The importance of the express delivery industry for the East Midlands economy

This report assesses the importance of the express delivery industry for the economy of the East Midlands. It complements a similar report looking at the economic importance of the express industry for the UK as a whole. As well as quantifying the direct economic contribution made by companies in the express industry to employment and Gross Value Added (GVA) in the East Midlands, it also considers the importance of express services to businesses in other sectors in the region based on a detailed survey of 75 companies (a sample that we consider is appropriate to a study of this type and robust enough to help highlight key trends). This survey illustrates the contribution that the express industry makes to the capabilities and competitiveness of other sectors of the East Midlands economy

The effectiveness of Atraumatic Restorative Treatment versus conventional restorative treatment for permanent molars and premolars A critical assessment of existing systematic reviews and report of a new systematic review

Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Available for download at: http://mahara.qmul.ac.uk/view/view.php?id=16447Background: Atraumatic Restorative Treatment (ART) is the removal of caries using hand instruments and restoration of the resulting cavity using an adhesive restorative material. It was designed to restore teeth in communities without access to conventional dental clinics in poorer countries but has come to be used by dentists in the developed world too, as an alternative to conventional restorative treatment. Objectives: 1) to assess the scope and the methodological and reporting quality of existing systematic reviews of the effectiveness of ART compared to conventional restorative treatment; 2) to evaluate the effectiveness of ART compared to conventional treatment in permanent teeth with class I and II cavities. Methods: Searches: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: Electronic searches were conducted of OVID Medline, OVID Embase, The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR), the Centre for Reviews and Dissemination (CRD) databases (DARE, NHSEED and HTA), Google Scholar, and the CNKI and CAOD Chinese databases; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: the above searches were supplemented by searches of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), LILAC, BBO, IMEAR (WHO Index Medicus for South East Region), WPRIM (WHO Western Pacific Region Index Medicus) and IndMed, Current Controlled Trials, Clinical Trials, OpenSIGLE, IADR conference abstracts and NLM Gateway. Hand searches were conducted of six dental journals known to have reported ART studies. References from retrieved systematic reviews, trials and other related papers were searched for additional reports. Authors were contacted. There were no language restrictions. Selection criteria: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: systematic reviews that compared ART to conventional treatment for the restoration of dental cavities; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: randomised controlled trials that compared ART using any adhesive material to conventional treatment using amalgam or any adhesive material Data collection: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: Reviews were selected and data was extracted by a single reviewer using a custom made data extraction sheet. Scope was assessed in terms of materials used, teeth and cavity type. Methodological quality was assessed using AMSTAR. Reporting quality was assessed using the PRISMA guidelines; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: reports of trials were screened and selected independently by two reviewers and data would have been extracted on a custom made data extraction sheet had there been eligible trials. Results: 1) for the assessment of existing systematic reviews: three systematic reviews were identified. Two of these were restricted to comparing ART with glass-ionomer to conventional treatment with amalgam; two allowed for inclusion of all cavity types in both deciduous and permanent teeth. None was of high methodological quality and reporting quality was good in one of the reviews only; 2) for the systematic reviews of ART in permanent teeth: no eligible trials were identified. Author’s conclusions: 1) existing systematic reviews do not have sufficient scope to allow for the inclusion of potentially eligible trials that would assess ARTs effectiveness and they have been of high to medium risk of bias; 2) it is disappointing that there are no properly conducted randomised controlled trials comparing ART to conventional treatment in class I and II cavities in the permanent dentition

The Kelly criterion for spread bets

The optimal betting strategy for a gambler betting on a discrete number of outcomes was determined by Kelly (1956, A new interpretation of information rate. J. Oper. Res. Soc., 57, 975–985). Here, the corresponding problem is examined for spread betting, which may be considered to have a continuous distribution of possible outcomes. Since the formulae for individual events are complicated, the asymptotic limit in which the gamblers edge is small is examined, which results in universal formulae for the optimal fraction of the bank to wager, the probability of bankruptcy and the distribution function of the gamblers total capital

Oxford High School Open House

https://egrove.olemiss.edu/ms_educ/1055/thumbnail.jp

Quench characteristics of a stabilizer-free 2G HTS conductor

The prospect of medium/high field superconducting magnets using second generation (2G) HTS tapes is approaching reality with continued enhancement in the performance of these conductors. While the cryogenic stability and quench propagation are fundamental issues for the design and safe operation of superconducting magnets, there is insufficient understanding and experimental data for 2G HTS conductors, in particular for the high field scenario at low temperature (<77 K) where the current sharing regime is much larger than in low temperature superconductors. The present work includes a systematic characterization of the relevant thermal-electrical properties used for both qualitative discussion and numerical analysis. Direct measurements of one dimensional adiabatic quench initiation and propagation of a stabilizer-free 2G conductor have been carried out with spatial-temporal recording of temperature and voltage following the deposition of varying local heat pulses to the conductor at different temperatures between 30 K and 77 K carrying different transport currents. The minimum quench energy, and the heat generation in the minimum propagation zone (MPZ) have been obtained as a function of temperature and transport current. The results show quench features unique to HTS such as an increasing MPZ with transport current and higher quench energies at lower temperatures. The experimental results are discussed in the context of current sharing over a large temperature range

Inclusion, Contrast and Polysemy in Dictionaries: The Relationship between Theory, Language Use and Lexicographic Practice

This paper explores the lexicographic representation of a type of polysemy that arises when the meaning of one lexical item can either include or contrast with the meaning of another, as in the case of dog/bitch, shoe/boot, finger/thumb and animal/bird. A survey of how such pairs are represented in monolingual English dictionaries showed that dictionaries mostly represent as explicitly polysemous those lexical items whose broader and narrower readings are more distinctive and clearly separable in definitional terms. They commonly only represented the broader readings for terms that are in fact frequently used in the narrower reading, as shown by data from the British National Corpus

The effect of road crossings on northern Michigan stream morphology.

Rivers, Lakes, & WetlandsThe purpose of this study is to see if culverts at road crossings significantly alter stream characteristics and functionality, and to determine whether or not future building alternatives should be sought. I measured the flow, temperature, and dissolved oxygen of the water at three, 5-meter intervals before and after passing through the culvert and measurements inside the culvert as well to see if these impacts were distinguishable. This study suggests that culverts were indeed impacting these stream characteristics and some of those impacts were dependent on the characteristics of the culvert design. With these findings, my study suggests that this form of infrastructure alters these basic stream characteristics and should be investigated further to determine whether these alterations contribute to changes in sedimentation, habitat distribution, and overall function of the stream system as a whole.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89423/1/Oxford_Ryan_2011.pd

Book Review: Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough

Review of Empowering Migrant Women: Why Agency and Rights are not Enough by Leah Brione