The search for lead-free alternatives to Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 (PZT) piezoelectric ceramics has become a major topic in functional materials research due to legislation in many countries that restricts the use of lead alloys and compounds in commercial products. This article examines both the necessity for regulation and the impacts those regulations have created in the context of piezoelectric materials. It reviews the toxicity of lead, describes current legislation to control the spread of lead in the environment, and attempts to define the risks associated with the manufacture, use, and disposal of lead-based piezoelectric materials. The consequences of current legislation, both intended and unintended, are examined.

A major challenge in addressing the loss of benefits and services provided by the natural environment is that it can be difficult to find ways for those who benefit from them to pay for their preservation. We examine one such context in Malawi, where erosion from soils disturbed by agriculture affects not only farmers’ incomes, but also damages aquatic habitat and inhibits the storage and hydropower potential of dams downstream. We demonstrate that payments from hydropower producers to farmers to maintain land cover and prevent erosion can have benefits for all parties involved.

We present low-frequency spectral energy distributions of 60 known radio pulsars observed with the Murchison Widefield Array telescope. We searched the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array survey images for 200-MHz continuum radio emission at the position of all pulsars in the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) pulsar catalogue. For the 60 confirmed detections, we have measured flux densities in 20 × 8 MHz bands between 72 and 231 MHz. We compare our results to existing measurements and show that the Murchison Widefield Array flux densities are in good agreement.

Background: Psychological therapy services are often required to demonstrate their effectiveness and are implementing systematic monitoring of patient progress. A system for measuring patient progress might usefully ‘inform supervision’ and help patients who are not progressing in therapy. Aims: To examine if continuous monitoring of patient progress through the supervision process was more effective in improving patient outcomes compared with giving feedback to therapists alone in routine NHS psychological therapy. Method: Using a stepped wedge randomized controlled design, continuous feedback on patient progress during therapy was given either to the therapist and supervisor to be discussed in clinical supervison (MeMOS condition) or only given to the therapist (S-Sup condition). If a patient failed to progress in the MeMOS condition, an alert was triggered and sent to both the therapist and supervisor. Outcome measures were completed at beginning of therapy, end of therapy and at 6-month follow-up and session-by-session ratings. Results: No differences in clinical outcomes of patients were found between MeMOS and S-Sup conditions. Patients in the MeMOS condition were rated as improving less, and more ill. They received fewer therapy sessions. Conclusions: Most patients failed to improve in therapy at some point. Patients’ recovery was not affected by feeding back outcomes into the supervision process. Therapists rated patients in the S-Sup condition as improving more and being less ill than patients in MeMOS. Those patients in MeMOS had more complex problems.

We present the results of an approximately 6 100 deg2 104–196 MHz radio sky survey performed with the Murchison Widefield Array during instrument commissioning between 2012 September and 2012 December: the MWACS. The data were taken as meridian drift scans with two different 32-antenna sub-arrays that were available during the commissioning period. The survey covers approximately 20.5 h < RA < 8.5 h, − 58° < Dec < −14°over three frequency bands centred on 119, 150 and 180 MHz, with image resolutions of 6–3 arcmin. The catalogue has 3 arcmin angular resolution and a typical noise level of 40 mJy beam− 1, with reduced sensitivity near the field boundaries and bright sources. We describe the data reduction strategy, based upon mosaicked snapshots, flux density calibration, and source-finding method. We present a catalogue of flux density and spectral index measurements for 14 110 sources, extracted from the mosaic, 1 247 of which are sub-components of complexes of sources.

This article extends a recent line of research arguing that the power and capacity of political actors (including states) is not just the product of particular fixed attributes but is also the outcome of political relations between key interlocutors, including ideational relations. State elites, especially government leaders, have persisted with a mindset that still values the economic centrality of a large and complex banking sector. This way of thinking has conditioned the relationship between, on the one hand, the US and UK governments and, on the other, Wall Street and the City of London and has led to a form of ‘dysfunctional embeddedness’. Government leaders may have been able to win high-profile policy victories over the banking sector in the post-crisis period, but in accepting a large, complex and constantly evolving financial system with high levels of systemic risk, they have unwittingly placed themselves at a continuing disadvantage in the regulatory arena.

