The Settlement and Drainage of the Wentlooge Level, Gwent: Excavation and Survey at Rumney Great Wharf 1992

Reproduced with the permission of the publisher and JSTOR. Journal home page http://www.romansociety.org/frame.htmIntroduction: The Wentlooge Level in SE Wales represents an extensive area of some 35 km' of alluvium reclaimed from estuarine saltmarsh from the Romano-British period onwards (FIGS I-2).1 As was noted by Allen,' the landscape is characterised at its southern and northern extremities by a pattern of small irregular fields, often fossilizing the meanderings of natural drainage channels (FIG. 2). This arrangement is typical of many of the reclaimed alluvial wetlands that fringe the Severn Estuary.' The remainder of the Wentlooge Level is distinguished by a very different landscape, comprising regularly planned blocks of long, narrow, and generally straight-sided fields, quite unique among the wetlands of the Severn Estuary.4 At Rumney Great Wharf, north east of Cardiff, part of the latter field-system can be seen cut into a clay-peat shelf in the intertidal zone (see below), thus indicating a major episode of coastal retreat and the repositioning of the sea-wall across it;s similar evidence from the intertidal zone can be recognised as far to the north-east as Peterstone Gout.6 An extensive spread of Romano-British pottery and primitive iron-making slag was associated locally with this field-system in the intertidal zone at Rumney Great Wharf, while survey of the adjacent mud cliff revealed at least one ditch, sealed by a buried palaeosol, which yielded stratified Roman material. Further erosion of the mud cliff revealed more ditches with Romano- British material, as well as other indications of settlement, and prompted a programme of survey and excavation grant-aided by Cadw and the National Museum of Wales in the spring of 1992

The PLC: a logical development

Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) have been used to control industrial processes and equipment for over 40 years, having their first commercially recognised application in 1969. Since then there have been enormous changes in the design and application of PLCs, yet developments were evolutionary rather than radical. The flexibility of the PLC does not confine it to industrial use and it has been used for disparate non-industrial control applications . This article reviews the history, development and industrial applications of the PLC

Resurvey of historical collection sites for Balston’s Pygmy Perch in the South West Linkages Target Area

Balston’s Pygmy Perch (Nannatherina balstoni) is one of the rarest native freshwater fishes endemic to south-western Australia (Morgan et al. 2011, 2014). The species inhabits near-coastal lakes, wetlands and flowing streams, and was historically distributed between the Moore River (north of Perth) and the Angove River (east of Albany) (Morgan et al. 2011, 2014). Numerous anthropogenic stressors including habitat destruction, pollution, river regulation, and water abstraction have resulted in an approximate 31% decline in the distribution, with the species apparently having been extirpated from the Swan Coastal Plain and a number of other systems across its range (Morgan et al. 2014). The contemporary distribution extends from the upper reaches of the Margaret River to the Angove River near Two Peoples Bay (Morgan & Beatty 2003; FFGFHU unpubl. data) (see Figure 1). Remnant populations are highly fragmented within this range (Morgan et al. 2014). In light of its typically low abundance and restricted distribution, N. balstoni has been formally recognised as Vulnerable to extinction under the Commonwealth Government’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act 1999 and is listed under Schedule 1 (“fauna that is rare or is likely to become extinct”) of the Western Australian Government’s Wildlife Conservation Act 1950. Accordingly, this fish is the flagship species of the current project entitled “Protecting threatened fishes in the South West Linkages Target Area”. A thorough review of the historical distribution of N. balstoni was conducted at the outset of this project and has now been published in the scientific literature (see Morgan et al. 2014). To complement this review, one of the project’s primary aims was to resurvey a number of historical collection sites in order to ground-truth the current status of resident N. balstoni populations. The results of this survey should provide valuable data for authorities in developing management and recovery strategies for the conservation of this threatened south-western Australian endemic

An exploration of the effectiveness of artificial mini-magnetospheres as a potential solar storm shelter for long term human space missions

If mankind is to explore the solar system beyond the confines of our Earth and Moon the problem of radiation protection must be addressed. Galactic cosmic rays and highly variable energetic solar particles are an ever-present hazard in interplanetary space. Electric and/or magnetic fields have been suggested as deflection shields in the past, but these treated space as an empty vacuum. In fact it is not empty. Space contains a plasma known as the solar wind; a constant flow of protons and electrons coming from the Sun. In this paper we explore the effectiveness of a “mini-magnetosphere” acting as a radiation protection shield. We explicitly include the plasma physics necessary to account for the solar wind and its induced effects. We show that, by capturing/containing this plasma, we enhance the effectiveness of the shield. Further evidence to support our conclusions can be obtained from studying naturally occurring “mini-magnetospheres” on the Moon. These magnetic anomalies (related to “lunar swirls”) exhibit many of the effects seen in laboratory experiments and computer simulations. If shown to be feasible, this technology could become the gateway to manned exploration of interplanetary space

Learning from text-based close call data

A key feature of big data is the variety of data sources that are available; which include not just numerical data but also image or video data or even free text. The GB railways collects a large volume of free text data daily from railway workers describing close call hazard reports: instances where an accident could have – but did not – occur. These close call reports contain valuable safety information which could be useful in managing safety on the railway, but which can be lost in the very large volume of data – much larger than is viable for a human analyst to read. This paper describes the application of rudimentary natural language processing (NLP) techniques to uncover safety information from close calls. The analysis has proven that basic information extraction is possible using the rudimentary techniques, but has also identified some limitations that arise using only basic techniques. Using these findings further research in this area intends to look at how the techniques that have been proven to date can be improved with the use of more advanced NLP techniques coupled with machine-learning

Relativistic instant-form approach to the structure of two-body composite systems

A new approach to the electroweak properties of two-particle composite systems is developed. The approach is based on the use of the instant form of relativistic Hamiltonian dynamics. The main novel feature of this approach is the new method of construction of the matrix element of the electroweak current operator. The electroweak current matrix element satisfies the relativistic covariance conditions and in the case of the electromagnetic current also the conservation law automatically. The properties of the system as well as the approximations are formulated in terms of form factors. The approach makes it possible to formulate relativistic impulse approximation in such a way that the Lorentz-covariance of the current is ensured. In the electromagnetic case the current conservation law is ensured, too. The results of the calculations are unambiguous: they do not depend on the choice of the coordinate frame and on the choice of "good" components of the current as it takes place in the standard form of light--front dynamics. Our approach gives good results for the pion electromagnetic form factor in the whole range of momentum transfers available for experiments at present time, as well as for lepton decay constant of pion.Comment: 26 pages, Revtex, 5 figure