Measuring Metacognition in Cancer: Validation of the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 (MCQ-30)

Objective The Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 assesses metacognitive beliefs and processes which are central to the metacognitive model of emotional disorder. As recent studies have begun to explore the utility of this model for understanding emotional distress after cancer diagnosis, it is important also to assess the validity of the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 for use in cancer populations. Methods 229 patients with primary breast or prostate cancer completed the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale pre-treatment and again 12 months later. The structure and validity of the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 were assessed using factor analyses and structural equation modelling. Results Confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses provided evidence supporting the validity of the previously published 5-factor structure of the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30. Specifically, both pre-treatment and 12 months later, this solution provided the best fit to the data and all items loaded on their expected factors. Structural equation modelling indicated that two dimensions of metacognition (positive and negative beliefs about worry) were significantly associated with anxiety and depression as predicted, providing further evidence of validity. Conclusions These findings provide initial evidence that the Metacognitions Questionnaire 30 is a valid measure for use in cancer populations

Complexity reduction and policy consensus: asylum seekers, the right to work, and the ‘pull factor’ thesis in the UK context

Since the early 2000s, asylum policy in Western states has become increasingly dominated by the concept of the ‘pull factor’—the idea that the economic rights afforded to asylum seekers can act as a migratory pull, and will have a bearing on the numbers of asylum applications received. The pull factor thesis has been widely discredited by researchers but remains powerful among policymakers. Through an analysis of the pull factor in the UK context, and drawing on insights from Cultural Political Economy, this article argues that the hegemony of the pull factor thesis is best understood as a ‘policy imaginary’ which has become sedimented through both discursive and extra-discursive practices and processes. The article offers a means of understanding how a common sense assumption—which is challenged by a large body of evidence—has come to dominate policymaking in a key area of concern for politicians and policymakers

Addressing the migration of health professionals: the role of working conditions and educational placements

This article provides a brief overview of the global health-worker shortage, which could undermine the Millennium Development Goal to halt and begin to reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS. The current situation suggests that long-term solutions to shortages can only be found by addressing the problem from a global perspective; that is, to eliminate shortages through substantial investments in training and retaining health workers in developed and developing countries, and not through policies that do not work towards solving this underlying problem, such as ones that restrict migration

A demonstration of an affinity between pyrite and organic matter in a hydrothermal setting

One of the key-principles of the iron-sulphur world theory is to bring organic molecules close enough to interact with each other, using the surface of pyrite as a substrate in a hydrothermal setting. The present paper explores the relationship of pyrite and organic matter in a hydrothermal setting from the geological record; in hydrothermal calcite veins from Carboniferous limestones in central Ireland. Here, the organic matter is accumulated as coatings around, and through, pyrite grains. Most of the pyrite grains are euhedral-subhedral crystals, ranging in size from ca 0.1-0.5 mm in diameter, and they are scattered throughout the matrix of the vein calcite. The organic matter was deposited from a hydrothermal fluid at a temperature of at least 200°C, and gives a Raman signature of disordered carbon. This study points to an example from a hydrothermal setting in the geological record, demonstrating that pyrite can have a high potential for the concentration and accumulation of organic materials

Economic-demographic interactions in long-run growth

Cliometrics confirms that Malthus’ model of the pre-industrial economy, in which increases in productivity raise population but higher population drives down wages, is a good description for much of demographic/economic history. A contributor to the Malthusian equilibrium was the Western European Marriage Pattern, the late age of female first marriage, which promised to retard the fall of living standards by restricting fertility. The demographic transition and the transition from Malthusian economies to modern economic growth attracted many Cliometric models surveyed here. A popular model component is that lower levels of mortality over many centuries increased the returns to, or preference for, human capital investment so that technical progress eventually accelerated. This initially boosted birth rates and population growth accelerated. Fertility decline was earliest and most striking in late eighteenth century France. By the 1830s the fall in French marital fertility is consistent with a response to the rising opportunity cost of children. The rest of Europe did not begin to follow until end of the nineteenth century. Interactions between the economy and migration have been modelled with Cliometric structures closely related to those of natural increase and the economy. Wages were driven up by emigration from Europe and reduced in the economies receiving immigrants

