National geological screening : East Anglia region

This report is the published product of one of a series of studies covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland commissioned by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd. The report provides geological information about the East Anglia region to underpin the process of national geological screening set out in the UK’s government White Paper Implementing geological disposal: a framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste (DECC, 2014). The report describes geological features relevant to the safety requirements of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste emplaced onshore and up to 20 km offshore at depths between 200 and 1000 m from surface. It is written for a technical audience but is intended to inform RWM in its discussions with communities interested in finding out about the potential for their area to host a GDF

Preparatory Signal Detection for the EU-25 Member States under EU Burden Sharing/Advanced Monitoring Including Uncertainty (1990-2004)

This study follows up IIASA Interim Report IR-04-024 (Jonas et al., 2004), which addresses the preparatory detection of uncertain greenhouse gas (GHG) emission changes (also termed emission signals) under the Kyoto Protocol. The question probed was how well do we need to know net emissions if we want to detect a specified emission signal after a given time? The authors used the Protocol's Annex B countries as net emitters and referred to all Kyoto GHGs (CO2, CH4, N2O, HFCs, PFCs, and SF6) excluding CO2 emissions/removals due to land-use change and forestry (LUCF). They motivated the application of preparatory signal detection in the context of the Kyoto Protocol as a necessary measure that should have been taken prior to/in negotiating the Protocol. The authors argued that uncertainties are already monitored and are increasingly made available but that monitored emissions and uncertainties are still dealt with in isolation. A connection between emission and uncertainty estimates for the purpose of an advanced country evaluation has not yet been established. The authors developed four preparatory signal analysis techniques and applied these to the Annex B countries under the Kyoto Protocol. The frame of reference for preparatory signal detection is that Annex B countries comply with their agreed emission targets in 2008-2012. The emissions path between base year and commitment year/period is generally assumed to be a straight line, and emissions prior to the base year are not taken into consideration. This study applies the strictest of these techniques, the combined undershooting and verification time (Und&VT) concept to advance the monitoring of the GHG emissions reported by the 27 Member States of the European Union (EU). In contrast to the earlier study, the Member States' agreed emission targets under EU burden sharing in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol are taken into account, however, still assuming that only domestic measures will be used (i.e., excluding Kyoto mechanisms). The Und&VT concept is applied in a standard mode, i.e., with reference to the Member States' agreed emission targets in 2008-2012, and in a new mode, i.e., with reference to linear path emission targets between base year and commitment year. Here, the intermediate year of reference is 2004. To advance the reporting of the EU, uncertainty and its consequences are taken into consideration, i.e., (i) the risk that a Member State's true emissions in the commitment year/period are above its true emission limitation or reduction commitment (true emission target); and (ii) the detectability of the Member State's agreed emission target. This risk can be grasped and quantified although true emissions are unknown by definition (but not necessarily their ratios). Undershooting the agreed EU, or EU-compatible but detectable, target can decrease this risk. The Member States' potential linear path undershooting opportunities as of 2004 are contrasted with their actual emission situation in that year, which is captured by the distance-to-target-path indicator (DTPI; formerly: distance-to-target indicator) previously introduced by the European Environment Agency. In 2004, eleven EU-25 Member States exhibit a negative DTPI and thus appear as potential sellers: Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden and the United Kingdom. However, expecting that all of the EU Member States will eventually exhibit relative uncertainties in the range of 5-10% and above rather than below (excluding LUCF and Kyoto mechanisms), the Member States require considerable undershooting of their EU-compatible, but detectable, targets if one wants to keep the said risk low that the Member States' true emissions in the commitment year/period fall above their true emission targets. As of 2004, these conditions can only be met by eight (seven new and one old) Member States (ranked in terms of credibility): Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and the United Kingdom; while three old Member States, Germany, Sweden, and France, can only act as potential sellers with a higher risk. The other EU-25 Member States do not meet their linear path (base year-commitment year) emission targets as of 2004 (i.e., they overshoot their intermediate targets), or do not have Kyoto targets at all (Cyprus and Malta). The relative uncertainty matters with which countries report their emissions. For instance, with relative uncertainty increasing from 5 to 10%, the linear path 2008/12 emission signal of the old EU-15 as a whole (which has jointly approved, as a Party, an 8% emission reduction under the Kyoto Protocol) switches from detectable to non-detectable, indicating that the negotiations for the Kyoto Protocol were imprudent because they did not take uncertainty and its consequences into account. It is anticipated that the evaluation of emission signals in terms of risk and detectability will become standard practice and that these two qualifiers will be accounted for in pricing GHG emission permits

National geological screening : London and the Thames Valley

This report is the published product of one of a series of studies covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland commissioned by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd. The report provides geological information about the London and the Thames Valley region to underpin the process of national geological screening set out in the UK Government’s White Paper Implementing geological disposal: a framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste (DECC, 2014). The report describes geological features relevant to the safety requirements of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste emplaced onshore and up to 20 km offshore at depths between 200 and 1000 m from surface. It is written for a technical audience but is intended to inform RWM in its discussions with communities interested in finding out about the potential for their area to host a GDF

