Carcanet Press Email Preservation Project

Collecting institutions are increasingly facing the challenge of preserving `born digital' material when acquiring recent and contemporary archives. Interim solutions like printing important documents and correspondence to paper are clearly not feasible in the long-term. One of the most important modern archives held by the John Rylands Library is that of Carcanet Press, one of the UK's premier poetry publishing houses. Correspondence with famous poets, critics, editors, translators and artists forms one of the most important elements of this archive. Most of this correspondence is now conducted by email, with the result that the quantity of hard copy correspondence acquired in annual accruals to the archive has diminished significantly. It is therefore vital that libraries like the John Rylands Library are able to preserve these emails in digital form, in order to ensure that this invaluable primary research material is not lost to the archival record. This project aimed to tackle the challenge of capturing and preserving the email archive of Carcanet Press. Basing our work on both traditional archival practice and digital preservation standards, we used this email archive as a test-bed for practical digital preservation. We tested and assessed existing tools for metadata extraction, validation, migration, packaging and ingest. We also explored different long-term preservation formats for email to determine the most appropriate solution for our institutional context. Our preservation planning activities draw and build on the work of the InSPECT Project in identifying the `significant properties' of email. We also established documentation and workflows which can be adapted to deal with similar born-digital archives in the future. Due to data protection, sensitivity and copyright issues, our focus for this project was on preservation rather than access. However, we took into account and explored some of the ways in which researchers might access and use such a body of material in the future. This report sets out the project's findings

What enables and constrains the inclusion of the social determinants of health inequities in government policy agendas? A narrative review

Background: Despite decades of evidence gathering and calls for action, few countries have systematically attenuated health inequities (HI) through action on the social determinants of health (SDH). This is at least partly because doing so presents a significant political and policy challenge. This paper explores this challenge through a review of the empirical literature, asking: what factors have enabled and constrained the inclusion of the social determinants of health inequities (SDHI) in government policy agendas? Methods: A narrative review method was adopted involving three steps: first, drawing upon political science theories on agenda-setting, an integrated theoretical framework was developed to guide the review; second, a systematic search of scholarly databases for relevant literature; and third, qualitative analysis of the data and thematic synthesis of the results. Studies were included if they were empirical, met specified quality criteria, and identified factors that enabled or constrained the inclusion of the SDHI in government policy agendas. Results: A total of 48 studies were included in the final synthesis, with studies spanning a number of country-contexts and jurisdictional settings, and employing a diversity of theoretical frameworks. Influential factors included the ways in which the SDHI were framed in public, media and political discourse; emerging data and evidence describing health inequalities; limited supporting evidence and misalignment of proposed solutions with existing policy and institutional arrangements; institutionalised norms and ideologies (ie, belief systems) that are antithetical to a SDH approach including neoliberalism, the medicalisation of health and racism; civil society mobilization; leadership; and changes in government. Conclusion: A complex set of interrelated, context-dependent and dynamic factors influence the inclusion or neglect of the SDHI in government policy agendas. It is better to think about these factors as increasing (or decreasing) the ‘probability’ of health equity reaching a government agenda, rather than in terms of ‘necessity’ or ‘sufficiency.’ Understanding these factors may help advocates develop strategies for generating political priority for attenuating HI in the future

What Enables and Constrains the Inclusion of the Social Determinants of Health Inequities in Government Policy Agendas? A Narrative Review

Abstract Background: Despite decades of evidence gathering and calls for action, few countries have systematically attenuated health inequities (HI) through action on the social determinants of health (SDH). This is at least partly because doing so presents a significant political and policy challenge. This paper explores this challenge through a review of the empirical literature, asking: what factors have enabled and constrained the inclusion of the social determinants of health inequities (SDHI) in government policy agendas? Methods: A narrative review method was adopted involving three steps: first, drawing upon political science theories on agenda-setting, an integrated theoretical framework was developed to guide the review; second, a systematic search of scholarly databases for relevant literature; and third, qualitative analysis of the data and thematic synthesis of the results. Studies were included if they were empirical, met specified quality criteria, and identified factors that enabled or constrained the inclusion of the SDHI in government policy agendas. Results: A total of 48 studies were included in the final synthesis, with studies spanning a number of country-contexts and jurisdictional settings, and employing a diversity of theoretical frameworks. Influential factors included the ways in which the SDHI were framed in public, media and political discourse; emerging data and evidence describing health inequalities; limited supporting evidence and misalignment of proposed solutions with existing policy and institutional arrangements; institutionalised norms and ideologies (ie, belief systems) that are antithetical to a SDH approach including neoliberalism, the medicalisation of health and racism; civil society mobilization; leadership; and changes in government. Conclusion: A complex set of interrelated, context-dependent and dynamic factors influence the inclusion or neglect of the SDHI in government policy agendas. It is better to think about these factors as increasing (or decreasing) the ‘probability’ of health equity reaching a government agenda, rather than in terms of ‘necessity’ or ‘sufficiency.’ Understanding these factors may help advocates develop strategies for generating political priority for attenuating HI in the future

