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'Struggles in the welfare state' will attempt to draw upon the experience of people involved in local as well as national struggles over welfare. While there are activist journals in existence, we think that Critical Social Policy will provide an additional forum, including both reports by activists over social struggles and supplementing the more reflective approaches adopted in other sections of the journal. 'Struggles in the welfare state' will be open to all our readers, with the proviso that all contributors broadly accept the editorial outlook of the journal. But we do not wish to limit the section simply to some criterion of analysis formed within the editorial collective, and we would like to carry varied sets of contributions, however short, dealing with the experience of working within, as well as being a recipient of, the welfare sector. We also welcome photographs and illustrations with articles. How useful and interesting 'Struggles in the welfare state' will be depends to a great extent on contributions from our readership, and we welcome discussions with people who would like to submit material at any stage of preparation. In this issue of CSP we continue our analysis of the restructuring of the social services from the point of view of the workers within them. Kevin McDonnell, who works in housing aid, discusses the increasing difficulties faced by 'front line workers' in the social services and the strategies which can be employed by socialists in this field. In this way he is extending the discussion of welfare begun by the London Edinburgh Weekend Return Group in In and Against the State.

Life is full of tough decisions that must be made ethically and under the pressures of time. This book places readers in realistic situation where they experience the difficulties of making tough medical decisions. The cases are composites of actual cases the authors have seen or managed. In the role of decision-maker, the reader helps to determine what happens in the case as his or her decision often shapes the course of events and the patient's outcome. This gives a compelling sense of the pressures that bear on clinical decision-making. The authors assume that the reader wants to do the rig

To manage greenhouse gas emissions, directives on renewable energy usage have been developed by the European Commission with the objective to reduce overall emissions by 40% by 2030 which presents a significant potential for renewable energy sources. At the same time, it is a challenge for these energy technologies which can only be solved by integrated solutions. Carbon capture and storage combined with geothermal energy could serve as a novel approach to reduce CO2 emissions and at the same time facilitate some of the negative impacts associated with fossil fuel-based power plants. This study focuses on the technical and economic feasibility of combining these technologies based on a published model, data and market research. In the European Union, Germany is the most energy intensive country, and it also has an untapped potential for geothermal energy in the northern as well as the western regions. The CO2 plume geothermal system using supercritical carbon dioxide as the working fluid can be utilized in natural high porosity (10–20%) and permeability (2.5 × 10−14–8.4 × 10−16 m2) reservoirs with temperatures as low as 65.8 ◦C. The feasibility of the project was assessed based on market conditions and policy support in Germany as well as the geologic background of sandstone reservoirs near industrialized areas (Dortmund, Frankfurt) and the possibility of carbon capture integration and CO2 injection. The levelized cost of electricity for a base case results in € 0.060/kWh. Optimal system type was assessed in a system optimization model. The project has a potential to supply 6600/12000 households with clean energy (electricity/heat) and sequester carbon dioxide at the same time. A trading scheme for carbon dioxide further expands potential opportunities.

Due to a lack of indigenous fossil energy resources, Ireland's energy supply constantly teeters on the brink of political, geopolitical, and geographical unease. The potential risk to the security of the energy supply combined with the contribution of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions to climate change gives a clear indication of Ireland's need to reduce dependency on imported fossil fuels as primary energy source. A feasibility analysis to investigate the available renewable energy options was conducted using HOMER software. The Net Present Cost, the Cost of Energy, and the CO2 emissions of each potential energy combination were considered in determining the most suitable renewable and non-renewable hybrid energy system. Wind energy was shown to have the greatest potential for renewable energy generation in Ireland: wind energy was a component of the majority of the optimal hybrid systems both in stand- alone and grid-connected systems. In 2010 the contribution of wind energy to gross electricity consumption in Ireland approximated 10%, and the results of this feasibility study indicate that there is great potential for wind-generated energy production in Ireland. Due to the inherent variability of wind energy the grid-connected system results are particularly relevant, which show that in more than half of the analyses investigating electrical energy demand the incorporation of wind energy offset the CO2 emissions of the non-renewable elements to such a degree that the whole system had negative CO2 emissions, which has serious implications for Kyoto Protocol emissions limits. Ireland also has significant potential for hydropower generation despite only accounting for 2% of the gross electricity consumption in 2010. Wind and hydroenergy should therefore be thoroughly explored to secure an indigenous primary energy source in Ireland.