International Migration in the Atlantic Economy, 1850-1940

This chapter focuses on the economic analysis of what has been called the age of mass migration, 1850 to 1913, and its aftermath up to 1940. This has captured the interest of generations of economic historians and is still a highly active area of research. Here we concentrate on migration from Europe to the New World as this is where the bulk of the literature lies. We provide an overview of this literature focusing on key topics: the determinants of migration, the development of immigration policy, immigrant selection and assimilation, and the economic effects of mass migration as well as its legacy through to the present day. We explain how what were once orthodoxies have been revisited and revised, and how changes in our understanding have been influenced by advances in methodology, which in turn have been made possible by the availability of new and more comprehensive data. Despite these advances some issues remain contested or unresolved and, true to cliometric tradition, we conclude by calling for more research

Global Monitoring of Fault Zones and Volcanoes with Sentinel-1

Sentinel-1 represents a major step forward in enabling us to monitor the Earth's hazardous tectonic and volcanic zones. Here, we present the latest progress from the Centre for the Observation and Modelling of Earthquakes, Volcanoes and Tectonics (COMET), where we provide deformation results to the community for volcanoes and the tectonic belts. For the estimation of seismic hazard, we require relative accuracy on the order of 1 mm/yr between points 100 km apart. This requires mass processing of long time series of radar acquisitions. As of January 2018, we are producing in-terferograms systematically for the entire Alpine-Himalayan belt (~9000 × 2000 km) and the majority of subaerial volcanoes. Currently we make interferograms and coherence products available to the community, but we plan to also provide average deformation rates and displacement time series, in the future. The results are made available through a dedicated COMET portal, and we are in the process of linking them to the ESA G-TEP and EPOS. COMET also responds routinely to significant continental earthquakes, larger than ~Mw 6.0. The short repeat interval of Sentinel-1, together with the rapid availability of the data, allows us to do this within a few days for most earthquakes. For example, after the Mw 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake we supplied a processed interferogram to the community just 5 hours and 37 minutes after the Sentinel-1 acquisition. In this paper we provide an overview of some of the latest results for tectonics and volcanism and discuss how the accuracy of these products will improve as the number of data products acquired by Sentinel-1 increases

Socio-geography of human mobility: a study using longitudinal mobile phone data

A relationship between people’s mobility and their social networks is presented based on an analysis of calling and mobility traces for one year of anonymized call detail records of over one million mobile phone users in Portugal. We find that about 80% of places visited are within just 20 km of their nearest (geographical) social ties’ locations. This figure rises to 90% at a ‘geo-social radius’ of 45 km. In terms of their travel scope, people are geographically closer to their weak ties than strong ties. Specifically, they are 15% more likely to be at some distance away from their weak ties than strong ties. The likelihood of being at some distance from social ties increases with the population density, and the rates of increase are higher for shorter geo-social radii. In addition, we find that area population density is indicative of geo-social radius where denser areas imply shorter radii. For example, in urban areas such as Lisbon and Porto, the geo-social radius is approximately 7 km and this increases to approximately 15 km for less densely populated areas such as Parades and Santa Maria da Feira

Performance of the CMS Cathode Strip Chambers with Cosmic Rays

The Cathode Strip Chambers (CSCs) constitute the primary muon tracking device in the CMS endcaps. Their performance has been evaluated using data taken during a cosmic ray run in fall 2008. Measured noise levels are low, with the number of noisy channels well below 1%. Coordinate resolution was measured for all types of chambers, and fall in the range 47 microns to 243 microns. The efficiencies for local charged track triggers, for hit and for segments reconstruction were measured, and are above 99%. The timing resolution per layer is approximately 5 ns