A simple hydrothermal route to the eulytite phase of bismuth germanium oxide (E-BGO: Bi4(GeO4)3) that required no post-processing has been developed. The E-BGO material was isolated from a mixture of bismuth nitrate pentahydrate and a slight excess of germanium oxide in water under hydrothermal conditions (185 °C for 24 h). The resultant materials were characterized by powder x-ray diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, and luminescence measurements to verify the particle's phase (eulytite), morphology, size, and response to a variety of excitation energy sources, respectively. Photoluminescence spectroscopic response from E-BGO pellets indicated that the samples exhibited a strong emission peak consistent with an x-ray induced luminescence of a E-BGO single crystal (500 nm excited at 285 nm). Cathodoluminescent properties of the E-BGO displayed a broadband spectrum with a maximum at 487 nm. The growth process was consistent with a standard Oswald ripening and LaMer growth processes.

This article challenges Fixed Effects (FE) modeling as the ‘default’ for time-series-cross-sectional and panel data. Understanding different within and between effects is crucial when choosing modeling strategies. The downside of Random Effects (RE) modeling—correlated lower-level covariates and higher-level residuals—is omitted-variable bias, solvable with Mundlak's (1978a) formulation. Consequently, RE can provide everything that FE promises and more, as confirmed by Monte-Carlo simulations, which additionally show problems with Plümper and Troeger's FE Vector Decomposition method when data are unbalanced. As well as incorporating time-invariant variables, RE models are readily extendable, with random coefficients, cross-level interactions and complex variance functions. We argue not simply for technical solutions to endogeneity, but for the substantive importance of context/heterogeneity, modeled using RE. The implications extend beyond political science to all multilevel datasets. However, omitted variables could still bias estimated higher-level variable effects; as with any model, care is required in interpretation.

The paper reports on the growth of group III-Sb’s on silicon, substrate preparation, optimization of AlGaSb metamorphic buffer, formation of defects (threading dislocations, microtwins and anti-phase boundaries) and their effect on the surface morphology and electrical properties of these high hole mobility materials for future III-V CMOS technology. Defect density was found to be 2-3x higher than in similar structures grown on GaAs, resulting in 2x higher roughness. Defects also result in background p-type doping well above 1017 cm-3 causing inversion of polarity from n-type to p-type in thin n-type doped GaSb. MOS Capacitors fabricated on these buffers demonstrate similar characteristics to higher quality GaSb-on-GaAs. The highest hole mobility obtained in a strained InGaSb QW MOS channel grown on silicon is ∼630 cm2/V-s which is ∼30% lower than similar channels grown on GaAs substrates.

Avian trichomonosis, caused by the flagellated protozoan Trichomonas gallinae, is a recently emerged infectious disease of British passerines. The aetiological agent, a clonal epidemic strain of the parasite, has caused unprecedented finch mortality and population-level declines in Britain and has since spread to continental Europe. To better understand the potential origin of this epidemic and to further investigate its host range, T. gallinae DNA extracts were collected from parasite culture and tissue samples from a range of avian species in Britain. Sequence typing at the ITS1/5.8S rRNA/ITS2 region resolved three distinct ITS region types circulating in free-ranging British birds. Subtyping by sequence analyses at the Fe-hydrogenase gene demonstrated further strain variation within these ITS region types. The UK finch epidemic strain was preponderant amongst columbids sampled, however, wide strain diversity was encountered in isolates from a relatively small number of pigeons, suggesting further strains present in columbid populations across the UK are yet to be identified. Fe-hydrogenase gene sequence data in isolates from birds of prey with disease were predominantly identical to the UK finch epidemic strain, demonstrating its presence as a virulent strain in UK birds of prey since at least 2009.