The role of tobacco taxes in starting and quitting smoking

The annual five per cent in real terms increase in tobacco taxes proposed in the recent White Paper on smoking has reaffirmed the commitment of successive United Kingdom governments to above inflation increases in tobacco taxation to encourage people to stop smoking. This paper presents evidence on the determinants of starting and quitting smoking using data from the British 'Health and Lifestyle Survey' and is the first to identify tax elasticities for starting and quitting smoking using British data. Self-reported individual smoking histories are coupled with a long time series for the tax rate on cigarettes to construct a longitudinal data set. Estimates are obtained for the impact of above inflation tax rises on the age of starting smoking and the number of years of smoking. The estimates of the tax elasticity of the age of starting smoking are +0.16 for men and +0.08 for women. The estimates of the tax elasticity of quitting are - 0.60 for men and -0.46 for women. These are robust to different specifications.Smoking initiation and cessation; Tobacco taxes; Duration analysis.

Illinois Forest Game Investigations W-87-R-9, Quarterly Federal Aid Performance Report 1 July - 30 September 1987

Quarterly Federal Aid Performance Report W-87-R-9, 1 July - 30 September 1987; Study No. VII-D Harvest Strategies for Illinois Deer Herds, Urban Deer StudyReport issued on: September 30, 1987INHS Technical Report prepared for unspecified recipien

Exclusive J/ψJ/\psi and Υ\Upsilon photoproduction and the low xx gluon

We study exclusive vector meson photoproduction, $\gamma p \to V + p$ with $V=J/\psi$ or $\Upsilon$, at NLO in collinear factorisation, in order to examine what may be learnt about the gluon distribution at very low $x$. We examine the factorisation scale dependence of the predictions. We argue that, using knowledge of the NLO corrections, terms enhanced by a large $\ln(1/\xi)$ can be reabsorbed in the LO part by a choice of the factorisation scale. (In these exclusive processes $\xi$ takes the role of Bjorken-$x$.) Then, the scale dependence coming from the remaining NLO contributions has no $\ln(1/\xi)$ enhancements. As a result, we find that predictions for the amplitude of $\Upsilon$ production are stable to within about $\pm 15\%$. This will allow data for the exclusive process $p p \to p\Upsilon p$ at the LHC, particularly from LHCb, to be included in global parton analyses to constrain the gluon PDF down to $x\sim 10^{-5}$. Moreover, the study of exclusive $J/\psi$ photoproduction indicates that the gluon density found in the recent global PDF analyses is too small at low $x$ and low scales.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures. Text significantly improved, references added, version to be published in J.Phys.

Short-term Response of Holcus lanatus L. (Common Velvetgrass) to Chemical and Manual Control at Yosemite National Park, USA

One of the highest priority invasive species at both Yosemite and Sequoia and Kings Canyon national parks is Holcus lanatus L. (common velvetgrass), a perennial bunchgrass that invades mid-elevation montane meadows. Despite velvetgrass being a high priority species, there is little information available on control techniques. The goal of this project was to evaluate the short-term response of a single application of common chemical and manual velvetgrass control techniques. The study was conducted at three montane sites in Yosemite National Park. Glyphosate spotspray treatments were applied at 0.5, 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0% concentrations, and compared with hand pulling to evaluate effects on cover of common velvetgrass, cover of other plant species, and community species richness. Posttreatment year 1 cover of common velvetgrass was 12.1% 6 1.6 in control plots, 6.3% 6 1.5 averaged over the four chemical treatments (all chemical treatments performed similarly), and 13.6% 6 1.7 for handpulled plots. This represents an approximately 50% reduction in common velvetgrass cover in chemically- treated plots recoded posttreatment year 1 and no statistically significant reduction in hand pulled plots compared with controls. However, there was no treatment effect in posttreatment year 2, and all herbicide application rates performed similarly. In addition, there were no significant treatment effects on nontarget species or species richness. These results suggest that for this level of infestation and habitat type, (1) one year of hand pulling is not an effective control method and (2) glyphosate provides some level of control in the short-term without impact to nontarget plant species, but the effect is temporary as a single year of glyphosate treatment is ineffective over a twoyear period

Patient perceptions regarding benefits of single visit scale and polish : a randomised controlled trial

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The non-linear transient behavior of second, third and fourth order phase-locked loops

Non-linear transient behavior of second, third, and fourth order phase-locked loop

Measurement of the azimuthal angle dependence of inclusive jet yields in Pb+Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Measurements of the variation of inclusive jet suppression as a function of relative azimuthal angle, Δϕ, with respect to the elliptic event plane provide insight into the path-length dependence of jet quenching. ATLAS has measured the Δϕ dependence of jet yields in 0.14  nb-1 of √sNN=2.76  TeV Pb+Pb collisions at the LHC for jet transverse momenta pT>45  GeV in different collision centrality bins using an underlying event subtraction procedure that accounts for elliptic flow. The variation of the jet yield with Δϕ was characterized by the parameter, v2jet, and the ratio of out-of-plane (Δϕ∼π/2) to in-plane (Δϕ∼0) yields. Nonzero v2jet values were measured in all centrality bins for pT<160  GeV. The jet yields are observed to vary by as much as 20% between in-plane and out-of-plane directions

Measurement of the production cross section of prompt J/ψ mesons in association with a W± boson in pp collisions at p s = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The process pp → W±J/ψ provides a powerful probe of the production mechanism of charmonium in hadronic collisions, and is also sensitive to multiple parton interactions in the colliding protons. Using the 2011 ATLAS dataset of 4.5 fb-1 of p s = 7TeV pp collisions at the LHC, the first observation is made of the production of W± + prompt J/ events in hadronic collisions, using W± → μ and J/ψ → μ+μ-. A yield of 27.4±7.5 -6.5 W± + prompt J/ψ events is observed, with a statistical significance of 5.1. The production rate as a ratio to the inclusive W± boson production rate is measured, and the double parton scattering contribution to the cross section is estimated

Search for direct third-generation squark pair production in final states with missing transverse momentum and two b-jets in √s=8 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

The results of a search for pair production of supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model third-generation quarks are reported. This search uses 20.1 fb−1 of pp collisions at √s=8 TeV collected by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. The lightest bottom and top squarks ( b˜1 and t˜1 respectively) are searched for in a final state with large missing transverse momentum and two jets identified as originating from b-quarks. No excess of events above the expected level of Standard Model background is found. The results are used to set upper limits on the visible cross section for processes beyond the Standard Model. Exclusion limits at the 95 % confidence level on the masses of the third-generation squarks are derived in phenomenological supersymmetric R-parity-conserving models in which either the bottom or the top squark is the lightest squark. The b˜1 is assumed to decay via b˜1→b∼χ01 and the t˜1 via t˜1→b∼χ1± , with undetectable products of the subsequent decay of the ∼χ1± due to the small mass splitting between the ∼χ1± and the ∼χ01