The effects of public funding on farmers' attitudes to farm diversification

The overall aim of this research is to provide the UK Government with an evidence base from which it may be established whether there is a rationale for continuing Government intervention to encourage farm diversification, in particular through making capital grant funding available to farm diversification projects. The project's findings will inform the future role of government support, including whether other forms of support (advice, guidance and training) may be appropriate.Agricultural and Food Policy, Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,

Comparison of National Policy Frameworks for Marine Renewable Energy within the United Kingdom and France

A report prepared as part of the MERiFIC Project “Marine Energy in FAR Peripheral and Island Communities”The MERiFIC Project: MERiFIC is an EU project linking Cornwall and Finistère through the ERDF INTERREG IVa France (Manche) England programme. The project seeks to advance the adoption of marine energy in Cornwall and Finistère, with particular focus on the island communities of the Parc naturel marin d’Iroise and the Isles of Scilly. Project partners include Cornwall Council, University of Exeter, University of Plymouth and Cornwall Marine Network from the UK, and Conseil général du Finistère, Pôle Mer Bretagne, Technôpole Brest-Iroise, Parc naturel marin d’Iroise, IFREMER and Bretagne Développement Innovation from France. MERiFIC was launched on 13th September at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and runs until June 2014. During this time, the partners aim to Develop and share a common understanding of existing marine energy resource assessment techniques and terminology; Identify significant marine energy resource ‘hot spots’ across the common area, focussing on the island communities of the Isles of Scilly and Parc Naturel Marin d’Iroise; Define infrastructure issues and requirements for the deployment of marine energy technologies between island and mainland communities; Identify, share and implement best practice policies to encourage and support the deployment of marine renewables; Identify best practice case studies and opportunities for businesses across the two regions to participate in supply chains for the marine energy sector; Share best practices and trial new methods of stakeholder engagement, in order to secure wider understanding and acceptance of the marine renewables agenda; Develop and deliver a range of case studies, tool kits and resources that will assist other regions. To facilitate this, the project is broken down into a series of work packages: WP1: Project Preparation; WP2: Project Management; WP3: Technology Support; WP4: Policy Issues; WP5: Sustainable Economic Development; WP6: Stakeholder Engagement; WP7: Communication and DisseminationThis report provides a comparative assessment of the wider planning, innovation and energy policy instruments relevant to marine renewable energy and applicable to the regions of Brittany in France and South West England. In addition to this, aspects of the wider institutional and political contexts in each country that have an adverse or positive effect upon policies for marine renewable energy (such as regionalisation, devolution or European legislation) are covered when considered appropriate and of value. The intention of this document is to highlight best-practice policies and highlight opportunities and examples of where these have been put into place both nationally and regionally within the two study areas. This work will then feed on to later MERiFIC documents, (specifically within work packages 5 and 6, concerning Sustainable Economic Development and Stakeholder Engagement respectively). The primary reference sources for this document are the two earlier MERiFIC report: National Policy Framework for Marine Renewable Energy within the United Kingdom and National Policy Framework for Marine Renewable Energy within France (Vantoch-Wood et al., 2012, Kablan et al., 2012)

