The purpose of this research was to identify factors associated with lengthy stays in psychiatric hospital in a UK mental health trust. A multiple regression using a multiple imputation method to deal with missing data was performed on inpatient admissions data over a four-year period for 7653 individuals. Factors associated with a longer length of stay included gender (being male), ethnicity (being Asian/Asian British, Black/Black British, or having a mixed background compared to being White/White British), accommodation status (being homeless, or in accommodation with support), primary diagnostic group of psychosis (F20-29), and number of care coordinators. Marital status was not found to be associated with length of stay in this sample. Length of stay is likely to be multifactorially determined, and more similar studies examining factors associated with length of hospital stay are needed to understand the operation of psychiatric services.

Identifying factors that are associated with rehospitalisation and understanding their importance is necessary to reduce the risk of readmission. This study suggests that particular demographic, clinical and treatment factors require consideration to tackle the seemingly wide range of factors that could be affecting readmission to inpatient services.

Experiments involving both heat-transfer and turbulence-field measurements were performed to determine the influence of free-stream turbulence on the local heat transfer from a sphere situated in a forced-convection airflow. The research was facilitated by a miniature heat-flux sensor which could be positioned at any circumferential location on the equator of the sphere. Turbulence grids were employed to generate free-stream turbulence with intensities of up to 9.4 percent. The Reynolds-number range of the experiments was from 20,000 to 62,000. The results indicate that the local heat flux in the forward region of the sphere is uninfluenced by free-stream turbulence levels of up to about 5 percent. For higher turbulence levels, the heat-flux increases with the turbulence intensity, the greatest heat-flux augmentation found here being about 15 percent. Furthermore, at the higher turbulence intensities, there appears to be a departure from the half-power Reynolds-number dependence of the stagnation-point Nusselt number. Turbulent separation occurred at Reynolds numbers of 42,000 and 62,000 for a turbulence level of 9.4 percent, these values being well below the transition Reynolds number of 2 × 105 for a sphere situated in a low-turbulence flow.