Catching crabs: a case study in local-scale English conservation

Wells-next-the-Sea and Cromer in Norfolk (England) both rely upon their local crab populations, since crabbing (gillying) is a major part of their tourist industry. Compared to a control site with no crabbing, crabs from Wells harbour and Cromer pier were found to have nearly six times the amount of limb damage. Crabs caught by the general public had more injuries than crabs caught in controlled conditions, suggesting the buckets in which the crabs were kept were to blame. Since there is much evidence that such injuries have negative impacts on the survival and reproductive success of the shore crab, this is taken as evidence of non-lethal injury from humans having a population-level effect on these animals. Questionnaire data demonstrated a public lack of awareness and want for information, which was then used to obtain funding to produce a leaflet campaign informing the public of how to crab responsibly. All data collected is available online at http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.979288

Mixing with the radiofrequency single-electron transistor

By configuring a radio-frequency single-electron transistor as a mixer, we demonstrate a unique implementation of this device, that achieves good charge sensitivity with large bandwidth about a tunable center frequency. In our implementation we achieve a measurement bandwidth of 16 MHz, with a tunable center frequency from 0 to 1.2 GHz, demonstrated with the transistor operating at 300 mK. Ultimately this device is limited in center frequency by the RC time of the transistor's center island, which for our device is ~ 1.6 GHz, close to the measured value. The measurement bandwidth is determined by the quality factor of the readout tank circuit.Comment: Submitted to APL september 200

Patient attitudes towards analgesia and their openness to non-pharmacological methods such as acupuncture in the emergency department

Aims: To investigate patient attitudes to analgesia, opioids and non-pharmacological analgesia including acupuncture, in the ED. Methods: ED patients with pain were surveyed regarding: pain scores, satisfaction, addiction concern, non-pharmacological methods of pain relief, and acupuncture. Data were analysed using logistic regression. Results: Of 196 adult patients, 52.8% were ‘very satisfied’ with analgesia. Most patients (84.7%) would accept non-pharmacological methods including acupuncture (68.9%) and 78.6% were not concerned about addiction. Satisfaction was associated with male gender, and ‘adequate analgesia’ but not with opioids. Conclusion: Most patients were generally satisfied with ED analgesia and were open to non-pharmacologic analgesia including acupuncture

Correlation and prediction of dynamic human isolated joint strength from lean body mass

A relationship between a person's lean body mass and the amount of maximum torque that can be produced with each isolated joint of the upper extremity was investigated. The maximum dynamic isolated joint torque (upper extremity) on 14 subjects was collected using a dynamometer multi-joint testing unit. These data were reduced to a table of coefficients of second degree polynomials, computed using a least squares regression method. All the coefficients were then organized into look-up tables, a compact and convenient storage/retrieval mechanism for the data set. Data from each joint, direction and velocity, were normalized with respect to that joint's average and merged into files (one for each curve for a particular joint). Regression was performed on each one of these files to derive a table of normalized population curve coefficients for each joint axis, direction, and velocity. In addition, a regression table which included all upper extremity joints was built which related average torque to lean body mass for an individual. These two tables are the basis of the regression model which allows the prediction of dynamic isolated joint torques from an individual's lean body mass

Accuracy of Probabilistic Linkage Using the Enhanced Matching System for Public Health and Epidemiological Studies

The Enhanced Matching System (EMS) is a probabilistic record linkage program developed by the tuberculosis section at Public Health England to match data for individuals across two datasets. This paper outlines how EMS works and investigates its accuracy for linkage across public health datasets

How is ethnicity reported, described, and analysed in health research in the UK? A bibliographical review and focus group discussions with young refugees

