Structure Of England Research Articles

Identifying temporal variation in reported births, deaths and movements of cattle in Britain

BackgroundThe accuracy of predicting disease occurrence using epidemic models relies on an understanding of the system or population under investigation. At the time of the Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) outbreak of 2001, there were limited reports in the literature as to the cattle population structure in Britain. In this paper we examine the temporal patterns of cattle births, deaths, imports and movements occurring within Britain, reported to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) through the British Cattle Movement service (BCMS) during the period 1st January 2002 to 28th February 2005.ResultsIn Britain, the number of reported cattle births exhibit strong seasonality characterised by a large spring peak followed by a smaller autumn peak. Other event types also exhibit strong seasonal trends; both the reported number of cattle slaughtered and "on-farm" cattle deaths increase during the final part of the year. After allowing for seasonal components by smoothing the data, we illustrate that there is very little remaining non-seasonal trend in the number of cattle births, "on-farm" deaths, slaughterhouse deaths, on- and off-movements. However after allowing for seasonal fluctuations the number of cattle imports has been decreasing since 2002. Reporting of movements, births and deaths was more frequent on certain days of the week. For instance, greater numbers of cattle were slaughtered on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. Evidence for digit preference was found in the reporting of births and "on-farm" deaths with particular bias towards over reporting on the 1st, 10th and 20th of each month.ConclusionThis study provides insight into the population and movement dynamics of the British cattle population. Although the population is in constant flux, seasonal and long term trends can be identified in the number of reported births, deaths and movements of cattle. Incorporating this temporal variation in epidemic disease modelling may result in more accurate model predictions and may usefully inform future surveillance strategies.

Crime Reporting as a Measure of Institutional Development

Crime Reporting as a Measure of Institutional Development

Judging the Risk of Exceedance: Local authority decision-making for air quality management area designation

Management of air quality by local government in the United Kingdom (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) requires a process of local decision-making, involving collaboration between local politicians, authority officers and interest-groups. Since the establishment of the first National Air Quality Strategy for the UK in 1997, local authority environmental health professionals have undertaken a scientific review and assessment process to identify locations where predicted future pollutant concentrations may exceed national air quality objectives. Air quality management areas (AQMAs) are declared where such exceedences are predicted. Over recent years, significant changes in local authority decision-making structures in England, Scotland and Wales have occurred, resulting in changes to the structure and governance in many local authorities. Results are presented from local authority surveys undertaken to examine the occurrence of any conflicts between the science involved in predicting exceedences and the local political decision-making processes in declaring AQMAs. Data are presented for a sample set of local authorities in Great Britain from which it is concluded that decision-making structures in local government are having a demonstrable impact on the designation of AQMAs.

Downland gridshell—an innovation in timber design

Innovations in timber construction are relatively rare these days. However, a modest utility building at an open-air museum in Sussex has attracted worldwide attention for the novel features of its double-layer timber gridshell roof. Apart from being the first such structure in Britain, it was the first built with ‘optimised’ green oak, the first designed in accordance with the new timber Eurocode and the first to use a new patented node joint system. It sets a new benchmark for lightweight, sustainable, cost-effective construction.

Call for your input on Shifting the Balance

The RCN has received feedback from nurses who are concerned about the government’s plans to reorganise NHS structures in England outlined in Shifting the Balance. They fear the stated intention to empower front-line staff and enhance nurse leadership is unlikely to happen in reality. The RCN is working hard to ensure that this does happen, and it has set up a taskforce to monitor the situation and co-ordinate action.

