scholarly journals Preliminary checklists for applying SERCON (System for Evaluating Rivers for Conservation) to rivers in Serbia

2012 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 1037-1056 ◽  
Author(s):  
Snezana Radulovic ◽  
P.J. Boon ◽  
Dusanka Laketic ◽  
P. Simonovic ◽  
S. Puzovic ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
River Management ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Water Law ◽  
Biological Surveys ◽  
Habitat Features ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
River Quality ◽  
Species Groups ◽  
The Uk

This paper describes the first steps in gathering biological data to assess the conservation value of rivers in Serbia, using SERCON (System for Evaluating Rivers for Conservation). SERCON was developed in the UK to improve consistency in assessments of river ?quality? by using a scoring system to evaluate habitat features and species groups, catchment characteristics, and the potential impacts to which river systems may be subjected. This paper provides checklists for aquatic, semiaquatic and marginal plants, macroinvertebrates, fish and birds associated with rivers in Serbia, collated from a wide range of published and unpublished sources. These lists should be regarded as provisional because few wide-ranging biological surveys have been carried out specifically on Serbian rivers; further revisions are likely as more information becomes available in future. Ultimately, the work will benefit regulators and decision-makers with responsibility for river management under the new Water Law, and contribute to river protection and conservation in Serbia.

scholarly journals Determinants of Bicyclist Injury Severity Resulting from Crashes at Roundabouts, Crossroads, and T-Junctions

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Jinxing Shen ◽  
Tiantong Wang ◽  
Changjiang Zheng ◽  
Miao Yu
Keyword(s):  
Injury Severity ◽  
Explanatory Variable ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Contributing Factors ◽  
Crash Data ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Generalized Ordered Logit ◽  
Severity Levels ◽  
Serious Injury ◽  
The Uk

This study explores the contributing factors that influence bicyclist injury severity at three types of intersection: roundabouts, crossroads, and T-junctions. Using bicycle-involved crash data in the UK over nine years (from 2009 to 2017), the bicyclist injury severity (with three severity levels: fatal injury, serious injury, and slight injury) was estimated using the generalized ordered logit (GOL) model and partial proportional odds (PPO) model. The marginal effects of each explanatory variable were computed to investigate the impacts on bicyclist injury severity occurring probabilities. A wide range of variables potentially affecting injury severity was considered, including bicyclist characteristics, intersection characteristics, environmental conditions, bicyclist movement and location preceding the crash, and types of collisions. Our findings show that the PPO model outperforms the GOL model for analyzing the factors that affect the bicyclist injury severity at intersections. The factors that affect cycling safety at various intersections show enormous differences. Specifically, nine variables have significant impacts on bicyclist injury severity at those three types of intersections. And there are only two variables, four variables, and eleven variables that have significant impact on bicyclist injury severity at roundabouts, crossroads, and T-junctions, respectively. The findings of this study can help decision makers better understand the spatial heterogeneity of the factors that influence the bicyclist injury severity at various intersections.

scholarly journals On the Record: An Analysis of Exotic Pet Licences in the UK

Animals ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 2373
Author(s):  
Angie Elwin ◽  
Jennah Green ◽  
Neil D’Cruze
Keyword(s):  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
Activity Data ◽  
Pet Trade ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Data Gaps ◽  
Species Groups ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Exotic Pets

Keeping exotic pets has become a popular habit in the UK in recent decades. Yet, information on the current scale of the trade and the diversity of animals involved is lacking. Here, we review the licensed sale of amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals as exotic pets in the UK, identifying current geographical hotspots of trader activity, data gaps, and compliance issues related to this trade. In terms of trade volume, records showed large numbers of individual wild animals, across a wide range of species groups, are being legally sold in the UK. Maximum numbers of exotic pets permitted for sale included 54,634 amphibians, 64,810 reptiles, 23,507 birds, and 6479 mammals. Moreover, nearly 2000 pet traders located in 283 different local authority areas had permission to sell exotic pets. The scope and scale of the trade draws additional attention to the substantial animal welfare challenges associated with it, and our review serves to highlight several shortcomings associated with the licensed exotic pet trade in the UK. Pet shop licences often lacked detailed information about the specific type and number of animals permitted for sale, which raises compliance concerns and hinders efforts to carry out adequate inspection and monitoring. Ninety-five pet traders in England had been given a one star rating, indicating ‘minor failings’ in animal welfare, and some local authorities in England were still operating under the old Pet Animals Act (1951). We recommend that resources should be prioritised and focused towards local authorities in England that are not operating under the new Animal Welfare (Licensing of Activities Involving Animals) (England) Regulations (2018), and that local authorities should improve data reporting on all licenses issued to aid inspection and monitoring.

