Taken From the Net

This work pursues an aspect of the narrative of the taming of nature, nature as resource and nature for sport and leisure, but attempts to utilise different methodologies and explores different forms. This exhibited work capitalizes on the need of people to photographically record themselves with their ‘prey’ and one could argue the masculine urge to make a permanent record of supremacy over the natural world. Where such images in the past were stored locally in printed form the internet now provides a point of sharing and dissemination through social networks and through wide ranging websites. As if to parallel my wonder at the vastness and sublime characteristics of oceans and lakes and what lies within, I now find that the internet too is such a space for the imaginatio

Invernaderos

Langford’s practice-led research investigates a range of exceptional geographical spaces in Almeria, Southern Spain - recognisable as the filmic setting for Leone’s The Dollars Trilogy (1964-66) and influential in García Lorca’s Blood Wedding (1932). The current phase in the long history of this region is a pervasive and intrusive reconfiguration of the semi-desert for global agri-business, currently resulting in a 25kHa labyrinth of plastic greenhouses for the production of monocultures. New economic priorities have imposed irreversible changes to that natural habitat and terminate the possibility of aesthetic experience inspired by natural stimuli or emotional union with land/landscape. Although the research conducted longitudinally resulted in two discrete bodies of work the overall aim has been to interrogate ways that metaphysical and experiential relations with the physical world might be conveyed visually. Differentiating his most recent work from his earlier photography is a shift from dualism as an analytical springboard (open-closed, private-public, natural-man-made) to interrelations influenced by phenomenology, humanistic geography and critical theory on space and place. Both sets of outcomes comment on evolving human/technology-nature apprehensions and aim to express how change and intervention feels at an intimate leve

Choice of Measurement Sets in Qubit Tomography

Optimal generalized measurements for state estimation are well understood. However, practical quantum state tomography is typically performed using a fixed set of projective measurements and the question of how to choose these measurements has been largely unexplored in the literature. In this work we develop theoretical asymptotic bounds for the average fidelity of pure qubit tomography using measurement sets whose axes correspond to vertices of Platonic solids. We also present complete simulations of maximum likelihood tomography for mixed qubit states using the Platonic solid measurements. We show that overcomplete measurement sets can be used to improve the accuracy of tomographic reconstructions.Comment: 13 Pages, 6 figure

Investigating the impact of bank branch closures on access to financial services in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

There is a longstanding policy interest in understanding the impacts of changes in access to public and private services in rural areas. To date much of the empirical analysis concerning changing patterns of accessibility has been predicated on assumptions regarding the mode of transport used to access such facilities. The availability of new and open sources of data, and the increasing sophistication of spatial analytical tools, has enabled alternative transportation modes to be included when investigating the impact of service changes. In this study a nationwide analysis of changes in public transport provision and bank closures has enabled the identification of those parts of Wales that were disproportionally impacted by the loss of financial services during the early years of the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on local scenarios which show the combined impact of such changes, the findings demonstrate how temporal variations in accessibility can be used to examine potential patterns of exclusion that arise from the loss of key services. We conclude by suggesting that any assessment of changes in accessibility needs a holistic approach that considers changes in the transport infrastructure alongside other facets of service provision to understand the full impact of such closures on rural communities

Combining Temporal and Multi-Modal Approaches to Better Measure Accessibility to Banking Services

The UK, as elsewhere, has seen an accelerating trend of bank branch closures and reduced opening hours since the early 2000s. The reasons given by the banks are well rehearsed, but the impact assessments they provide to justify such programs and signpost alternatives have been widely criticized as being inadequate. This is particularly so for vulnerable customers dependent on financial services who may face difficulties in accessing remaining branches. There is a need whilst analyzing spatial patterns of access to also include temporal availability in relation to transport opportunities. Drawing on a case study of potential multi-modal accessibility to banks in Wales, we demonstrate how open-source tools can be used to examine patterns of access whilst considering the business operating hours of branches in relation to public transport schedules. The inclusion of public and private travel modes provides insights into access that are often overlooked by a consideration of service-side measures alone. Furthermore, findings from the types of tools developed in this study are illustrative of the additional information that could be included in holistic impact assessments, allowing the consequences of decisions being taken to close or reduce the operating hours of bank branches to be more clearly communicated to customers