weaknesses of this procurement format through the bundling of projects and other forms of regional co-operation

Income Rank and Upward Comparisons

Many studies have argued that relative income predicts individual well-being. More recently, it has been suggested that the relative rank of an individual’s income, rather than how that income compares to a mean or reference income, is important. Here the relative rank hypothesis is examined along with the additional hypothesis that individuals compare their incomes predominantly with those of slightly higher earners. A study of over 12,000 British adults using the British Household Panel Survey (a) confirms the importance of rank and (b) finds evidence that individuals compare upwards and to those most similar. This paper appears to be the first to show in fixed effect well-being equations that the influence of rank is more important than the influence of relative pay.Rank ; social comparison ; life satisfaction ; relative income ; BHPS

The relationship between particle freeze-out distributions and HBT radius parameters

The relationship between pion and kaon space-time freeze-out distributions and the HBT radius parameters in high-energy nucleus-nucleus collisions is investigated. We show that the HBT radius parameters in general do not reflect the R.M.S. deviations of the single particle production points. Instead, the HBT radius parameters are most closely related to the curvature of the two-particle space-time relative position distribution at the origin. We support our arguments by studies with a dynamical model (RQMD 2.4).Comment: RevTex, 10 pages including 3 figures. v2: Discussion of the lambda parameter has been added. PRC, in prin

A rank based social norms model of how people judge their levels of drunkenness whilst intoxicated

Background: A rank based social norms model predicts that drinkers’ judgements about their drinking will be based on the rank of their breath alcohol level amongst that of others in the immediate environment, rather than their actual breath alcohol level, with lower relative rank associated with greater feelings of safety. This study tested this hypothesis and examined how people judge their levels of drunkenness and the health consequences of their drinking whilst they are intoxicated in social drinking environments. Methods: Breath alcohol testing of 1,862 people (mean age = 26.96 years; 61.86 % male) in drinking environments. A subset (N = 400) also answered four questions asking about their perceptions of their drunkenness and the health consequences of their drinking (plus background measures). Results: Perceptions of drunkenness and the health consequences of drinking were regressed on: (a) breath alcohol level, (b) the rank of the breath alcohol level amongst that of others in the same environment, and (c) covariates. Only rank of breath alcohol level predicted perceptions: How drunk they felt (b 3.78, 95 % CI 1.69 5.87), how extreme they regarded their drinking that night (b 3.7, 95 % CI 1.3 6.20), how at risk their long-term health was due to their current level of drinking (b 4.1, 95 % CI 0.2 8.0) and how likely they felt they would experience liver cirrhosis (b 4.8. 95 % CI 0.7 8.8). People were more influenced by more sober others than by more drunk others. Conclusion: Whilst intoxicated and in drinking environments, people base judgements regarding their drinking on how their level of intoxication ranks relative to that of others of the same gender around them, not on their actual levels of intoxication. Thus, when in the company of others who are intoxicated, drinkers were found to be more likely to underestimate their own level of drinking, drunkenness and associated risks. The implications of these results, for example that increasing the numbers of sober people in night time environments could improve subjective assessments of drunkenness, are discussed

Probing Transport Theories via Two-Proton Source Imaging

Imaging technique is applied to two-proton correlation functions to extract quantitative information about the space-time properties of the emitting source and about the fraction of protons that can be attributed to fast emission mechanisms. These new analysis techniques resolve important ambiguities that bedeviled prior comparisons between measured correlation functions and those calculated by transport theory. Quantitative comparisons to transport theory are presented here. The results of the present analysis differ from those reported previously for the same reaction systems. The shape of the two-proton emitting sources are strongly sensitive to the details about the in-medium nucleon-nucleon cross sections and their density dependence.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures. Figures are in GIF format. If you need postscript format, please contact: [email protected]

Magnetic free energy at elevated temperatures and hysteresis of magnetic particles

We derive a free energy for weakly anisotropic ferromagnets which is valid in the whole temperature range and interpolates between the micromagnetic energy at zero temperature and the Landau free energy near the Curie point T_c. This free energy takes into account the change of the magnetization length due to thermal effects, in particular, in the inhomogeneous states. As an illustration, we study the thermal effect on the Stoner-Wohlfarth curve and hysteresis loop of a ferromagnetic nanoparticle assuming that it is in a single-domain state. Within this model, the saddle point of the particle's free energy, as well as the metastability boundary, are due to the change in the magnetization length sufficiently close to T_c, as opposed to the usual homogeneous rotation process at lower temperatures.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

The installation and operation of a production scale membrane filtration system to treat and reuse waste water from a dyehouse

The waste water from the dyeing of cotton and poly-cotton blends is characterized by high levels of salts and color. The discharged salts are felt to contribute to effluent toxicity and the color is aesthetically unacceptable in the receiving streams. The system of selective membrane filtration offers a method to address both of these problems. By treating only the waste water having the most color and salt concentration, the expensive membrane equipment can be considerably downsized. The volume of the color to be removed is drastically reduced as filtrate material. At these low volumes of color more economical means of removal can be employed. The membranes are designed so that the color and other pollutant materials are rejected but the salt solution is allowed to pass through the membrane. This produces clean water containing the recovered salt suitable for reuse, greatly reducing the salt content of the effluent. After the successful completion of a small pilot scale system, the installation and operation of a production sized system was desired prior to the full incorporation of this technology