Fault Tolerant Reliable Protocol (FTRP) Performance Evaluation in Wireless Sensor Networks: An Extensitive Study

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Keyword(s):  
Wireless Sensor Networks ◽  
Fault Tolerance ◽  
Sensor Networks ◽  
Fault Tolerant ◽  
Cluster Head ◽  
Biological Data ◽  
Wireless Sensor ◽  
Delivery Ratio ◽  
Good Performer ◽  
Wide Range

Fault Tolerant Reliable Protocol (FTRP) is proposed as a novel routing protocol designed for Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs). FTRP offers fault tolerance reliability for packet exchange and support for dynamic network changes. The key concept used is the use of node logical clustering. The protocol delegates the routing ownership to the cluster heads where fault tolerance functionality is implemented. FTRP utilizes cluster head nodes along with cluster head groups to store packets in transient. In addition, FTRP utilizes broadcast, which reduces the message overhead as compared to classical flooding mechanisms. FTRP manipulates Time to Live values for the various routing messages to control message broadcast. FTRP utilizes jitter in messages transmission to reduce the effect of synchronized node states, which in turn reduces collisions. FTRP performance has been extensively through simulations against Ad-hoc On-demand Distance Vector (AODV) and Optimized Link State (OLSR) routing protocols. Packet Delivery Ratio (PDR), Aggregate Throughput and End-to-End delay (E-2-E) had been used as performance metrics. In terms of PDR and aggregate throughput, it is found that FTRP is an excellent performer in all mobility scenarios whether the network is sparse or dense. In stationary scenarios, FTRP performed well in sparse network; however, in dense network FTRP’s performance had degraded yet in an acceptable range. This degradation is attributed to synchronized nodes states. Reliably delivering a message comes to a cost, as in terms of E-2-E. results show that FTRP is considered a good performer in all mobility scenarios where the network is sparse. In sparse stationary scenario, FTRP is considered good performer, however in dense stationary scenarios FTRP’s E-2-E is not acceptable. There are times when receiving a network message is more important than other costs such as energy or delay. That makes FTRP suitable for wide range of WSNs applications, such as military applications by monitoring soldiers’ biological data and supplies while in battlefield and battle damage assessment. FTRP can also be used in health applications in addition to wide range of geo-fencing, environmental monitoring, resource monitoring, production lines monitoring, agriculture and animals tracking. FTRP should be avoided in dense stationary deployments such as, but not limited to, scenarios where high application response is critical and life endangering such as biohazards detection or within intensive care units.

ESRC Review

2020 ◽  
pp. 657-698
Author(s):  
Simeon J. Yates ◽  
Jordana Blejmar
Keyword(s):  
Social Research ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
Levels Of Automation ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Technological World ◽  
Ways Of Being

Two workshops were part of the final steps in the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) commissioned Ways of Being in a Digital Age project that is the basis for this Handbook. The ESRC project team coordinated one with the UK Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (ESRC-DSTL) Workshop, “The automation of future roles”; and one with the US National Science Foundation (ESRC-NSF) Workshop, “Changing work, changing lives in the new technological world.” Both workshops sought to explore the key future social science research questions arising for ever greater levels of automation, use of artificial intelligence, and the augmentation of human activity. Participants represented a wide range of disciplinary, professional, government, and nonprofit expertise. This chapter summarizes the separate and then integrated results. First, it summarizes the central social and economic context, the method and project context, and some basic definitional issues. It then identifies 11 priority areas needing further research work that emerged from the intense interactions, discussions, debates, clustering analyses, and integration activities during and after the two workshops. Throughout, it summarizes how subcategories of issues within each cluster relate to central issues (e.g., from users to global to methods) and levels of impacts (from wider social to community and organizational to individual experiences and understandings). Subsections briefly describe each of these 11 areas and their cross-cutting issues and levels. Finally, it provides a detailed Appendix of all the areas, subareas, and their specific questions.