The law and dementia—issues in England and Wales

This paper reviews the proposals from the Lord Chancellor's Department for new Mental Incapacity law for England and Wales as they may impact on older people with dementia. Various concerns and issues are raised, particularly from the perspective of health care professionals, and the focus is the interface between such issues and the day-to-day clinical realities for a specialist team dealing with old people with dementia. A brief overview of where problems have arisen with the law in recent times is put in the context of the political/legal structures in England and Wales

Familial Poverty, Family Allowances, and the Normative Family Structure in Britain, 1917-1945

In 1945, the Family Allowances Act was incorporated into law. The family allowances scheme depended on the maintenance of a normative family structure and a wage system that discriminated against women. Eleanor Rathbone, along with social surveyors of the 1930s and social policy makers, recognized the family wage system as a primary cause of poverty among working families. Unfortunately, the family allowances scheme did not address the poverty caused by long-term unemployment or the absence of a male wage earner within the family structure. As a social policy solution to familial poverty, consequently, family allowances reflected both the contemporary social processes and the normative family structure to the detriment of impoverished families.

T.B. Colman and D.C. Cooper Exploration for Metalliferous and related Minerals in Britain: a Guide (2nd edition). Keyworth, Nottingham (British Geological Survey), 2000, viii + 78 pp. Price £20.00. ISBN 0 85272 357 1.

The object of this book, as stated in the Foreword, is to summarize the geology, the perceived mineral potential, the mineral exploration techniques commonly used, and the legal framework and planning regulations that apply to mineral development in Britain. It appears to be intended as a preliminary source of information about Britain’s mineral prospects for companies planning further exploration. A short review of the geology and structure of Britain is followed by an account of the mineral exploration and discoveries since 1965. The locations of prospects and their current status (in production, under development, inactive or closed) are given on a map. This shows a diverse range of metals including Sn, W, Cu, Ni, Pb, Zn, Au, U and PGE. It is here …

‘The veiled protectorate of Kowait’: liberalized imperialism and British efforts to influence Kuwaiti domestic policy during the reign of Sheikh Ahmad al‐Jaber, 1938–50

British foreign policy-makers confronted a difficult quandary when in the late 1930s exportable quantities of oil were discovered in Kuwait. The discovery transformed Kuwait from an obscure corner of the British imperial map significant only for securing the route to India to an important, if not critical, strategic and economic asset. Grasping Kuwait's new-found importance, British strategists quickly realized that they could take full advantage of Kuwait's oil resources only if they were able to exert influence over Kuwait's domestic policies. The structure of Britain's treaties with Kuwait, however, denied such a prospect. In 1899, when the Government of India negotiated the first treaty governing Britain's relationship with Kuwait, Kuwait's only value was its strategic location along the sea lanes to India. Britain consequently had negotiated control only of Kuwait's foreign relations, and had solemnly pledged not to interfere in matters of domestic concern. But as British strategists now discovered, such an arrangement was satisfactory only so long as Kuwait remained a quiet port concerned with pearl diving and localized trade; with oil revenue now flooding Kuwaiti coffers, allowing the Kuwaitis to manage their internal affairs without British guidance was no longer acceptable. The Kuwaitis, however, were hardly prepared to relinquish their right to unimpeded self-government. Thus, British interests and politico-legal realities confronted head on. As a result, the British were compelled to try to reconfigure their relationship with Kuwait in such a way that would give them influence over Kuwaiti affairs yet would violate neither their treaty obligations nor emerging liberal international norms. Over the ensuing decade, two strategies were devised: first, promotion of limited liberalization and democratization; and second, when that failed to yield acceptable results, attempts to persuade Kuwait to

English Enclosures and British Peasants: Current Debates about Rural Social Structure in Britain c.1750-1870

Article English Enclosures and British Peasants: Current Debates about Rural Social Structure in Britain c.1750-1870 was published on December 1, 2000 in the journal Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook (volume 41, issue 2).

Party preference structure in England, 1987–97

Party preference structure in England, 1987–97

Testing for segmentation: an establishment-level analysis

It has long been suggested that the industrial structure in Britain is partitioned along core-periphery lines, as posited in segmented labor market theory. Empirical evidence for this proposition, however, has not been strong. In contrast to previous work, this study uses establishment-level data, which is generally recognized to be the most appropriate level of analysis. The results are supportive of a segmentation approach (though the nature of this segmentation is more complex than simple dualist models suggest), but it is shown to be strongly associated with expected outcome variables, particularly those relating to employment stability and low pay.