National geological screening : the Wealden district

This report is the published product of one of a series of studies covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland commissioned by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd. The report provides geological information about the Wealden district region to underpin the process of national geological screening set out in the UK’s government White Paper Implementing geological disposal: a framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste (DECC, 2014). The report describes geological features relevant to the safety requirements of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste emplaced onshore and up to 20 km offshore at depths between 200 and 1000 m from surface. It is written for a technical audience but is intended to inform RWM in its discussions with communities interested in finding out about the potential for their area to host a GDF

National geological screening : the Hampshire Basin and adjoining areas

This report is the published product of one of a series of studies covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland commissioned by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd. The report provides geological information about the Hampshire Basin and adjoining areas region to underpin the process of national geological screening set out in the UK’s government White Paper Implementing geological disposal: a framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste (DECC, 2014). The report describes geological features relevant to the safety requirements of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste emplaced onshore and up to 20 km offshore at depths between 200 and 1000 m from surface. It is written for a technical audience but is intended to inform RWM in its discussions with communities interested in finding out about the potential for their area to host a GDF

Arithmetic and dynamical systems

In this thesis we look at a number of topics in the area of the interaction between dynamical systems and number theory. We look at two diophantine approximation problems in local �fields of positive characteristic, one a generalisation of the Khintchine{Groshev theorem, another a central limit theorem. We also prove a P�olya{Carlson dichotomy result for a large class of adelicly perturbed rational functions. In particular we prove that for a finite set of primes S that the power series f(z) generated by the Fibonacci series with all primes in S removed has a natural boundary

National geological screening : the Pennines and adjacent areas

This report is the published product of one of a series of studies covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland commissioned by Radioactive Waste Management (RWM) Ltd. The report provides geological information about the Pennines and adjacent areas region to underpin the process of national geological screening set out in the UK’s government White Paper Implementing geological disposal: a framework for the long-term management of higher activity radioactive waste (DECC, 2014). The report describes geological features relevant to the safety requirements of a geological disposal facility (GDF) for radioactive waste emplaced onshore and up to 20 km offshore at depths between 200 and 1000 m from surface. It is written for a technical audience but is intended to inform RWM in its discussions with communities interested in finding out about the potential for their area to host a GDF

Structural abnormalities within the episodic prospection and decision making circuitry in cigarette smokers: a DTI and sMRI analysis

Smokers characteristically show a heightened tendency to select smaller, sooner over larger, delayed rewards, and the neurobiology of such decision making is beginning to come to light. For instance, recent studies in healthy people show that engaging episodic prospection during such decision making can reduce impulsive choices, and that this effect is mediated by enhanced functional connectivity between medial temporal lobe regions implicated in episodic prospection and frontal areas. Through this study we sought to determine if there are any structural differences between cigarette smokers and non-smokers in the episodic prospection and decision making circuitry through the use of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and structural MRI (sMRI) analysis. Further, we investigated whether there were any structural changes in this circuitry within smokers that correlated with measurements of cigarette consumption (cigarettes per day, breath carbon monoxide), and addiction severity (cigarette dependence scale). Specifically we studied the white matter (WM) tracts the cingulum, fornix, and uncinate, and the grey matter (GM) regions that these tracts connect, namely regions of the medial temporal lobe and the prefrontal cortex. Our hypotheses were that smokers would have decreased WM structural integrity in the tracts bilaterally compared to nonsmokers, and that the brain regions served by these tracts would have decreased volume and thickness in smokers compared to non-smokers. Within smokers, we hypothesized that with increasing cigarette consumption and addiction severity there would be decreased WM integrity, and decreased regional GM volume and thickness. We acquired diffusion weighted and anatomical MR images from nonsmokers (n=15) and smokers (n=10 (11 for sMRI)), aged 19-40 years old. We developed and utilized a novel framework for DTI analysis, the UNC-Utah NA-MIC Framework for DTI Fiber Tract Analysis. We found smokers to have decreased WM integrity in the fornix crus, and decreased hippocampal volume compared to nonsmokers. Looking just within smokers, we found positive correlations between WM integrity and measurements of cigarette consumption and addiction severity for the fornix and cingulum. GM analysis though showed negative correlations between these same smoking indices and measurements of cortical thickness and volume in the inferior frontal gyrus, lateral orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate, and amygdala. Together these results demonstrate that the circuitry for episodic prospection, decision making, and cognitive control are altered in cigarette smokers and that the structural aberration correlates with measures of cigarette consumption and dependence.Doctor of Philosoph

Advanced Multi-Sensor Optical Remote Sensing for Urban Land Use and Land Cover Classification: Outcome of the 2018 IEEE GRSS Data Fusion Contest

This paper presents the scientific outcomes of the 2018 Data Fusion Contest organized by the Image Analysis and Data Fusion Technical Committee of the IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society. The 2018 Contest addressed the problem of urban observation and monitoring with advanced multi-source optical remote sensing (multispectral LiDAR, hyperspectral imaging, and very high-resolution imagery). The competition was based on urban land use and land cover classification, aiming to distinguish between very diverse and detailed classes of urban objects, materials, and vegetation. Besides data fusion, it also quantified the respective assets of the novel sensors used to collect the data. Participants proposed elaborate approaches rooted in remote-sensing, and also in machine learning and computer vision, to make the most of the available data. Winning approaches combine convolutional neural networks with subtle earth-observation data scientist expertise