Imaging Sources with Fast and Slow Emission Components

We investigate two-proton correlation functions for reactions in which fast dynamical and slow evaporative proton emission are both present. In such cases, the width of the correlation peak provides the most reliable information about the source size of the fast dynamical component. The maximum of the correlation function is sensitive to the relative yields from the slow and fast emission components. Numerically inverting the correlation function allows one to accurately disentangle fast dynamical from slow evaporative emission and extract details of the shape of the two-proton source.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

The Other (Muscarinic) Acetylcholine Receptors in Sympathetic Ganglia: Actions and Mechanisms

Acetylcholine released from preganglionic sympathetic fibers can activate two types of acetylcholine receptors in sympathetic neurons, nicotinic and muscarinic. The former are ligand-gated ion channels responsible for direct synaptic transmission; the latter are G protein-coupled receptorsthat mediate variousindirect modulatory effects. Most mammalian sympathetic neurons express three muscarinic receptor subtypes, M1, M2, and M4; some also express M3 receptors. Activation of M1 receptors stimulates the G protein Gq and causes a slow postsynaptic depolarization and an increase in the excitability, ultimately leading to an asynchronous action potential discharge, which can “break through” the nicotinic ganglion block. This is largely mediated by closure of voltage-gated K+ channels (the M channels) composed of Kv7.2 and Kv7.3 subunits and results from hydrolysis and depletion of membrane phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate. Activation of M2 receptors hyperpolarizes and inhibits the postsynaptic neuron by opening G protein-gated inwardly-rectifying Kir K+ channels via the G protein Gi. M4 receptors inhibit N-type (CaV(2)) calcium channels via the G protein Go. In the postganglionic neuron somata, this enhances the excitability by reducing calcium-dependent potassium currents. Conversely, in postganglionic processes and axon terminals, CaV(2)-mediated inhibition reduces norepinephrine release and inhibits postganglionic transmission. Different muscarinic receptors may be anatomically segregated with their cognate G proteins and (in some cases) ion channels in signalling microdomains.Ацетилхолін, котрий вивільнюється з прегангліонарних волокон, може активувати в симпатичних гангліях ацетилхолінові рецептори двох типів – нікотинові та мускаринові. Перші з них мають лігандкеровані іонні канали, відповідальні за пряму синаптичну передачу; другі ж є рецепторами, зв’язаними з G-протеїнами, та опосередковують різні непрямі модуляторні ефекти. У більшості симпатичних нейронів ссавців експресуються мускаринові рецептори трьох підтипів – M1, M2 та M4; у деяких також експресуються рецептори підтипу M3. Активація рецепторів M1 зумовлює стимуляцію G-протеїну Gq; це викликає повільну деполяризацію постсинаптичного нейрона та підвищення його збудливості, що, кінець кінцем, призводить до генерації асинхронного розряду потенціалів дії. Така генерація може проривати „нікотинове” блокування ганглія. Цей ефект в основному опосередковується закриванням потенціалкерованих калієвих М-каналів, що складаються із субодиниць Kv7.2 та Kv7.3, завдяки гідролізу та вичерпанню запасів мембранного фосфатидилінозитол-4,5-бісфосфату. Активація рецепторів M2 призводить до гіперполяризації та гальмування постсинаптичного нейрона в результаті відкривання G-протеїнкерованих калієвих каналів внутрішнього випрямлення Kir, опосередкованого G-протеїном Gi. Рецептори M4 гальмують кальцієві канали N-типу CaV(2); ефект опосередковується G-протеїном Go. У сомах постгангліонарних нейронів це зумовлює збільшення збудливості (через зменшення кальційзалежних калієвих струмів). У відростках постгангліонарних нейронів та аксонних терміналях, навпаки, CaV(2)-опосередковане гальмуванням зменшує вивільнення норепінефрину та пригнічує постгангліонарну передачу. Різні мускаринові рецептори можуть бути анатомічно відокремленими одні від інших завдяки локалізації їх споріднених G-протеїнів та (у деяких випадках) іонних каналів у різних сигнальних мікродоменах

Effects of Crude and Diesel Oil Spills on Plant Communities at Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, and the Derivation of Oil Spill Sensitivity Maps

Crude oil was spilled on six of the major Prudhoe Bay plant communities at an intensity of 12 l/m². The communities occurred along a topographic-moisture gradient. The reaction of the major species of the various communities was recorded one year following the spills. Sedges and willows showed substantial recovery from crude oil spills. Mosses, lichens, and most dicotyledons showed little or no recovery. On a very wet plot with standing water, the vegetation showed total recovery one year following the spill. Dry plots, on the other hand, showed very poor recovery. Dryas integrifolia M. Vahl, the most important vascular species on dry sites, was killed. Identical experiments using diesel oil rather than crude oil showed all species except an aquatic moss to be killed. A sensitivity index for the communities was calculated on the basis of the percentage cover of the resistant species divided by the original total plant cover of the community. With this information an oil spill sensitivity map for an area of Prudhoe Bay was constructed using a vegetation map as a base. Using the crude oil data from Prudhoe Bay together with some from the literature, a predictive sensitivity map was also constructed for an accidental crude oil spill at nearby Franklin Bluffs. In this example all the community types are considered to have moderate to excellent recovery potential. Implications of the experiments and the mapping exercises for oil spill contingency planning are discussed