Regulations as Arbiters of Risk: Great Britain, Germany, and the Hazardous Waste Trade in Western Europe

This article seeks to explain why Great Britain is one of the world's largest importers of hazardous wastes, while Germany, in contrast, is a waste exporter. Why one country exhibits such risk-acceptance behavior, while another is so risk averse, I argue, depends on differences between their national systems of environmental regulation. The style and structure of Britain's regulatory system, unlike that of Germany and its other partners in Western Europe, gives a high degree of leeway to private firms, filtering out the preferences of environmental groups and public opinion, thus enabling and facilitating the importation of hazardous wastes by waste disposal companies. The empirical section tests this argument against two alternative explanations: a state-centric explanation based on individual governments' calculations of the relevant costs and benefits associated with the waste trade, and second, a comparative advantage explanation, based on the technological superiority of Britain's waste disposal facilities. The conclusion draws out the implications for international environmental regulation and for domestic-level regulatory change. Great Britain is one of the world's largest importers of hazardous wastes. It has maintained this position throughout the 1980s and into the 1990s, during which time its waste imports steadily increased.1 Nearly all of this trade is legal, in the sense that its importation has the knowledge and consent of the British government, and the majority of waste imports come from other developed countries, especially Britain's partners in the European Union. By way of contrast, Germany, one of these partners, is one of the world's largest waste exporters, despite its strong environ

The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400-1560 by Beat A. Kümin

320BOOK REVIEWS HundredYears'War, and periodic crop faUures—as well as other, less notorious misfortunes—visited upon Christendom death and starvation, and also contributed to vUlage breakdown and troubled famiUes. Crime proUferated because of the confusion. Faith in the courts' impartiaUty broke down. In the midst of suffering, the saints protected their cUents from bands of mercenary soldiers, sickness, raging spouses, the hangman's noose, or the accidental death of chUdren . In return for such protection, suppliants commonly promised a pUgrimage to a reUc or an offering of candles.Through the intercessions of the saints, God consoled believers for whom peace, health, famUy, vUlage, and government had aU but vanished. He barred the way for marauding warriors, removed the scourge of disease, withered the arms of abusive husbands, and broke the chains of the jaUer and the rope of the executioner.What lords, courts, and law provided Ui earlier, more tranquU times, divine intervention provided in a more tumultuous era, hence the fourteenth-century proUferation of rescue stories. Students of late medieval reUgious history wUl find the sources presented here useful and thought-provoking. Questions of interpretation and conceptuaUzation , however, remain. Recent works such as Eamon Duffy's The Stripping of the Altars revise Huizinga's interpretation of late medieval religion more than Goodich aUows.In summarizing the demographic contractions ofthe fourteenth century, Goodich relies on the Malthusian dilemma (p. 105), although the researches of David Herlihy question its usefulness in the study of medieval populations. Goodich attributes Catherine of Siena's mastery over nature (p. 106) to fears of storms and floods; yet such mastery had been believed about saints since Francis ofAssisi.At one point, Goodich seems to accept a divide between clerical and lay reUgious cultures, arguing that the learned sought to minimize divine intervention in daUy Ufe,but ordinary beUevers"remained attached to a more fluid view of the universe, in which God's merciful grace would respond to the vow and suppUcations of the faithful" (p. 55). In other comments, however, clergy and laity share a religious culture, since famUy happiness depends on God's blessing (p. 83), and aU estates within Christendom beg the intercessions of the saints (p. 146). FinaUy, Goodich says that penitential floggings were accepted in forms ofreUgious expression (p. 48), despite episcopal efforts against the Flagellants. In sum, this book's interpretation faUs to persuade. Robert W. Shaffern University ofScranton The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400-1560. By Beat A. Kiimin. [St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History.] (Brookfield.Vermont: Scolar Press. 1996. Pp. xiii, 362. $74.95.) There has been a remarkable resurgence in recent years among EngUsh historians of studies ofreUgion at the parochial level just before and during the Reformation . Seeking to escape the earUer concentration upon issues raised by BOOK REVIEWS321 the hindsight of the Henrician and Elizabethan settlements and the rather partisan tone of those debates, and seeking also to avoid the fascination with LoIlardy or proto-Protestantism, more recent writers have concentrated upon the vitaUty and continuity of popular reUgious practice during the period. Beat A. Kümin's study ofthe parish as a community seeks to add a further dimension to the new historiography by focusing attention upon the institution of the parish from a social and financial rather than a doctrinal perspective. This richly detaUed and exhaustively documented study rests most importantly upon close analysis of churchwardens' accounts. To date 234 surviving sets of EngUsh accounts have been discovered (a helpful list is provided), most beginning in the mid- to later fifteenth or early sixteenth century, and whUe Kiimin draws upon them extensively, a set often parishes' records form the running analysis of trends throughout the book; these are from parishes ranging widely in location and type, from vUlages and market towns to wealthy urban places.The author's discussion of the nature and pitfaUs of this source may be the single most useful treatment avaUable, and the basic quantitative analysis provided is cautious. Although the central Middle Ages had ¦witnessed the soUdification of parochial structure in England, the office ofchurchwarden developed only during the thirteenth century.The importance and range of churchwardens' duties...