Recent public policy, governmental regulatory and economic trends have motivated the establishment and deepening of community health and academic medical center alliances. Accordingly, community oncology practices now deliver a significant portion of their oncology care in association with academic cancer centers. In the age of precision medicine, this alliance has acquired critical importance; novel advances in nucleic acid sequencing, the generation and analysis of immense data sets, the changing clinical landscape of hereditary cancer predisposition and ongoing discovery of novel, targeted therapies challenge community-based oncologists to deliver molecularly-informed health care. The active engagement of community oncology practices with academic partners helps with meeting these challenges; community/academic alliances result in improved cancer patient care and provider efficacy. Here, we review the community oncology and academic medical center alliance. We examine how practitioners may leverage academic center precision medicine-based cancer genetics and genomics programs to advance their patients' needs. We highlight a number of project initiatives at the City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center that seek to optimize community oncology and academic cancer center precision medicine interactions.

Estimates of species' vital rates and an understanding of the factors affecting those parameters over time and space can provide crucial information for management and conservation. We used mark-recapture, reproductive output, and territory occupancy data collected during 1985-2013 to evaluate population processes of Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina) in 11 study areas in Washington, Oregon, and northern California, USA. We estimated apparent survival, fecundity, recruitment, rate of population change, and local extinction and colonization rates, and investigated relationships between these parameters and the amount of suitable habitat, local and regional variation in meteorological conditions, and competition with Barred Owls (Strix varia). Data were analyzed for each area separately and in a meta-analysis of all areas combined, following a strict protocol for data collection, preparation, and analysis. We used mixed effects linear models for analyses of fecundity, Cormack-Jolly-Seber open population models for analyses of apparent annual survival (phi), and a reparameterization of the Jolly-Seber capture-recapture model (i.e. reverse Jolly-Seber; RJS) to estimate annual rates of population change (lambda(RJS)) and recruitment. We also modeled territory occupancy dynamics of Northern Spotted Owls and Barred Owls in each study area using 2-species occupancy models. Estimated mean annual rates of population change (lambda) suggested that Spotted Owl populations declined from 1.2% to 8.4% per year depending on the study area. The weighted mean estimate of lambda for all study areas was 0.962 (+/- 0.019 SE; 95% CI: 0.925-0.999), indicating an estimated range-wide decline of 3.8% per year from 1985 to 2013. Variation in recruitment rates across the range of the Spotted Owl was best explained by an interaction between total winter precipitation and mean minimum winter temperature. Thus, recruitment rates were highest when both total precipitation (29 cm) and minimum winter temperature (-9.5 degrees C) were lowest. Barred Owl presence was associated with increased local extinction rates of Spotted Owl pairs for all 11 study areas. Habitat covariates were related to extinction rates for Spotted Owl pairs in 8 of 11 study areas, and a greater amount of suitable owl habitat was generally associated with decreased extinction rates. We observed negative effects of Barred Owl presence on colonization rates of Spotted Owl pairs in 5 of 11 study areas. The total amount of suitable Spotted Owl habitat was positively associated with colonization rates in 5 areas, and more habitat disturbance was associated with lower colonization rates in 2 areas. We observed strong declines in derived estimates of occupancy in all study areas. Mean fecundity of females was highest for adults (0.309 +/- 0.027 SE), intermediate for 2-yr-olds (0.179 +/- 0.040 SE), and lowest for 1-yr-olds (0.065 +/- 0.022 SE). The presence of Barred Owls and habitat covariates explained little of the temporal variation in fecundity in most study areas. Climate covariates occurred in competitive fecundity models in 8 of 11 study areas, but support for these relationships was generally weak. The fecundity meta-analysis resulted in 6 competitive models, all of which included