Equivalence of the Calogero-Sutherland Model to Free Harmonic Oscillators

A similarity transformation is constructed through which a system of particles interacting with inverse-square two-body and harmonic potentials in one dimension, can be mapped identically, to a set of free harmonic oscillators. This equivalence provides a straightforward method to find the complete set of eigenfunctions, the exact constants of motion and a linear $W_{1+\infty}$ algebra associated with this model. It is also demonstrated that a large class of models with long-range interactions, both in one and higher dimensions can be made equivalent to decoupled oscillators.Comment: 9 pages, REVTeX, Completely revised, few new equations and references are adde

A Unified Algebraic Approach to Few and Many-Body Correlated Systems

The present article is an extended version of the paper {\it Phys. Rev.} {\bf B 59}, R2490 (1999), where, we have established the equivalence of the Calogero-Sutherland model to decoupled oscillators. Here, we first employ the same approach for finding the eigenstates of a large class of Hamiltonians, dealing with correlated systems. A number of few and many-body interacting models are studied and the relationship between their respective Hilbert spaces, with that of oscillators, is found. This connection is then used to obtain the spectrum generating algebras for these systems and make an algebraic statement about correlated systems. The procedure to generate new solvable interacting models is outlined. We then point out the inadequacies of the present technique and make use of a novel method for solving linear differential equations to diagonalize the Sutherland model and establish a precise connection between this correlated system's wave functions, with those of the free particles on a circle. In the process, we obtain a new expression for the Jack polynomials. In two dimensions, we analyze the Hamiltonian having Laughlin wave function as the ground-state and point out the natural emergence of the underlying linear $W_{1+\infty}$ symmetry in this approach.Comment: 18 pages, Revtex format, To appear in Physical Review

Major flaws in conflict prevention policies towards Africa : the conceptual deficits of international actors’ approaches and how to overcome them

Current thinking on African conflicts suffers from misinterpretations oversimplification, lack of focus, lack of conceptual clarity, state-centrism and lack of vision). The paper analyses a variety of the dominant explanations of major international actors and donors, showing how these frequently do not distinguish with sufficient clarity between the ‘root causes’ of a conflict, its aggravating factors and its triggers. Specifically, a correct assessment of conflict prolonging (or sustaining) factors is of vital importance in Africa’s lingering confrontations. Broader approaches (e.g. “structural stability”) offer a better analytical framework than familiar one-dimensional explanations. Moreover, for explaining and dealing with violent conflicts a shift of attention from the nation-state towards the local and sub-regional level is needed.Aktuelle Analysen afrikanischer Gewaltkonflikte sind häufig voller Fehlinterpretationen (Mangel an Differenzierung, Genauigkeit und konzeptioneller Klarheit, Staatszentriertheit, fehlende mittelfristige Zielvorstellungen). Breitere Ansätze (z. B. das Modell der Strukturellen Stabilität) könnten die Grundlage für bessere Analyseraster und Politiken sein als eindimensionale Erklärungen. häufig differenzieren Erklärungsansätze nicht mit ausreichender Klarheit zwischen Ursachen, verschärfenden und auslösenden Faktoren. Insbesondere die richtige Einordnung konfliktverlängernder Faktoren ist in den jahrzehntelangen gewaltsamen Auseinandersetzungen in Afrika von zentraler Bedeutung. Das Diskussionspapier stellt die große Variationsbreite dominanter Erklärungsmuster der wichtigsten internationalen Geber und Akteure gegenüber und fordert einen Perspektivenwechsel zum Einbezug der lokalen und der subregionalen Ebene für die Erklärung und Bearbeitung gewaltsamer Konflikte

Media control: a case for privatization in transitional economies

The television market can be one of the most dynamic industries if country-specific regulations allow for private competitors to enter the market. The entry of competition changes the market from monopolistic to oligopolistic, which has positive performance implications for the industry. Our research analyzes the development of the Croatian TV market from the monopolistic stage to the current oligopolistic stage. Econometric models in this article aim to estimate the current trend of market concentration and its future potential. The authors’ research focusing on the industry from a market concentration perspective provides guidance for the practitioner in regard to profitable investment opportunities. They also illustrate for other transitional economies that to move toward a “free” society, media must be free from government control which will evolve rapidly once privatized. © 2016 Taylor & Francis

Effects of antiplatelet therapy on stroke risk by brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases: subgroup analyses of the RESTART randomised, open-label trial

Background Findings from the RESTART trial suggest that starting antiplatelet therapy might reduce the risk of recurrent symptomatic intracerebral haemorrhage compared with avoiding antiplatelet therapy. Brain imaging features of intracerebral haemorrhage and cerebral small vessel diseases (such as cerebral microbleeds) are associated with greater risks of recurrent intracerebral haemorrhage. We did subgroup analyses of the RESTART trial to explore whether these brain imaging features modify the effects of antiplatelet therapy

Visualization and Analysis of 3D Microscopic Images

In a wide range of biological studies, it is highly desirable to visualize and analyze three-dimensional (3D) microscopic images. In this primer, we first introduce several major methods for visualizing typical 3D images and related multi-scale, multi-time-point, multi-color data sets. Then, we discuss three key categories of image analysis tasks, namely segmentation, registration, and annotation. We demonstrate how to pipeline these visualization and analysis modules using examples of profiling the single-cell gene-expression of C. elegans and constructing a map of stereotyped neurite tracts in a fruit fly brain