Punk as Folk: Continuities and Tensions in the UK and Beyond

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pete Dale
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Collective Creativity ◽  
Living Tradition ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Uk

Numerous claims have been made by a wide range of commentators that punk is somehow “a folk music” of some kind. Doubtless there are several continuities. Indeed, both tend to encourage amateur music-making, both often have affiliations with the Left, and both emerge at least partly from a collective/anti-competitive approach to music-making. However, there are also significant tensions between punk and folk as ideas/ideals and as applied in practice. Most obviously, punk makes claims to a “year zero” creativity (despite inevitably offering re-presentation of at least some existing elements in every instance), whereas folk music is supposed to carry forward a tradition (which, thankfully, is more recognized in recent decades as a subject-to-change “living tradition” than was the case in folk’s more purist periods). Politically, meanwhile, postwar folk has tended more toward a socialist and/or Marxist orientation, both in the US and UK, whereas punk has at least rhetorically claimed to be in favor of “anarchy” (in the UK, in particular). Collective creativity and competitive tendencies also differ between the two (perceived) genre areas. Although the folk scene’s “floor singer” tradition offers a dispersal of expressive opportunity comparable in some ways to the “anyone can do it” idea that gets associated with punk, the creative expectation of the individual within the group differs between the two. Punk has some similarities to folk, then, but there are tensions, too, and these are well worth examining if one is serious about testing out the common claim, in both folk and punk, that “anyone can do it.”

scholarly journals An exploration of migrant women’s perceptions of public health messages to reduce stillbirth in the UK: a qualitative study

2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tomasina Stacey ◽  
Melanie Haith-Cooper ◽  
Nisa Almas ◽  
Charlotte Kenyon
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Perinatal Mortality ◽  
Health Professionals ◽  
Health Messages ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Public Health Messages ◽  
Associated Risk Factors ◽  
The Uk

Abstract Background Stillbirth is a global public health priority. Within the United Kingdom, perinatal mortality disproportionately impacts Black, Asian and minority ethnic women, and in particular migrant women. Although the explanation for this remains unclear, it is thought to be multidimensional. Improving perinatal mortality is reliant upon raising awareness of stillbirth and its associated risk factors, as well as improving maternity services. The aim of this study was to explore migrant women’s awareness of health messages to reduce stillbirth risk, and how key public health messages can be made more accessible. Method Two semi-structured focus groups and 13 one to one interviews were completed with a purposive sample of 30 migrant women from 18 countries and across 4 NHS Trusts. Results Participants provided an account of their general awareness of stillbirth and recollection of the advice they had been given to reduce the risk of stillbirth both before and during pregnancy. They also suggested approaches to how key messages might be more effectively communicated to migrant women. Conclusions Our study highlights the complexity of discussing stillbirth during pregnancy. The women in this study were found to receive a wide range of advice from family and friends as well as health professionals about how to keep their baby safe in pregnancy, they recommended the development of a range of resources to provide clear and consistent messages. Health professionals, in particular midwives who have developed a trusting relationship with the women will be key to ensuring that public health messages relating to stillbirth reduction are accessible to culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

scholarly journals Redefining peer learning: Role of student entrepreneurs in teaching entrepreneurship in the UK higher education context

2021 ◽  
pp. 095042222110126
Author(s):  
Stella Xu ◽  
Zimu Xu ◽  
Fujia Li ◽  
Arun Sukumar
Keyword(s):  
Student Engagement ◽  
Course Design ◽  
Cultural Backgrounds ◽  
School Students ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Student Entrepreneurs ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Uk Higher Education

Entrepreneurship-related modules have become increasingly popular over the years, not only among business school students but also among those from other disciplines, including engineering and the arts and humanities. In some circumstances, they are offered as optional modules for students across different faculties and disciplines. While it is beneficial to mix students with different backgrounds, bringing in a wide range of perspectives, there are also challenges relating to course design and student engagement. With these challenges in mind, the authors trialled a new approach in the hope of motivating students from diverse academic and socio-cultural backgrounds to engage more fully in the classroom by utilising student entrepreneurs as guest speakers. The student-centric approach has proved effective in enhancing student engagement, as evidenced by both informal and formal feedback.