Background: The ethnicity data gap pertains to 3 major challenges to address ethnic health inequality: 1) Under-representation of ethnic minorities in research; 2) Poor data quality on ethnicity; 3) Ethnicity data not being meaningfully analysed. These challenges are especially relevant for research involving under-served migrant populations in the UK. We aimed to review how ethnicity is captured, reported, analysed and theorised within policy-relevant research on ethnic health inequities. Methods: We reviewed a selection of the 1% most highly cited population health papers that reported UK data on ethnicity, and extracted how ethnicity was recorded and analysed in relation to health outcomes. We focused on how ethnicity was obtained (i.e. self reported or not), how ethnic groups were categorised, whether justification was provided for any categorisation, and how ethnicity was theorised to be related to health. We held three 1-h-long guided focus groups with 10 young people from Nigeria, Turkistan, Syria, Yemen and Iran. This engagement helped us shape and interpret our findings, and reflect on. 1) How should ethnicity be asked inclusively, and better recorded? 2) Does self-defined ethnicity change over time or context? If so, why? Results: Of the 44 included papers, most (19; 43%) used self-reported ethnicity, categorised in a variety of ways. Of the 27 papers that aggregated ethnicity, 13 (48%) provided justification. Only 8 of 33 papers explicitly theorised how ethnicity related to health. The focus groups agreed that 1) Ethnicity should not be prescribed by others; individuals could be asked to describe their ethnicity in free-text which researchers could synthesise to extract relevant dimensions of ethnicity for their research; 2) Ethnicity changes over time and context according to personal experience, social pressure, and nationality change; 3) Migrants and non-migrants’ lived experience of ethnicity is not fully inter-changeable, even if they share the same ethnic category. Conclusions: Ethnicity is a multi-dimensional construct, but this is not currently reflected in UK health research studies, where ethnicity is often aggregated and analysed without justification. Researchers should communicate clearly how ethnicity is operationalised for their study, with appropriate justification for clustering and analysis that is meaningfully theorised. We can only start to tackle ethnic health inequity by treating ethnicity as rigorously as any other variables in our research

Creating a climate in which students can flourish: A whole school intercultural approach

This article reports part of an ongoing process that is taking place at one high school. With the vision of an inclusive school in which all students could flourish, the school deliberately set out to develop a culture in which the students would feel welcome, connected and have a sense of belonging. This article focuses on, first, how the school, with a culturally-diverse student population, implemented a whole school intercultural approach aimed at improving students’ views of the school climate and, second, the impact that this had on students’ perceptions of the school climate and their self-reports of wellbeing, resilience and identity. These results indicated that, at the end of the 18 month period, students’ perceptions of the school climate were statistically significantly higher for four of the six school climate scales. Further, students’ scored statistically higher in terms of their wellbeing, resilience, self-anchoring and moral identity

A Survey of Post Student Teacher Appraisal of the Course, Elementary School Methods and Materials, at the University of Northern Iowa

Elementary School Methods and Materials is a course which represents a major part of the professional semester and occupies a strategic position in the sequence of the elementary education major at the University of Northern Iowa. Those who plan course content make every effort to coordinate the theoretical aspects of the teaching process with practical classroom application. Though there has been a great deal of freedom for students to choose projects which meet their particular needs, interests, and personalities, it is considered that there exists a common core of knowledges and understandings which contribute background for the teaching task. By making choices for projects and activities from the required experiences it has been expected that the student is helped to develop himself personally, academically, and professionally. To determine which experiences are significant and should be included in the common course requirements, many factors are considered. One source of information has been from informal interviews with students who have completed both the professional semester and the supervised teaching experience. The present survey was intended. to contribute an organized appraisal by students of the content of the course, Elementary School Methods and Materials, to be used by the staff as new directions a.re considered

Applications of graphics to support a testbed for autonomous space vehicle operations

Researchers describe their experience using graphics tools and utilities while building an application, AUTOPS, that uses a graphical Machintosh (TM)-like interface for the input and display of data, and animation graphics to enhance the presentation of results of autonomous space vehicle operations simulations. AUTOPS is a test bed for evaluating decisions for intelligent control systems for autonomous vehicles. Decisions made by an intelligent control system, e.g., a revised mission plan, might be displayed to the user in textual format or he can witness the effects of those decisions via out of window graphics animations. Although a textual description conveys essentials, a graphics animation conveys the replanning results in a more convincing way. Similarily, iconic and menu-driven screen interfaces provide the user with more meaningful options and displays. Presented here are experiences with the SunView and TAE Plus graphics tools used for interface design, and the Johnson Space Center Interactive Graphics Laboratory animation graphics tools used for generating out out of the window graphics