Legal Approaches to Promote Technological Solutions to Climate Change

Technological advancement is widely viewed as an essential component to any effective climate change strategy. However, there is no consensus as to the degree to which the law should promote technological innovation and development. This iBrief analyzes government involvement in encouraging such technology and divides the various policies into four categories. On one end are policies that rely mainly on market forces to encourage scientific advancement naturally, requiring minimal government involvement. A second category of policies involves technological development promoted indirectly through laws addressing climate change generally. A third type of policy involves directly offering government funding and financing for technological research and development. These three methods are currently the most popular means of encouraging scientific development in this field. Recently, however, there have been increasing calls for major government action of the scale of such programs as the Apollo Project. This iBrief classifies such proposals as a fourth category of policies encouraging technological solutions to climate change: the creation of institutional structures dedicated to bringing about rapid, radical technological advancements

Requirements of time management tools for outpatient physiotherapy practice

The effects of electronic appointment booking systems on the time management activities of health professionals have received little attention to date. We report on time management practices in three outpatient physiotherapy departments with different paper and electronic systems. The study has identified a set of time management activities and associated social behaviours common to physiotherapy departments. The convenience, flexibility and expressive nature of paper diary systems is of significant value to users, whilst the clarity and superior database functionality of electronic systems are valued by staff using this medium. The study highlights several potential barriers to the effective deployment of electronic booking systems in physiotherapy departments, including poor resource and training provision, concerns regarding restrictive diary control measures, the continued reliance on burdensome duplication procedures and the need to coordinate multiple information artefacts, which need to be addressed if such technology is to be successfully designed and deployed. Copyright © 2005 SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)

Studies on the orientation of ACEL ZnS:Cu particles in applied AC fields

This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.In the last sixty years the understanding of the mechanisms of alternating current electroluminescence (ACEL) in transition metaldoped zinc sulfides, in particular ZnS:Cu particles has been the goal of all workers in the field. An in depth understanding of the crystallography and uncommon hemimorphic nature of these particles has lead to some understanding as to mechanism of light emission under an alternating current field. Hydrochloric acid etching of ZnS:Cu particles has allowed an intimate study of the hemimorphic nature and high density of planar stacking faults present in the particles that are critical for ACEL to occur. This work using complimentary field emission scanning electron microscopy and digital optical microscopy shows that the alignment of the planar stacking faults of these particles relative to the applied electric field is critical for light emission. Perpendicular alignment of the stacking faults results in no emission of light; as the alignment gradually approaches parallel emission increases and at parallel reaches a maximum. Thus, for devices using these materials alignment of the particles with the electric field is most important to maximize light output. © 2013 The Electrochemical Society. All rights reserved

Arizona, A. elegans

Number of Pages: 4Integrative BiologyGeological Science

Moments of Dirichlet splines and their applications to hypergeometric functions

Dirichlet averages of multivariate functions are employed for a derivation of basic recurrence formulas for the moments of multivariate Dirichlet splines. An algorithm for computing the moments of multivariate simplex splines is presented. Applications to hypergeometric functions of several variables are discussed