the additive effects of geographic region and annual time variation. The 2 top-ranked models also weakly supported the additive negative effects of the amount of suitable core area habitat, Barred Owl presence, and the amount of edge habitat on fecundity. We found strong support for a negative effect of Barred Owl presence on apparent survival of Spotted Owls in 10 of 11 study areas, but found few strong effects of habitat on survival at the study area scale. Climate covariates occurred in top or competitive survival models for 10 of 11 study areas, and in most cases the relationships were as predicted; however, there was little consistency among areas regarding the relative importance of specific climate covariates. In contrast, meta-analysis results suggested that Spotted Owl survival was higher across all study areas when the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) was in a warming phase and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI) was negative, with a strongly negative SOI indicative of El Nino events. The best model that included the Barred Owl covariate (BO) was ranked 4th and also included the PDO covariate, but the BO effect was strongly negative. Our results indicated that Northern Spotted Owl populations were declining throughout the range of the subspecies and that annual rates of decline were accelerating in many areas. We observed strong evidence that Barred Owls negatively affected Spotted Owl populations, primarily by decreasing apparent survival and increasing local territory extinction rates. However, the amount of suitable owl habitat, local weather, and regional climatic patterns also were related to survival, occupancy (via colonization rate), recruitment, and, to a lesser extent, fecundity, although there was inconsistency in regard to which covariates were important for particular demographic parameters or across study areas. In the study areas where habitat was an important source of variation for Spotted Owl demographics, vital rates were generally positively associated with a greater amount of suitable owl habitat. However, Barred Owl densities may now be high enough across the range of the Northern Spotted Owl that, despite the continued management and conservation of suitable owl habitat on federal lands, the long-term prognosis for the persistence of Northern Spotted Owls may be in question without additional management intervention. Based on our study, the removal of Barred Owls from the Green Diamond Resources (GDR) study area had rapid, positive effects on Northern Spotted Owl survival and the rate of population change, supporting the hypothesis that, along with habitat conservation and management, Barred Owl removal may be able to slow or reverse Northern Spotted Owl population declines on at least a localized scale. ; USDA Forest ServiceUnited States Department of Agriculture (USDA)United States Forest Service; USDI Bureau of Land Management; USDI National Park Service; Green Diamond Resource Company; Plum Creek Timber Company; Louisiana Pacific Lumber Company; Hancock Forest Management; Hoopa Tribe; USDI Bureau of Land Management via a Cost Reimbursable Research Agreement with Oregon State University ; Funding for demographic studies of Northern Spotted Owls on federal lands was provided primarily by the USDA Forest Service, USDI Bureau of Land Management, and USDI National Park Service. Funding for studies on nonfederal lands came from the Green Diamond Resource Company, Plum Creek Timber Company, Louisiana Pacific Lumber Company, Hancock Forest Management, and the Hoopa Tribe. Funding for the workshop was provided by the USDA Forest Service and USDI Bureau of Land Management via a Cost Reimbursable Research Agreement with Oregon State University. The U.S. Geological Survey and USDA Forest Service required approval of the final manuscript before publication, but none of the funding agencies associated with this meta-analysis had any influence on the content of the submitted or published manuscript. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. Ethics statement: All data from study areas in which K.M.D., E.D.F., and A.B.F. were principal investigators (CLE, OLY, COA, HJA, TYE, CAS, and NWC) were collected following protocols approved under animal care and use permits overseen by Oregon State University's and Colorado State University's Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees. These protocols were followed and all relevant state and federal permits were acquired and maintained for all study areas included in this meta-analysis. ; Public domain authored by a U.S. government employee