Drivers of Rising Housing Allowance Claimant Numbers: Evidence from the Irish Private Rented Sector

Recent years have seen growing concern among policy makers about difficulties in controlling the numbers of claimants and cost of housing allowances, which are now the main state housing support for low-income households in most Western European countries. This issue has raised particular concerns in the Republic of Ireland where the numbers of claimants of rent supplement, the principal state housing support for unemployed private renting households, have climbed steadily since the 1980s despite a marked concurrent reduction in unemployment rates. This paper attempts to explain this conundrum using administrative data on all claimants in 2005 and 2004. It reveals that although the traditional drivers of demand for this benefit—rising unemployment and lone-parent families—have become less significant in recent years, they have been replaced by a new driver, rising immigration. In addition, labour market activation measures have proved counterproductive. They have incentivised part-time, rather than full-time, work and consequent continued dependence on rent supplement.     

EXERGY ANALYSIS OF AMMONIA-BASED SOLAR THERMOCHEMICAL POWER SYSTEMS

The reversible dissociation of ammonia is one of the candidate reactions for use in closed loop solar thermochemical energy storage systems. The major determinant of achievable performance for such a system is the degree of thermodynamic irreversibility associated with the heat recovery process. Exergy analysis of a semi realistic 30 MPa isobaric system has revealed that the major irreversibilities occur within the exothermic reactor and the counterflow heat exchanger between ingoing and outgoing reactants. In this study, optimum reactor control yielded exergetic efficiencies up to 71%, which should translate to overall solar to electric conversion efficiencies of around 20%.     

Texture and Storage Stability of Processed Beefsticks as Affected by Glycerol and Moisture Levels

Ground beef-based beefsticks were produced with glycerol levels of 0, 2, and 4%, and dried to water activity levels of 0.90 and 0.85. Samples were analyzed by uniaxial compression and colorimetry after production and after 52°C storage for 1, 2, 3 or 4 wk. Deformability modulus, percent recoverable work, relaxation properties, and relative lightness were calculated. Glycerol, as well as water, acted as an effective textural plasticizer. Reductions in modulus and relaxation parameters due to glycerol addition were in the range of 30–40%. Glycerol can thus effectively be used to adjust physical properties without compromising stability. Higher moisture samples were relatively more elastic, as determined by recoverable work. High temperature storage reduced modulus, solidity and percent recoverable work (20–70%) in all samples.     

AMPERES: A REAL-TIME FAULT MONITORING AND DIAGNOSIS KNOWLEDGE-BASED SYSTEM FOR SPACE POWER SYSTEMS

A real-time fault monitoring and diagnosis knowledge-based system (KBS) has been developed for space power systems to save costly operational manpower and to achieve reliable space power system operation. The developed KBS, called AMPERES (autonomously managed power-system extendible real-time expert system), was developed using the autonomously managed power system (AMPS) test facility currently installed at NASA Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC). The approaches taken for AMPERES are generic and should be applicable for other space power systems. A sensor value validation method based on causal relations (CRs) and their interrelations within the sensor redundancy graphs (SRG) has been developed and applied in AMPERES to increase the confidence in the validity of the sensor values and consequently in the results of the fault diagnosis. The validation results also yield essential information for fault diagnosis identifying the existence of a potential fault and the location or the extent of the fault. A disturbance interrelation analysis graph (DIAG) scheme has been developed to characterize the fault diagnosis problems clearly and to perform the fault monitoring and diagnosis tasks effectively by explicitly showing the diagnosis reasoning paths. The DIAG approach also enables the fault diagnosis KBS to describe a fault in several different abstraction levels and in different component granularities.     

The nutrition and health benefits of yoghurt

Yoghurt is one of the most popular fermented milk products worldwide and has gained widespread consumer acceptance as a healthy food. It provides an array of nutrients in significant amounts, in relation to its energy and fat content, making it a nutrient-dense food. In particular, yoghurt can provide the body with significant amounts of calcium in a bioavailable form. Furthermore, yoghurt has many health benefits beyond the basic nutrition it provides, such as improved lactose tolerance, a possible role in body weight and fat loss, and a variety of health attributes associated with probiotic bacteria.     

Dynamic rules for due-date assignment

This paper presents two new dynamic due-date assignment rules which utilize shop congestion information. The new rules estimate job flowtime based on a sampling of recently completed jobs. These rules are compared with other established flowtime estimate models on the criterion of due-date performance via computer simulation. To evaluate the robustness of the rules, an experimental design with three different queue sequencing heuristics and two different shop balance levels was used. The results of this investigation clearly indicate that flowtimes from recently completed jobs provide very useful information for establishing effective due-dates in a job shop environment. In addition it is shown how the use of particular sequencing rules greatly increases the precision of flowtime estimates.     

Response of Listeria monocytogenes and Vibrio parahaemolyticus to High Hydrostatic Pressure

Listeria monocytogenes Scott A and CA, were subjected at 23°C to hydrostatic pressures ranging from 2,380 to 3,400 atm and Vibrio parahaemolyticus T-3765-1 from 680 to 1,700 atm. For L. monocytogenes Scott A, pressurization in ultra-high temperature-processed (UHT) milk and raw milk appeared to provide a protective effect and lessened cell death as compared to pressurization in phosphate-buffered saline (100 mM, pH 7.0). A population of about 10⁶ CFU/mL L. monocytogenes was killed by exposure to 3,400 atm within 80 min at 23°C in UHT milk. A population of about 10⁶ CFU/mL V. parahaemolyticus was killed by exposure to 1,700 atm within 10 min at 23°C in clam juice.     

OPTIMIZING STABILITY OF ORANGE JUICE FORTIFIED WITH WHEY PROTEIN AT LOW pH VALUES

Abstract The influence of temperature, heating time and pH on the stability of whey protein-fortified Valencia orange juice was determined by uronic acid content, degree of esterification (DE), % transmission measurements (%T) and capillary electrophoretic analysis of the juice-protein supernatants. Uronic acid content and charge of pectins showed no significant change in heat-treated samples with added proteins. The %T decreased with decreasing pH and increasing temperature and heating time for α-lactalbumin (α-lac), β-lactoglobulin (β-lg) and whey protein isolate (WPI). The lowest transmission values were shown at pH 3.0 and 85C. Capillary electropherograms confirmed more extensive juice-protein interactions in WPI and β-lg added juices than in those containing α-lac, especially at low pH, resulting in more stable juice-protein mixtures.