Medical treatment and best interests: judicial interpretation of values, wishes and beliefs under the Mental Capacity Act 2005

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 165-173
Author(s):  
Owen P. O'Sullivan
Keyword(s):  
Medical Treatment ◽  
Clinical Decision ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Decision Makers ◽  
Best Interests ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Mental Capacity Act 2005 ◽  
Mental Capacity Act ◽  
The Uk

Purpose The prominence of the best interests principle in the Mental Capacity Act 2005 represented an important transition to a more resolutely patient-centred model regarding decision-making for incapable adults (“P”). This paper aims to examine the courts’ consideration of P’s values, wishes and beliefs in the context of medical treatment, reflect on whether this has resulted in a wide interpretation of the best interests standard and consider how this impacts clinical decision makers. Design/methodology/approach A particular focus will be on case law from the Court of Protection of England and Wales and the Supreme Court of the UK. Cases have been selected for discussion on the basis of the significance of their judgements for the field, the range of issues they illustrate and the extent of commentary and attention they have received in the literature. They are presented as a narrative review and are non-exhaustive. Findings With respect to values, wishes and beliefs, the best interests standard’s interpretation in the courts has been widely varied. Opposing tensions and thematic conflicts have emerged from this case law and were analysed from the perspective of the clinical decision maker. Originality/value This review illustrates the complexity and gravity of decisions of the clinical decision makers and the courts have considered in the context of best interests determinations for incapacitated adults undergoing medical treatment. Subsequent to the first such case before the Supreme Court of the UK, emerging case law trends relating to capacity legislation are considered.

scholarly journals Evaluating the efficacy of technical measures: a case study of selection device legislation in the UK Crangon crangon (brown shrimp) fishery

2008 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom L. Catchpole ◽  
Andrew S. Revill ◽  
James Innes ◽  
Sean Pascoe
Keyword(s):  
Brown Shrimp ◽  
Crangon Crangon ◽  
Shrimp Fishery ◽  
The North ◽  
Ex Post ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Technical Measures

Abstract Catchpole, T. L., Revill, A. S., Innes, J., and Pascoe, S. 2008. Evaluating the efficacy of technical measures: a case study of selection device legislation in the UK Crangon crangon (brown shrimp) fishery. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 65: 267–275. Bycatch reduction devices are being introduced into a wide range of fisheries, with shrimp and prawn fisheries particularly targeted owing to the heavy discarding common in these fisheries. Although studies are often undertaken to estimate the impact of a technical measure on the fishery before implementation, rarely have the impacts been assessed ex post. Here, the efficacy of the UK legislation pertaining to the use of sievenets in the North Sea Crangon crangon fishery is assessed. Three impacts were evaluated: on fisher behaviour (social), on the level of bycatch (biological), and on vessel profitability (economic). An apparent high level of compliance by skippers was identified despite a low level of enforcement. The estimated reduction in fleet productivity following the introduction of the legislation was 14%, equalling the mean loss of Crangon landings when using sievenets calculated from catch comparison trawls. Sievenets did reduce the unnecessary capture of unwanted marine organisms, but were least effective at reducing 0-group plaice, which make up the largest component of the bycatch. Clearly the legislation has had an effect in the desired direction, but it does not address sufficiently the bycatch issue in the Crangon fishery.

Marketing Town Centres: Retailing and Town Centre Management

2005 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Warnaby ◽  
David Bennison ◽  
Barry J. Davies
Keyword(s):  
Marketing Strategies ◽  
Place Marketing ◽  
Marketing Practice ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Town Centre ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Consensual Approach

The role of town centre management (TCM) schemes in the UK has expanded to incorporate a more overt and explicit focus on marketing and promotion. This paper considers the marketing/promotional activities of TCM schemes in the UK. TCM schemes operate at the interface of the public and private sectors. The implications of this are discussed, including the need for a consensual approach by a wide range of urban stakeholders, and the actual activities undertaken, influenced by the funding imperative under which such schemes operate (which impacts on the feasibility of certain activities and the efforts made to evaluate them). Comparisons are drawn between specific place marketing practice by TCM schemes and wider place marketing strategies.

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