Responding to the risk of reducing resources: development of a framework for future change programmes in environmental health services

Environmental Health services in the UK have been subject to significant resource reduction over the last 5 years. It is suggested that services risk becoming unsustainable unless efficient and effective ways of working are employed. With this in mind this paper presents the findings of research into the experience of practitioners who are developing and delivering evolving Environmental Health services in English local authorities in the context of deep cutting budget reductions. The research explores the experience of change and identifies lessons learnt in the development and execution of new models of Environmental Health service delivery to mitigate against risks of unsustainable or undeliverable services. Interviews were carried out with the participants to capture their experience of change and the impact on service delivery. A range of service delivery models have been examined including outsourcing, shared services, regional delivery models and discussion of mutual arrangements and at various stages of development from planning through to full transformation. Field work was undertaken between 2014 and 2016. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts has identified six emergent themes of the experience of change: managing changes effectively; understanding the reasons for change; understanding the nature of Environmental Health; meaningful consultation; viability of the proposal; planning and timeliness. Environmental Health services undergoing transformation may benefit from taking into account the lessons learnt by organisations that have previously undergone significant change in their response to the risk of a reducing resource. Keywords: Environmental Health; austerity; regulation; emerging risk; outsourcing; managing change

Responding to the risk of reducing resource: a study of the evolution of English environmental health services

Environmental Health services in the UK have been subject to significant resource reduction over the last 3 years. It is suggested that services risk becoming unsustainable unless efficient and effective ways of working are employed. With this in mind this paper presents the findings of research into the experience of practitioners who are developing and delivering evolving environmental health services in English local authorities in the context of deep cutting budget reductions. The research aims to explore the experience of change and identify lessons learnt in the development and execution of new models of environmental health service delivery to mitigate against risks of unsustainable or undeliverable services. Participants were chosen from a range of local authority officers, managers, commissioners and leading members of the professional body who have been closely involved in the planning and delivery stages of environmental health service changes. Interviews were carried out with the participants to capture their experience of change and the impact on service delivery. A range of service delivery models have been examined including outsourcing, shared services, regional delivery models and discussion of mutual arrangements and at various stages of development from planning through to full transformation. Field work was undertaken between June 2014 and November 2015. Thematic analysis of interview transcripts has identified six emergent themes of the experience of change: managing changes effectively; understanding the reasons for change; understanding the nature of environmental health; meaningful consultation; viability of the proposal; planning and timeliness. Environmental health services undergoing transformation may benefit from taking into account the lessons learnt by organisations that have previously undergone significant change in their response to the risk of a reducing resource. The emergent themes are being developed to provide a framework of lessons learnt for environmental health services to consider when making changes to their model of service delivery

Evaporation of a Kerr black hole by emission of scalar and higher spin particles

We study the evolution of an evaporating rotating black hole, described by the Kerr metric, which is emitting either solely massless scalar particles or a mixture of massless scalar and nonzero spin particles. Allowing the hole to radiate scalar particles increases the mass loss rate and decreases the angular momentum loss rate relative to a black hole which is radiating nonzero spin particles. The presence of scalar radiation can cause the evaporating hole to asymptotically approach a state which is described by a nonzero value of $a_* \equiv a / M$. This is contrary to the conventional view of black hole evaporation, wherein all black holes spin down more rapidly than they lose mass. A hole emitting solely scalar radiation will approach a final asymptotic state described by $a_* \simeq 0.555$. A black hole that is emitting scalar particles and a canonical set of nonzero spin particles (3 species of neutrinos, a single photon species, and a single graviton species) will asymptotically approach a nonzero value of $a_*$ only if there are at least 32 massless scalar fields. We also calculate the lifetime of a primordial black hole that formed with a value of the rotation parameter $a_{*}$, the minimum initial mass of a primordial black hole that is seen today with a rotation parameter $a_{*}$, and the entropy of a black hole that is emitting scalar or higher spin particles.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures, RevTeX format; added clearer descriptions for variables, added journal referenc

Observation of infinite-range intensity correlations above, at and below the 3D Anderson localization transition

We investigate long-range intensity correlations on both sides of the Anderson transition of classical waves in a three-dimensional (3D) disordered material. Our ultrasonic experiments are designed to unambiguously detect a recently predicted infinite-range C0 contribution, due to local density of states fluctuations near the source. We find that these C0 correlations, in addition to C2 and C3 contributions, are significantly enhanced near mobility edges. Separate measurements of the inverse participation ratio reveal a link between C0 and the anomalous dimension \Delta_2, implying that C0 may also be used to explore the critical regime of the Anderson transition.Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures (main text plus supplemental information). Updated version includes an improved introductory paragraph, minor text revisions, a revised title and additional supplemental information on the experimental detail

Recurrent scattering and memory effect at the Anderson localization transition

We report on ultrasonic measurements of the propagation operator in a strongly scattering mesoglass. The backscattered field is shown to display a deterministic spatial coherence due to a remarkably large memory effect induced by long recurrent trajectories. Investigation of the recurrent scattering contribution directly yields the probability for a wave to come back close to its starting spot. The decay of this quantity with time is shown to change dramatically near the Anderson localization transition. The singular value decomposition of the propagation operator reveals the dominance of very intense recurrent scattering paths near the mobility edge.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Fermi Large Area Telescope observations of GRB 110625A

Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) that emit photons at GeV energies form a small but significant population of GRBs. However, the number of GRBs whose GeV-emitting period is simultaneously observed in X-rays remains small. We report gamma-ray observations of GRB 110625A using Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) in the energy range 100 MeV to 20 GeV. Gamma-ray emission at these energies was clearly detected using data taken between 180s and 580s after the burst, an epoch after the prompt emission phase. The GeV light curve differs from a simple power-law decay, and probably consists of two emission periods. Simultaneous Swift/XRT observations did not show flaring behaviors as in the case of GRB 100728A. We discuss the possibility that the GeV emission is the synchrotron self-Compton radiation of underlying ultraviolet flares.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in the ApJ on May 31, 201

Imide and isatin derivatives as β-lactam mimics of β-lactam antibiotics

Activated γ-lactams, which are derivatives of succinimide, phthalimide and isatin with suitable elements of molecular recognition, have been synthesised as mimics of the ß-lactam antibiotics and their chemical and biological reactivity determined

Cosmological Measures without Volume Weighting

Many cosmologists (myself included) have advocated volume weighting for the cosmological measure problem, weighting spatial hypersurfaces by their volume. However, this often leads to the Boltzmann brain problem, that almost all observations would be by momentary Boltzmann brains that arise very briefly as quantum fluctuations in the late universe when it has expanded to a huge size, so that our observations (too ordered for Boltzmann brains) would be highly atypical and unlikely. Here it is suggested that volume weighting may be a mistake. Volume averaging is advocated as an alternative. One consequence may be a loss of the argument that eternal inflation gives a nonzero probability that our universe now has infinite volume.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX, added references for constant-H hypersurfaces and also an idea for minimal-flux hypersurface