THE POLICY FRAMEWORK IN THE MEDIUM TERM

The problem of regulating prices, investment, quality and pollution in the water industry in England and Wales is discussed. The existence of separate regulators with different objectives creates the potential for inefficiency. The economic characteristics of the water supply process (local natural monopoly conditions, long asset lives and the roles of quality and pollution) are described and the new regulatory structure in England and Wales is assessed. It is argued that cost-benefit analysis should play a greater role in the setting and policing of pollution and quality standards, and that economic instruments should be used for pollution control. Copyright 1993 by Oxford University Press.

British Social Trends since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain.

List of Tables - Notes on the Contributors - Preface - Acknowledgements - Introduction: Statistics and Social Trends in Britain A.H.Halsey - Population and Family D.Coleman - The Economic Environment A.Dilnot - The Labour Force R.Price & G.S.Bain - Social Mobility M.Macdonald & J.Ridge - Schools A.H.Halsey - Higher Education A.H.Halsey - Electors and Elected D.Butler - Urbanisation and Local Government B.Wood - Housing J.Parker & C.Mirrlees - Health K.McPherson & D.Coleman - Welfare J.Parker & C.Mirrlees - Religion P.Brierley - Immigration and Ethnicity C.Peach, V.Robinson, J.Maxted & J.Chance - Crime & Penal Measures N.Walker - Index

British social trends since 1900: a guide to the changing social structure of Britain

British social trends since 1900: a guide to the changing social structure of Britain

Ethnolinguistic diversity in Britain: Policies and practice in school and society

Abstract The paper describes the efforts of three indigenous minority‐language communities in Britain (Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, and British Sign Language) to achieve mother‐tongue education. It argues that their experiences illustrate aspects of social structure in Britain that are overlooked in conventional class analysis. The reluctance of the UK in the past to cater for the linguistic and cultural needs of the indigenous minorities is linked to present difficulties in coping with the immigrant minorities and with the demand for EC languages in preparation for the Internal European Market of 1992. Assimilationist assumptions still underlie current policies and practice. Multilingualism is seen as a transitional phenomenon, and acculturation as the exchange of one culture for another rather than the acquisition of bicultural or bilingual identities and abilities. Ethnic diversity is presented as a problem, not as societal enrichment. The paper draws parallels between the teaching of the indigenous languag...

British Social Trends since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain.

British Social Trends since 1900: A Guide to the Changing Social Structure of Britain.

The Origins of the Depressed Areas: Unemployment, Growth, and Regional Economic Structure in Britain before 1914

The Origins of the Depressed Areas: Unemployment, Growth, and Regional Economic Structure in Britain before 1914