National Policy Framework for Marine Renewable Energy within the United Kingdom

A report prepared as part of the MERiFIC Project "Marine Energy in Far Peripheral and Island Communities"The MERiFIC Project: MERiFIC is an EU project linking Cornwall and Finistère through the ERDF INTERREG IVa France (Manche) England programme. The project seeks to advance the adoption of marine energy in Cornwall and Finistère, with particular focus on the island communities of the Parc naturel marin d’Iroise and the Isles of Scilly. Project partners include Cornwall Council, University of Exeter, University of Plymouth and Cornwall Marine Network from the UK, and Conseil général du Finistère, Pôle Mer Bretagne, Technôpole Brest-Iroise, Parc naturel marin d’Iroise, IFREMER and Bretagne Développement Innovation from France. MERiFIC was launched on 13th September at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and runs until June 2014. During this time, the partners aim to Develop and share a common understanding of existing marine energy resource assessment techniques and terminology; Identify significant marine energy resource ‘hot spots’ across the common area, focussing on the island communities of the Isles of Scilly and Parc Naturel Marin d’Iroise; Define infrastructure issues and requirements for the deployment of marine energy technologies between island and mainland communities; Identify, share and implement best practice policies to encourage and support the deployment of marine renewables; Identify best practice case studies and opportunities for businesses across the two regions to participate in supply chains for the marine energy sector; Share best practices and trial new methods of stakeholder engagement, in order to secure wider understanding and acceptance of the marine renewables agenda; Develop and deliver a range of case studies, tool kits and resources that will assist other regions. To facilitate this, the project is broken down into a series of work packages: WP1: Project Preparation; WP2: Project Management; WP3: Technology Support; WP4: Policy Issues; WP5: Sustainable Economic Development; WP6: Stakeholder Engagement; WP7: Communication and DisseminationThis document is intended to provide an introduction into the international, national and regional policy and legislation framework relevant to the deployment of marine renewable energy technologies within the UK, and specifically with a focus upon the South West and the county of Cornwall and its neighbouring Isles of Scilly. Within the context and scope of this document, devices that utilize wave, tidal stream, and floating wind within the marine environment are included within the definition of ‘marine renewable energy devices’ however limited focus is also given to offshore fixed wind turbines as it is recognised that, (although outside of the scope and context of this document and at a much further stage of technology maturity) there are many complimentarities between these technology groupings

Turbulent mixing of two-layer stratified fluid

Author Posting. © American Institute of Physics, 2007. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of American Institute of Physics for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Physics of Fluids 19 (2007): 125104, doi:10.1063/1.2821913.A two-layer salt-stratified tank of water was mixed by turbulence generated by many excursions of a horizontally moving vertical rod. The objective is to observe the timedependent response of the mean density field for ranges of Richardson number Ri>0.9 and Reynolds Number Re>600. As the density profile of the fluid gradually evolves from a single step to a mixed state over a wide range of time, there is almost perfect collapse of all the profiles to one universal profile as a function of a similarity variable. Although the turbulent diffusion is not constant, the value in the limit of small stratification has similar magnitude to values found by others

Review of research on migration influences and implications for population dynamics in the wider South East

The Wider South East (WSE) is a large, diverse, dynamic, well networked and polycentric region – although with over a third of its population in one central conurbation. The effect of this combination of characteristics is to give it a highly integrated migration system, with sub-regions occupying different roles and to varying degrees of dynamism, but interacting with the other sub-regions and responding to some shared external factors - in ways that need to be better understood

Erasing diffraction orders: Opal versus Langmuir-Blodgett colloidal crystals

The optical transmission of photonic crystals self-assembled from colloidal nanospheres in opals and assembled from two-dimensional colloidal crystals in a periodic stack by the Langmuir-Blodgett technique has been compared. Elimination of all related zero order diffraction resonances other than that from growth planes and broadening and deepening of the remaining one-dimensional diffraction resonance have been observed for samples prepared by the Langmuir-Blodgett approach, which are explained in terms of the partial disorder of a crystal lattice. (c) 2007 American Institute of Physics.(DOI:10.1063/1.2714198

Body composition in older community-dwelling adults with hip fracture: portable field methods validated by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry

Ageing is associated with weight loss and subsequently poor health outcomes. The present study assessed agreement between two field methods, bioelectrical impedance spectroscopy (BIS) and corrected arm muscle area (CAMA) for assessment of body composition against dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA), the reference technique. Agreement between two predictive equations estimating skeletal muscle mass (SMM) from BIS against SMM from DXA was also determined. Assessments occurred at baseline < 14 d post-surgery (n 79), and at 6 months (6M; n 75) and 12 months (12M; n 63) in community-living older adults after surgical treatment for hip fracture. The 95 % limits of agreement (LOA) between BIS and DXA, CAMA and DXA and the equations and DXA were assessed using Bland–Altman analyses. Mean bias and LOA for fat-free mass (FFM) between BIS and DXA were: baseline, 0·7 ( − 10·9, 12·4) kg; 6M, − 0·5 ( − 20·7, 19·8) kg; 12M, 0·1 ( − 8·7, 8·9) kg and for SMM between CAMA and DXA were: baseline, 0·3 ( − 11·7, 12·3) kg; 6M, 1·3 ( − 4·5, 7·1) kg; 12M, 0·9 ( − 5·4, 7·2) kg. Equivalent data for predictive equations against DXA were: equation 1: baseline, 15·1 ( − 9·5, 20·6) kg; 6M, 17·1 ( − 12·0, 22·2) kg; 12M, 17·5 ( − 13·0, 22·0) kg; equation 2: baseline, 12·6 ( − 7·3, 19·9) kg; 6M, 14·4 ( − 9·7, 19·1) kg; 12M, 14·8 ( − 10·7, 18·9) kg. Proportional bias (BIS: β = − 0·337, P< 0·001; CAMA: β = − 0·294, P< 0·001) was present at baseline but not at 6M or 12M. Clinicians should be cautious in using these field methods to predict FFM and SMM, particularly in the acute care setting. New predictive equations would be beneficial.This research was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), Australia

The c-Myc Oncoprotein Interacts with Bcr

AbstractBcr is a multifunctional protein that is the fusion partner for Abl (p210 Bcr-Abl) in Philadelphia chromosome positive leukemias. We have identified c-Myc as a binding partner for Bcr in both yeast and mammalian cells. We are also able to observe interactions between natively expressed c-Myc and Bcr in leukemic cell lines. Although Bcr and Max have overlapping binding sites on c-Myc, Bcr cannot interact with Max, or with the c-Myc•Max heterodimer. Bcr expression blocks activation of c-Myc-responsive genes, as well as the transformed phenotype induced by coexpression of c-Myc and H-Ras, and this finding suggests that one function of Bcr is to limit the activity of c-Myc. However, Bcr does not block c-Myc function by preventing its nuclear localization. Interestingly, increased Bcr dosage in COS-7 and K-562 cells correlates with a reduction in c-Myc protein levels, suggesting that Bcr may in fact be limiting c-Myc activity by regulating its stability. These data indicate that Bcr is a novel regulator of c-Myc function whose disrupted expression may contribute to the high level of c-Myc protein that is observed in Bcr-Abl transformed cells

Development and relative validity of a new field instrument for detection of geriatric cachexia: preliminary analysis in hip fracture patients

Abstract Background Geriatric cachexia is distinct from other agerelated muscle wasting syndromes; however, detection and therefore treatment is challenging without the availability of valid instruments suitable for application in the clinical setting. This study assessed the sensitivity and specificity of a newly developed screening instrument utilising portable assessments against previously defined and commonly accepted diagnostic criteria for detection of geriatric cachexia. Methods Cross-sectional analyses from 71 older adults&apos; post-surgical fixation for hip fracture were performed. The diagnostic criteria required measures of appendicular skeletal muscle index derived from dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry and anorexia assessed by ≤70 % of estimated energy requirements. These assessments were replaced with midupper arm muscle circumference and the Simplified Nutritional Appetite Questionnaire, respectively, to create a field instrument suitable for screening geriatric cachexia. Sensitivity, specificity and positive and negative predictive values were calculated. Results The current diagnostic algorithm identified few patients as cachectic (4/71; 5.6 %). The sensitivity and specificity of the geriatric cachexia screening tool was 75 and 97 %, respectively. The screening tool had a positive predictive value of 60 % and a negative predictive value of 99 %. Conclusions Given the unexpected prevalence of cachexia in such a vulnerable group, these results may suggest problems in operationalising of the consensus definition and diagnostic criteria. Although the application of a newly developed screening tool using portable field measures looks promising, the authors recommend additional research to identify the prevalence of geriatric cachexia, which captures all diagnostic criteria from the consensus definition. Future investigation may then be positioned to explore the predictive validity of screening tools using portable field measures, which potentially achieve higher sensitivity