European local authorities’ financial resilience in the face of austerity: a comparison across Austria, Italy and England

European local authorities have been particularly stricken by the current context of decline and cutback management, and represent an ideal place where to study how governments respond to shocks affecting their financial conditions and management. Along these lines, this paper adopt the perspective of financial resilience for looking at the current context of austerity, and related responses, by shedding new lights on the role of internal capacities and conditions in influencing such responses and, ultimately, performance. Through a multiple case study analysis based on 12 European local authorities in Austria, Italy and England, the paper identifies the main shocks perceived by local management, the related short-term and long-term responses, highlighting the dynamics of financial vulnerabilty, awareness, anticipatory capacity, flexibility and recovery ability (ie, financial resilience) in its interaction with the external context and shocks. From the analysis, four patterns of resilience emerge: pro-active resilience, adaptive resilience, passive/fatalist resilience, complacent resilience

Ultrahigh Energy Tau Neutrinos

We study ultrahigh energy astrophysical neutrinos and the contribution of tau neutrinos from neutrino oscillations, relative to the contribution of the other flavors. We show the effect of tau neutrino regeneration and tau energy loss as they propagate through the Earth. We consider a variety of neutrino fluxes, such as cosmogenic neutrinos and neutrinos that originate in Active Galactic Nuclei. We discuss signals of tau neutrinos in detectors such as IceCube, RICE and ANITA.Comment: Invited talk given at the ``8th Workshop on Non-Perturbative Quantum Chromodynamics", June 7-11, 2004, Paris, France; 10 pages, 6 figure

Calculation of the free-free transitions in the electron-hydrogen scattering S-wave model

The S-wave model of electron-hydrogen scattering is evaluated using the convergent close-coupling method with an emphasis on scattering from excited states including an initial state from the target continuum. Convergence is found for discrete excitations and the elastic free-free transition. The latter is particularly interesting given the corresponding potential matrix elements are divergent

Image-Optimized Coronal Magnetic Field Models

We have reported previously on a new method we are developing for using image-based information to improve global coronal magnetic field models. In that work we presented early tests of the method which proved its capability to improve global models based on flawed synoptic magnetograms, given excellent constraints on the field in the model volume. In this follow-up paper we present the results of similar tests given field constraints of a nature that could realistically be obtained from quality white-light coronagraph images of the lower corona. We pay particular attention to difficulties associated with the line-of-sight projection of features outside of the assumed coronagraph image plane, and the effect on the outcome of the optimization of errors in localization of constraints. We find that substantial improvement in the model field can be achieved with this type of constraints, even when magnetic features in the images are located outside of the image plane

Cross-correlation of the unresolved X-ray background with faint galaxies

At the faint end of the deepest X-ray surveys, a population of X-ray luminous galaxies is seen. In this paper, we present the results of a cross-correlation between the residual, unresolved X-ray photons in a very deep X-ray survey and the positions of faint galaxies, in order to examine the importance of these objects at even fainter flux levels. We measure a significant correlation on all angular scales up to ~1 arcmin. This signal could account for a significant fraction of the unresolved X-ray background, approximately 35 per cent if the clustering is similar to optically selected galaxies. However, the angular form of the correlation is seen to be qualitatively similar to that expected for clusters of galaxies and the X-ray emission could be associated with hot gas in clusters or with QSOs within galaxy clusters rather than emission from individual faint galaxies. The relative contribution from each of these possibilities cannot be determined with the current data.Comment: 7 pages LaTeX including 9 EPS figures. Uses mn.sty. Accepted for publication by MNRA

The conversation: developing confidence to provide end of life care in Salford nursing homes

The study was funded by the Burdett Trust for Nursing and partly by Salford Primary Care Trust. A realistic evaluation design was used to collect data using a range of approaches, from before and after surveys of confidence in delivering end of life care, to participant observation and interviews. A total of 43 people were interviewed involving both staff, residents and relatives. Key Messages a) Significant resources are needed to engage staff, residents and relatives/carers with the idea of advance care planning b) Care home staff are optimistic about involving residents and relatives in planning care at the end of life and some relatives become very involved in care c) Clearly registered nurses and other care home workers such as care assistants have different roles, but the overlap between these and the appropriate boundaries would benefit from further work d) Talking to residents and relatives about their feelings and wishes for care at the end of life remains especially difficult, but education and training in key skills and knowledge can engender both ability and motivation e) Care homes need strong and well-informed leadership in order to implement the Gold Standards Framework f) Placing a relative in a care home involves strain and an ability to compromise ‘there’s no perfect place’ g) Advance care planning can reduce the distress and the number of inappropriate hospital admissions, but is challenging in the face of staff rotation and out of hours medical staff being unpredictable h) The principles of the Gold Standards Framework are widely seen as sensible, but clinical challenges include diagnosing and predicting dying trajectories, especially in heart failure, chronic pulmonary disease and dementia i) A particular concern of staff is how to approach nutrition and hydration as frailty and death approach j) Communicating about diagnosis and especially prognosis with residents who lack capacity is an increasing problem k) Natural justice suggests that resources should be allocated to the general standardisation of a good quality of care at the end of life in ALL care homes whatever their Care Quality Commission ratin

Financial resilience in local authorities: an exploration of Anglo-Italian experiences

For more than thirty years public management and accounting theories and practice have been strongly influenced by the search for efficiency, heralded by the New Public Management and similar public sector modernization movements. Public administrations have focused their attention on economy, efficiency and effectiveness, looking for cost containment, matching resources and goals, output maximization or input minimization. Even the wave of development of performance measurement and management tools have mainly emphasized the importance of short-term efficiency, often without worrying too much about their ability to ensure public administrations’ responsiveness in the face of unexpected events and crises

SRF cavity geometry optimization for the ILC with minimized surface e.m. fields and superior bandwidth

The main linacs of the ILC consist of nine-cell cavities based on the TESLA design. In order to facilitate reaching higher gradients we have re-designed the cavity shape. This leads to a reduction, comparable to several current designs, in both the ratio of the surface electric field to the accelerating field (Es/Ea) and the magnetic field to the accelerating field (Bs/Ea). The bandwidth of the accelerating mode is also optimized. This new shape, which we refer to as the New Low Surface Field (NLSF) design, bears comparison with the Ichiro, Re-entrant and LSF designs.Comment: Presented at the 23rd Particle Accelerator Conference (PAC09) Vancouver, Canad